Attack on Public Employee Unions Is A Project of the Far Right
Yesterday the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case of Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association. Adam Liptak of the NY Times explains what is at stake in this case: “Under California law, which is similar to ones in more than 20 other states, public employees who choose not to join unions must pay a ‘fair-share service fee,’ also known as an agency fee, which is typically equivalent to members’ dues.” “Such fees are constitutional, the Supreme Court ruled in 1977 in Abood v. Detroit Board of Education. ‘To compel employees financially to support their collective-bargaining representative has an impact upon their First Amendment interests,’ Justice Potter Stewart wrote for the majority. But he wrote, ‘such interference as exists is constitutionally justified’ to prevent freeloading and to ensure ‘labor peace.'”
Richard Kahlenberg writing for the Century Foundation, explains what’s at stake in this case: “The current legal framework in which courts weigh cases such as Friedrichs is narrowly constrained, balancing the free speech rights of dissenting union members against the state’s interests in promoting stable labor relations with its public employees. In the 1977 case ofAbood v. Detroit Board of Education, the U.S. Supreme Court reached a sensible compromise that properly balanced these two sets of interests by splitting union dues into two categories: those that support political speech, and those that support bread-and-butter collective bargaining. Because the First Amendment’s free speech clause provides a right to not be compelled by the state to subsidize speech with which one disagrees, dissenting public employees cannot be required by the state to join a union, or to subsidize the union’s political and lobbying efforts to promote certain positions of public concern.” In Abood, “the Court held, the state may prevent employees from being ‘free riders’ by compelling contribution to Attack on Public Employee Unions Is A Project of the Far Right | janresseger:
Florida’s Big Bonuses for Teachers’ High School SAT Scores Miss the Point
In her Washington Post column, Valerie Strauss recently described a scheme being implemented by Florida’s state legislature, “called ‘Florida’s Best and Brightest Teacher Scholarships’… using 44 million of taxpayer dollars to give up to $10,000 bonuses to teachers who got high SAT and ACT scores before entering college—even if they took the test decades ago. New teachers would just need to show their test scores at or above the 80th percentile on the SAT and ACT, while veteran teachers would also have received a ‘highly effective’ evaluation rating… And now Florida lawmakers want to extend the program to go beyond one year. In fact the House education committee recently approved a bill to do just that. So this nonsense could easily last more than one year and waste more than $44 million.”
Strauss’s column has caused me to reflect on the qualities of the fine educators I’ve known and to marvel at the crazy logic of today’s school “reformers” who seem to need a a number to measure excellence.
I thought about Florida’s SAT bonus program when, late in December, Strauss reprinted a column from Michelle Gunderson, “a 29-year… veteran who teaches first grade in the Chicago Public Schools. She is a doctoral student at Loyola University in curriculum and instruction.” Ms. Gunderson describes the challenge faced by teachers when children appear mid-year, children who bring serious problems to a setting where many other children also need her attention: “One of the things you learn as an elementary teacher in the Chicago Public Schools is to always have materials available and an extra desk or space for new students. You learn to expect the unexpected and that a child can show up on your doorstep at any minute of any day… Many times children who come to us after the first weeks of school are displaced or have parents who are seeking a school that can help their troubled child. These were the Florida’s Big Bonuses for Teachers’ High School SAT Scores Miss the Point
