Toyotas and Teachers

It was a good day on the Star Tribune op-ed page.

Michael Fumento's piece, originally from the Los Angeles Times, raised some good points about the magnitude of the Toyota problem:

Sudden acceleration in Toyotas over the last decade has been linked with -- which doesn't mean "caused" -- 52 deaths, according to NHTSA. A Los Angeles Times investigation brought it up to 56, including those culled from lawsuits. Whatever the count and cause, that's too many. But it's also out of 20 million Toyotas sold, and out of the 420,000 Americans NHTSA says died in motor vehicle accidents that decade.

And although Toyota had almost 17 percent of total U.S. car sales in 2008, it accounted for merely 8 percent of total claims for deaths and injuries in the first quarter of that year, according to NHTSA. Edmunds.com found that while Toyota was third in U.S. car sales from 2001 through 2010, it was 17th in NHTSA complaints.

Thus, even if every sudden-acceleration complaint proved valid, Toyotas are among the safest cars made.

I suppose one could argue that Toyotas are bought by people who tend to be safer drivers... but even so, those are some pretty compelling numbers. And I say this as a Toyota owner who has had her share of fear of the accelerator lately. (By the way, it sounds like the San Diego man with the most recent runaway accelerator story is in it for the money or the fifteen minutes.)

The other piece worth reading on today's op-ed page was by Dick Bernard, a retired teacher and Education Minnesota (union) representative. He recalled the days of public schools before teachers had tenure -- not something I've ever thought about a whole lot:

During my growing-up years..., we moved to eight communities. In each, Dad was called superintendent, but actually was a teaching principal, the administrator who was accountable to the local school board....

My parents were outstanding teachers and outstanding citizens of their communities. I know. One or the other was my teacher for my last five years of public school....

But we moved often, and very often that move was necessitated by Dad being fired, in one or another odd and sometimes innovative way.

These were the good old days of "at will" contracts. All it took was some disgruntled citizen who knew the right people to dispatch these outsiders at the annual contract renewal time. (In my files I have nearly every one of those single sheet "contracts" signed by my parents in their careers.)

Dad always took a philosophical view of the firings, but down deep, I think they hurt him deeply. Recently I came across an essay he wrote about the various ways he was fired during his long career. It was funny, in a very sad way.

Protections that are revolting to some -- things like due process, seniority, continuing contract -- came about because of abundant abuses in those good old days when the teacher was, literally, a "public servant."

I wish I could read Bernard's dad's essay, and that an objective journalist or even a historian would document what it was like to work as a teacher in the pre-union days. (Perhaps someone has. If you have a source to share, post it in the comments.) I, for one, had never devoted much mental energy to it, but now I wish I had.