LANSING, Mich. – The Michigan State Board of Education, like similar bodies in other states, exists to oversee public education, with a focus on representing student interests.

It’s not supposed to stick its nose in local school labor issues.

But that’s not stopping one board member, Michelle Fecteau of Detroit, from using her position to try to intervene on behalf of a local labor union that’s negotiating a contract with a privately-operated charter school.

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This is an unusual situation in more ways than one. First of all, Cesar Chavez Academy in Detroit is one of a very few charter schools in Michigan with union teachers. The staff was converted last year through an ongoing campaign by the American Federation of Teachers.

But the Chavez union and the charter operator have yet to come to a contract agreement. That’s not surprising, because many of the items that teachers unions bargain for tend to have a paralyzing effect on schools, allowing them less flexibility to make academic inroads. It’s hard for a charter school to maintain the positive characteristics of a charter school with union rules and pay scales in place.

Somehow Fecteau decided this situation required her intervention. She recently wrote a letter to the charter school board and its management company, urging them to “work with the union to resolve all issues, especially those related to labor complaints,” according to the Detroit News. Even worse, she sent the letter on official State Board of Education letterhead, giving the false impression that her words represented the position of the entire board. That is definitely not the case.

Fecteau said she decided to get involved “after learning parents, students, and teachers were upset about the manner in which school personnel were abruptly laid off last October …”

Teacher layoffs happen all the time in public schools across Michigan, yet state board members do not intervene. That’s because it’s not their job to do so.

Could it be that Fecteau is using her position to lend support to the ongoing union effort to organize charter schools throughout Michigan? The union push is designed to maximize the amount of dues money collected from teachers across the state, and to erase the competitive advantage that charter schools have over traditional government schools. Thousands of parents send their children to charter schools to avoid the union nonsense. That will no longer be an option if enough charters become unionized mirror images of traditional schools.

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The unionization campaign is not being done with the best interests of students in mind. It’s being pursued to help perpetuate the traditional union stranglehold over public education, and a state board member is openly lending her support through a thinly veiled excuse:

“Unionization not only provides a measure of fairness, but also allows for more accountability where teachers can more securely advocate for students and against improprieties,” she was quoted as saying.

What hogwash. Teachers unions work against accountability by opposing standardized testing and other efforts to measure the effectiveness of classroom teachers. They work against students by protecting teachers according to seniority, rather than keeping the best teacher on the job. In short, they work for the benefit of teachers, not students.

The other members of the state board should vote to officially censure Fecteau for her unwarranted and unprofessional interference in a local labor issue. She should be forced to understand that she can’t use her position to advance the union’s self-serving political agenda.

She’s supposed to be working for the students and taxpayers of Michigan, not some narrow special interest group that places little value on quality education.