By Tom

I think I finally get what’s going on in Wisconsin. It took me long enough. In fact, it took reading George Will’s latest column to understand exactly why Wisconsin is such a big deal.

Wisconsin’s Republican governor Scott Walker wants to eliminate collective bargaining for most public employee unions, including all public school teachers. His stated rationale is that doing so would save the state money. It’s hard to figure out the logic in this, since collective bargaining, at least for teachers, doesn’t actually happen at the state level. It happens at the local level; between a school district and the local association that represents its teachers.

Why should Walker even care about collective bargaining?

To understand why, you need to understand the other half of his proposed legislation. You see, he wants to end collective bargaining, but he also wants to mandate a yearly authorization for public employee unions. They’d have to undergo an expensive, annual vote by their members in order to stay alive.

For most teachers, their experience with the union is based primarily on the agreement that their local association and district hammer out. In the absence of collective bargaining, most teachers would have little reason to value their union. Why would they? The district would dictate the terms of their employment, and they’d have to either agree to them or leave.

And that brings us to the whole piece about the annual vote. Teachers, with little reason to value their union, would have little reason to support it. Why would they? Why would they willingly pay hundreds of dollars per year for a union that can’t do anything to help them? Sooner or later, they’d vote it down. Probably sooner.

But still; why would Walker want this? What’s in it for him?

It’s all about politics. A big part of our union dues goes to the state association, which uses it to lobby for pro-education legislation. They also use members’ political donations to elect pro-education candidates. Thus, when George Will tells us that public employees elect their own bosses, he does have a point. In Washington State, it would have been hard to imagine Governor Gregoire winning without the support of the Washington Education Association.

Walker wants to end collective bargaining. This would diminish the union’s power, resulting in a decreased level of support for the unions by their members. Eventually, they would vote to de-authorize their union, which would effectively end the union’s ability to elect pro-education candidates, most of whom are, coincidentally, Democrats. Walker, then, is doing what’s best for his party.

The obvious question, of course, is “so what?” A better question is “why should teachers care?” An even better question is “what difference does this make for students?”

First of all, consider what happens at the local level. We bargained for many things when I was on my association’s bargaining committee, every one of which affected learning conditions for our students. A great example is the use of professional development days. We successfully convinced the district to designate one-third as individual choice, one-third as building-directed time, and one-third to be directed at the district level. This has led to far more meaningful work being done on those days, and far less time spent on district-directed “spray and pray” workshops.

Let’s look next at the state level. Last week I spent a whole day lobbying our state legislature on two issues: smaller class size and continuing the financial incentive for National Board Certification, both of which are proven to have a positive impact on student learning. Although I wasn’t paid for this time, our day was coordinated by several full-time union employees. Our union’s ability to bring real, classroom teachers into direct contact with lawmakers dealing with education legislation is the sort of activity that would completely end under a Walker-style law.

At the national level, the best way to compare pro-union vs. anti-union environments is to look at data. NAEP scores work best, since that’s basically what they were designed to do. And when you do, it becomes clear that collective bargaining states out-perform so-called “right-to-work states.” In the area of eighth grade reading, for example, ten of the top twelve states are collective bargaining states; nine of the bottom twelve have right-to-work laws. Other subjects and grade levels show the same trend, and while there may be many reasons for this, it’s not hard to imagine that having a strong, pro-education force like a powerful teacher union results in legislation that has a positive effect on student learning.

Yes, I finally get what’s going on in Wisconsin.  A Republican anti-union governor is doing what’s best for his party and their political agenda. It might be good for Republicans, but it’s bad for unions and bad for teachers. But ultimately, and most importantly, it’s bad for student learning.

Wisconsin is a big deal.