bottom accelerator with we have a crisis in education
the average american the average
graduate from college right now is uh... leaving
school with twenty four thousand dollars in student loans
thirty years ago it was typically close to zero
in fact thirty five years ago
forty years ago university california was free and most
mostly colleges land-grant colleges were virtually free
and that twenty four thousand dollars can quickly belong to a hundred thousand
or more
he had seventeen eighteen-year-old signing documents with words like
default forbearance uninterested not not even understand what they are
causative overt university just alas
ten years has doubled
this is a crisis
business uh... this note from this one in nineteen ninety two i signed papers
taken out when it does not one of which i received fourteen thousand because
they the bank to go points
but now i os seventy seven thousand a woman on the phone still and one of my
mother's day to every time she has left at our house and pay them a seventy
seven thousand my mom is ninety with stage four lymphoma over two surviving
daughters on the healthy one
were you go with this
kyle olson is with the education action group dot org is the website
is the founder and c_e_o_ of regular
preserved appearance or just rather on five stains
and uh... produced a documentary film titled kids are cars
now welcome to the program
i think for having me
pleased to have it
i didn't see anything on your site about who funds education action group were to
get money from
uh... we don't really stepped were private organization we don't take any
taxpayer dollars on my damn business
armor if the
the essence of what i'm seeing on your website is that you on a bus stop unions
in education
noun that in fact your your home page says basically it's it's all about labor
instead of education
i'm curious we had unions in education
every bit as much as today in fact arguably even more
in the forties and fifties and sixties to seventies
but our education system was working just fine and we weren't we were
producing the world's best university graduates hands and in college was
essentially free
award howell
how could you happy make the leap
unless you just dedicated union-bashing
that unions have anything to do with the crisis in education right now
well what we're seeing a therapist
school districts in states are looking at making budget reductions in cuts
is that collective bargaining has been a big problem for many school districts
around the country chuck and i like when scott walker to four hundred million
dollars
out of the state budget by giving in tax cuts to millionaires in billionaires and
then went to the schools and said okay we want to take
we gotta pay back the sport a million dollars who i think some money back from
you and the same thing happened with john casick in ohio he took a the amount
of money that be took out of the budget
by giving tax cuts to minors indonesia's about equal to what he was asking for
from working people
same thing in michigan richard snyder same thing in florida three scott same
thing in pennsylvania even worse in pennsylvania with chris christy hold
eight hundred million eight hundred twenty million dollars out of the budget
out of school budget and give it a for-profit corporations
and then cut public schools by eight hundred million dollars and of course
with those cuts they're going to say the teachers he i work for a lot stats we're
talking about
what we're talking about is uh... uh...
looking at the way to school districts are spending our dollars taxpayer
dollars for example in the state was constantly bring that up
uh... or our organization has been looking at health insurance uh...
policies and entities within the state of wisconsin and there's one uh... a
corporation called w_p_a_ trust
which is hugely expensive
and it has a real grip uh... at the collective bargaining table uh... while
they're negotiating these different uh... contract
it so what we're saying is why don't you look at the way that you're spending
dollars figure out if that's the most efficient use of dollars and if not
figure out what you can do and i think that's what it that's what governor
walkers talking about
he's not asking for people to know he's not he's lying to us
how the line
he's he's saying that he's got a financial crisis when one has crisis was
created by giving tax cuts to millionaires and billionaires look at
the math
i have looked at the map and and that wisconsin is a good example where you'd
you had a state budget that was
billions of dollars in the red then why did he do it for a million dollar tax
cut the millionaires in billionaires
that i don't know workbook a sign of education
and and and and and then the flip side of that is a tragic four million dollars
out of education assistant programs
but what do
with regards to education specifically what he has been talking about is
collective bargaining reform at the state level yell and scream my personal
work place i don't understand why you're opposed you know unions are our
democratic institutions
you they did the the workers elect the people who represent them
and the workers vote on every piece of every issue
that gets presented their employers
that's democracy
that's that's like you know small d_ democracy
sa partisan her political that's democracy why are you opposed to
democracy in the workplace
in lecture just been a representing the oligarchy slowed the the cope with it
typed kinds of groups to whether the walmart kinda groups who don't want to
have uh... any kind of
the democracy in the workplace they want the workplace run liking them soon
and screw the workers problem now though is that many
uh... workers don't have that option they do now in wisconsin but implicitly
michigan where i live
and all hi ellen pennsylvania many other states
uh... being a member of the michigan education association is a condition of
employment and if they choose not to be a member of the michigan education
association
they still have to pay approximately eighty percent of the fees
uh... toward union for their collective bargaining that's because they are the
beneficiaries of the contracts that the national education association
negotiates well there and i find it amazing that that they that they let
people
you know not be members only pay eighty percent of the night you frankly i'd be
in favor of a close shop where he was you idiot if fifty percent of the
workers fifty one percent of the workers say we want to union
that you know we have two markers in the united states majority rules in those
kinds of things
and a fifty one percent worker said i want to union he got a union everybody's
either in the or out and if they're out they don't work there they have a choice
not to work there that's your choice so their choice instead of working in a
public school
their choices to get out and go someplace self right if they hate c_n_n_
at much then go to work a m m profil school
well we have so a lot of teachers we hear from a lot of teachers who are like
working in their public school day like working with kids
um... but they don't like having the over yay or the mea
or any other union coming into their pockets picking two
out of their paycheck uh... to bendigo shooting good health benefits and good
wages on their behalf
you know without unions we wouldn't have weekends
without onions we wouldn't have a forty hour work week without unions we
wouldn't have
but in the workplace safety rules
without unions we would not have you know that you wouldn't you would even
have pension system the will fluid metab brother altho we wouldn't have
employer-sponsored health insurance without unions
i don't get why you guys get unions
what we see in public schools every single day
is that collective bargaining agreements leaves to red budgets
and what we also see we just issued another sun news release about this
today
upto ten year protects
that teachers
is every single uh... a hot what is the what is the percentage of teachers at
her bed it's very very small
but the reality is
ten-year protects ineffective burned out bad teacher tenure also protects
brilliant teachers who want to go
who want to try it one of the innovative who want to work outside the box who
want to push the boundaries
and that's why it was created any right there are some bad teachers their
projects
but a protector a heck of a lot of more good teachers and through the congress
on university level here and and and people who are doing brilliant research
i mean you know that that's a bit look at look at the innovations in america so
many of them came out of tenured professors
that led to a correct
besides so why attack that again good because it's associate with unions
'cause unions fought for china ten-year i have no problem with tenure in higher
education because you're exactly right periods
there is more of the freedom to teach what professors wanted teach
but when it comes to k_-twelve the curriculum is pretty well defined by the
school board or the state
and a and teachers ito to live with the math uh... those parameters
antarctic fifteen-year has no place for people level ten fifty then you can
negotiate it away i mean that's the the the union leader democratic leasing
yasir they'll say no we're not willing to work in those conditions that
negotiated for free
calls education actions that uh... workers who are so complex without my
husband
picked up