Teachers’ unions have students’ best interests at heart, just trust them.
In the past week, the immediate future of thousands of students in more than 100 schools have been put into doubt. Students have been left asking: When will our school year start? How long will our school stay open?
Both questions have been prompted by Washington state teachers’ unions.
On Sept. 4, the Washington State Supreme Court ruled the state’s charter school law unconstitutional. As a result, nine schools with more than 1,200 students are waiting for a county court to tell them how long they can stay open. It’s possible that the state legislature will save the schools, by giving them special funding outside traditional school funds. But immediate action would require Gov. Jay Inslee, a Democrat, to call a special legislative session.
The Washington State Supreme Court has nine justices, all elected by voters. Seven of the nine justices got the maximum allowable financial donation from the Washington Education Association, according to Danny Westneat, a columnist with the Seattle Times. The WEA is the state’s largest teachers’ union, with 85,000 members.
To be fair, a state Supreme Court campaign probably doesn’t hinge on a union donation of under $2,000, the maximum allowed under the law. Indeed, one of the WEA-backed justices partially dissented from the majority opinion.
But cash is only one of many advantages unions provide to favored candidates. The WEA likely also encouraged its members to donate, vote and volunteer for the same campaigns. One can see how political pressure from the largest teachers’ union in the state might affect a justice’s opinion.
“How can it not be a conflict of interest for judges to weigh cases brought by a top campaign backer?” Westneat asks.
The charter law was approved with 50.7 percent support in a 2012 ballot proposal.
In Seattle, more than 5,000 teachers are on strike. Consequently, all 53,000 public school students in the city were unable to attend school on Wednesday and Thursday, with classes on Friday still in question.
Seattle Public Schools offered teachers a seven percent raise over three years. The Seattle Education Association is demanding an 18 percent raise. Even when the district doubled its offer to 14 percent, the union wouldn’t budge.
Despite not getting cost-of-living increases from the state, the district has provided teachers with two percent raises each of the last two years.
The district wants a three-year contract that would cost a little less than $30 million in the first two years. Ignoring fiscal realities, the SEA-proposed two-year contract would cost $84.3 million, nearly three times what the district proposed.
Asking for more education funding is one thing. Striking for an outrageous raise is another.
Despite all this, the head of the country’s largest teachers’ union has suggested that the Seattle strike is solely about helping students. “There is no stronger voice or advocate for Seattle students than Seattle educators,” National Education Association President Lily Eskelsen Garcia said in a press release. “As educators, student success is at the center of everything we do, and I’m proud that Seattle educators are standing up for the schools students deserve.” The NEA has 3.2 million members.
The teachers don’t have a legal right to strike, but for now the district seems content to stay at the negotiating table rather than turn to legal methods to end the strike.
According to state law, schools are required to hold 180 days of school, regardless of strikes. Although total instruction time won’t change, students still aren’t helped by the uncertainty surrounding their schools.
This isn’t the first time Washington teachers’ unions have put their own demands ahead of time in the classroom with their students: In May, 72,000 students were held out of class during a one-day walkout over state education funding.
Teachers’ unions may think they have students’ best interests at heart, but it’s getting increasingly hard to believe them. How does shuttering schools and keeping kids out of the classroom help teachers fulfill their primary obligation, which is to educate their students?
