State Teachers Fail the Test of Real Reform

For all the dozens of labor organizations that spent tens of millions to help Bill Clinton claw his way up the greasy pole of reelection, none historically has deeper hooks into Bubba-Man than America’s teachers unions. From the 1992 Democratic National Convention, where they controlled one-eighth of all votes, to the fall campaign against George Bush, the National Education Assn. and its affiliates never wavered. They were, and are still, the ultimate Friends of Bill.

So when each partner of this marriage of love as well as convenience critiques public education, it gets our attention.

Item: Speaking last month to the delegates at a national Latino convention, Clinton said of affirmative action students: “They could have done better in the beginning if we, their parents’ generation, had provided them a finer elementary and secondary education.”

Item: “ . . . The NEA is now painted as the No. 1 obstacle to better public schools. . . . Public education, and the NEA, are in a state of crisis.” (From “An Institution at Risk: An External Communications Review of the National Education Association”--an outside study commissioned by the NEA’s executives.)

Perhaps the production of hundreds of thousand of dropouts along with legions of kids failing the most basic of math and reading skills is having an effect. A rumble of discontent finally has begun to stir the public school establishment and its political lap dogs.

Thus, it seemed at least an initial step toward self-criticism and reform when the delegates at the NEA’s recent national convention voted to support peer review--allowing teachers to rate the performance of their colleagues and aid their dismissal when they don’t measure up. Mere consideration of this gesture toward accountability is a major policy change for these unions.

But lest we think all the union overlords suddenly became warm and fuzzy about better teacher performance, there was a skunk at this garden party. Not surprisingly, delegates representing the reactionary California Teachers Assn. voted by a comfortable majority to oppose peer review.

Just when we thought the old-fashioned virtue of consistency had become passe, the CTA stepped up to renew our faith. We can still rely, at least, on the military-style discipline of California’s unionized teachers to block reform, progress and change in our schools.

Symbolized best by its maliciously deceitful, multimillion-dollar campaign against school choice in 1993, the CTA places no boundaries on its manic determination for an autocratic grip an California’s schools. For example, Gov. Pete Wilson has devoted over 2 billion new dollars for dramatically smaller elementary school classrooms. While the CTA likes the idea of more teachers to swell union ranks, it fights accountability. Thus, its lobbyists recently tried to kill a statewide standardized test that would measure teaching skills in the new environment.

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We can thank the July edition of the publication “Inside California” for uncovering the CTA’s true priority. This feisty newsletter published by the Western Journalism Center obtained a transcript of CTA president Lois Tinson’s speech to the union’s State Council: “There’s money on the table this year,” crowed Tinson. “There’s money for salaries and benefits. There’s money this year and there will be money next year, even if we don’t yet know how much. . . . The advice from your state association--and your state association president--is ‘Go for it! Get the money!’ ”

Her sentimental devotion to schoolchildren kind of makes one dewy-eyed.

Tinson and company have maintained their smug political grip through mass expenditures of political dollars extracted mandatorily from their members and spent without consent. But now there is a movement to contain this vulgar display of greed and arrogance.

The California Foundation for Campaign Reform has authored the California Campaign Reform Initiative for the June 1998 ballot. It will prohibit unions, or any business, from using any portion of a member’s or agency fee payer’s dues for political purposes without annual written authorization from the individual--ending the collection of compulsory dues for political activities. The initiative also prohibits political contributions or expenditures by foreigners.

Teachers objecting to the involuntary payment of dues for distasteful political activities and citizens wishing to curb the union’s destructive power should call “Campaign Reform ‘98” at (714) 573-2275. This is our best hope for returning control of public schools to the students, parents and taxpayers.