With
budget cuts looming, workers in every state are under attack. In
particular, public sector workers are being scapegoated as state
governments try to deflect peoples’ growing frustrations with
budget shortfalls away from the banking and corporate interests that
caused them. Governors and mayors are threatening layoffs, and in a
few states like Wisconsin and Ohio, the very right of public sector
unions to bargain collectively is being challenged.
As
part of the attack on public sector workers, teachers’ unions are
coming doubly under fire. They are not only being blamed for bloating
state and city budgets, they are also being demonized in the media as
obstacles to education reform.
In
Idaho and Indiana, politicians are proposing legislation that would
limit teachers’ collective bargaining to wages and benefits,
keeping them out of the debate on reform issues like evaluation
systems, testing and charter school expansions. In Tennessee, state
lawmakers are seeking to abolish collective bargaining al together.
In Utah, state senator Howard Stephenson is working on a bill to
connect tenure, in Utah termed “career status,” to performance on
standardized tests.
This
most recent wave of attacks on the state level comes on the tails of
the federal Race to the Top initiative. Race to the Top, the $4.35
billion stimulus package devoted to education, provided a monetary
incentive for states across the country to build anti-union measures
into their education laws. States with a defined cap on the number of
charter schools, or any law prohibiting the linking of teacher pay to
students’ test scores, would not be eligible for the desperately
needed money.
Since
the introduction of the initiative, Austin, Texas, and Jefferson
County, Colo., introduced test-score-based pay, while California and
Indiana enacted test
score-based
evaluation systems for teachers and principals. New York and
Wisconsin are currently considering similar legislation.
Illinois,
Louisiana and Tennessee lifted charter school caps, effectively
expanding the number of non-union teaching positions, while
Connecticut, Delaware, Indiana, Ohio and Rhode Island enacted laws to
“preserve and strengthen” charter schools, effectively protecting
existing non-union teaching positions. California, Idaho, New York,
Massachusetts, Michigan, and North Carolina are considering similar
legislation.
A
top-down reform movement
Why
are Pres. Obama and Arne Duncan, sSecretary of eEducation, so eager
to promote these measures? Why are unions being portrayed as the
enemy? The answer lies in the very nature of the so-called education
reform movement, which is not grassroots in character. It is top-down
and corporate, largely dominated by three billionaire families and
their sprawling, tax-sheltered foundations.
The
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (established by Bill Gates, founder
of Microsoft), the Edythe and Eli Broad Foundation (established by
Eli Broad, founder of Sun-America) and the Walton Family Foundation
(established by Sam Walton, founder of Walmart) have poured billions
of dollars in grants and donations into virtually every facet of the
movement including charter schools, public school reorganization,
teacher and administrator training, education consultants, and public
relations and advocacy over the last 10 years.
In
2007, the Walton Family Foundation gave $82 million to charter
schools and $26 million to school-choice programs, while its total
number of grants directed toward public schools totaled less than
$20,000. The Gates Foundation, with assets of almost $30 billion,
began its venture into education reform with the goal of
restructuring large public high schools into smaller “academies”
with fewer than 400 students.
Between
2000 and 2009, the Gates Foundation poured $2 billion into
restructuring the nation’s high schools, despite data coming out as
early as 2005 from the Gates Foundation’s own contracted research
organizations (the American Institute for Research and SRI
International) that the restructuring was not resulting in any
significant gains in student achievement.
Additionally,
the Broad Foundation has invested millions of dollars in charter
schools and management organizations, training programs for teachers
and administrators that bypass traditional certification programs,
advocacy groups for charter schools and school choice,
pay-for-performance programs, and public relations for the New York
City Department of Education.
In
2007, the day before the Democratic Party presidential debates, Gates
and Broad announced that they would jointly invest in a $60 million
campaign to get both political parties to back their foundations’
education reform goals. We can see the impact of that investment in
the Race to the Top initiative. In addition to funding the campaign
that put the initiative on the legislative agenda, the Gates
Foundation also offered $250,000 worth of consulting to each state
that was applying for the federal money.
Although
the three foundations are distinct entities, their principles are
aligned around the same market-based concepts: privatization, choice,
competition, deregulation and monetary incentives. Their initiatives
are not based on solid educational research or meaningful
collaboration with communities, but on the belief that the free
market and competition can solve all ills.
One
need only to look at the recent Wall Street bailouts to know that
deregulation and free markets solve nothing. Despite the failures of
many of their initiatives, the “Big Three” continue to operate
due to the massive amounts of money they are able to invest.
Teachers’ unions have been one of the few organizations that have
been able to check the scope and reach of these corporate giants, and
so the “reform movement” wants them out of the way.
The
bottom line is it is much easier to blame teachers and the
organizations that represent them than to take on the true culprits
for low achievement in the United States—racism and poverty.
The
real culprits: racism and poverty
The
2006 research conducted by the Program in International Student
Assessment found the United States ranking 29th of 40 developed
nations in science, and 35th in mathematics.
However,
a more detailed look at the data reveals how racial and economic
inequality in the U.S. impacts these scores. When looking only at
white and Asian students, the U.S. scores above average for
industrialized nations. In contrast, when African-American and Latino
students are included, the U.S. drops to the bottom of the rankings.
Additionally,
the U.S. ranks 45th out of 55 nations for having one of the largest
gaps in test scores between rich and poor students. This should come
as no surprise given that the wealthiest school districts in the
United States spend nearly 10 times the amount per pupil as the
poorest districts.
Although
numerous studies show correlations between poverty, racism and
academic achievement, there is absolutely no data or research linking
low student performance to the existence of a teachers’ union or the
tenure system of the district. Despite this, the media and
politicians continue to frame up unions and their tenure systems as
obstacles to change.
However,
Finland, a nation with an almost 100 percent unionized teaching force
has the highest reading scores of any industrialized nation. Southern
states, which traditionally have weaker or non-existent teacher’s
unions, also have the lowest student achievement on state tests.
(Ravitch, 2009)
Tenure:
a right to due process
In
particular, the right to a due process, called “tenure,” under
allegations of misconduct or incompetence is being challenged in
several states. Many states are seeking to tie tenure to test scores
or eliminate it altogether, because they claim it protects
ineffective teachers. Contrary to popular belief, tenure does not
guarantee teachers a job for life. It simply prevents them from being
arbitrarily dismissed by their supervisors. It does not prevent
teachers from being fired if charges of misconduct or incompetence
are found to be true.
The
fight for tenure and pay schedules stems from a long history of
teachers being fired or denied equal treatment for arbitrary reasons
such as political views, race or gender. During World War I, early
teachers’ unions had to fight against the dismissal of pacifist
teachers.
African
American teachers were systematically paid less than their white
counterparts or dismissed by predominantly white school boards. One
of the first battles of the American Federation of Teachers as an
official union was the fight for equal pay on racial lines.
In
New York City, the Board of Education routinely dismissed female
teachers for getting married, until teachers’ organizations
challenged it. Then the BOE began dismissing teachers for having
children, and again, it was teachers’ organizations that eliminated
this practice. (Ravitch, 2009)
The
due process protected by tenure was a right the unions had to fight
for after decades of teachers being arbitrary dismissed, and that
right must continue to be protected.
Organized
labor fights back
The
real engineers of the recent state budget crises are not the public
sector unions, but the unregulated financial interests that have been
bailed out and kept afloat with public money. The true culprits of
low student achievement in the United States are not the teachers and
their unions but the racism and inequality that plague every
institution in this society.
Teachers
from Wisconsin to Ohio are standing up with the rest of the labor
movement and pointing the finger back where it squarely belongs.
Public and private sector unions alike, students, and unionized
working people have come together in Wisconsin and now Ohio to
protect the rights of workers to organize themselves. Educators
should not be excluded from this right.
As
the momentum builds from these mass actions in the Midwest, teachers
and other workers across the country will stand in solidarity and
raise the banner for quality public education for all and the right
to unionize.
