Bridging Differences
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Dear Deborah,

Last week, I wrote from Madison, where I spoke about the historical context for the current corporate reform movement. When I agreed to speak at the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, I had no idea that I would arrive as the issues in that state reached a boiling point. Gov. Scott Walker said the state was broke; he made financial demands on the public-sector unions, and they capitulated to all of them. All that remained was his insistence on stripping public-sector unions of most of their collective-bargaining rights.

When I was there, the "Wisconsin 14" were still in hiding, and there were rumors that Gov. Walker might be willing to compromise. But I read in the Madison newspaper that Walker was well-known for his opposition to any compromise, and I didn't see why anyone expected that he might drop his plans to destroy his political opponents.

We now know that he had no intention of compromising, that he wanted to lure at least one Democratic state senator back so he could push his "budget repair" bill through. And we know now that he took the financial issues out of the bill, making it possible for the Republicans in the Senate to pass the legislation without a quorum, eliminating most collective-bargaining rights for public-sector workers.

He expects that over time, most public workers will stop paying dues, especially now that they have to pay more for their healthcare and pension benefits. And thus will he cripple, perhaps permanently, a perennial political opponent.

If Gov. Walker succeeds, there will be no organized voice to oppose his "reform" plans. He can raise the income cap on vouchers, letting everyone leave the public schools if they choose. He can create hundreds of charter schools, opening the riches of that sector to any willing corporation. He can cut the education budget, increase class sizes (Arne Duncan and Bill Gates say that's a creative idea), oust teachers whose students don't get higher test scores.

Gov. Scott Walker may indeed be the face of corporate reform. Unimpeded, he can bring to fruition the worst of all their ideas. He joins the march of Republican governors (and a few mayors as well) who think that school reform begins with crushing the teachers' unions, eliminating tenure, due process, and seniority, and firing 5 to 10 percent of teachers every year.

I'm a great believer in historical accuracy, a habit I find hard to shake, and the value of reading original sources. So here is one I would like to mention to Gov. Walker and his fans: The Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It was adopted by the United Nations on Dec. 10, 1948. To be sure, the document is aspirational; it represents our highest ideals for human rights and dignity, not the realities of 1948 or 2011. It was drafted by a commission headed by Eleanor Roosevelt. Article 23, Section 4 says: "Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests." The United States signed it. Eight nations opposed it, some in the Communist bloc, but also South Africa, which objected to its commitment to racial equality; and Saudi Arabia, which objected to its affirmation of religious freedom.

Add Gov. Walker to that list of eight. And the governors of Indiana, Tennessee, Idaho, Ohio, and several others. They are fighting a movement that enabled millions of working-class Americans to enter the middle class. They are opposed to a basic human right.

Diane

COMMENTS
tjm

11:39 AM on March 15, 2011

One of the next steps in Wisconsin is a Charter School Bill, which among other things creates a partisan authorizing board, allowing proposers to bypass Boards of Education. It also allows for multiple schools under one state Charter, easing the way for the Charter chains. The bill is here: http://legis.wisconsin.gov/2011/data/SB-22.pdf. A hearing is scheduled for 3/23.

Score: 1
Rich

11:55 AM on March 15, 2011

If you want to peek at Wisconsin's future come here to Arizona where the legislature actively encourages parents to attend private schools and discourages attendance at public schools...even charters. Data that shows public school students achieve at higher rates than all but the students in the toniest private schools is routinely ignored by the rocket scientists in the legislature. It looks like we will have some competition for the most anti-public education legislature.

Some of you may appreciate this...Last Saturday, while most people were setting their clocks one hour forward, Governor Walker was setting his 50 years backwards.

Score: 1
Brian B

12:19 PM on March 15, 2011

Diane,

You say "I'm a great believer in historical accuracy." If that's so, you can begin by analyzing the present more accurately. The law in Wisconsin, while it limits some collective bargaining powers, is not "crushing the teachers' unions" nor denying the right to unionize. Implied in the "right to form and to join trade unions" is the right not to join and Gov. Walker's bill actually strengthens that right. In the end it could also strengthen unions. Workers will remain as dues-paying members if they think unions are serving their interests. This will force union leadership to be more responsive to the needs of the members. After all, if unions merely negotiate wages and benefits, they're not being as effective as they could be. In any case, let them EARN the devotion and resources from their members through valued service, the way every other organization does.

Score: -1
S Monroe73

1:21 PM on March 15, 2011

Diane, you are wrong Gov. Walker has not voted against this liberial manifesto his law does not ban people from joining unions it just protects the taxpayer from unfair labor practises.

Score: 1
Ken Mortland

1:32 PM on March 15, 2011

I agree with Ravitch, regarding the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. However, in this scenario that's a red flag waved in the face of a snorting bull. Its only effect on Walker and his supporters will be to ratchet up their anger and determination to destroy the union.

Score: 1
tjm

2:29 PM on March 15, 2011
@Brian B

The bill limits bargaining to wages only and limits bargaining on those to the CPI or below, requires annual re-certification and ends payroll deductions for dues.

Technically, Unions may continue under this, but both the intent and result (where contracts have not been extended prior to the publication of the law) will be to "crush" public worker unions.

Score: -2
Daniel J. Fallon

3:58 PM on March 15, 2011

Here is where logic trumps data. Past events become “history” only with a large dose of arbitrary “understanding” on the part of the historian. But there are limits to this power. Rules of science, cause and effect, and economic logic still apply to past events. In other words, history proves nothing. Rather, it is the quality of thought applied to past events that creates history with meaning and truthiness.

Getting the “what happened” right, although indispensable, is only one ingredient in the making of a history cake.

Just because the UN declares something a 'right' does not make it so.

The UN Declaration of Human Rights 1948 is chock-full of horribly contradictory statements. (The fact that its existence is not based on consent of the governed but arbitrary state power is a red flag.) Here is an example: It is true, as Ravitch cites in Article 23, that “Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.”

But in Article 20 it also says “No one may be compelled to belong to an association.” What else are American public employee unions but compelled? What are union dues but extortion? And what of the taxpayer’s right not to associate with public unions?

Even within Article 23 there is glaring contradiction. For if compulsory unions are a human right, using the Ravitch interpretation of Article 23, then how does it resolve with the opening Article 23 statement: “Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.”? Forced unions are not –logically-- conducive to ‘free choice of employment’ or the ‘right to work.’ The use of violence, or what the UN Dec of Human Rights calls ‘protection’, is plainly an egregious decimation of human right.

The problem in logic is the difference between negative and positive rights. Negative rights assume that an individual has complete ownership over self and property, and that there is no individual ownership over the fruits of labor, actions or property of others. Positive rights assume that individuals are obligated to fork over, by compulsory political and extortive force, labor, substance, and sphere of conscience, to others- so that all individuals may be ‘free’. It is consequentialist. Positive right, in eclipsing negative right, represents the destruction of liberalism by socialism.

Ravitch's idea of right is a classic bait and switch.

Positive rights represent a key ideological piece of modern slavery. Instead of the traditional master-slave relationship, where the master owns the slave outright, positive right allows for the slaves to be like ‘free range’ chickens on an ostensibly egalitarian farm.

Score: 3
paulhoss@hotmail.com

4:59 PM on March 15, 2011

Gov, Walker's actions in Wisconsin are most offensive to me because they're aimed at teachers but do not include police and fire. Public employees are public employees and should be treated the same. What's his gripe with teachers other than their predominantly Democrats?

Also like Brian B's observation about teachers not being forced to join a union. Nothing galled me more as a teacher than to have to join the union or pay an "agency" fee which was the dues collected by the union without union membership. Talk about extortion.

I agreed with next to nothing the NEA ever attempted to force down the throats of their members. Thinking they know better than their members or anyone else, they told members who to vote for or how to vote on different issues. Give me a break! Being cornered into voting for morons like Mike (the helmet) Dukakis or Jimmy (440 days of Iranian hostages) Carter for president was infuriating. Imbeciles, the NEA and their recommendations.

Republican lawmakers are attempting to issue the NEA its comeuppance. The NEA's Representative Assembly (talk about a contradiction in terms) thought they were in charge of the world, literally. There was no issue, local, state, federal or global too obscure for them to stick their nose into. What a bunch of jerks; and all disguised under the pretense of "for the children." What a crock! The only thing for the children was more teachers added to the payroll so the NEA could ultimately collect more dues and yield more power over state and federal lawmakers, especially Democrats.
Score: 0
Andrew Roedell

8:20 PM on March 15, 2011

Until this country—in company with nations across Europe and Asia whose students consistently outperform our own—agrees to both (1) recruit teachers from among its best and brightest citizens and (2) allow its teachers the compensation and working conditions necessary to attract and retain the best and brightest to their ranks, we Americans will not only fail to achieve the quality of K-12 education enjoyed by those other countries: we as a country will not DESERVE to do so.

Score: 1
chemtchr

6:32 AM on March 16, 2011

This comment is hidden because you have chosen to ignore chemtchr. Show DetailsHide Details

Diane, I think you're right when you suggest,
"Gov. Scott Walker may indeed be the face of corporate reform."

But this masterful prank call reveals he's only a mask (brace yourself - this is the actual Beast link)

Koch believes the crass voice on the other end of the line is his actual master.

Corporate education control turns out to be no different from corporate financial control, or energy control, media control, and anything-everything control. Walker answers to crude and short-sighted billionaire potentates who wield obscene amounts of money in their own narrow interests.

The Koch Brothers, the Waltons, Gates, Broad and Buffet leveraged and dealed and clawed their way to their fortunes. They bought out whole university departments and media empires to promote their new religion of the sacredness of their "entrepreneurial talent".

They demand that we teach our children to revere them as part of our actual curriculum! We must post their aphorisms on our wall, like they were the sayings of Chairman Mao. But they have done nothing to earn the power they hold over every aspect of the lives of ordinary, productive people.

Thank you for fighting for the right of working people to organize against them.

Score: 1
Name withheld
Zeev Wurman

1:44 PM on March 16, 2011

I wanted to chime in, but between Brian B, Daniel Fallon, and Paul Hoss, there is little to add. Diane -- you get a failing grade as a believer in "historical accuracy." Disappointing.

Score: -1
Name withheld
andrei radulescu-banu

11:23 PM on March 16, 2011

Ze'ev, interesting points in the Comparative Study of Teacher Preparations: (p. 12)
- 35% US secondary school teachers teach English without having a major degree in English
- 38% teach math without a major in math
- 29% teach science without a major in any of the sciences
- 30% teach social sciences without a major in a social science

From the study:
"...in the U.S. data, we defined a qualified science teacher more broadly; in the U.S. data, anyone teaching any science is counted as in-field if they had a degree or a certificate in any of the sciences. If we redefine a “qualified” science teacher in the U.S. data as someone with a degree in the specific scientific discipline they are teaching (e.g., a chemistry teacher must have a degree in chemistry), then our
estimates of out-of-field teaching would sharply rise accordingly."

"In the United States, the data indicate that out-of-field teaching to a large extent is a result of the manner in which schools are organized and teachers are managed. School-staffing decisions usually follow a top-down command model:
these decisions are the prerogative of school administrators, and teachers typically have little say over their assignments. School administrators face the difficult task of providing an increasingly broad array of programs with limited resources, time, budgets, and teaching staff. But, within those constraints, administrators have an unusual degree of discretion, and there is little centralized regulation over how teachers are utilized once they are hired. In this context, administrators report that, from a managerial perspective, they find that assigning teachers to teach out of their fields often is more convenient, less expensive, and less time consuming than the alternatives.

"For example, rather than hire a new part-time science teacher for two sections of a newly state-mandated science curriculum, an administrator may find it simpler to assign two English or social-studies teachers to cover the science sections. When faced with a tough choice between hiring an unqualified candidate for a mathematics teacher position or doubling the class size of one of the fully qualified mathematics teachers, a school administrator might opt for the former. If a full-time music teacher is under contract, but student enrollment is sufficient to fill only three music classes, the principal may find it both necessary and cost effective in a given semester to assign the music teacher to teach two classes in English, in addition to the three classes in music, in order to employ the teacher for a regular full-time
complement of five classes per semester. If a school has three full time social-studies teachers, but needs to offer the equivalent of 3 1/2 full-time positions, and also has more than enough full-time English teachers, one solution would be to assign one of the English teachers to teach both English courses and some social-studies courses.

"From a managerial perspective, these choices may save time and money for the school, and ultimately for the taxpayer. From an educational perspective they are not cost-free, as they are among the largest sources of under qualified teachers in schools in the United States."

But I think the study has it wrong here: it's not that top-down decisions from administrators cause so many teachers to be assigned to the wrong thing. On the contrary: it's that state education departments are not directly supervising and inspecting teacher assignments, to make sure that they are on the right subject.

Also, another reason for this high rate of mis-assignments may be that schools are arranged in small districts, with teachers not being state employees. For this reason, teachers cannot be reassigned out of district if a more remote school needs that particular teacher's skill.