I am not a huge Steve Jobs fan, but the man does have a keen insight into technology, and good business sense. 

Thanks to the Houston Chronicle, I find that I agree with Jobs on at least one subject:

Apple Inc. CEO Steve Jobs lambasted teacher unions today, claiming no amount of technology in the classroom would improve public schools until principals could fire bad teachers.

Jobs compared schools to businesses with principals serving as CEOs.

“What kind of person could you get to run a small business if you told them that when they came in they couldn’t get rid of people that they thought weren’t any good?” he asked to loud applause during an education reform conference.

“Not really great ones because if you’re really smart you go, ‘I can’t win.’”

I have long thought that Education should be run with a more business like model, which is why I firmly support Charter Schools and Vouchers.

“I believe that what is wrong with our schools in this nation is that they have become unionized in the worst possible way,” Jobs said.

“This unionization and lifetime employment of K-12 teachers is off-the-charts crazy.”

The inability to reward achievement, and disincentive failure, are at the core of the decline of the American educational system.  And we will not begin to recover until Tenure is eleminated, and the Unions are forced to take a step back.

Not that Unions are inherently evil.  Micheal Dell was at the same meeting as Jobs, and rebutted with this:

Dell responded that unions were created because “the employer was treating his employees unfairly and that was not good.”

“So now you have these enterprises where they take good care of their people. The employees won, they do really well and succeed.”

Unions do serve a purpose in ensuring fair treatment, and giving employees as a group a voice to management.  But when the Union becomes so powerful that it is, in effect, running Management, disaster is the only possible result.  The decline and fall of the American Automotive industry should be a cautionary tale to everyone on what can happen when the unions become so powerful, and demand so onerus, that business can no longer compete. 

But Dell did agree with Jobs on education:

Dell also blamed problems in public schools on the lack of a competitive job market for principals.

I would go further, and insist on a competetive job market for Teachers.  And choice for parents and students.

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