Should the Teachers Union take some of the blame for the poor state of public education?

Yes, they should. By not taking strong and secure steps to keep education at the top level of priority for all, it has been knocked down to a maybe necessity of exsistance. Educators' everywhere should be willing to expend all their energies to expand the knowledge of education and its importance now and forever.

A lot of Unions talk mainly about the negative aspects of the job at hand, so that negative influence does affect what the teachers think and feel. That being said, Unions are not the only person to blame. Blame can also be put on parents, students, teachers, society....the list goes on. There is no competition to giving a good education. Private schools have an advantage in the fact that those kids pay to learn, thus majority of the time, they get a better education then those of a public school, even if there is a lack of funding at a particular private school.

It's just like higher education levels, colleges and such, give out great educations b/c of competition/ fighting with other colleges to give out the best education.

Yes. Teacher unions only help teachers, they do not help students. By allowing unions (or even tenure at that), bad teachers continue to teach. Poor teachers are definitely a part of the poor state of public education (although there are many others). I believe with any job, you work hard and get paid based on your qualifications, experience, but most of all your quality of work. Allowing a person job security and certain pay rates (no matter how lousy they are) is unintelligent. It doesn't give an incentive to do the job right and hurts the people affected by how the job is done.

Absolutely not. The teachers union protects the teachers, but doesn't set the curriculum. If education officials actually listened to what the teachers wanted to teach, their might be a better state of education in this world. Unfortunately, it's all politics.

Yes. The unions have clearly their own interests at heart... not those of the children. And while we're at it, let's blame our state governments as well... they appoint people with no background in education to sit on the State Board of Education!

No, the teachers should. The Union is only interested in obtaining the best conditions and benefits for the party they represent from the employers that hire them, not the quality of the work being performed by those they represent. It like blaming the lawyer for the crime of his client if proved guilty. On the other hand, that isn't such a crazy notion....

whatever happened to parental responsibility...i'm a teacher and a parent and my job as a parent is to make sure my child learns the things they need to know...it's the teacher's job to teach, but it is my duty to make sure my kids learn

Republicans contributed to the poor state of the people.

Yes - they're liberals and have a Socialist agenda.