In 2006 my AP government teacher was the subject of about a half dozen articles in the local paper and a school board meeting where about 500 angry parents came and tried to get him fired for being too liberal. It is definitely relevant.

For being too liberal, or for bringing his private political beliefs into the classroom?

His crime was to allow the students to have a debate on the merits of two US policies - the use of torture and the use of depleted uranium.

The key point was that this wasn't his idea. He solicited topics for debate from the students in the class, those two were chosen as the topics.

This got misconstrued by some parents who were offended as he pushed us to consider these questions becuase he was liberal, and thus was bringing his political beliefs into the classroom.

I ended up being the lead on the team that defended torture and depleted uranium (and we won), and somehow the more difficult debate actually ended up being the one I had at the school board meeting defending him.

How was the decision made on your torture/DU debates?

Not sure if you mean how was it decided that was going to be our topic or how it was decided who won the debate.

The topic was proposed by a student in the class who had actually thought about it beforehand, no one else had any good ideas.

The "winner" of the debate was determined by a panel of other teachers (part of the reason he got in trouble the teachers were "ruling" on gov't policy). Nobody seems to understand that the people (me and a few others) defending the US's policys could actually win. Everyone assumed that it was biased by his politics such that obviously the result would be anti-American. It was actually quite fun. Though I'd say that the reason my group won was largely becuase in 2006 a lot less was known about Gitmo. We could do a lot of "you can't prove that X Y or Z is happening, that is just conjecture", that we wouldn't be able to do today.

As a side note, I'm firmly in the anti-toture and anti-DU camp, but I always find it more interesting in debate to side with the group you disagree with.

It's definitely true that to understand your own position you need to come up with the best arguments for the opposing position. It disappoints me when I read lousy arguments made by those who do not share my viewpoint, and even more when an entire position shared by many people is based on emotional reasoning.

Torture is a topic that lends itself to emotional reasoning. How can you be such a meanie? How can _you_ put children at risk while terrorists are running free?

DU also lends itself to sloppy reasoning. People take for granted that it is a radioactivity problem when it's actually a heavy-metal toxicity problem. Radioactivity is more emotional.

I've been to a private school where the teachers were unionized. They were with a different union association than the public school teachers. This was in Canada, not in the US but I don't see why it would be different.

I don't see why it would be different, either. I'm just unaware of it being a common phenomenon here in the US. Perhaps I'm mistaken.

My main point is that there are cases where the private sector can do without unions, whereas the public sector schools cannot[1].

[1] At least in California I haven't heard of a single non-unionized public school.

I believe it is just a question of the number of employees and of when the organization started. Want it or not, the state is a large and visible employer.

No, the arbitrary firings for political reasons /is/ relevant, it's why we have teachers unions and tenure.

This is merely a reiteration of the original point.

I have yet to see anything persuasive as to relevance.

That is, why is it any different from any other public employment? My understanding is that civil service jobs have specific legal (aka politically-sourced) protections without resorting to techniques from the private sector.

ETA: Moreover, politically-motivated firings aren't necessarily arbitrary, though they're obviously not based on merit. The unionized system doesn't appear to be merit-based, either.