Things We Thought We'd Never See: Democrats Rally Against the Teachers' Unions! I went to the Ed Challenge for Change event mainly to schmooze. I almost didn't stay for the panels, being in no mood for what I expected would, even among these reformers, be an hour of vague EdBlob talk about "change" and "accountability" and "resources" that would tactfully ignore the elephant in the room, namely the teachers' unions. I was so wrong. One panelist--I think it was Peter Groff, president of the Colorado State Senate, got the ball rolling by complaining that when the children's agenda meets the adult agenda, the "adult agenda wins too often." Then Cory Booker of Newark attacked teachers unions specifically--and there was applause. In a room of 500 people at the Democratic convention! "The politics are so vicious," Booker complained, remembering how he'd been told his political career would be over if he kept pushing school choice, how early on he'd gotten help from Republicans rather than from Democrats. The party would "have to admit as Democrats we have been wrong on education." Loud applause! Mayor Adrian Fenty of D.C. joined in, describing the AFT's attempt to block the proposed pathbreaking D.C. teacher contract. Booker denounced "insane work rules," and Groff talked about doing the bidding of "those folks who are giving money [for campaigns], and you know who I'm talking about." Yes, they did!
As Jon Alter, moderating the next panel, noted, it was hard to imagine this event happening at the previous Democratic conventions. (If it had there would have been maybe 15 people in the room, not 500.) Alter called it a "landmark" future historians should note. Maybe he was right.
The problem with teacher's unions is inherent in the way that Democrats talk about unions: by banding together, they say, you create a powerful counterweight equal and opposite to the power of the companies in negotiations.
So the schools have a gigantic, powerful bargaining bloc. Who doesn't have a bargaining bloc? The kids.
Of course, the customers of corporations don't bargain with unions either--but they have the right of exit, which is what prevents the unions (or their corporate bosses) from turning them upside down and shaking them until the last nickel falls out of their pockets. Unsurprisingly, the schools in this country that function worst are the ones where the kids have no realistic ability to exit. So for whom are those schools run? The teacher's unions, the principal's unions, the janitor's unions, the friends and relations of people with seats on the school board. The children have the least powerful voice. Which is why, as far as I can tell, every single thing that is proposed by any of these groups "for the children" has the primary side effect of employing more teachers/janitors/principals, paying same more, or making their jobs more pleasant.
Moreover, if you talk to reformers in urban schools--ardent Democrats all!--every single one of them will say that they can't get anything done with the unions blocking them. Nor are they merely looking for an excuse. They always come armed with ample, and chilling, cases in point.
One example: extraordinary principals can make a big difference in urban schools. Joel Klein offered a proposal to give principals sizeable "hazard pay" bonuses of tens of thousands of dollars a year to transfer to the most severely underperforming schools in the district. The principal's union blocked it. Why? The principals wouldn't accrue pension benefits on the extra pay.
So what? any sane person would have asked (and indeed, my understanding is that Joel Klein did just that). The transfer was entirely voluntary. The principals would be sacrificing nothing, and indeed, getting extra money. But the principal's union shut it down.
On the face of it, this seems incomprehensible: a union turning down a deal that gave some of their members more money, and none of their members less money, and might well turn around some failing schools. Was this for the kids? No. Was it even for the principals involved? Again, no. It's hard to avoid the conclusion that this was about protecting the underperforming principals--making sure no Johnny-come-lately transferred into their school and demonstrated that you could, so, improve the place. After all, a union's job is to act as if its membership is, save for objective (and usually almost useless) credentials like seniority and education degrees, entirely interchangeable. Musn't imply that some of the cogs are better than others.
This should not happen. And certainly, it should not be a policy priority to give these unions the power to make it happen, as it most certainly is for the Democratic party right now. Leave aside the question of whether unions are just and right in other fields. Education is too important, and in this country, too screwed up, to tolerate this kind of rent seeking.
Mickey Kaus? Seriously? Maybe you should look at Republicans and their anti-education agenda. They hate science after all.
"Who doesn't have a bargaining bloc? The kids."
Sure they do. The kids' voting block is called the parents. Two problems you have in 'urban*' schools are:
1) There are roughly half as many parents per student as in 'good' schools.
2) Most of the parents don't care that much about their kids' educations.
*"Urban" is a silly euphemism because your former colleague Matt Yglesias's alma mater, Dalton, is an "urban" school and yet that's not the sort of school we are talking about here. We are talking about schools where most of the kids are black and or Latino.
"They hate science after all."
I love how liberals are so proud of themselves for kicking out the creation story that was the founding stone of Christian morality -- it's not like the teachings and fellowship of the church ever helped black folks! They're much better off believing that morality is relative and humans are soulless apes. Black illegitimacy rates and their rate of throwing their babies in dumpsters may have shot up, but at least we have all those black scientists we wouldn't have if evolution weren't being taught in our schools.
It's hard to avoid the conclusion that this was about protecting the underperforming principals.
Well, this does raise the pretty natural question: what was supposed to happen to the principals who were unseated?
What if, as it happens, they were actually decent principals in a tough situation?
Eldon Smith wrote: "Mickey Kaus? Seriously? Maybe you should look at Republicans and their anti-education agenda. They hate science after all."
This is dead on. Mickey Kaus is a union busting shill. And don't get me started on the Repiglicans - I wouldn't want to offend the delicate sympathies of Dumbya's last remaining supporters.
"2) Most of the parents don't care that much about their kids' educations."
But, why don't they care? What can be done to make them care? Why do they have such a hard time understanding how much better being educated will make their lives?
Brad, I frankly don't think that anyone's priority with a failing school should be the fate of its fairly well-paid principal
What's wrong here? Each student theroetically has, counting grandparents, a three to one voting advantage over his teacher and their spouse. And there are, let's say, twenty students per teacher.
Then there are all the voters out there with no kids but who are fed up with ever-increasing school taxes. There must be a ton of apathy, or support for the teachers, to keep in power the legislators that allow the teachers' unions to
carry such power.
So is Jim Keane the real MLaJ, or is he one of MLaJ's many impostors?
I vote for the former.
Brad L:
It is probably true that the union had a legitimate interest in protecting those principals. But the goal of the policy, as described by Megan, was to move extraodinary principals into those schools under the (not unreasonable) belief that those principals could make a large difference in the quality of those schools. Assuming for the moment that there is merit to this belief (which is outside the scope of my knowledge), it is unreasonable for the interest of the principal's union in protecting those handful of jobs to prevail as a policy matter over the long-term education quality of the students. This is even more the case if, as is likely, most (or almost all) of the displaced principals would subsequently be able to find jobs at other schools.
The conclusion - which should not be terribly controversial - is that the interests of the principal's union (or the teacher's union, etc.) are not co-extensive with the interests of the students. Put another way, the first priority of any union is to protect its members (and there is nothing wrong with this; it is, indeed the entire raison d'etre of organized labor just as a business' first priority is to protect its ability to compete), not those who receive the fruits of the union's labor.
"But, why don't they care? What can be done to make them care? Why do they have such a hard time understanding how much better being educated will make their lives?"
Why don't they care? Maybe because they never liked school much themselves, and they've managed to get by without much education, thanks to various forms of public assistance. What can be done to make them care? Nothing.
"I vote for the former."
Good guess, chuckles.
Always good for a depressing read:
How to Fire an Incompetent Teacher
Brad, I frankly don't think that anyone's priority with a failing school should be the fate of its fairly well-paid principal
That should only be true if you are assuming, arguendo, that the principal is the reason that the school is failing. That is, a competent principal may still be leading a failing school. I'd even go so far as to say that you can recruit a superstar, see some improvement, and still not necessarily conclude that the previous guy was incompetent. Just not a superstar.
So, yeah, I do think it is appropriate for the union to be concerned with what happens to state employees if they are getting tossed aside on a hypothesis - especially when they can't exactly just go next door to another company and resume their career. After all, you could just as easily sweep out a whole bunch of teachers on the same sort of guess about making improvements. That sort of basic protection seems like the whole point of the union.
Now, if those guys were properly taken care of, then I agree that this is just obstructionism.
BradL,
The old principal would be transferred out to another school - under the union contract you can't fire principals except for cause, which doesn't include mere poor performance of your assigned school. So at most, the replaced principal is a bit put out; he doesn't lose his job. And frankly, the whole problem is that principals don't want to teach in bad schools and routinely transfer out of them once they have adequate seniority - that's why the incentives were being proposed in the first place.
Good guess, chuckles.
It wasn't a guess, it was a resume-booster for my mid-life career change into suspect document examination.
There are things done and supported by teachers unions that are in the interest of the greater educational good and others things that are not. I’m glad to see the party divorce its support from the union as a whole so that individual ideas can be debated. However, as long as the culture of blighted rural and urban areas contains an aversion to working toward academic success, the failing school issue will remain.
"Which is why, as far as I can tell, every single thing that is proposed by any of these groups "for the children" has the primary side effect of employing more teachers/janitors/principals, paying same more, or making their jobs more pleasant."
Replace 'children' with 'patients' and 'teachers', et al with 'nurses' and you've pretty much described the Canadian medical system.
Rob,
I don't think that there is much argument about the point of the union. The union is acting very much in a way that we would expect.
I think the point here is that in acting in their interest they are harming education. The point of the teachers union, principles union, etc. has nothing to do with the education of children and everything to do with protecting their members. Fair enough, but public education is different by not allowing its customers to choose a better alternative when quality suffers.
Let's say for arguments sake that changing to 'star' principles would improve 30% of schools, hurt 10% with the rest staying the same. How do we balance the rights of a small number of principles vs. hundreds or thousands of kids. If we're talking about 10 schools with 1,000 students each, we'd be talking about 7 principles that got 'screwed', but a net of 2,000 children better educated. No bad...
So, yeah, I do think it is appropriate for the union to be concerned with what happens to state employees if they are getting tossed aside on a hypothesis
I don't think anyone disputes that union is doing its job in protecting all its members. The dispute is that the union's interests (protecting its members) is not the same as the public interest (educating kids), yet too many people seem to think that what's good for the teacher's union must be good for the students.
Their interests may sometimes overlap, but they are not generally the same.
Keep shifting the principals, making the classes larger or smaller, start teaching "whole word" reading, stop teaching "whole word" reading, moving away from standardized testing because it stifles creativity, move towards standardized testing because it will force "underperforming" schools to do better, etc.
Black people have an average IQ of 85.
White people have an average IQ of 100.
Northeast Asian people have an average IQ of 105.
People identified in this country as Hispanic have an average IQ of 90.
You will never never never get the results you think you should get until these facts are acknowledged. "Gee, why do schools in the suburbs do better than those in the inner city? Must be the class size. Must be the newness of the books. Must be the parent teacher conferences." Repeat until the end of time while the teachers union gets paid and people from the Columbia School of Education get their PhDs.
What's wrong here? Each student theroetically has, counting grandparents, a three to one voting advantage over his teacher and their spouse. And there are, let's say, twenty students per teacher....
I'm a parent of three in NYC. Where do I get to vote on education policy here? Tell me.
I certainly would like to exercise my "theoretical" voting advantage, but until there is some opportunity to actually vote ...
BTW, the NYC Council last year passed a campaign finance reform bill, "the toughest in the nation", that strictly cracks down on campaign contributions and lobbying by private citizens -- like, oh, parents -- but exempts ... guess who?... from the rules.
Yes, you guessed right, the government workers' unions!
"The City Council speaker, Christine C. Quinn ... has repeatedly drawn a distinction between unions negotiating with the city for better pay and benefits, and [others] vying for lucrative land deals or government contracts." NYT, 6/28/07
(So we see that a goverment contract with a union isn't a government contract!)
And guess who is the #1 campaign contributor and biggest spending lobbyist in NYS. Why ... the teachers union!
Thus, as a parent not only do I have no vote on education matters, but I am even prohibited from trying to bribe politicians on equal terms with the schools unions -- only unions now can legally buy politicians!
This is perhaps why the headquarters of the NY City teachers union is located in Albany 120 miles out of the city, across the street from the State Legislature Building -- the union leaders want to stay close to the most valuable property they own, and the place where they conduct their real business.
Mickey Kaus is a union busting shill.
Normally I don't repost the same link in different comments, but as even NYC teachers (like the author here) and indeed even a growing number of Democrats generally are beginning to realize, some unions fully deserve to be busted.
"Black people have an average IQ of 85.
White people have an average IQ of 100.
Northeast Asian people have an average IQ of 105.
People identified in this country as Hispanic have an average IQ of 90."
Ok. I'll take the bait. What's the methodology for this study?
Steve Johnson -
Black people have an average IQ of 85.
White people have an average IQ of 100.
Northeast Asian people have an average IQ of 105.
People identified in this country as Hispanic have an average IQ of 90.
This is pretty explicitly a racist explanation. While I'm willing to consider such explanations if none others suffice, how would you address the Flynn effect, which has caused the racial gap in America to increasingly narrow?
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect
The existence of such an effect seems to argue that non-genetic effects are the primary cause of racial IQ gaps.
"Ok. I'll take the bait. What's the methodology for this study?"
That data comes from the National Longitudinal Study of Youth, a federally administered study with literally millions of data points, each data point being an IQ test.
What Steve wrote about average IQs is completely uncontroversial among intelligence experts and has been known for years.
See, for example, Mainstream Science on Intelligence.
"While I'm willing to consider such explanations if none others suffice, how would you address the Flynn effect, which has caused the racial gap in America to increasingly narrow?"
The Flynn effect has never actually narrowed any racial gaps, merely moved the nominal scores on IQ tests higher.
See this article for more detail:
http://www.vdare.com/sailer/060423_lynn.htm
"This is pretty explicitly a racist explanation."
So you'd rather keep trying things that will never work but will waste money and time because reality is racist? Interesting. Personally, I'd rather we acknowledge the facts as they are and do the best we can by the left half of the bell curve rather than our current policy of "screw those of below average intelligence in practice but give them the 'service' of never talking about how some people are of below average intelligence".
"The existence of such an effect seems to argue that non-genetic effects are the primary cause of racial IQ gaps."
No, actually it doesn't. First of all, the Flynn effect hasn't caused a narrowing of IQ gaps between races. Second, even if it did, that wouldn't argue against genetic explanations. Take height for example. Japanese people today are taller than they were in 1900 but it's still pretty clear that the difference in height between the Japanese and the Dutch is mainly genetic.
Good employees would tend not to need a union to negotiate wages etc, so I would expect that the group that most needs and hence most supports unions would be the mediocre or sub-mediocre, and therefore the unions would tend to pander to that base.
Which is why I'm not suprised that teachers unions generally oppose incentives and rewards for good teachers and measuring the performance of schools and teachers.
Take height for example. Japanese people today are taller than they were in 1900 but it's still pretty clear that the difference in height between the Japanese and the Dutch is mainly genetic.
The thing is, there's actual scientific evidence for this. Genetically determined differences in intelligence between races, not so much.
I don't see any actual links or quotes from primary sources, so . . . I view this with my usual suspicion of people who have partisan axes to grind and who don't aren't particularly inspired to go digging if what they hear (or think they hear) from a third party matches their preconceptions.
My guess is that this was given the thumbs down for the same reasons that 'accountability' reforms almost always get the thumbs down: it's the usual Trojan horse to get some leverage on an opponent that they don't legally have. Any links to the real story?
Steve Jonson: You will never never never get the results you think you should get until these facts are acknowledged.
I am not sure of the relevance of acknowledging that set of points. Individuals vary all over the place in terms of IQ. Even Asian, PhD-educated parents who breastfed occasionally get kids who, to be non-PC, are just dumb. Surely kids should be educated as individuals, not as representatives of a class?
There's a few curriculum that show a track record of being able to reach even the low-IQ kids, regardless of race, the chief one being Direct Instruction, http://www.projectpro.com/ICR/Research/DI/Summary.htm. I favour using the Direct Instruction curriculum to teach everyone reading and mathematics (or another curriculum if that shows better results on a test similar to Project Followthrough), but if people think it is really really important to reduce achievement gaps then we could use Direct Instruction for the low-IQ kids and the normal mish-mash for everyone else.
The more I think about it, the more I'm puzzled as to why you think that set of facts should be acknowledged. You seem to be placing an awful lot of emphasis on relative group achievement, as opposed to individual achievement. I think that schools should be focusing on improving each kids' performance, regardless of race.
If only there were some mechanism to match incentives with desired outcomes...
Economists really ought to start thinking about this problem.
Aric,
Great link - here's a similar one:
John Stossel, How to Fire an Incompetent Teacher
replete with fab graphic by Terry Colon (PDF)
Choice excerpt:
Megan - the system blocked my response, repeatedly. I tried removing all the links. No go.
the problem is the oprah effect in the schools. how is it that we celebrate a group of people who are failing our children and not teaching them? teachers should be held to one standard: did the child learn the curriculum completely. teachers are PAID to teach the children and that means the children actually learn the material. what i finally realized with my children was that the material was being pushed at them so that the teacher could say they taught it, and then blame the child and parent. in fact, the material was presented but not taught. also, and here is the easy answer. every child can be tested on entrance to the next grade to see if they have actually LEARNED the material. if they have not, the previous teacher/s should be fired. every teacher must be held accountable. the current teaching organization is simply a holding pattern for teachers go get to retirement and to heck with the kids. twenty years and they have great retirement! when a child can't read, every teacher knows that, but they keep passing the kids on so that the kid is not THEIR PROBLEM. this creates hostile kids. also, the society must be held responsible. the vile adults running the entertainment industry should be held accountable for the images, sounds and role models they send to the kids. boycott madonna. she loves to be the deliverer of the drug but protects her own children. that tells you something.
Posted by rjdaisy | September 1, 2008 12:46 PM
Exactly at what point do we hold the student accountable, you want to blame the teacher for not teaching. How blaming the student for not learning, it is a two way street here. Sure there are some teachers that dont teach very well, however there are just as many students who have no desire to be in school and arent learning, how is that the teachers fault. The biggest factor in a childs education is the parent plain and simple, when are we going to hold them accountable?