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Potomac Crossings --By George Mason
School Choice A major campaign issue is education. Almost all reform proposals emphasize student, teacher and parent accountability. Most allow parent’s a degree of flexibility. What prevents parents from effectively exercising school choice? Primarily, it is the combined influence of the two largest teacher’s unions – the National Education Association (NEA) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT). Although internal turf battles and power squabbles have prevented a formal union of the two groups, together they are the largest union in the world. In his book The Teacher Unions, Myron Lieberman estimates that they represent more than three million employees, including 80 percent of public school teachers. Together with their state and local affiliates they collect more than $1.3 billion in annual dues and employ a full-time staff of 6,000, half of which draw salaries in excess of $100,000. Their political action committees (PACs) and foundations spend $100 million annually. The two unions dominate the National Congress of Parents and Teachers, often known locally as the PTA and speak for them on almost all occasions. The NEA alone budgets more than $23 million annually to throw up legal challenges to legislation they oppose. The U.S. labor movement has been in a state of decline for 40 years. Private sector union membership peaked in 1970 at about 17 million. By 1995, it had declined to 9.7 million, or about 10.7 percent of the non-agricultural private sector labor force. Since 1961, however, NEA membership has grown from 766,000 to 2.2 million. The $250 billion public education industry behaves precisely like any other protected monopoly, according to the Manhattan Institute. Their studies indicate that public monopolies protect the status quo, define productivity limits such as work rules, and influence elected officials who regulate their industry. Union contracts set up uniform pay scales and seniority rights, limit work hours and require that new teachers be automatically enrolled in the union with their dues deducted from their paychecks. The key to union success is their sophistication in local and state education politics. They can block the appointments of high-level educators and, once-appointed, these same public education managers need the union lobbying effort to get measures and funds passed by local and state legislatures. Thereby, the union representatives become a part of the permanent government, according to Sol Stern, writing in the City Journal. As with any monopoly, public or private, the end result is the protection of incompetent workers, the accumulation of outdated work rules and the assurance that teachers will not be held accountable, hired, paid or promoted on the basis of individual skills and certainly won’t be fired for incompetence. Evaluations of performance in the classroom are subordinated to seniority and the accumulation of school of education certificates. Journalist Samuel Freedman, in his book Small Victories, states "the education system cannot function without the union’s assent." For decades, the union program has consisted of recommendations to increase spending per pupil, reduce the pupil-teacher ratio and improve facilities. Between 1965 and today, spending per pupil nationwide has risen from about $2,400 per pupil to about $7,000 per pupil. The average ratio has been reduced from 24.1 to 17.3. The median years of experience has risen from eight to 15. Teachers salaries have been rising at about 20 percent per decade in real dollars. Hours worked range from 30-45 hours per week for 36 weeks. These are laudable union goals, well met. What of the children? During that same time period average public school SAT scores have dropped by 10 percent and, in fact, the calculating method was revised downward. Dropout rates in urban schools have increased. American students score near the bottom in comparison with other industrialized nations. Home schoolers top public school pupils in the ACT admission tests and regularly win national contests. Their performance raises the question – if unaccredited parents can teach successfully, why can’t accredited teachers do the same? Dr. Eric Hanushek, of the University of Rochester, a leading education economist recently concluded that "There appears to be no strong or systematic relationship between school expenditures and student performance." The Thomas B. Fordham Foundation examined the shortage of qualified teachers and found that making new teacher’s jump through bureaucratic hoops was futile. The authors state that "the imposed educational standards have no bearing whatsoever on the quality or effectiveness of new teachers." However, William Sanders of the University of Tennessee reports that teacher quality has a profound effect on student test scores, adding as much as 50 percentile points. This finding has sparked efforts to find ways, such as peer-review, to effectively gauge performance in the classroom. As expected, the efforts are opposed by the unions. The characteristics of all monopolies are the same. There is no economic danger to either side if there is or is not competency, productivity or favorable results because a dissatisfied customer has nowhere else to go. To preserve the monopoly, all alternatives (potential or real competitors) must be stopped. Thus the two major unions form the principle opposition to school choice. Their weapon is to oppose any use of public funds for any kind of private schooling. Their arguments are always the same - any change would: (1) further the demise of public education, (2) help the rich and hurt the poor, (3) increase racial and economic separatism, (4) violate the separate powers doctrine derived from the constitution and (5) promote extremism instead of socialization. The two unions are consistently and adamantly opposed to competition in their labor markets and to any policy that would shrink the market for their services. They oppose "trial or demonstration projects" and vehemently attack them. They are opposed to vouchers, tuition tax credits, outsourcing contracts, home schooling, charter schools, after-school activity participation by home school students and every proposal to distinguish and compensate superior teaching performance. They are adamantly against uniform test evaluations of students and/or qualifications testing for teachers and knowledge re-certification. They even oppose the use of idle public buildings for charter school activities. In addition to public education, the two unions are major players in the Democratic Party, as pro-voucher Senator Joe Lieberman quickly found out. A California judge recently determined that the state NEA affiliate spent only half of its dues income on activities related to collective bargaining. The other half was spent on left-wing electoral politics, lobbying and general advocacy for all kinds of social, educational and political causes. In the 1996 election, teacher’s unions contributed over $9 million to Bill Clinton through their PACs. That was not nearly as important as soft money, independent media buys, volunteer campaign workers paid with union dues, and in-kind services such as phone banks and direct mail advertising campaigns. Estimates are that the NEA and AFT spent more than $50 million compared to the $35 million spent by the AFL-CIO. The union leadership generally finds itself isolated to the left of its members and the party core. It is not likely that it can preserve its elitist monopoly forever. The high tech wave is here. America will not prove willing to condemn a significant portion of its youth to a lifetime of low or no economic expectations just in order to preserve elite privilege, seniority and ancient protective work rules. Even the private sector unions have come around to recognizing performance standards. The teacher’s union reform movement, based on accountability, will continue to grow. The current public monopoly has proven that it is not a system that can deliver for either the student or the taxpayer. It "delivers" for its own elite and pandering politicians willing to step on our children’s future. ### |
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