What if the debate about fixing America’s “broken” educational system was not framed in the public’s mind as a fight between hardworking taxpayers and budget-busting teachers?
What if it was benignly rebranded as a collaboration between the two, or something equally bland? That would frame the conversation in terms of positive educational and financial outcomes for students and their families instead of a battle between society and teachers.
But it isn’t a fair fight. Taxpayers and parents — who are so crucial in demanding changes to our educational system — are rarely familiar with the complexities of how that system works. And they rarely understand that teachers and their unions are not one and the same.
Too often this distinction is ignored and teachers end up being portrayed as pension-hungry summer vacationers resistant to being evaluated more rigorously. Those types are definitely out there — in addition to a number of ineffective or burned-out teachers — but the slackers to be a tiny minority.
Unlike other professions, teaching is one in which the employee has very little to say about many aspects of his or her employment. Pay, benefits, time off, and rules for evaluation, tenure and eligibility for retirement are all set by the labor union representing each school district’s teachers.
The teachers pay dues for the collective bargaining and get very limited input into negotiations, voting only for the most final versions of contracts. As in every workplace, there are the handful who are active in such matters compared to the majority, who are too focused on doing their jobs to be involved in administrative matters.
In 19 states, the law requires public school teachers to join the union that represents them in their school district. According to the Public Service Research Foundation, 15 states allow teachers to choose whether to join or not but they must still adhere to bargaining agreements and pay dues, and 16 states — including Colorado — offer varying degrees of opt-outs for teachers who don’t want to be part of the union but they, too, still have to adhere to the collective bargaining agreements.
In short, what you have are about 3.5 million teachers who joined the profession for the sole purpose of educating children, yet they, personally, have little voice in education policy because they’ve been legally required to cede their voices to the unions they often have almost no choice in supporting.
Recently, Michelle Rhee, the former District of Columbia school chancellor known for her “radical” educational reform ideas and now CEO of the StudentsFirst political advocacy organization, outlined a reform agenda. It includes compensating teachers on merit rather than seniority, empowering parents with educational choices via access to charter schools and scholarships for private schools, and ensuring every education dollar is spent on directly impacting student outcomes. If it weren’t for teachers’ unions going insane about these ideas, you’d find that educators might not be so afraid to embrace them.
For instance, I’d bet that most teachers would be open to being paid on merit, rather than on a scale.
We rarely get to hear rank-and-file opinions on such topics because teachers know they’re supposed to let the unions do the talking, or the teacher’s lounge gets to be an uncomfortable place. That’s fine if you believe that teachers’ unions are working in the best interest of their members — and by extension, their students — and not in their own best financial and political interests.
The average taxpayer has got to understand that teachers don’t set policies, they just teach. It’s an important thought to keep in mind when debating what a community can afford to pay for education and what “teachers” are willing to do to improve educational outcomes.
