People should learn to indulge their counter arguments

Americans would not pursue this form of union-busting abuse if they only indulged for a moment the counter-argument and evaluated the consequences of their proposed actions.

So let's say for a minute that all of the union busting is successful.  So teachers are now going to work for less money, will have to contribute more to their own pensions (which I have no problem with), will have to pay more for their health insurance (which I also have no problem with), and may have to deal with the loss of tenure so there wouldn't be anymore due process or collective bargaining rights (a huge no-no)...

So what will education look like then?  For one, there would be a loss of veterancy.  There wouldn't be many teachers who teach more than 6 years since they're too expensive to keep.  There wouldn't be very good mentors since all the veterans are too expensive to mentor the new incoming teachers.

There would be a constant shortage of teachers due to the outrageously inflated turn-over as a result of changes to benefits and tenure rules.  So where are teachers going to come from?

How do you recruit the best and brightest teachers into a profession where you are paid less, earn fewer benefits, and have no job security?  How do you encourage the growth and development of master teachers in the most critical of subject areas like math and science when teaching could never compete against private sector jobs that pay more and hold workers to lesser accountability standards?  You can't.  What's stopping promising science teachers from leaving the classroom to pursue medical, dental, veterinary school, or conducting research?  Nothing

So until all of these issues are addressed, there is no rational reason other than the short-sighted need to attack the largest group of municipal workers and subjecting them to vicious demonization in order to fix budget shortfalls.

How do you close the gap between the USA and other developed nations like Finland, China, and Korea?  If you allow teachers to be ostracized and demonized for things beyond their control, then you can't.  This goes beyond laws, this goes beyond schools and classrooms.  This addresses the attitude towards education that there seems to be something wrong with only one component of the complex formula that leads towards educated children.

At this point, I can't help but think that every outspoken person who demonizes teachers because of their union hasn't the foggiest idea how these changes will affect teacher performance in the future.  Should these changes make it through legislatures, scores will go down, class sizes will go up, and we will fall further behind other nations.  If America is really ready to make that concession, then so be it.  Be prepared to have more apathetic educators and angrier protests about school and educator quality (propagated by this movement against teachers).

Perhaps we should start outsourcing our students to other countries to be educated.  Or importing educators from other countries to educate our children since there seems to be a lack of trust in the quality of American-bred educators. These are pretty far-fetched ideas, but if all this union-busting succeeds, then I wouldn't be surprised...

Ultimately, people need to start recognizing that the rationale of do more with less is not a sustainable educational policy that will close the global disparities in educational quality.  You get what you pay for.  You can't attract the best by offering less...  I'd love to see the research that suggests that unions are the sole perpetrators of failing students or that the quality of educator improves as you reduce their pay and benefits...