The California teachers’ union is seeking changes to state law that will allow them to negotiate curricula, text books, and school standards as part of their package with the state, not just salaries and benefits. Sac Bee columnist Dan Weintraub explains union head Wayne Johnson’s views:
Johnson says that public-school teachers, college graduates all and many with advanced degrees, deserve to be consulted as professionals about the work they are asked to do. He’s right. But that is not the same as giving their unions the ability to dictate education policy in contracts negotiated at the threat of a strike and set in stone for years so that future school boards cannot change them.
California has taken some important steps toward school accountability in the past five years, with new standards, curriculum and tests. The new system is not perfect, and it still needs some adjustments. But giving the unions control over how that accountability program plays out at the local level would be a huge step backward.
If they get their way, local school boards and parents will have no say in education policy, and with Democrats controlling huge majorities in both houses and the governorship, they very well might get their way. So just when it seemed that public education in California couldn’t get any worse, this nefarious scheme threatens to destroy it altogether.
See the comments of the illustrious Joanne Jacobs on this power-grab.