“I’m probably the only person in the room who was actually at the negotiating table in the mid-1960s when the first collective bargaining laws were being passed.” So said Ray Spear, former superintendent in Coventry and now a member of the Coventry School Committee, addressing the Board of Regents.
Recently, the Regents held a series of public meetings to hear creative ideas about how to prevent teacher strikes in strike-prone Rhode Island. The hearing I attended was packed to the gills with school administrators, school committee members and union officials.
Spear went on to wholeheartedly endorse “the granting of the initial bargaining rights for teachers.” Later, in an interview, he elaborated. “I was sympathetic with teachers because at the time they were not being paid at a scale comparable to other workers. I personally researched what other B.A.-level workers were being paid. Teachers weren’t even close. And they weren’t getting any benefits, no personal leave, maternity leave….”
But now, this elder statesman of the Rhode Island education community told the Regents, “It is my sincere belief that the teacher negotiation process has worn out its welcome and gone far beyond the purpose and intent which it was to serve.”
Currently, Rhode Island’s teachers’ unions are monolithically powerful forces that “fail to regard the needs of students,” according to Spear. These unions protect bad teachers, make a principal’s job nearly impossible, slow or stop educational reforms, and critically, in this fiscal climate, drive the cost of doing business through the roof.
The current problem is the result of flawed thinking back in the 1960s.
Spear was “just a young kid of a superintendent” in Michigan when that state’s collective-bargaining law passed in 1965. “When I sat down at the bargaining table for the first time, their contract proposal looked more like a General Motors contract than an education contract. They’d gone to the automotive industry for advice. Those are the roots of the situation we’re in now.”
2 thoughts on ““Blue Collar Teacher Contracts Work Against the Students””
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Yet rarely do parents concerned with the deterioration of school programs, buildings, etc., take a look at where teachers are at today compared to others with BA degrees. Maybe it is not yet the time, but the day will come when this backfires on teachers’ unions, just as is happening now with autoworkers.
I’m not buying the line that the problems with our schools is too high a salary for teachers.
Healthcare costs and other “benes” are a substantial portion of the cost — that’s a nationwide problem, and the WPS/Union issue at MMSD is a comparatively small issue, but a large diversion.
Looking at the 2004-2006 published expenditures for salary vs. healthcare and other benefits, the numbers are
Year ——– Salary ———- Benefits ——– Bene %
2005-6 —- $37,113,471.49 — $16,105,228.77 – 30.26%
2004-5 —- $37,717,651.12 — $15,512,970.07 – 29.14%
The increase of benefits cost in these two years is exclusively in health care.
As for the autoworkers being the cause of the decline, that is absurd. The whole of the problem with the American auto industry is management incompetence. While Nissan, Toyota, etc were building energy efficiency and quality into their autos, GM and Ford were building Hummers, and SUVs of lousy quality. Research? Hybrids. Go to Toyota and Nissan, Honda. Ford is 5-10 years behind.
Let’s not forget tax incentives for building hydrogen-powered vehicles — Bush’s welfare program for the indolent auto billionaires.
Similar problem with our schools. Teachers are not the decision makers — they’re line workers trying to make work what can’t with lousy curriculum. Teachers are trained in the latest educational fad, but, for the most part, it’s not their fault, especially the newer teachers.
Having talked at length to some of my old high school classmates who went into teaching some 40 years ago, and some of my old high school teachers, they lament having to work for school systems that seem clueless.
About 3 years ago I spoke to my old high school math teacher and the principal of the school. This old math teacher simply refused to follow the Indiana State curriculum as math fads waxed and waned. He never diverged. And his students learned math — not cultural diversity — his Hispanic students are learning math, his Black students are learning math, his White students are learning math. Geometry and calculus are color-blind, and almost language-blind.