By Steve Gunn
EAGnews.org

DETROIT – American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten thinks labor critics are using the poor economy as a tool to attack teachers unions.

She’s absolutely correct.

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In a pre-released portion of a speech she’s scheduled to deliver today at the AFT’s national convention in Detroit, Weingarten says “a wave of anti-union, anti-public education initiatives” have surfaced as the U.S. struggles to overcome the worst downturn since the Great Depression. She says school reform efforts threaten the AFT’s “very existence as a union.”

Leave it to a union president to publicly lament the health of her union while ignoring the plight of underserved students who depend on union teachers.

But Weingarten does have a point. There’s no doubting the link between the bad economy and increased scrutiny of organized labor in public schools.

In the past, when tax revenue was plentiful and school boards could afford to keep everyone happy, nobody noticed how much school tax money was being used to compensate teachers and other union employees.

But then hard times hit, tax revenues decreased and schools started feeling the pinch. School boards were forced to closely inspect their budgets and determine what could be eliminated to help save dollars and minimize the impact on students.

They were quickly reminded that roughly 70 to 80 percent of their general fund budgets were spent on salaries and expensive benefits for union employees. It was obvious that percentage had to shrink if schools were going to find enough money to maintain full  teaching staffs and quality programs for students.

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Many school boards around the nation went to their local unions to ask for temporary financial concessions for the sake of children. And in the overwhelming majority of cases, the unions said, “That’s not our problem.”

So school boards were forced to take the more painful route, laying off thousands of younger, low-seniority teachers, enlarging class sizes, eliminating academic courses and other student programs, and cancelling book and technology purchases.

In other words, students had to accept less so teachers in thousands of school districts could keep their automatic annual salary increases, free or low-cost health insurance coverage and pension plans, longevity bonuses, reimbursement for unused sick and personal days and a host of other perks.

One would almost think public schools exist to serve their employees rather than children.

But the story doesn’t end with dollars and cents. While they were inspecting their labor-heavy budgets, school boards started to notice that academic accomplishment was on the decline. They also realized they had limited power to address this problem, due to union rules and laws providing tenure, “last in, first out” and due process protections for veteran teachers.

That meant that thousands of teachers were provided a high level of job security with no connection to performance. They could teach as well or as poorly as they liked, and their jobs (with annual raises) were virtually guaranteed.

In the meantime the unions spent millions of dollars on campaign contributions and lobbying, to fight efforts to reform public schools and make teachers more accountable.

They also fought efforts to expand school choice for families across the nation. They opposed the expansion of charter schools. They opposed private school voucher proposals. They opposed the rise of cyber schools.

The unions want to maintain their guaranteed clientele of students trapped in public schools, but they don’t want to cooperate with reforms that would make those schools more effective.

Sometimes hard times can lead to healthy soul searching. The people in charge of public education were forced to take a hard look at the product they were offering, and what taxpayers were getting for their hard-earned dollars.

They’re coming away with an growing understanding that organized labor and public education are a very bad mix. They ‘re also starting to understand that students can’t be the top priority when the unions that dominate schools make their own financial interests the top priority.

Something has to give.

So Ms.Weingarten is correct when she says the poor economy has provided ammunition for attacks on teachers unions. The truth is that the attacks were long overdue. It just took a financial crisis to make people wake up and realize that fact.