Union Battles Mean Tough Times for Teachers

Teachers in Wisconsin may be throwing figurative fruit at politicians, but lawmakers across the country, from New York to California, are vowing to get rid of what they are calling the “bad apples” of the profession. Lawmakers in half a dozen states are trying to lift tenure and seniority protection, threatening mass layoffs and targeting teachers as the root of a failing education system. We asked the teachers in our listening audience: What makes you keep being a teacher? Joining us is Kurt Kaletka, a student of Applied Linguistics at the University of Massachusetts and a Takeaway listener on our partner station WGBH. Kurt has gone back to school to become a teacher of English as a Second Language and says that he doesn’t want to work in a state without union rights, if he can help it.