Eaton: Pressure building on public schools, unions

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Eaton

Updated: March 2, 2012 8:16AM

Last week’s release of “The Tale of Two Missions,” the education-choice video produced by political commentator Juan Williams and author Kyle Olson, turned up the heat on an already uncomfortable contract-negotiating climate in Chicago.

The Chicago Teachers Union was uneasy with Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s cozy relationship with charter school promoter Juan Rangel. Then the new mayor pushed through an effort to lengthen the school day for Chicago Public Schools.

Shortly, the two sides will be face to face in contract negotiations. Union representatives accountable to a frustrated rank-and-file will be across the table from a cash-strapped mayor and a debt-ridden school board accountable to weary and angry taxpayers.

In Williams’ video, Emanuel bemoans how difficult it will be to make dramatic changes in the city’s failing school system. Despite one of the nation’s highest levels of per-pupil spending, only 56 percent of Chicago’s public school students achieve a high school diploma.

“Do I think the union leadership has been a problem in resisting? Absolutely,” Emanuel is quoted as saying in the Williams’ video. “The system was not designed to benefit the kids.”

Not designed to benefit the kids? Just who does the system benefit, then? Well, CPS teacher salaries start at $50,000 plus for first-year teachers with bachelor’s degrees and go up to $94,000 for 15-year veterans with doctorate degrees.

The CPS’s average real per-pupil spending figure of nearly $14,800 is about 23 percent higher than that of surrounding school districts. But only a little more than half of the students graduate. Many that graduate spend precious time and resources on remedial college courses.

Olson writes in his new book, “Indoctrination”: “If American public schools were at the top of the class globally, that might provide an excuse for lesson plans that divert attention away from the basics. But what we see throughout the nation is example after example of American schools failing our children. Our government schools squander billions and leave many children unprepared for life. It’s immoral. It should be deemed child abuse.”

Chicago Teachers Union president Karen Lewis deflects Olson’s criticisms by calling him a “neoconservative, anti-labor and anti-public education blogger.” Perhaps a fairer description would be a “pro-free market, pro-taxpayer and pro-children activist.”

In his book, Olson describes an insidious curriculum designed to advocate political and social world views over basic academics. He gives examples of lesson plans blatantly promoting socialism over capitalism.

“Why do workers need labor unions?” one lesson reads. “To deal with the power of business owners, working united in an organization that can negotiate collectively and take other collective action to achieve (workers’) goals.”

Then a history lesson follows: “Union membership was the highest in the early 1950s, when unions represented about 35 percent of all workers. Today, union membership has declined to about 12 percent, with both private-business and public-sector employment combined. Just 8 percent of all private business and industry in the U.S. is unionized.”

To educate students about the issues facing unions, precious time is spent advocating a world view that makes business owners and taxpayers out to be the bad guys. That should disturb taxpayers and parents.

In 2010, public unions joined with the teacher unions at a Springfield rally, demanding “Raise our taxes!” Union advocates scolded businesses and taxpayers that they needed to pay more for public education.

“We need to move to a progressive tax system like 35 other states already have,” John Bouman of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees union said Monday on a Chicago talk show.

There’s nowhere to cut the state budget more, he said, so revenue must increase, and that means people with means should pay more.

House Speaker Mike Madigan (D-Chicago) suggests that suburban and downstate school districts should pay more to cover the generous pensions their employees receive.

That means that while state income taxes have increased by 67 percent, property owners will be forced to pay a higher real estate tax to enable their school districts to meet bigger pension payments and help resolve the state’s huge pension debt.

Sounds pretty bleak for everyone but those who will get what their unions fought to get for them.

But there is something we can do, Olson writes. Parents should find out what’s being taught at your local school. Get to know your child’s teacher, and let him or her know what you think. Check out education alternatives. Learn about your school board members. If you don’t like what’s happening, consider running for the school board.

“Attending a rally doesn’t enact change,” Olson says. “Holding a position of power does.”

The little firestorm about Williams’ video and Olson’s book is healthy. The two are stirring conversation that has long been left to political insiders.

If you’ve accepted the challenge to change your local school system to benefit the students, I’d like to hear from you. Tell me what you’re doing by writing me at featon@illinoisreview.com.

Fran Eaton is a Southland resident who co-founded and edits the conservative political blog, illinoisreview.com