As others have said this is a ploy to allow the school district to get rid of bad union teachers and I think that's a good thing.
It's probably not. They probably have no idea who the bad teachers are. It's most likley an attempt to get rid of the most senior teachers, regardless of ability. And political -- an attempt to kill organizations that tend to be Democratic (this would be equivalent to trying to dismantle fundamentalist churches, as their Republican leaning).
And political -- an attempt to kill organizations that tend to be Democratic (this would be equivalent to trying to dismantle fundamentalist churches, as their Republican leaning).
I'm sure that would be an issue if fundamentalist churches were funded with public taxes and compulsory to attend.
But the problem with fundamentalist churches isn't in their existence, but rather their beliefs. The opposite is the problem that the right has with unions. They aren't against teachers per se, but they're against labor having any power -- regardless of what the profession is (and the fact that its public/private labor is a red herring).
> And political -- an attempt to kill organizations that tend to be Democratic (this would be equivalent to trying to dismantle fundamentalist churches, as their Republican leaning).
Whoa, this just sunk in with me. I guess it's commonly accepted that most teacher's unions lean Democrat, but I never considered that the people educating children are fundamentally partisan. That's... kind of scary.
Hell, you equate with them as the equivalent of the most fanatic members of the right. That really can't be good that the kids are being educated by fanatic partisans, if your analysis here is correct.
First, there's a difference between the teacher's union and teachers (just as all unions). Unions are generally partisan. Why? Because Republicans are anti-labor, hence anti-collective bargaining.
The actual teachers probably lean left, as they're educated (who generally tend to lean left), but as most teachers aren't actively part of collective bargaining (although benefit from it) it usually isn't part of their calculus. Things like abortion, gay marriage, gun rights, taxation, affirmitive action, and other issues like that are likely just as important to any individual teacher.
That table is fairly old, but even using that table, more people with bachelors or graduate degree lean left than right (3392 v 3278). Historically, those with degrees leaned right. It's been trending left and I wouldn't be surprised if this was the point where the lines crossed.
Here's more recent data (http://www.gallup.com/poll/118528/gop-losses-span-nearly-dem...), and as you can see Republicans have lost 10% of college grad support since 2001. As you can also see, in 2001 most with college grads slightly leaned Republican. By 2009 it is hugely slanted Democratic. This is consistent with my theory that the data you provided where college grads slightly lean left was one of the first years where the lines crossed and its been an exodus of college grads to the left ever since.
2009 was basically the low-water mark for the GOP brand in modern history, so I'm not sure that those numbers are all that accurate now, but it's not a huge deal.
More to the point, the party gap in with college degrees is surely vastly smaller than the party gap in the private workforce vs members of public-sector unions, so it's sort of weird to assert that the reason teachers lean Democratic is that they're "more educated."
Edit: OK, I messed around with matplotlib and made a couple plots. This kind of data is not my specialty. The bottom plot groups the different Democratic and Republican categories into just Democratic and Republican.
The strongest trend seems to be that people in the "strong Republican" group increase with educational attainment. I made the (poor?) assumption that teachers are most likely to fall into the graduate degree category, thus the bottom plot.
It's probably not. They probably have no idea who the bad teachers are. It's most likley an attempt to get rid of the most senior teachers, regardless of ability. And political -- an attempt to kill organizations that tend to be Democratic (this would be equivalent to trying to dismantle fundamentalist churches, as their Republican leaning).
Everyone looks to Finland as this great example of how education should be done, yet it looks nothing like what is being done here. And Finland is 100% teacher's unions. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sharon-higgins/why-do-the-educ...