Unions are there for teachers, not students
New Mexicans left with choice of supporting children or system proven to be non-performing
Betty Patterson’s and Stephanie Ly’s assault on Betsy DeVos’ qualifications to become our nation’s next secretary of education is a classic case of the pot calling the kettle black.
Teacher unions have a singular mission, which is to enhance and promote policies that are directly beneficial to their membership. The union organization has actively campaigned against teacher accountability standards promoted by the state, which has markedly contributed to Albuquerque’s poor performance in improving student achievement.
Unions often sit on both sides of the bargaining table in New Mexico by actively supporting and funding school board candidates and legislators sympathetic to their positions. They are strong supporters of a compensation system for teachers based almost exclusively on longevity, not on competence or performance.
Such a system would not be tolerated in any other free-enterprise organization and handicaps school boards from rewarding excellent teachers and dismissing non-performing educators.
When school funding does necessitate teacher layoffs, seniority rather than performance again becomes the deciding factor in who has to go and who stays. Just how does such a system benefit kids and parents?
It is virtually impossible to remove under-performing teachers from the classroom. Unions have vigorously opposed measures to evaluate teacher performance and have vigorously defended under-achieving teachers from dismissal.
They have also been strong opponents — unfortunately in conjunction with Albuquerque’s current school board — of state efforts to impart teacher evaluation standards.
As a result, Albuquerque lags the rest of the state in showing improvement in student performance. Kids are currently stuck in schools where they are not learning, with no options for relief.
Under Betsy DeVos’ administration, much of the administrative control currently held by the federal government would be shifted back to the state and local districts. Low-income students would be provided with education vouchers that would provide parents with funding support to enroll their students in charter or even private schools that met their needs.
Unions scream that this type of freedom would ruin the public schools and do little to benefit student performance. What they really mean is that parental choice would deprive union members of jobs and public schools of funding.
They are absolutely correct but, at some point, New Mexicans need to decide which is more important: their children’s education or continuing to fund and support a system of education that has proven itself to be non-performing, and apparently unwilling and incapable of change.