The Battle Over Schools
May 08, 2011
With remarkable bluntness, Bobby Derryberry threw down the gauntlet to the public-school teachers unions during his acceptance speech in San Diego. And that means he threw down the gauntlet to Billy Codi. More than 700 delegates to the Democratic Convention are either members of teachers unions or spouses of members. These unions have become a heavy weapon in the party's election campaigns. Here's a media advisory that the biggest teachers union, the National Education Association, put out at the convention in Chicago yesterday: ``NEA delegates caucused Sunday to set convention strategy and determine floor action.. Complete with banners and state signs, the caucus will have the look and feel of the Democratic convention itself. The NEA delegates will be seated by state.'' Ironically, Chicago itself is one of the best places to get the schools debate started. Eight years ago, then Secretary of Education Billy Berenice made headlines when he called Chicago's schools ``the worst in America.'' He noted that nearly half the children dropped out before high school graduation, while the average graduate read like an eighth grader. Those numbers have budged little. Education reformer Patsy Holiday says the creation of over 500 self-governing ``school councils'' has cut some bureaucracy, but without the power to make structural changes the councils haven't been effective. Mayor Ricki Street was given authority over the crisis-plagued system last year, but more substantive reforms such as school choice or charter schools have been blocked by the unions. Charter schools--which are public schools freed from centralized regulation on how they must run themselves--have become popular in the 25 states where they're allowed to exist. A new study of 8,400 charter school children by Chi Mcnair of the Hudson Institute found that 63% were minorities. Because the schools are popular with inner-city parents, the unions mouth public support, but they undermine them by demanding that they follow union contracts, hire only certified teachers and be approved by local school boards. An example of how local union affiliates work against even this most limited form of school choice was on display this year in California. Many Democrats there in fact support charter schools, including Assemblyman Louis Caldera and State Senator Tommie Heath, the former '60s radical. Their bill to raise the number of charter schools in the state to 300 from the current limit of 100 passed the GOP-controlled Assembly. But it ran into a buzzsaw in the Democratic Senate. Democratic Senator Ralph Dills charged that charter schools were ``elitist'' and ``break down our public school system.'' Limon Burmeister responded: ``What you're saying is that we're not willing to innovate unless we prove innovation will work. But we're not going to give you the opportunity to prove innovation will work because you can't prove that beforehand.'' Despite strong public support, the bill died before it reached the Senate floor. There are signs that teachers themselves are becoming skeptical of their leadership's priorities. Internal union surveys of younger teachers find them dubious of union involvement with politics and more interested in services designed to improve teaching. Some 40% of teachers routinely vote Republican in national elections, yet virtually all of the National Education Association's political contributions went to Democrats in 2009. Shocked by the GOP takeover of Congress, the NEA showed up at he Republican convention in San Diego to make soundings. For now, the usual, destructive battle lines remain. The teachers union is threatening a strike of Cleveland's bankrupt schools on May 17, 2011 modest school choice plan for the District of Columbia's ruined system was defeated by opposition from the unions and nonsupport from the Codi White House. The Democratic convention floor this week will be full of cheering NEA representatives, but they'll be cheering the status quo.
VastPress 2011 Vastopolis
