There is a weird dichotomy in American education: many teachers across the country impress upon their students that they must succeed for our nation to remain competitive in a global economy.

But at the same time, teachers unions fear, and downright besmirch, competition.

Competition is what has made America the greatest country in the world.  Capitalist inventors have created new products to make money, not to mention improve society.  Investors have put their money behind products that have great potential.  It’s clear competition improves products and lowers cost.

So why do teachers unions fear competition?

Like the robber barons of the 20^th Century, unions oppose choice because it will likely impact its monopoly on the market.  About 85% of American kids go to traditional public schools – most of which are unionized.

Unions oppose competition among teachers and instead want the same rate of pay for employees, based on years of service, regardless of success or effectiveness.  So the best teacher in the building is paid exactly the same as the worst.  How does that foster improvement?

And lately, the unions have been critical of President Obama’s “Race to the Top” education reform initiative.  Consider American Federation of Teachers’ president Randi Weingarten’s latest press release:

While we encouraged our local and state affiliates to be involved in every aspect of Race to the Top, we have always been troubled that this competition, by its very construct, leaves out millions of students across the country. Rather than picking winners and losers, our education policies should represent a comprehensive approach focused on preparing every student to succeed in college, work and life.

Let’s all hold hands, sing Labor’s favorite song, “Solidarity Forever,” and enjoy the ride on the sinking S.S. Public Education.

Previous AFT leaders have admitted there is a problem, but nobody from that union, or the National Education Association, have ever seemed willing to do anything meaningful about it.  In 1989, AFT president Albert Shanker told this to the Wall Street Journal:

“It’s time to admit that public education operates like a planned economy, a bureaucratic system in which everybody’s role is spelled out in advance and there are few incentives for innovation and productivity. It’s no surprise that our school system doesn’t improve: It more resembles the communist economy than our own market economy.”

So the American public education system is closer to communism than capitalism, thanks to the teachers unions and union-enabling politicians.

It’s no wonder the system is failing in its obligation to educate American kids and prepare them to be future world leaders.  Until the adults in the system realize why they’re there – to serve children – we should expect to see little difference.

Senate Democrats were set to vote on a $10 billion bailout for public schools, claiming all along the measure was “paid for with spending cuts.”  When the Congressional Budget Office revealed it was going to add $5 billion to the deficit, the vote was delayed until Wednesday.

The National Education Association, the biggest beneficiary of the legislation, perpetuated the lie on its website.  The NEA stands to gain about $36 million in dues dollars.

While news reports indicate it could come up again Wednesday, here’s to hoping it won’t see the light of day again.

Americans can ill afford to continue adding to the deficit for a jobs plan that does little for the future and continues funding the status quo.  Public education has become little more than a public works project, throwing good money after bad.

Democrats in Washington are throwing a bone to the teachers unions – a very expensive bone at that – and it should continue to be opposed by sensible Senators from both parties.

Senate Democrats, though, acknowledge this is a bump in the road.  And they’ll continue putting us further in debt however they see fit.  From The Morning Call:

If the Senate can’t get it passed, U.S. Sen. Bob Casey said the chamber would try again until it does.

“It’s likely we’ll have to keep going back to the drawing board and going back to a different way to pass it,” Casey said. Republicans have held it up over concerns about federal spending amid high deficits.

But even if the Senate does get it passed before adjourning for its August recess, the House, which has already left, still needs to take up the bill when it returns in mid-September.

The school year, of course, starts prior to when the House could possibly vote on this, so school personnel decisions would have already been finalized.  So this is little more than a gift to the National Education Association and American Federation of Teachers – financed with money from our children.

Taxpayers should continue fighting against this type of reckless spending with everything we’ve got and force government to live within its means, just as American families have to.

     A recently released study on San Diego schools further erodes the credibility of the well-worn arguments against school reform propagated by the nation’s two largest teachers unions.

     The 53-page report, released by the University of San Diego’s Center for Education Policy and Law, focuses on student performance and the relationship between school quality and spending, tenure, and other factors.

     Here is what the researchers discovered:

     Between 2002 and 2009, school spending for San Diego Unified School District increased by 15.5 percent per student when adjusted for inflation. Yet more Latino fourth-graders passed the National Assessment of Education Progress in 2003 (12 percent) than they did in 2009 (11 percent.) Two thirds or more of the sample of students tested in grades four and eight still are not proficient in math or reading.

     This nugget of information cuts to the core of the fundamental claim by the nation’s teachers unions that more tax dollars create better schools. It’s even more telling given the fact that daily attendance in the school district steadily fell over the seven year period.

     The school district’s general fund expenditures grew in three areas between 2003 and 2009: a 42 percent increase in employee benefits, a 13 percent increase in classified personnel salaries, and a 1 percent increase in certified personnel salaries. Meanwhile, spending on services and other operating expenses fell by 22 percent, and spending on books and supplies fell by 4 percent.

     This seems to indicate that money that is pumped into the system isn’t spent on student services, books or supplies, but instead on labor costs.

     But the most interesting aspect of the report centered on the unions’ sacred cow: tenure.

     Of the school district’s 8,000 teachers, roughly 1,000 are usually in their first or second year of teaching and are not tenured. How many of those teachers are granted tenure, a protection many call a “job for life?”

     In the 2007-08 school year, all untenured teachers passed the bar. In 2006-07, only five were unsatisfactory. In 2005-06, all but three were granted tenure. In 2004-05 only four teachers didn’t make the cut.

     “Over the last four years of the USD study, in other words, more than 99 percent of all new teachers hired by San Diego Unified were found worthy not just of retaining but of providing long-term job protection,” according to a San Diego Union-Tribune editorial. “The report also noted that in 2007-08, just one teacher in the entire district was targeted for termination because of unsatisfactory performance, meaning 99.9875 percent were considered to be doing an acceptable job.

     “We doubt there is a single large organization in the world in which 99.9875 percent of the workers are meeting this standard,” the editorial said.

     Our thoughts exactly.

By Larry Sand

      The Washington D.C. public school system announced Friday that it was letting 241 teachers go – some due to licensing issues, but most due to poor performance.

     Amazingly, firing teachers for poor performance has been almost unheard of since teachers’ unions became a force in public education some 40 years ago. But in a contract essentially brokered by D.C. Chancellor of Public Schools, Michelle Rhee and American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten, there is room for teachers to lose their jobs under the IMPACT program which stipulates that teachers are judged on “classroom observation visits by principals and outside education experts. The system also rates teachers based on their students’ achievement.”

     But now, Washington Teachers Union President George Parker is saying that the IMPACT system is flawed. And Randi Weingarten is saying that “the IMPACT system needed more evaluation itself.” Then why in God’s name did these two union leaders sign off on this in the first place? It seems that Rhee has played by the rules, but now the two union leaders are challenging the agreed upon rules. This is pathetic!

     Then Weingarten made things worse by saying, “”Everyone who teaches gets better with time and gets better with experience, just like ballplayers and others.” Wrong. Only talented ball players get better with time. The bad ones don’t and are soon out of a job. You see, professional sports is a meritocracy where only the good athletes survive and thrive. The bad ones are let go without much ado. This type of meritocratic system, badly needed in public education, owes Michelle Rhee a debt of gratitude for her efforts to bring it about in D.C., with its astronomical per student spending and abysmal record  in student achievement.

     And it is very irresponsible of Weingarten-Parker to start whining about a system that they helped put into place. But given that these two are union leaders and therefore not in the business of making public education better, why am I not surprised?

     It appears the millions of dollars the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers spent electing President Obama and a Democratic Congress is turning out to be a bad investment, because the Democrats in power failed to deliver the $10 billion “education jobs fund” for the unions.

     Even the trimmed amount, originally $23 billion, was more than election-weary Democrats could handle and they removed the pork spending from the Afghanistan appropriations bill.
     According to Politico, the Senate-passed version of the bill, minus the education pork, will now head back to the House, where leaders are anticipating quick passage so troops won’t be left stranded in the battlefield.
     Thank goodness.
     Now the teachers unions will see how the other half lives.  They, and the school districts they strong-arm, will have to made do within their means, just like American families and businesses.
     Previous reports indicated that if the Afghanistan bill strategy failed, Big Labor would seek other methods, such as attaching the public school bailout to the unemployment extension.  That bill has been passed and signed, so that idea has failed, too.  The unions’ “vehicle bill” ideas are growing fewer and fewer as the Congress wraps up legislative work to return home and defend its record.
     Democrats could use this vote as evidence of their willingness to reign in spending.  But, of course, it comes at the expense of one of their biggest campaign funders.

     A new study shows that Oklahoma’s student achievement gains are slow coming, when compared to other states, and highlights the need for more and better education reforms in the Sooner State, particularly for minority and disadvantaged students.
     The study, “Reforms With Results: What Oklahoma Can Learn From Florida’s K-12 Education Revolution,” compares Florida’s strides made in student achievement with the lackluster performance of their peers in Oklahoma.
     The Indiana-based Foundation for Educational Choice, the Oklahoma Business and Education Coalition, and the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs sponsored the eye-opening report, released this week.
     The report’s author, Dr. Matthew Ladner, analyzed data from the National Assessment of Education Progress’s fourth-grade reading test, “a critical measurement of student performance and a great predictor of students’ futures,” he said.
     Here is what he found:
     Florida and 35 other states are outperforming Oklahoma, particularly with regard to minority and disadvantaged students.
     Florida’s Hispanic students, who lagged behind for years, are now scoring higher than the average of all Oklahoma students on the fourth grade reading exam.
     In 1998, Oklahoma students outscored Florida students by 13 points on average. The same test in 2009 showed Florida students scored 9 points higher than their peers in Oklahoma, or nearly a full grade ahead.
     Even more telling is the fact that in the same time frame Hispanic students in the Sooner State improved by 3 points, while Florida’s Hispanic students jumped 25 points on the national reading test.
     Florida students eligible for Free and Reduced-Price Lunch scored 29 points below the average for all Oklahoma students in 1998, but in 2009 those groups were even.
     After a decade of strong progress, Florida’s children with disabilities now score substantially higher than those in Oklahoma.
     So what does it all mean?
     It means that Oklahoma owes its students an explanation, and must dedicate more resources and focus on education reforms that show results.  It may also be a good indication that traditional solutions, like simply pumping more money into the system – as often called for by the state’s teachers union – do little to improve the quality of instruction.
     “Contrary to what some might think, Florida’s progress is not a product of more money, but rather the result of an aggressive series of educational reforms,” said Bill Price, chairman of the Oklahoma School Choice Coalition. “Recently, Oklahoma has adopted some of these reforms, and if Florida is any indication it would be wise to expand them.”
     Oklahoma’s recent reforms include an alternative teacher certification path designed to get more quality teachers into the classroom, as well as an improved charter school law and a private school choice program for students with special needs. The recent study suggests more can be done, said Phyllis Hudecki, executive director of the Oklahoma Business and Education Coalition.
     “Florida’s experience shows that a number of strategies must be employed to raise student achievement levels, especially among disadvantaged youth,” she said. “Just as Florida did, we must look at our own areas in need of improvement and make necessary changes to ensure our students are receiving educations that prepare them for life.”

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