I have read Right on the Left Coast for several months now and I really enjoy his take on the California Teachers Association. Darren has be involved in a running, if rhetorical, battle with the CTA over the compulsory membership if he is a teacher in California.
But the post below offers a plethora of evidence to support my belief that the teachers' unions have become an uncontainable beast who believes they have the right to comment not just on issue related to teacher employment or even education policy, but on policy in general--often in complete disregard for a significant minority of their membership.
I have long contended that the biggest impediment to successful improvement in education is the teachers unions. On a basic level, I have no objection to unions if they confine their activities to protecting the working rights and conditions of the membership. That is, teachers unions should be worried only about the working contracts, conditions and negotiations related to the employment of their members. Teachers unions, because they cannot adequately claim to speak for all, or even most, teachers' opinions, should not be in teh business of commenting on education policy. Individual teachers may be consulted on policy, but not the unions.
When a union says that such and such education policy is good or bad for students, I tend to think that the policy is bad for the UNION and not even necessarily bad for the teachers, just bad for the union. For the NEA and the American Federation of Teachers, the goal of improving the education of students remains several rungs down the ladder of priorities. The unions lose their credibility when they begin speaking about worrying about the kids because if they truly cared about the education of children, they would shut up.
When one boils down the argument the NEA posits in their lawsuit against the Department of Education, it is easy to see that not only does the NEA have no credibility in the education arena, they have zero credibility in the legal arena either. The fact that the NEA is using compulsorily derived membership dues to fund this quixotic campaign against the NCLB Act galls me even further. A basic review of Congress's spending power cases would reveal to even the densest first year law student that the requirements of hte NCLB are only imposed if the school district accepts federal funds--which it is free to do. If you take the money, you take the strings attached. Such a point was made by the union's own general counsel (see news reporting here). Yet the NEA has gone forward with a suit sure to fail--and expending resources while doing, resources that a large portion of the membership would rather see spent in other ways.
By the way, the case teh decided that Congress could impose conditions on the acceptance of federal funds is found in South Dakota v. Dole (483 U.S. 283 (1987)), which the Supreme Court ruled that Congress may impose resrictions and conditions on the receipt of federal highway funds that encourage the states to raise the legal drinking age to 21. States can voluntarily forgo those restrictions but doing so costs them the funds. While it doesn't seem like much of a choice, the Courts have ruled that the choice exists and it is constitutional.
I hope Darren keeps up his crusade in California and I will eagerly await the next story of imperiousity in the CTA.
Right on the Left Coast: Views From a Conservative Teacher: From Her Majesty's Column
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