Teacher's Unions

I came across an article today that is dealing with the Grand Rapids teacher union.  In the article (Click Here to Read the Article), because the union and district has failed to reach an agreement, the district could be looking at losing $25 million in federal grants.  This brings up the debate of whether the unions are really a benefit or detriment to public education.  After sitting in a staff meeting this morning in which our high school is introducing a once-every-six-weeks career development module for students, all the debate revolved around how this is illegal to the contract, an additional prep, blah blah blah.  Never once was it brought up that maybe students need to realize they need to prepare for college/career, and this is a great opportunity.  The basics is that every six weeks, students will be grouped into career paths that interest them, and then teachers will present information regarding careers, salaries, hot jobs, education needed, guest speakers from the field, etc... I think this is a great thing, and had to listen to teachers bitch about how they don't want to do it.  It was extremely frustrating, and I can see why no real progress or innovation ever occurs in education.