Why on Earth---Do Unions Oppose Education Reform?

November 10, 2009—President Barack Obama marked the one-year anniversary of his election last week by delivering a talk at James C. Wright Middle School in Madison, Wisconsin. After patting himself on the back for all the good he thinks his administration has done so far, he focused in on the main topic of his speech: reforming education in America. It’s still too early to say for sure, but this might just be one of those rare cases in which this President matches his seemingly good intentions with actual good results.

Rewarding Success

In sharp distinction to the way he dealt with the banks and car companies, when it comes to schools, Obama wants to reward success instead of rewarding failure. The central pillar of the plan he and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan have come up with is the “Race to the Top” awards. To win a share of $4.3 billion in federal grant money, state governments will actually have to compete with one another. They will have to show that they are “committed to real change,” that they are willing to hold themselves “more accountable,” and that they have a “strong plan” to improve education.

This might sound like just so much fine talk, but there is real meat on them abstract bones. Most surprisingly, just to be eligible to compete for a Race to the Top grant, states that have so-called “firewall” laws will have to get rid of them. These laws, passed at the behest of teachers unions, basically make it impossible to take student performance into account when evaluating a teacher’s performance.

Now, it would be foolish to hold teachers entirely accountable for students’ success or lack thereof, but it is even more boneheaded not to hold them accountable at all. Yes, student performance is a shared responsibility, but it is possible to tease out a teacher’s contribution, especially in the aggregate. This is the 21^st century: we have the technology.

Imagine if success rates for surgery were never used to evaluate surgeon performance, on the ground that how sick or injured a patient is also affects that rate. Some doctors would doubtless continue to do their very best and would perform brilliantly. But others would feel less incentive to give it their all, and even those men and women of strong character would find it discouraging to see their less-conscientious colleagues reaping equivalent rewards for half the effort. That is the disheartening reality of education in states with firewall laws, and the Obama administration is absolutely in the right to try to eliminate them.

Resisting Change

Now, if teachers are judged according to how well they do their jobs, some are going to shine out and some are just going to suck all the energy out of the room. Once better evaluations are to be had, rewards and punishments will have to be meted out accordingly. As the President put it in his speech, “We’ve got to do a better job of rewarding outstanding teachers. And I’ve got to be honest, we’ve got to do a better job of moving bad teachers out of the classroom, once they’ve been given an opportunity to do it right.”

But not everyone is happy with this aspect of the administration’s plan. Obama alluded to this, if only obliquely, in his speech, saying that eliminating firewall laws “has caused some controversy in some places, but it shouldn’t be controversial.” He’s right; it shouldn’t be controversial, not if you have the best interests of students at heart, and not if you are a teacher who is secure in your ability to do a good job. But the reforms have indeed garnered opposition from—you guessed it—teachers unions, defending the privilege of crappy teachers to keep right on not educating their charges.

Of course, teachers unions have a long history of putting children second. At their worst, their motto seems to be, “All I want is less to do, more time to do it, and more pay for not getting it done,” to quote from memory a poster one of my high school teachers had on his classroom wall. Still, as an Objectivist, I believe in the virtue of selfishness. If teachers unions and the teachers who support them are being selfish, I should be cheering them on, right?

Self-Interest and Earned Values

Hardly. The virtue of selfishness refers to the rightness of pursuing one’s own long-term, rational self-interest. My true self-interest lies in recognizing reality, not in attempting to obscure it. In the long run, I am better off approaching others as an honest trader seeking to exchange value for value on a voluntary basis, not trying to trick or force them into giving me an unearned reward. Also, as a rationally selfish person, I appreciate the great pride and satisfaction that comes from a job well done. I know no one owes me a living and I have a responsibility to be productive, no matter what line of work I’m in.

Assuming the administration can continue to hold its ground against the unions—who’ve been the Democrats’ traditional sponsors—the “Race to the Top” fund will be a step in the right direction as it rolls out in the coming weeks and months. Ideally, though, governments would get out of the business of educating children altogether. The discipline of a free market is what is really needed to ensure that good teachers get rewarded and bad ones either get retrained or get let go. A free market in education would also be the best way of encouraging innovation, both in terms of reducing costs and improving results.

Of course, President Obama will never abolish the Department of Education. But to be fair, before any political leader can even consider pushing for such radical change, a lot more people will need to learn that such change would be in their—and their children’s—best interests. For now, I’m just happy the administration has sided against the unions and with the good teachers, whose interest is served by promoting quality education over job security for their incompetent colleagues.

Why on Earth...? is a series of cultural commentaries by Bradley Doucet.

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