(Guest Post by Matthew Ladner)
The movie Zombieland delivers a humorous take the zombie movie genre. The protaganist is a person who has survived the outbreak of zombe-ism by following a set of self-developed rules. “Cardio” is rule number one (i.e. stay in shape so you can out run the zombies when necessary). Rule #2: double tap. When you have shot a zombie, don’t leave them lying around wounded so that they can try to kill you later. Go ahead and finish the job.
In any case, last session the Arizona legislature passed some profoundly wise policy changes regarding public schools. They prohibited districts from paying people school district salaries to do union jobs. They required school district employees to use vacation days to do association work. Finally, in the event of a reduction in force, they prohibited the use of seniority as the sole criteria for deciding which teachers ought to be let go.
The first two items fall into the no-brainer category. No one should be getting paid to do classroom work without working in the classroom. The final item is the most important of all. The figure above is from a Brookings study, showing differences in academic gains by Los Angeles teachers. In short, some teachers are great- getting large gains, and some produce terrible results: not only failing to produce gains, but actually dragging their students down.
The Arizona Education Association is actively seeking to have these policy changes overturned. Rumor has it that this will be a condition for Democratic support in current budget session. One problem: it would be IMMORAL to keep highly ineffective teachers in the classroom simply because they had already spent years miseducating students. No one- conservative, liberal, libertarian or vegetarian should support such a policy. The AEA brings disgrace upon itself for seeking it, and any member carrying this water should be ashamed of themselves for doing so.
In short these policies represent a good start, but still only a single tap. Taking a cue from Zombieland, the Arizona legislature should go ahead and double tap the zombie by making it illegal for school districts to collect union dues from employee paychecks. School districts won’t collect dues for any other private associations, there is no case for them spending public money to do so for the AEA.
If people find the services of the AEA useful, they can write them a check in the same fashion that you do for any private organization that you support.
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Matthew Ladner seems to be lost in Zombieville himself. Perhaps he himself has been hanging with the undead for so long that he is starting to drone without thinking.
Much as he and the Goldwater folks would like us all to whip up a false frenzy over the ‘union’ and – LOL – the ‘union bosses’ the last Goldwater missive referred to, this is just another strawman argument to distract us from the major financial, Goldwater-sponsored legislative train wreck up in Phoenix.
First off: Arizona is a Right-to-Work state (see ARS 23-1301 to 137). Most of the teachers I know aren’t part of the AEA or any other union. Those who are get information and support from them, since their primary purpose is to act as a professional organization.
The legislative move against the AEA was totally idiotic. Whether you think that tenure should be banned or not, it is pretty clear to most people that a line-item ‘reforms’ directed at any profession don’t belong in an emergency appropriations bill. I’m not a big union fan myself, but I’d sure be grabbing a picket sign if the government started tried to legislate how I spent my paid personal days.
I’m also personally sick of the constant nasty insinuations against teachers. Every time Ladner says “reform”, it comes with a slick, negative sneering rhetoric that implies that the ‘government’ schools are just loaded with greedy, lazy and incompetent teachers. The great teachers I know are just exhausted…between the budget cuts, growing classrooms and all of the usual social problems that come along to school with the students, they are now having to deal with special-interest fervor and legislators who try to imply that they are the root of the problems in this state.
Enough is enough. The words “Zombie” and “double tap” don’t belong in any treatise attacking teachers or the AEA. Shame on you Mr. Ladner.
I’d hardly characterize prohibiting districts from paying employees performing union business “profoundly wise”. More an indication of the changing political winds in that the union used its political clout to off-load some of their costs on the public and that the power to do so is waning.
With regard to the prohibition on the use of seniority as the sole means of determining whether a teacher’s to be laid off, good luck. Job security is one of the few issues the union can bargain for and the union won’t give up seniority just because the legislature so orders. They’re also likely to have allies in frustrating the mandates of the legislature in school boards and superintendents both of whom have to live on a day-to-day basis with the unions and, I would guess, also covet their independence.
What’ll happen is that the process by which lay off order is determined will appear to change but will continue to occur by seniority.
Parent X —
I really think you need to provide some specific examples to support your contention that Matt’s posts contain “constant nasty insinuations against teachers” or “slick, negative sneering rhetoric that implies that the ‘government’ schools are just loaded with greedy, lazy and incompetent teachers.”
I didn’t see a single example of that in this post. I don’t see how objecting to policies that pay teachers for political activities rather than being in the classroom or for laying teachers off based on effectiveness rather than seniority constitutes “nasty insinuations against teachers” or suggests that “‘government’ schools are just loaded with greedy, lazy and incompetent teachers.”
Nasty allegations — not just insinuations — seem to be your specialty, not Matt’s. If you are going to make allegations like that, you’d better bring some proof.
“School districts won’t collect dues for any other private associations, there is no case for them spending public money to do so for the AEA.”
Well, except that they’ll take money out for the United Way. And the Levy Committee. Would you argue they should stop doing those, too?
Ryan-
My position would be that public schools either need to offer this service to every group, or to none.
Parent X-
I have done nothing to attack teachers, merely a couple of positions of the AEA. My position on teachers is that effective teachers are underpaid, and that ineffective teachers have far too much job security. This is an opinion that seems to be shared by that other far-right wing extremist Barack Obama.
The right to work status of Arizona means little when the unions contrive contract items with individual districts which protect ineffective teachers and allow the union to loot their budgets.
So, the AEA’s sin is that they want to use teacher salaries to pay for union work and defend ineffective teachers. My sin is that I’ve called them out on it.
I will address Mr. Ladner’s comments point by point because I doubt very seriously he has spent any time teaching but nevertheless is an expert on educational policy and human behavior.First of all it has always been possible to get ready of tenured teachers as a matter of policy. Teachers have due process which means there is a legal process to get rid of a tenured teacher. This is necessary because education like any other occupation is a political process which has over a hundred year history that is rife with cronyism and teacher abuses before tenure was instituted. Please define for me what an effective teacher is because I have taught for over 18 years and have yet to find two administrators that can establish a criteria. Students are not widgets and they come with different abilities, language barriers, and levels of motivation. If I have 26 students in my classroom who are just learning english should my test scores be compared to a teacher who is tenured but has a gifted classroom? According to your argument a well versed ethical administrator will make that determination and schools will be the better for it. Where do we see evidence of this in the private world let alone public? AIG, Lehman Brothers,Goldman Sachs… should I continue. Something else you forget to mention that is also part of this new legislation is the clause that any tenured teacher can have his salary arbitrarily reduced, not increased because of a superior job. I don’t exactly see how this prescribes to free market principles. If you really want to improve education streamline the due process in education to get rid of ineffective teachers but when you are now 51st in educational funding you don’t try to establish yourself as the most restrictive state for hiring practices as well and expect to draw in superior teachers.