You are wrong about Apple. They are just like the school system; low paying, brutal hours with a meglomaniac for a boss.

Ohio went into the top 15 of states by amount of money spend. Ohio is at the bottom of the list in testing. Money is not the problem.

You cannot be a leader without the authority to change whats around you.

Yes, a principal must have the authority to fire and hire.

The only thing that will safeguard against a bad leader is a good board of directors.

"It's easier, 'think different' aside, to simply mouth something that's been repeated a lot over the years: teacher unions are the problem in public education."

Kind of like how he didn't take action in his own field of expertise where the mantra was that either IBM (way back when) or Windows is the problem in the way we use computers today.

The problem is not that teachers are unionized. The problem is that the teachers have lost a voice in most teacher's unions today. Instead, the union leaders presume to know best, sometimes to the detriment of our schools and children today. When teachers are discouraged from operating outside the box for fear of setting a precedent of performance or work ethic that goes beyond the negotiated contract, we have a serious problem in the system.

...Are not necessary, Jobs is correct in taking them to task. They are also not the only problem with the school systems. Our education system should be the best and most innovative in the world, yet we are far from it.

Jobs is 1000 percent right (hey I went to school in California) and the school nazi’s are proving him right. The California Teachers unions have become such a powerful political force that they can overturn any new laws that come as propositions on the Cal ballots. It takes 2 years from a California teacher to get tenure. If they have a really bad teacher they will not fire them but they will move them to another school and give them glowing reviews. Now the teachers are threatening him to show up or else. I think he should and really let them have it!

and the union's response shows it. All of the comments above regarding money and and authority are correct. We've had personal experience with the inability of the principal to deal with a totally ineffective teacher. Only those parents where were willing to use personal connections and subvert the system were able to have their kids avoid these teacher. This only compounds the problems, instead of dismissing the bad teacher. It also creates more opportunities for wasteful spending.

The recent lobbying efforts by the Cal. teachers unions, and the amounts they have spent, show that they are out only for themselves.

You have to separate high income districts from low income districts. It is likely you could get a teaching job without a college education and get lots of perks if you are teaching in a inner city school in LA. You may be shot in the classroom too. And yes the same amount of money is not going to go as far for the poor schools as it will for the rich schools (rich or poor according to average income of parents).

talks about paying teachers properly. I agree that the unions have turned into a leal defense fund for bad teachers, but we don't have a right to ask our teachers to be top quality when we pay them half of what you need to attract the highest quality people.

Sure, some work for what they get and are great educators and money isn't eveything to them. But very few people will give up a carreer at Boeing or MS to teach for $35k a year.

Job's is right. Change the teacher's union into a professional guild, pay them double of what they get now, hire quality admins and hold them responsible for the schools, and start giving education the position in our society it deserves.

I think it's funny how the pompous pseudo-intellectuals constantly bring up "Think Different" for allegedly being bad grammar. It is only bad grammar if you are completely inflexible in your mindset (often a problem among those who think they are so intellectual). Different doesn't need to describe how they atelling you to think, it can also be what they are telling you to think about. In that case, "Think Different" is perfectly fine. But then you'd have to be able to think creatively.

I digress. Jobs had a point. As do many of the others. Teachers unions have created a situation (as have civil service unions) where you basically have to intentionally burn the place of work down to have anything bad happen to them. However, clearly these unions and unions in general have provided a basic foundation of rights and expectations for workers so they are not totally under the thumb of their supervisors.

In this case, I think Jobs may have been a little less than tactful perhaps, but it's a bit ridiculous to suggest that because Einstein liked the idea of teachers unions, everything they have done has been beneficial. Unions these days very often protect their own interests far more than those of their members. The days of 16 hour day six day work weeks for 12 yr olds making $1/hr are long past.