"Nobody has ever made a compelling argument for how having unionized teachers helps students. Nor has anyone ever made a compelling argument for how having tenured teachers helps student performance. Our country's best performing schools (all of them private) have non-unionized teaching staffs. We can't afford to experiment with unionized teachers anymore. The government created the right for public employees to unionize and it can remove that right very quickly if it has the political will.
"How good a job would you do at your company if customers were required by law to buy your product? That's the situation faced by public school management today. It would be illegal for a 14-year-old not to attend the local school, unless his or her family can scratch up a huge tuition payment for a private school. We need to set a deadline by which every American family has the choice to send children to a school other than the local one. There wouldn't be a problem with 'failing schools' anymore because parents would have withdrawn nearly all of their kids from such a school and the building would end up being taken over by a new school with new management."
Denmark has unionized teachers, and has a long history of public schools. Danes have invented C++(Bjarne Stoustrup), Turbo Pascal, C#, Dephi (Anders Hejlsberg) and Ruby on Rails (DHH). For a country with a population half of New York I think that's pretty impressive. I can't help to notice when working with foreigners that Danes have a much better knack at understanding a problem domain and coming up with creative solutions. This is widely accredited to the system of public schools that encourage all students to help each other, argue about possible solutions and come up with the best one.
But where do all these people you mention live now? On the other side of the Atlantic.
Another success story is Skype, which was founded by a Dane and a Swede. Did they decide to start the company in Denmark or Sweden? No, it's a Luxemborg company.
Denmark has a history of a relatively free economy. In the 1960's the government was smaller than in the US. And the biggest companies in Denmark today were founded a long time ago. Before the welfare state in Denmark grew really big. Maersk, the biggest container shipping company in the world, for instance.
Today the average child born in Denmark is going to be a net cost to the Ponzi scheme called the welfare state. So it's an unsustainable system. I think the country is still coasting on the culture and work ethic of the previous generations. But the work ethic is deteriorating now that the welfare state has been around so long there are families where the parents have always lived from welfare and never really had a job.
It still "works" despite the big government, not because of it. Also, it could be worse, Denmark is #11 on the Economic Freedom Index. It is easy to start a company, there are relatively few restrictions on investment etc. But - the taxes are very high.
http://www.heritage.org/research/features/index/countries.cf...
Denmark has something a similar to Milton Friedmans idea of a school voucher system, where you can put your kid in a private school and you'll get a subsidy from the state. So you kind of get the taxes paid for government school back and the private school gets the money. The parents just have to pay a smaller fee to the private school in addition to the government "voucher money". There is no good reason why government should run the school. But they do. Some of them are private though. So if you think Denmark's school system is so great, maybe you should support getting the government out of schools in the US.
Yes that is the contradiction - an apparently great educational system paid for by taxes that are so high that the smart and successful Danes leave the country and make their money elsewhere in order not to pay the high taxes.
This is a common argument heard in Denmark to make us the Danes who left feel bad.
While not as bad now, there was a time when the word "udenlandsdansker" (Danish emigrant) was synonymous with traitor when used by Danish politicians.
The way I look at it is that my parents paid 70% taxes when I was going through the educational system, so I could go through the educational system. I have also paid plenty of Danish taxes myself to put other peoples children through school.
While I have great love for my country, I am not indebted nor indentured to it.
We already went through a period in Danish history http://da.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stavnsbånd (in Danish) where men between 18 and 36 were forced to stay and work for the local land owner.
I do not think there is a need through law, guilt or propaganda to enforce a new version of this indentureship.
There are many reasons to stay in Denmark, but there are also plenty of good reasons for entrepreneurs and other over achievers to leave:
This is a common argument heard in Denmark to make us the Danes who left feel bad. it wasn't meant that way, just pointing out the bad politics of not letting people reap the rewards of what they sow.
I'm thinking of moving away myself, if it wasn't for the good friends and beautiful girls I would have gone already.
I also have to point out being Danish myself that the Danish education system is under heavy attack in Denmark as being uncompetitive.
I'm too lazy to google it right now but I remember Danish test results being amongst the worst in Europe.
That said I think Denmark has good enough education and improving it is the least of our problems.
Denmark has had several high profile people in Computer Science. What is interesting is that they have almost without exception been forced to find a home outside Denmark.
Danish culture is very conformist. And it's IT culture doesn't disappoint here. J2EE with Struts and the Waterfall Development model is still seen as cutting edge. Mainframes (proof that we were advanced a few decades ago) are still in wide use in even relatively small companies.
I know lots of great Ruby, Python etc programmers there, who are frustrated beyond belief at the lack of momentum for such languages there. I keep preaching to them to start companies.
The funny little secret about the Scandinavian model is that at least for Denmark and Norway it has essentially been funded by North Sea Oil. Most Danes don't even know this, but it is reported every year by the ministry of finance. They have also been hit really hard by the recession and I'm not sure how they are going to do with lower oil prices now.
Well Denmark has it easy. It's full of Danes. We have lots of new immigrants and people climbing up from underclasses which don't have a tradition of educational excellence. That part of the solution will take time.
Edit: Let me clarify. Denmark has a small homogeneous well educated population. I would expect that the parents take an intense interest in their children's education resulting in high achievement. In contrast in California we have a much more diverse population with a large proportion of recent immigrants. The parents are not well educated themselves and the kids are struggling because of poor English. This makes it difficult to have a high achieving school system. Sure wealthy communities have excellent schools and can attract the best teachers, but the poorer districts can't. This is not a racial or ethnic problem; it's economic.
The suburbs outside Arlington county near DC have great public schools as well. They regularly send their students to Ivy League schools and many go on to become CEOs and Senators.
I don't see what either example has to offer a diverse, sprawling nation of 300,000,000 people where school unions often block any education reform proposal that is not "more money for schools".
I'm considerably more familiar with countries that have great innovation and great economic growth without unionized teachers. So how do we tease out the effects of unionization? What kinds of contracts do the teachers have in each country, and what kinds of choices do the parents have if the local school down the street isn't helping their children learn?
"How good a job would you do at your company if customers were required by law to buy your product? That's the situation faced by public school management today. It would be illegal for a 14-year-old not to attend the local school, unless his or her family can scratch up a huge tuition payment for a private school. We need to set a deadline by which every American family has the choice to send children to a school other than the local one. There wouldn't be a problem with 'failing schools' anymore because parents would have withdrawn nearly all of their kids from such a school and the building would end up being taken over by a new school with new management."
Hear. Hear.