Poor Children Learn. Teachers Unions Are Not Pleased

RICHARD WHITMIRE AND ANDREW J. ROTHERHAM writing in the Wall Street Journal on October 1st make note of the fact that teachers' unions are taking a hit in some of the most liberal publications in America.
The New York Times, the New Yorker and the Washington Post have all run stories and / or editorials pointing out that non-union schools often have a more positive impact on learning than union-run schools. In fact, the Washington Post sub-titled it's editorial on the success of Charter Schools with this Onion-like headline: "Poor children learn. Teachers unions are not pleased." It doesn't get any more direct than that.

Teachers' unions have been highly successful for decades at undermining competitors and driving alternative, non-union schools to the brink of failure. Unions effectively marginalized Catholic and other parochial schools first by block-voting for legislative toadies who denied text books and transportation subsidies and then by strong-arming local (volunteer) school boards into life-long contracts. The heavy tax obligations that go with these contracts ensure that only the most motivated and financially well-off parents would opt to send their children to non-public schools.

When parochial schools continued to out-perform public schools, the unions countered by saying that parochial schools only take the most motivated students, and as a result their performance will be better than the "come-one, come-all" public schools. Unions are rolling out the same tired arguments against Charter Schools. Which, of course, begs the question, "if the performance of students is predicted simply by their willingness to go to one school over another, what's the role of the teacher?"

The answer is that the unions are wrong. Great teachers have a great impact. It's the unions that are stifling great teachers and the development of great schools. Charter schools now take struggling students - the students that used to go to neighborhood parochial schools, because whatever the union propaganda may have said, parochial schools were not filled with students on their way to the Ivies - and either match performance or outperform union-run schools. Charters can do this by removing barriers to performance and encouraging excellence. Not rocket science, just a fundamental, disciplined approach to learning.

There has always been a role for unions. Teachers can't do their jobs while constantly looking over their shoulder. But the alternative to fear isn't lifelong employment and protect-at-any-cost unionism. There is a middle ground.