‘A Modest Proposal’ for Public Education
In his satirical 18th Century essay, “A Modest Proposal,” Jonathon Swift suggested that impoverished Irish families might improve their economic circumstances by butchering and selling their children as food to the wealthy Englishmen who were then exploiting Ireland.
Today, powerful progressives are exploiting America’s public schoolchildren.
Across America, concerned parents are attempting to wrest control of public schools from liberal teachers’ union-dominated school boards to restore learning, remove social/cultural aberrations, eliminate racial divisiveness, stop schools from being political/ideological indoctrination mills and end the pandemic-era shutdowns and remote teaching that revealed major flaws in public education.
More than a decade ago, Pennsylvania’s legislature considered The Opportunity Scholarship and Educational Improvement Tax Credit Act to create education vouchers for kids trapped in failing schools. The bill was opposed by teachers’ unions whose political influence, and politicians, primarily Democrats, whose campaign funds the bill threatened.
The bill died, because there was also bipartisan opposition to reform. Unions didn’t buy every Republican, just enough of the right ones. The Republican-controlled legislature followed union money, when Pennsylvania’s education money should have followed the kids. The interests of teachers’ unions prevailed over those of Pennsylvania’s children and taxpayers.
Clearly, too few politicians and virtually no teachers’ union bosses genuinely care about other people’s children.
Teachers’ unions are large, militant, dues-rich organizations with heavy political clout. Their first – arguably only – priorities are to protect union revenue streams and political power.
Union bosses do both by siphoning taxpayer dollars from public schoolteachers’ paychecks to (over)pay themselves and contribute generously to their elected allies who, symbiotically, add the headcount and paychecks that feed the unions.
Unions insist that teachers are underpaid and overworked, even though most enjoy fifteen weeks off annually, and are teaching fewer classes containing fewer students than teachers did six decades ago.
Public schools’ student-teacher ratio was 25.8:1 in 1960. It’s now at an historic low of around 15:1. In 60 years, nationwide teacher headcount has increased by nearly four times the rate of increase in K-12 enrollment.
If schools had hired only enough teachers to keep pace with enrollment while maintaining midcentury class sizes and instructional standards, competent teachers could be paid far more today.
Currently, there are 3.1 million teachers employed in American public education, plus even more district administrators, assistants, aides, counselors, social workers, psychologists, therapists, secretaries, nurses, coaches, custodians, cafeteria workers, bus drivers and other support staff, some of whom also belong to unions.
In effect, American public education is a bloated adult jobs, union dues-generation, and political money laundering scheme costing taxpayers unimaginable sums of money. Schoolchildren are just exploitable grist for the mill.
Despite massive expenditures, American kids who once led the world in academic achievement have fallen far behind in world rankings for math and science.
It’s true that parental interest and involvement have declined in some districts; cultural influences interfere with learning; disciplinary problems exist almost everywhere; and mandatory mainstreaming lowers the common denominator. But, while acknowledging these influences, teachers unions must be held accountable for their contributions to the problems in public education.
Union contractual protections make firing incompetent teachers nearly impossible. Unions argue that, without them, teachers would be at the mercy of their employers – in other words, just like every private sector worker in forty-nine at-will employment states, including Pennsylvania.
Unions’ detachment from the practical realities of private-sector employment explains how the public schools they control fail to educate children. If teachers cannot be dismissed for doing bad work, what’s the incentive to do good work?
Poor results and a lousy economy mandate that, before increasing public education funding, Pennsylvania must clean up curricula, eliminate politics, and address costs for teacher and administration headcount, pay, benefits and pensions.
The Commonwealth should eliminate tenure, institute merit pay, and end seniority protections that prevent public schools from improving their teacher pools.
Voters overwhelmingly agree that parents should make decisions regarding their children’s educations. Parental rights, school choice, vouchers and licensing charter schools, policies parents support by a 2-1 ratio, can decouple powerful unions from their near-monopoly of public education, remove public officials from the corrupting influence of union campaign cash, and enable school districts to determine their own futures by competing in open education markets.
Competition improves every other product and service Americans purchase. Competition will improve public education, too.
Do it for the children.
https://www.pottsmerc.com/2023/02/13/jerry-shenk-a-modest-proposal-for-public-education/
