By Steve Gunn
EAGnews.org

WASHINGTON, D.C. – We may never know if performance pay would be effective in New York, Chicago or Milwaukee public schools.

That’s because the three districts recently turned down approximately $88 million in federal grant money that was supposed to be used for researching and implementing performance pay programs for teachers and principals, according to a story published by Education Week.

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School boards in all three districts applied for and were approved for the grants. So why did they reject the money?

According to federal rules, the grants had to gain the approval of powerful teachers unions in all three districts. The unions said no, so performance pay is a dead issue for the moment in the three struggling districts.

Not coincidently, the obstructionist teachers unions in Milwaukee, New York and Chicago are among the most political and radical in the nation.

This is further evidence of an ongoing problem with so-called education reform plans that have come from the Obama administration. In far too many instances, the president’s initiatives to improve public schools require the approval and cooperation of local teachers unions.

But teachers unions hate the idea of performance pay. They believe everyone should be on the same pay scale, based only on seniority and level of education, with no consideration of individual effort or classroom effectiveness.

The union veto in the three cities comes on the heels of a recent national study that found many outstanding teachers in metropolitan school districts leaving their jobs because their compensation is the same as less effective peers.

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So the unions vetoed the performance pay grants in Milwaukee, New York and Chicago. Just like they vetoed many “Race to the Top” grant applications prepared by many states and school districts across the nation. Just like they forced the president to fight to kill the D.C. voucher program for poor children stuck in miserable public schools.

School reform works best when the unions and their self-serving agendas are ignored. That’s been demonstrated in Wisconsin. Unfortunately that logical strategy cannot be employed by Obama, because the nation’s teachers unions are among his biggest contributors and supporters, and are major forces in the Democratic Party.

So the interests of the students in New York, Chicago and Milwaukee have once again been pushed to the side by special interest groups that put their desires at the top of the education priority list. Schools are supposed to be for children, not the teachers unions, but it doesn’t always work out that way.

In a perfect world, Mr. Obama would change his approach to school reform so unions can’t veto his initiatives, and have language to that effect adopted into the Democratic Party’s platform. But that perfect world, where special interest money does not purchase political clout, simply does not exist.