The Empire Strikes Back

We read this week, in a column by teachers union president Randi Weingarten, that teachers unions “empower teachers’ professionalism,” cause “higher student achievement,” were heroic during COVID, and create “a more just and fair society.” Ms. Weingarten also accuses Philip Howard of “empty rhetoric.” So let’s look again at the facts: Near-zero accountability, endemic failure of many inner city schools, refusal to return to the classroom during COVID until six months to a year after other schools reopened, and political bullying aimed at closing high-performing charter schools.     
 
To justify no accountability, Ms. Weingarten invokes due process: “The rights we possess as citizens in a democracy don’t have to disappear when we enter the workplace.” But what about the rights of the students? Or the rights of voters to elect officials who have authority to fix lousy schools? To overcome the avalanche of studies demonstrating how unions have harmed public education, Ms. Weingarten cherry-picks from a few studies that show unions are “positively associated with student achievement”—omitting that this higher achievement is correlated with wealthier demographics.    
 
We agree on this: Teaching is in crisis. Teaching is indeed a “complex and demanding job.” Society should honor teachers for their professionalism. But near-zero accountability destroys the mutual trust needed for professionalism. There’s hardly anything more corrosive to an organization than the knowledge that performance doesn’t matter. Union control is not aimed at fostering school cultures with energy and pride. Union control is selfish, and almost entirely negative—to prevent managerial choices by people running schools. That’s why schools fail, and at least one of the reasons why teaching is in crisis. Teachers need a new deal, and that must include schools no longer controlled by unions.
 
Public employee unions have severed the link between voters and government operations. Voters elect governors and mayors who promise change, but no longer have executive power to make change. This interview in the Wall Street Journal with Mene Ukueberuwa provides an excellent summary of how public employee unions corrupted democracy and disempowered elected executives from fulfilling their constitutional responsibilities.

NewslettersAndrew Park