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The Worm in the Apple: How the Teacher Unions Are Destroying American Education

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Until I began teaching in 1988 at the Lodi Unified School District in California's San Joaquin Valley, I had never stepped foot onto a public school campus. My background was in the private sector. I had heard about how bad public education had become but all the warnings didn't prepare me for what I found. My biggest surprise was not how little the lowest 10 percentile knew but how little the top 10% knew. I wish Brimelow's book had been available to me before I signed up to teach. I might have changed my mind. Brimelow cites many depressing and discouraging examples of how little American school children know. From my own classroom experience, a high school senior on her way to a full ride at the University of California at Davis asked me what the word "errand" meant. As Brimelow aptly points out the bureaucracies governing public education are crushing.In California,the volumes which detail the education code are nearly four feet high when stacked one on top of the other. Brimelow has the best solutions and they are well overdue--cut the teachers free from their shackles and let them do what they do best--teach. Tear down the U.S. Department of Ecuation and its state equivalents. Education at its multiple levels and layers, as Brimelow emphasizes, is so bloated that it cannot get out of its own way. "The Worm in the Apple" is a must read for concerned parents and educators how are searching for answers. And it is also strongly recommended for all that are considering a career in teaching. Maybe if more new teachers know what they are getting into the turnover rate wouldn't be so shockingly high.

While I do not necessarily agree with everything that the author has to say about teachers (he clearly has an "agenda"), he and I at least have come to the same conclusion: Teacher unions are unto themselves an evil empire. I am happy that someone has bothered to look beneath the veneer of the unions and to show them for what they are: dictators of self-interest. While various talking-head union leaders espouse how they want what is best for the students, they are doing everything they can to stand in the way of actual progress. How is it that a horrible teacher can be paid the same amount as a terrific teacher? Unions. How can a teacher be FORCED to join an organization that may not reflect his or her own values? Unions. How is that parents are told where they will have their kids educated and not have an option for private school with vouchers? Unions. How is it that union workers (people who work in the union offices) receive better perks and benefits than the people who pay their salaries (the union members)? Yep, unions.

I really do wish that more teachers would read this book and come to the realization that the union is doing more harm than good in promoting great education. Teachers should withdraw their support of unions until the unions can shift their priorities to actually caring about the students.

Every American with a child in public school should read this book.

This is a well-written, well documented attack on the National Education Association (NEA) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT). .

The premise is, as the title clearly states, that since the rise of teacher unions in the mid-1960s, the quality of education has dropped, innovation has been compromised and the cost of education has skyrocketed. He backs it up with a ton of statistics. To the credit of Brimelow, this could have been a stale listing of statistics punctuated by charts. However, he writes in a lively style and backs up his assertions with independent sources of information as well as damning quotes from movers and shakers in the NEA and the AFT.

As an unsatisfied member of the NEA, I found the book to be quite eye-opening. It was also interesting to me since the Indiana branch of the NEA (Indiana State Teachers Association) was the source of a lot of his material and that is my State Association.

This is a thought-provoking and challenging book. He does not just stand there and point out problems. He also 24 suggestions at the end of his book, although he is quick to note that this is a wish list and it will be extremely unlikely that half of these could ever see the light of day.

This book is long overdue. Brimelow exposes how radical unions have wrecked our public schools. And the costs - most people assume that teachers are underpaid.....hardly. Year after year of hard bargaining by the unions have given huge salaries and pensions to teachers at the cost of taxpayers. In Riverside, CA, a 1st grade teacher with 25 years experience now makes in excess of $95,000 per year and can retire at any time at 95% of salary with full medical for self plus spouse. The taxpayers need unions OUT OF government. This is a great book.

Brimelow begins his candid exposé on the National Education Association with a little history. The NEA, created in 1857, "was" a professional association concerned with "standards, ethics, and educational techniques" [preface]. Its original goal was improving America's education. So where did they get lost? The author tells us it was during the 1960s. The NEA morphed into a labor union, after removing school administrators from its membership and becoming competitively obsessed with the American Federation of Teachers. This was also when Kennedy issued an executive order allowing collective bargaining for federal employees, mind you, "in exchange for labor union support" [preface]. Because of these changes, Brimelow concludes that our educational system has been failing our children ever since.

Brimelow begins with NEA's 1999 annual meeting. It reads like a political train wreck, and is the perfect start in proving his point. Throughout the book, Brimelow shows the NEA's move from reading, writing, and arithmetic to such things as self-preservation, politics, and political correctness books and class atmosphere. Brimelow names names, places blame, dishes numbers, and exposes past and present union leaders. His eye-opening facts are riveting as he relays various accounts in trying to prove the absurdity of the union's control. For example, a Connecticut Teachers Association filed a grievance demanding pay for the additional two minutes a week the union claimed teachers worked that year; a Pennsylvania association filed a grievance against the school district because coffee and doughnuts were not provided during a training day; a New York "Deaf" school being forced to keep teachers who couldn't sign; and a Washington local union shot down a superintendent's need to alter school starting time for special education students because some teachers would have daycare problems. It goes on and on....

Brimelow doesn't dish the dirt only to leave readers wound up. The last chapter, "A Twenty-four Point Wish List," is well thought out and well written. Recommendations are aimed at improving education, protecting teachers, and parents' rights -- all minus an expensive, dominating union.

_The Worm in the Apple_ is the kind of book that demands reaction and hopefully causes change. Readers can expect to have a mental list of whom to share this book with before they're half way through it.

This is not a cheerful or optimistic book, but it is one that absolutely had to be written. I am personally familiar with Peter Brimelow although it took me awhile to getting around to purchasing this particular work. I just recently read it and have to recommend it due to its thoroughness and its exposure of the teacher unions' true nature. Two reviews in Education Next derided the text for its derisive and condescending tone. Certainly there are sentences that one can easily find which are overwrought, but overall, Brimelow's tone is dispassionate and informative. When one considers that each year the taxpayer throws more and more money into education in America (over 750 billion this year alone), and that so much of this lucre finds its way into the teacher unions, it is easy to see that Worm in the Apple is a valuable addition to the public square. Indeed, it is an absolute necessity.

Peter Brimelow notes that, since the National Education Association gave up its interest in K-12 education and became a teschers' union, rather than an association of educators, American education has hit the skids, and it has all been domwhill since then. The NEA, he says, has been taken over by the 'Michigan Mafia' (a group of bigshots from Michigan) who turned it into a labor union which, despite laws forbiding teacher strikes, manage to strike anyway, and is more interested in teacher pay and benefits and less interested in the instruction of their charges (our children).

Brimelow has carefully researched his subject, and lays out case after case demonstrating that teachers are often unqualified for their jobs. and that the ratio of teachers to students is better than it has ever been despite their constant cries of the opposite situation. The education establishment in the United States, which now boasts a federal department rather than the community owned and run schools which was the case for our entire history, until a single generation ago, has one of the highest costs per pupil of any developed nation, and one of the most abyssmal resulting records, when the results are compared to all other civilized Western nations.

But, until the middle of the twentieth century our country could honestly boast of the best educational systems on earth, judging by results.

Brimelow lays the blame squarely at the feet of the two largest teachers' unions: the NEA and the American Federation of Teachers. And, says they want to merge, in which case they would be a monopoly. Government schools setting the standards, and a monopoly of teachers dictating their own reward system--much like the Congress of the United States.

His cure? Two dozen recommendations (read the text for the details--they make sense.) First, bust the teachers' trust: the monopoly, which, like any monopoly, vuolates federal law. 2) Reform public sector public bargaining statutes. 3) Pass state and federal Right-to-Work laws, reducing unions' power. 4) Pass 'Paycheck Protection', protecting workers from being forced by the unions to finance political policies or candidates not of their choosing (yes, that is the case in many states). 5) Give teeth to the anti-strike laws. 6) Support independent teachers' associations and unions. 7) Apply private sector type restrictions to union encroachment on management. 8) End 'Unfunded Mandates'. 9) End bargained taxpayer subsidies to the teacher trust. 10) Provide alternative services, benefits, and discounts to teachers. 11) End teacher tenure. 12) Allow merit pay. 13)Two, three, many school choice initiatives. 14) Explore tax credits, tax deductibility of education costs. 15) Liberate the GED. 16) Hands off teacher training and accreditation. 17) Institute alternative teacher certification. 18) Liberate charter schools. 19) Break up the large school districts. 20)Privatize school services. 21) Promote union democracy. 22) Empower parents through choice. 23) Empower teachers through true professionalism, or, give teachers a stake. 24) Abolish the U.S. Department of Education.

I thought he would never get to that last item! Bring the schools back to the local control they enjoyed for a couple hundred years, during which time we had an education system that was the envy of the world. Our high school graduates could read their diplomas! Our 8th graders could spell! Our scholars could compete with the English, French, Germans, Swedes--unlike today! Stop throwing money at the problem.

Case in point: my grand-daughter submitted a high school English paper, in which she used the phrase 'could have,' Her high-school English teacher corrected the paper to read, 'could of.'

Our children, instead of using 'I said' in speech, use phrases like, 'I go,' 'I went,' I'm like' -- and so do their teachers. What can we expect? The schools buy tests prepared by large corporations like McGraw-Hill, the teachers hand them out, they are answered on multiple choice answer sheets, which are then returned for machine scoring. Lectures are purchased and given by video. Classroom materials are delivered, taken and scored by computers. Who needs $60,000 a year teachers, with such technology;especially unqualified teachers who do not know their subject?

Joseph (Joe) Pierre
author of Handguns and Freedom...their care and mainrenance
and other books

Having graduated from High School over 20 years ago, I am simply amazed at the amount of money poured int he classroom and yet the quality of education doesn't seem to be getting any better. After reading this book I can understand why that is and if your a parent, you may want to sit and take a serious look at what this book has to say.

The is one book that will blow the lide off the teachers union and the NEA, as it brings into the light the hidden agendas and the political maneuvering that goes on behind the scenes. It shows how money for the schools get directed to unions, teachers and school boards and what ever is left over is then given to the schools. After reading this I now know why taxes go up and up.

The book shows how the unions asking for more money, all the while allowing teacher to do less and less. The book explains how SAT and other test scores have been in decline for years and yet little or no reform is on the way.

You'll find that the Elite Liberal Left is working with the Unions to eliminate "true" school choice. You'll also find how teachers and the unions have spent years fighting against the retention by results or merit rating system, because they know that alot of jobs would be lost.

I was simply amazed at what this book uncovers and know that there could have been twice as many pages and still not given all the facts. This is one of the best documented and researched text I have seen on this subject.

Now I know there are a lot of teachers who do a great job, I also know that there is a shortage of good, quality teachers. And I also know that most teachers are way underpaid, however after reading this book you have to wonder if the unions aren't to blame.

Neither paralyzed by fear nor duped by union doubletalk, Peter Brimelow delivers an exceptionally crafted account of the public education crisis in America. Though "Worm In The Apple" does occasionally drift into topical sidelines, the overall flow of the book is quite good.

Its easy to appreciate Brimelow's scientific approach to the issue. He starts with a problem known to almost all: high cost, low performance public schools. Brimelow then identifies the root cause, the teacher unions, using abundant factual information and leaving little room for doubt.

Having made the connection, Brimelow shows that only mitigation of the teachers' unions power can end the education crisis. He then lists 24 changes, such as tenure elimination, that could turn the system around. Throughout the book, Brimelow's points are consistently backed by iron-clad proof that only a union robot could ignore.

"The Worm In The Apple" is an excellent piece of investigative reporting, and a "how-to" guide for addressing one of America's greatest challenges. Most of Brimelow's detractors are those who don't want to hear his message, or more often, don't want anybody else to hear his message. Such orchestrated detractions only serve to strengthen Brimelow's credibility.

Peter Brimelow's book does an excellent job of exposing the shady underside of America's Teacher Unions. Through his research, Mr. Brimelow shows that a pattern of decreasing educational success has been directly in line with the rise in power of teacher unions like the NEA.

If you're at all interested in the reasons why America is constantly falling behind the rest of the world in educational standards, read this book. The author shows that we spent unprecedented amounts of money on public education without proportional success to follow.

I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in public education, union activity, or people that simply want to know why they pay so much money in taxes to support their local school system.