Elections matter. When the Republicans took back the House in 2010, they also captured a number of governorships and legislatures. Two of those Governors (Wisconsin and Michigan) took the radical approach that eliminating teachers’ rights to collectively bargain was the new way to solving all their budget woes (even if, as in Wisconsin they had no budget woes to speak of). And while I know that the GOP has long had it in for teachers and public schools, mostly that was confined to rhetoric at the Republican national conventions every four years.
Not anymore, as w have learned to hard way. Now the Republicans have shown that a radical agenda to destroy public unions, and especially teachers’ unions, is no longer merely a campaign slogan. What was done by Scott Walker in Wisconsin to demonize teachers and public schools is now seen by other Republicans in other states as “policy” whose time as come.
The latest example is Tennessee, where the two houses of the State Legislature are at odds — not over demonizing teachers — but over the extent of the collective bargaining rights those thuggish teachers should retain: none whatsoever (the Tennessee Senate’s plan) or just a few token rights (the Tennessee House of Representatives’ plan): Link from Reuters).
The vote of 59-39 in the House restricts the unions to collective bargaining only on pay and benefits. The bill does not allow collective bargaining on working conditions and matters dealing with performance, such as classroom assignments and bonus pay.
The Senate voted 18-14 on May 1 to repeal a 1978 law that required school boards to engage in collective bargaining with teachers’ unions. Instead, all bargaining would be handled by local teachers and their school boards, according to the bill.
Here’s the money quote (if you’re interested ) from Republican House Representative Debra Maggart (please resist the urge to read her name without that r in it):
… Republican sponsor Debra Maggart emphasized that teachers are Tennessee’s only public workers to have the “privilege” of collective bargaining.
And that “privilege” is obviously one to which they aren’t entitled, just like firefighters and air traffic controllers and any other workers in the land of the free. Indeed, according to the Reuters article the Republicans main talking point is that eliminating collective bargaining rights for teachers was all about “the kids,” as in “If we can only cut those nasty, evil teacherbots away from their education sapping union overlords education in Tennessee (and presumably everywhere else in this greatest of great countries) would magically improve overnight.”
Yes, that makes so much sense. It will be so easy to attract intelligent, passionate, hard working, bright people to teach our “kids” if only states can make their working conditions a living hell, increase their hours and limit their ability to practice their profession to the best of their ability. I know I’d sign up for that job after going onto thousands of dollars of debt to finance my education, and then I’d stick around for years at a job that disrespected my work ethic and abilities, forced me to work endless extra hours without compensation and forced me to teach kids not how to think for themselves and learn how to acquire new skills process new information once they became adults but only how to pass standardized tests. Sounds like a dream job, doesn’t it?
After all, wasn’t it the teacher unions and their “collective bargaining privileges” that resulted in overcompensated teachers the main reason “our kids isn’t learning?” Well — not exactly. In fact when you compare what US teachers are paid compared to what teachers are paid in other developed countries you find that our teachers, the ones Republicans love to hate on, are swimming in the shallow end of the wage and benefits pool. Check out this graph from a 2008 study by The Economic Policy Institute
Or, of you would prefer the textual analysis that explains the above graph, well, here it is:
A recent study by McKinsey and Co. argues that good starting salaries are an essential ingredient for getting the right people to become teachers.1 Though people who enter teaching often cite a number of reasons, surveys find that unless school systems offer salaries commensurate with that on offer in other career opportunities, the teaching profession will not attract equivalent candidates. The McKinsey study shows that starting salaries in the United States are much lower than in other Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries …
In South Korea and Germany, starting salaries for teachers are about 141% of per capita GDP, while the figure for the United States is only 81%. In fact, all countries in this sample pay their teachers a significantly higher relative wage as a starting salary compared to the United States.
Not surprisingly, American kids (15 year-olds in this instance) rank only 14th for reading skills, 17th in science and a dismal 27th in math out of the 34 countries in the OECD based on the 2010 rankings by OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). Only eight of those nations have a lower high school graduation rate than the United States. Oh and then there’s this statistic:
The United States has also fallen behind in the percentage of 15-year-olds who are enrolled in school, ranking third from bottom of the OECD countries, above only Mexico and Turkey.
Quite an accomplishment. We only beat out Mexico and Turkey in the number of kids enrolled in school. And from the list above, Hong Kong, The Netherlands, South Korea and Finland mop the floor with the US, ranking in the top ten in all three categories (reading, science and math). Australia also ranks in the top ten in science and math. Canada (not in the chart above) ranks in the top ten in all three categories. Canadian salaries are slightly lower on average than US teacher salaries, but then they receive universal single payer health care, which no teacher (or anyone else) in America receives.
So basically the US sucks at education. Yet, somehow this is all the fault of our underpaid teachers and their unions? That’s what our union-busting Republican friends would have you believe, but the data suggests to me that in a country that already pays teacher’s less than our economic competitors, further cutting teacher salaries and benefits isn’t the magic pony for improving the educational achievements of our children that the Republicans are promising us it will be. Quite the opposite, in fact.
Our teachers work longer hours for less pay than any other developed country. LINK:
American teachers spend on average 1,080 hours teaching each year. Across the O.E.C.D., the average is 794 hours on primary education, 709 hours on lower secondary education, and 653 hours on upper secondary education general programs.
Considering the long hours our teachers work, the shrinking salaries they receive and the soul destroying conditions under which many of them work, it doesn’t seem fair or accurate to blame all of America’s educational woes on teachers and their unions. Yet that is what Republicans, the conservative movement and their wealthy, right ring financial sponsors are telling the American people.
And Republican politicians across the country are beating that drum as loud as they can. Today,Tennessee’s teachers are under attack and they are losing the battle. Tomorrow it could be your state. And, despite what these slicksters on the right claim, destroying teachers and making their working lives even more miserable is not the answer to our educational crisis. Destroying our public school system and replacing it with one run by corporations who would make our teachers serfs and damage the educational opportunities of our youth while skimming profits from the taxes we pay is not the answer.
I don’t know if I have all the answers but I sure know that our teachers and strong teacher unions aren’t the problem. If anything they are a large part of the solution. Because until we raise the status of teachers, until we make the teaching profession a desirable and fulfilling career again, until we stop forcing our teachers to work under conditions that you and I would abhor unless we were paid a whole helluva lot more money, we will continue to see the quality of our educational system decline. And no amount of Republican politicians, Tea Party extremists, wealthy Right Wing ideologues, and Corporate Privatization Profiteers will convince me otherwise.
