Apple CEO Lambasts Teacher Unions

by Jordan Yerman | February 20, 2007 at 12:28 pm

404 views | 0 Recommendations | 0 comments

I read this article today and have not seen anything posted on NP yet, so here we go.

Jobs is a smart guy, but he's a smart guy who does not comprehend how public education works. To put Mr. Jobs in the picture, I have known elementary school teachers who must hold down second and third jobs just to make ends meet. Basically, for one to each in a public school one must love to teach. Not like. Love.

This limiting reagent knocks Jobs' business-model theory on its butt. I am unaware of the length of the queue of jobseekers at Palo Alto private schools, but here on Earth it is a very different story. Most urban districts will take anybody who's accredited and willing to teach, and can ill afford to let any teacher go.

The real problem is not unions, but pernicious programs such as No Child Left Behind, which favors rich schools and leaves struggling schools stuck in a Catch-22 of underfunding and poor performance.

Regardless of how Coke and fast-food reps target schools with vending machines and quota programs, primary education is not a business in the way that a businessperson may see it.

Apple Inc. CEO Steve Jobs lambasted teacher unions Friday, claiming no amount of technology in the classroom would improve public schools until principals could fire bad teachers.

Jobs compared schools to businesses with principals serving as CEOs.

"What kind of person could you get to run a small business if you told them that when they came in they couldn't get rid of people that they thought weren't any good?" he asked to loud applause during an education reform conference.

"Not really great ones because if you're really smart you go, 'I can't win.'"

In a rare joint appearance, Jobs shared the stage with competitor Michael Dell, founder and CEO of Dell Inc. Both spoke to the gathering about the potential for bringing technological advances to classrooms.

"I believe that what is wrong with our schools in this nation is that they have become unionized in the worst possible way," Jobs said.

"This unionization and lifetime employment of K-12 teachers is off-the-charts crazy."

At various pauses, the audience applauded enthusiastically. Dell sat quietly with his hands folded in his lap.

"Apple just lost some business in this state, I'm sure," Jobs said.

Dell responded that unions were created because "the employer was treating his employees unfairly and that was not good.

"So now you have these enterprises where they take good care of their people. The employees won, they do really well and succeed."

Dell also blamed problems in public schools on the lack of a competitive job market for principals.