Assigned Reading

This was recently brought to my attention. They are the words of outgoing NEA General Counsel Bob Chanin, at the union’s annual meeting last summer. It clearly demonstrates why the teachers unions cannot be considered the spokespeople for public schools. The unions do not represent all the players, most importantly, the students.

And that brings me to my final, and most important point. Which is why, at least in my opinion, NEA and its affiliates are such effective advocates. Despite what some among us would like to believe, it is not because of our creative ideas. It is not because of the merit of our positions. It is not because we care about children. And it is not because we have a vision of a great public school for every child. NEA and its affiliates are effective advocates because we have power. And we have power because there are more than 3.2 million people who are willing to pay us hundreds of millions of dollars in dues each year because they believe that we are the unions that can most effectively represent them, the unions that can protect their rights and advance their interests as education employees.

This is not to say that the concern of NEA and its affiliates with closing achievement gaps, reducing dropout rates, improving teacher quality, and the like are unimportant or inappropriate. To the contrary, these are the goals that guide the work we do. But they need not and must not be achieved at the expense of due process, employee rights, and collective bargaining. That simply is too high a price to pay!

When all is said and done, NEA and its affiliates must never lose sight of the fact that they are unions, and what unions do first and foremost is represent their members.

It is the union and its membership that comes first. This reminds me of the now infamous words of the late AFT president Al Shanker. “When school children start paying union dues, that ’s when I’ll start representing the interests of school children.”

We must empower those who represent children, and delegate to them at least as much power as the unions.

News: A DC Superior Court judge has ruled that Chancellor Michelle Rhee was within her rights when she laid off 266 teachers last month to help balance the education budget. The teachers union had argued unsuccessfully that the budget concerns were contrived, and that Rhee used this excuse to conduct an illegal mass firing.

Opinion: The Post editorializes about the case outlined above, including these strong words:

Finally, we hope there is some soul-searching on the part of D.C. Council members who wrongly assailed Ms. Rhee’s integrity. They would serve the city better if they joined with her in trying to improve the schools.

Opinion: Former congressman and current Democratic National Leadership Council chairman Harold Ford, Jr. advocates for President Obama’s Race to the Top plan for education reform.

Julia Steiny’s ProJo column this week focuses on the significant drop expected in the number of school age children in the next decade. She fears that districts will cut programs that benefit kids, rather than close schools and consolidate services.

Steiny cites East Greenwich as an example of simple consolidation. The school department turned over its “back-office finance function” to the town, saving half a million dollars.

That’s a lot of money, with no negative impact on classroom teaching and learning.

Closing schools will save even more money. According to the Valley Breeze, Lincoln will close one of its schools at the end of this academic year. An early learning center housing grades pre K-1, these students will return to their neighbor schools. Some redistricting will be necessary to equalize student population. (Attention charter school advocates: Lincoln hopes to lease the empty school.)

Steiny, however, suggests parents and students should decide which schools close. Like the move to charter schools, Steiny believes parents and kids should be allowed to choose which schools they will attend. Schools that cannot attract enough students will close first. Let the poor schools just fade away. Why not?

Districts must also be ready to thin the number of employees. I too often hear, from both union leaders and administrators, that a goal is to save jobs. It shouldn’t be. Schools should employ only the number of workers it needs. Smaller class sizes benefit kids, so staff cuts should begin with those who are not classroom teachers. Too often schools are viewed first as places to employ adults, rather than educate kids.

Steiny is right. We need to be creative in our response to enrollment decline.

As an educator, I am often embarrassed by how political correctness worms its way into our public schools. But this story certainly ends up somewhere close to the top of the heap.

Apparently some, including Alexandria, Virginia education leaders, have decided the label “at-risk” denotes too much negativism when applied to children with deficits, or in need of additional support. They’ve decided to substitute “at-promise”.

Besides the fact that “at-promise” doesn’t seem to make any sense, it is infuriating that this constitutes reform in the eyes of some educators.

Kids who can’t read, write, speak English, or multiply and divide are at risk…serious risk…and we should work to provide the support they need, not focus on finding a label that makes us all feel better.

Abigail Thernstrom, a McLean-based education scholar who is vice-chair of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, said “the schools can change the rhetoric, but at the end of the day, all that counts is what they actually accomplish.”

Will Johnny better succeed because he’s called “at-promise”? It’s just so embarrassing.

If they really want to help, educators should advocate the repeal of federal special education laws that are as complicated as the US tax code. They should demand an end to federal mandates, and insist that local schools and districts be allowed to keep their money so they can implement individualize systems that will provide the support “at-risk” kids need.

Or we can leave things alone, and just call them “at-promise” instead. Like I said, it’s just so embarrassing.

AFT president Randi Weingarten was in town last weekend to speak at the RIFT Quest conference. Most of her remarks focused on the common theme that teachers have become whipping boys, and insisted from our leaders, “don’t do things to us, do things with us.”

While there was a lot that most teachers could agree with, her words were essentially partisan. (She said she can’t stand to call it Ronald Reagan airport, and stills uses the old name National). Weingarten used the liberal book What’s the Matter with Kansas to explain why so many have come to “hate public servants.” The world has changed, she said, and that has led to a disconnect for many. Our economy, in particular, has changed. No longer are there factories for those without diplomas to earn a living. Men and women must work. As a result, education, she claims, has become important to the capitalist, to Wall Street. And a battle for power has ensued.

Instead of working together to find a solution in these new economic times, Weingarten claims many prefer to find someone to blame, like the Kansans have supposedly been led to do. She specifically mentioned Commissioner Gist as one who seeks to blame teachers as she declares an end to seniority bidding in Rhode Island.

Surprisingly, the AFT president called on history teachers to assign What’s the Matter with Kansas to their students. This seems to feed into the notion that many unionists use their teaching jobs to indoctrinate kids.

Granted Weingarten was speaking to a room filled with her own, but I found it unfortunate that she exempted teachers from any of the blame. For too long, unions have resisted any change in the public school model. Those who attempted to change education from within were ostracized. The birth of the charter school movement is a direct result of this unwillingness to change by unions and bureaucrats. While Weingarten criticized the industrialized education model, it was, and is, her union that has promoted labor-like contracts for teachers.

Weingarten claimed teachers are demonized because they are powerful. “Don’t lost the power, use it.” But how will it be used? Will unions fight to maintain the antiquated public school model that treats teachers as laborers instead of professionals, and fails so many of our nation’s kids? Or will they sit at the table with all those involved and have meaningful dialogue about how to make our schools better for kids? Everything on the table.

Weingarten reveals through her speech what is an essential conflict: teachers unions only play for one team. Teachers unions have become arms of the Democratic party, activists for liberal causes and champions of politicians on the left. By aligning themselves with one side, they have effectively created enemies of the other. And they are major players in the blame game.

If Weingarten and the unions truly want to work cooperatively, they need to stop laying blame. But I fear the unions are not really interested in change; they are interested in defeating the enemy. And so Ms. Weingarten specifically called out Deborah Gist, Governor Carcieri, the Providence Journal, and even President Reagan. She demanded from teachers that they speak loudly and work to maintain their power.

Weingarten talked a lot about teachers. But very little about kids. And in that lies the ultimate problem.

I enjoyed reading Julia Steiny’s take on Commissioner Gist’s decision to end seniority bidding for teachers statewide. I particularly like this challenge.

I challenge the unions to demonstrate, with hard data, how hiring by seniority is in any way beneficial to children, to the quality of education, to the climate of the school community, or indeed to anything the taxpayer imagines they’ve paid for with their hard-earned investment in education. I don’t think regular, hard-working teachers will appreciate the argument that contract law somehow trumps the interests of children.

The union leadership continues to argue that seniority is best practice, despite the fact that no one believes them. Anyone who has worked a day in his or her life knows that longevity is not synonymous with ability.

Our kids deserve the best. So I cannot end my comments any better than Steiny did hers.

to Deborah Gist, Peter McWalters and the Board of Regents who worked with them both to accomplish this: thank-you.