The Rotten Apple: How the Teachers' Union Destroyed Our Schools

By Bill Pirkle

Mr. Pirkle has a degree in mathematics.

He was an emergency substitute teacher for over three years, teaching when regular substitutes weren't available. During that time, he taught all grades from kindergarten to twelfth grade. This included teaching advanced placement classes and special education.

Appalled by what he saw, especially in grades 7 through 12, he began attending school board meetings and making suggestions on how to improve the schools. He also wrote "The Pirkle Report" for his local paper, trying to explain to the public what was going on.

The school board refused to even consider his suggestions, suggestions coming from a man who, unlike the school board members, had actually been there in the classroom. He realized that the school board was afraid to make any changes that might upset the teachers' union. This book will show that the teachers' union actually controls and runs the schools.

So Mr. Pirkle decided to write this book to show the public and, particularly, the parents what is going on in schools and why we can't solve the education problem. His suggestions are in this book so that the reader can judge for themselves.

Mr. Pirkle believes that more money is not the answer; rather, we need to improve the learning environment. Schools have to be more serious and more professional, and less social and less fun. His solutions cost no money. He feels that this is the problem since everyone involved wants more money and are not interested in discussing free solutions.

This book will open your eyes.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Newman Springs Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Apr 2, 2024
• ISBN: 9798890617842

Book preview

Table of Contents

Title

Copyright

Introduction

Chapter 1: Breakdown of a Teacher's Day

Chapter 2: Teacher Certification

Chapter 3: Why More Money Is Not the Answer

Chapter 4: Federal and State Government in Education

Chapter 5: The Achievement Gap and Acting White

Chapter 6: Charter Schools

Chapter 7: The Classroom Atmosphere

Chapter 8: The Teacher/Student Relationship

Chapter 9: Standardized Lesson Plans

Chapter 10: The Social Promotion

Chapter 11: The School Boards

Chapter 12: How Do We Fix This?

Chapter 13: Eye Contact

Chapter 14: Bad Teachers

Chapter 15: Daycare Centers

Chapter 16: Homework

Chapter 17: Elementary School PE

Chapter 18: Discipline

Chapter 19: War Stories

Chapter 20: Epilogue

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The Rotten Apple

How the Teachers' Union Destroyed Our Schools

Bill Pirkle

Copyright © 2024 Bill Pirkle

All rights reserved

First Edition

NEWMAN SPRINGS PUBLISHING

320 Broad Street

Red Bank, NJ 07701

First originally published by Newman Springs Publishing 2024

ISBN 979-8-89061-783-5 (Paperback)

ISBN 979-8-89061-784-2 (Digital)

Printed in the United States of America

To Charlie Hoff who got me interested in schools and kept me interested when I was ready to wash my hands of the whole mess.

Introduction

I was an emergency substitute teacher in my district for almost four years. Emergency substitute teachers are certified by the state to teach schools when a regular substitute is not available. This happens a lot because often certified teachers do not want to teach full-time.

Some certified teachers often want to teach a couple of days a week to earn some extra money. Furthermore, they often only want to teach on specific days and only at certain schools and for certain grades. This presents a scheduling nightmare for the school district, which must assure that there is an adult with the children at all times.

Before there were emergency substitutes, the principal might have to take a class, or they might have to close the library for the day so the librarian could take a class. They could cancel PE for the day and let the PE instructor take the class, or cancel music and let the music teacher take the class. Nobody liked having to leave their normal job to take a class on that basis. So the teachers' union agreed to allow a special class of teachers, called the emergency substitute teacher, to take up the slack.

This was not an easy thing to get agreement on since there is an entire industry behind teachers. Not only do they have their own union but they also have their own government departments: the Department of Education and Department of Labor. Then there are hundreds of teachers' colleges that are in business because, by law, in most states you have to have a degree in education in order to teach. Add to that the colleges that offer degrees in education. This entire industry is underpinned by the fact that ordinary people with a college degree, but not in education, can't get certified to teach school in most states.

If it were possible for ordinary people with a college degree to teach, there would be potential teachers everywhere, and the teachers' union would be less powerful, having lost control over the number of teachers available.

I applied to become an emergency substitute teacher, having a degree in mathematics. And after passing a police background check and being fingerprinted, I got the job. My experience at that job motivated me to write this book because it is not possible that the general public understands what is going on in our education system; otherwise, there would be a general revolt.

The horror stories you will read about in this book take place for one reason: the teachers' unions are so powerful that they get what they want and can stop anything they don't want. For example, in my state—Washington—they stopped charter schools.

So try to control your rage as you gradually realize what is going on, why your children can't do simple math, write in cursive, or diagram a sentence. Rather, ask yourself what you can do to change the system. Schools do more than train kids for the workplace. They produce the next generation of citizens, the next generation of voters. The dumber the population is, the more corrupt the government will be. Sadly, we see that today in our country.

There are many generally accepted myths about education in America. Here are but a few. When you read this book you will see that these are just myths.

Myth: The problems with education is the pop culture. The kids are running wild and uncontrollable because of this culture.

Fact: In school, the kids are in a closed environment. We have the power to tell them to check the pop culture at the door and pick it up when school is over. The pop culture is not present in the courtroom. The pop culture is not present in church. The pop culture is not present at a funeral. The pop culture is not present in the military. There are special places where a certain behavior is expected. We can simply add schools to that list. We tell them that school is a place where a certain behavior is expected and we demand it. We do not have to let the pop culture into the schools.

Myth: The parents are at fault.

Fact: We have the kids for six hours a day for 180 days. Good parents could be a help, but if parents were necessary, then it would not be possible to educate kids who are in an orphanage. When there were orphanages, we did that all the time.

Myth: It's the fault of state governments who do not provide enough money.

Fact: Many studies show that there is no correlation between per pupil-spending and test scores. It's easy to blame state governments since we have no control over them. The fact is that the state require nineteen half credits to graduate high school, and our district requires twenty-three half credits. By requiring more hours than the state requires, we need more money to run our schools. And what are these extra courses? Pottery, driver education, cooking, etc. All these courses are available from the Parks and Recreation Department in most cities. The state pays for a Volkswagen, and we have built a Cadillac. Bureaucracies are very good at that.

Myth: Our teachers are paid professions who are knowledgeable in the subjects they teach.

Fact: To teach in Washington state, you have to have a degree in education. (Note: This was recently changed to allow for Teach for America to happen in Washington. Otherwise, the state would have lost certain federal funding.) You may not realize this, but for a high school math teacher who majored in education but minored in math, wouldn't we prefer to have our kids taught math