Author: Ben Dalgetty
America has a problem with unions. In particular, teachers unions are making desperately needed education reform more difficult than it already is. While unions are not the only culprit for the multitude of problems that plague our education system, it is time we hold them accountable for their inefficiencies.
Unions are not inherently problematic, but neither are they inherently good. Any Econ 101 student can tell you that, given equal access to information and a free, competitive labor market, employers and employees will naturally settle into the most efficient possible wage rate. The issue is the difference between “efficient” and “equitable.”
Governments, particularly liberal democracies like the U.S., usually seek a middle-ground solution by allowing workers to unionize and collectively bargain for better working conditions and fairer wages without fear of being fired en masse. When unions first began coalescing in America during the Industrial Revolution, they were necessary to counter the vastly increased power of employers and widespread exploitation of workers.
But today, it is important to recognize that unions are not ideologically righteous organizations inherently fighting the good fight. Basic human rights, the initial goal of unions, have been achieved, which means that today’s unions are acting from more selfish motivations. Unions have vested interests in getting as much as possible for their constituents, and so their aims sometimes run contrary to that of the average taxpayer and even, in the case of teachers unions, the students they are supposed to serve.
Teachers unions advocate on behalf of a group I believe is one of the most under-appreciated in our society. Teachers usually work long hours, eight-to-eight nearly every day, are vastly underpaid and toil in under-resourced and overcrowded classrooms. They are held to a set of standards and requirements passed down from state or federal bureaucrats, and all too often are forced to teach to the test rather than aspire to inspire.
But that does not mean teachers don’t share in the blame for America’s abysmal education record. Among the many damning studies, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development ranked the U.S. 15 in Reading in 2000, 24 in Mathematics in 2003 and 21 in Science in 2006. The problems with American education have many causes, and we need to recognize that teachers unions are part of the problem.
Unlike nearly every other organization, teachers unions are notorious for rewarding seniority over merit. The problem is that teachers’ pay is determined mostly by how many years they’ve worked, and once they reach a certain number of years, it becomes next to impossible to fire them. While experience is a part of how well a teacher can teach, union insistence that this is the only measurement has for too long allowed lousy teachers to keep their jobs.
While President Obama is right to call for “incentivizing” the teaching profession through increased pay and bonuses based on merit instead of seniority, relying solely on standardized tests to measure teaching performance is not enough. An education is about more than the litany of requirements laid out in No Child Left Behind, and we need to figure out better means of benchmarking teachers.
Potential alternatives include using administrative, peer, student and parent evaluations to get the full picture of what is going on in our classrooms. More important than the final metric we settle on, though, is actually having the discussion about how to measure performance, and to date, teachers unions have been unwilling to come to the table. Figuring out how to accurately measure teacher performance is one of the many educational problems teachers aren’t responsible for. But, for all of the complaining they do about it, they have shown a distinct lack of willingness to look for solutions.
We need to develop an education system designed to attract and retain young, educated, dynamic individuals and ensure that our children are getting the best education possible. As noted in a 2003 paper from the Progressive Policy Institute, “students [who become teachers] with higher scores on the SAT and ACT are more likely to leave teaching within the first few years.” For too long, public schools have been hemorrhaging their most qualified teachers. A large part of this is due to the many other systemic problems in education, but to the extent that teachers unions value seniority over performance, they must share in the blame. Americans need to collectively decide to improve our flagging education system, and teachers unions are currently causing more problems than solutions.
To be clear, I am not trying to villanize teachers unions as the only blockade to needed reforms (I do, after all, have an aspiration to work in Democratic politics). Unions advocate on behalf of often marginalized constituents and have been a crucial institution for improving equality. Rather, I want to emphasize that unions, like the individuals they represent, are fallible. Bumper stickers calling for universal, automatic support of all things union are relics of an era when the labor struggle truly was about securing basic human rights.
It is time to hold these institutions more accountable and withdraw the rubber stamp of approval they traditionally enjoy from Democratic politicians. We don’t need to toss unions to the curb, but neither should they be placed on a pedestal beyond reproach.
Ben Dalgetty is a senior Poitics major. He can be reached at bdalgetty@oxy.edu.
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