Union Power

Incidentally, Megan's post about the gross ignorance or dishonesty of her ideological comrades in arms ends up in one of her signature bizarre overstatements of the influence of teacher's unions on progressive politics in America: "The Laffer Curve and the supply siders pushing it seem to be the teacher's unions of the right."

Obviously, teacher's unions are an influential group. That said, the No Child Left Behind education reform that AFT and the NEA very much don't like was primarily written by Ted Kennedy and George Miller, who aren't just Democrats, but actually chair the education committees of the House and Senate. The American Prospect tends, in my view, to bend over backwards to be friendly to the teacher's unions, but never spiked any writing I did that went against the union line. The liberal Washington Monthly ran a 2004 article lauding John Kerry (at the time, an influential Democrat) for bucking the unions on key reforms:

Many liberals had hoped that Kerry would attack the testing requirement set forth in Bush's No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), which has become increasingly unpopular, especially among teachers' unions. But Kerry, who had voted for NCLB, instead challenged two longstanding, and fiercely defended, union prerogatives: seniority-based pay increases and rules virtually guaranteeing veteran teachers tenure. The candidate proposed a "new bargain"--a $30 billion, 10-year plan of federal grants which would allow districts to raise the pay of teachers whose students consistently test above average, while at the same time making it easier for schools to fire bad teachers. "Greater achievement ought to be a goal," Kerry said, "and it should be able to command greater pay, just the way it does in every other sector of professional employment."

That article didn't get spiked and Kerry is still a Democrat in good standing. Robert Gordon, known to pen such things as "That Republicans are fond of making these points--and unions and school officials are not fond of hearing them--does not make them less true" is a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and also served as domestic policy director for the Kerry-Edwards campaign.

Basically, the unions, while influential, also see their influence checked by counterbalancing interest groups within the Democratic Party, including the major civil rights organizations, several major charitable foundations, and the proclivity of various wealthy progressives to fund operations like Democrats for Education Reform. There's absolutely no comparison between this and the ways in which supply-side orthodoxy dominates the right. You see prominent Democratic politicians, progressive media outlets, and think tanks all deviating from the union line while you almost never see the right's institutions break publicly with the Lafferites.

Comments

McCardle's analogy was wrong. I suspect the magazine McCardle was writing for is not under the sway of the Lafferites so much. Rather it's just run by people who genuinely believe Laffer's line.

If the Cato Institute counts as "right wing", then it definitely has broken publicly with the Lafferites. How else to explain, Cato Chairman Bill Niskanen laying into the Lafferites

http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2006/05/11/starve-the-beast-just-does-not-work/

Posted by Joe Strummer | October 17, 2007 9:03 AM

I suppose I ought to have known, but I didn't. Go ahead liberals, pile on: you told me so. The Laffer Curve and the supply siders pushing it seem to be the teacher's unions of the right.

Gratuitous and unfair dig at teacher's unions aside, it's always fun to hear "you told me so." Call me petty, but there it is. It's kind of funny to imagine her having the same kind of epiphany that Andrew Sullivan had in 2004, John Cole began in 2005, and so on. Unfortunately, at the rate she's going, Clinton will be in the Oval Office by the time Megan realizes that, you know, there just might be something wrong with the current leadership of the Republican Party. Chelsea Clinton, that is.

Posted by Cyrus | October 17, 2007 9:04 AM

Oh, but Matt, it simply MUST be true that the liberal left engages in similar tactics. Afterall, it can't only be the right that ignores reality.

(Obviously things are more complicated, and the left is just as likely to the see things through ideologically tinted glasses, but I do think the current right is qualitatively different in its current manifestation and at certain points such as the Laffer curve, global warming etc, really does do everything possible to ignore reality. In this regard, as a movement, conservatives are much more like a Leninist party than the sprawling ideologically diverse democrats.)

Posted by d | October 17, 2007 9:04 AM

I haven't read McArdle's piece and know little about the teachers' union or education policy, so perhaps this is a silly question. But is there anything that the teachers' union insists is true that the field expert consensus insists is false? That's part of what seems peculiarly bad about the supply siders.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | October 17, 2007 9:05 AM

Starve the beast != Laffer Curve

The cato article above discounted a belief that reducing federal revenue would shrink the size of the government. Maybe he let the cat out of the bag by pointing out that tax policies based on the idea of the Laffer Curve produce less revenue, but that's a pretty Mandarin argument against the Laffer Curve. And since it implies that the Republicans are guilty of gross deception over their support for the Laffer Curve, it's doubly implausible that that's what he meant. (If he makes those arguments explicit elsewhere, I retract my objection.)

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | October 17, 2007 9:12 AM

> But is there anything that the teachers'
> union insists is true that the field expert
> consensus insists is false?

The general issue with that question is that the teachers claim that they _are_ the field expert consensus, and that the self-styled policy analysts at best don't know what they are talking about and at worst are advancing hidden agendas that benefit the ruling class at the immediate expense of teachers and the long-run expense of society.

Having grown up in a family of urban teachers in the 1960s (pre-union) and seen firsthand how badly they were treated, and how ugly things got before they decided (collectively) to reorganize their union as a real trade union and fight, I tend to agree with the teachers and laugh at the useful idiots on the progressive side who think they can make common cause with the Radical Right to "improve" education.

Cranky

Posted by Cranky Observer | October 17, 2007 9:18 AM

And that's not to say that the teacher's are ALWAYS right, and that you're not allowed to say anything against them, it's just that they'll put out their own PoV against yours, something both sides are really allowed, and supposed to do.

Posted by Karmakin | October 17, 2007 9:34 AM

Exactly who would be the right wing constituency which would (publicly) oppose supply-side economics?

Posted by El Cid | October 17, 2007 9:54 AM

The attacks on teacher unions are pretty lame but here's my question. If people want to hire/fire/etc teachers based on performance, why don't they start having students give student evaluations of the teachers and using those to judge performance just like they do in college? Or if that's too radical maybe parental evaluations? A combination of both might be useful. These would be a lot more useful than evluations by a principal who barely even knows what the teachers are doing. For example, what sense is there in having a 7th grade math teacher evaluated by a mathematically illiterate school principal?

Posted by Dan the Man | October 17, 2007 9:55 AM

For example, what sense is there in having a 7th grade math teacher evaluated by a mathematically illiterate school principal?

As opposed to evaluations from the student learning from the evaluated teacher, or the parent of that student? My sense has always been that we don't know what a good teacher looks like in any fine grained way, and differences in outcomes can be as easily (or more easily) explained by differences in student quality. In some sense, this isn't very different from arguing that--in college basketball, for example--it's harder to make a case for coaching as all-important once players have passed a certain talent threshold.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | October 17, 2007 10:01 AM

For example, what sense is there in having a 7th grade math teacher evaluated by a mathematically illiterate school principal?

What sense is there in having a principal who can't evaluate his employees performance?

And if the teacher's union is the labor interest, who (ultimately) represents the capital interest? Do the taxpayers really control the means of production here? Or isn't it possible that we ought to restructure the dynamic a little?

Posted by southpaw | October 17, 2007 10:07 AM

The reflexive hatred of teacher's unions and assumption about their all-powerful lobby sounds a lot like a certain reknowned goat-blower.

Posted by SP | October 17, 2007 10:09 AM

I teach in a community college north of Dallas. We get a lot of students who've been thru no child left behind and its previous texas versions. Some are good, but on the whole they don't really know how to read a book or write an essay or do a little research. Many resent being asked to do these things--they are just way too hard.

On the positive side, they are whizzes at taking multiple guess exams.

Dan the Man, my student evals are pretty good; I have the oh so valuable chili pepper on Rate my Professor.com. Student evals, as undertaken by College administrations, are useless. They are beauty contests of the most empty sort. How does a mathematically/scientifically/philosophically illiterate student do a better job of evaluating a math/science/philosophy teacher than a mathematically illiterate administrator? They don't.

There are lots of problems with education in this country. But there is no reason to suppose that education can be improved by engaging in what since Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics has been know as a category mistake. Qualities are not now and can not be measured with any sort of accuracy, certainly not by a 1 to 5 scale. Thats why art is the richter scale of the human art.

Posted by jerry | October 17, 2007 10:16 AM

As opposed to evaluations from the student learning from the evaluated teacher, or the parent of that student?

Students and parents are customers of the teacher's service. That's why there are things like "customer feedback forms" and "please rate your customer support representative at the end of the phone call".

Posted by Dan the Man | October 17, 2007 10:18 AM

What sense is there in having a principal who can't evaluate his employees performance?

Principals are principally bureaucratic administrators, not teacher evaluators. You might as well ask what use is there in an IT company CEO who can't evalute his software engineers' performances.

Posted by Dan the Man | October 17, 2007 10:21 AM

so in other words, even this attempt at intellectual honesty was converted into partisan hackery.

by megan mcardle.

who would have thought.

Posted by kid bitzer | October 17, 2007 10:24 AM

How does a mathematically/scientifically/philosophically illiterate student do a better job of evaluating a math/science/philosophy teacher than a mathematically illiterate administrator

Well, obviously, many of the students won't be mathematically/scientifically/philosophically illiterate at the end of the course (that's when they do the evaluations - not at the start of the course) because they learned something.

Posted by Dan the Man | October 17, 2007 10:27 AM

For example, what sense is there in having a 7th grade math teacher evaluated by a mathematically illiterate school principal?

Relating to what SCMT said, teaching skill at the primary and secondary level has relatively little to do with command of the material — the worst English teacher in the world could still tell you what the theme of "Animal Farm" is — and a lot more to do with other factors. Diplomacy, multi-tasking, maturity, a willingness at an emotional level to put a lot into the job, etc. Basically, not to get preachy, but the ability to look at 20 teens, most of whom don't want to be there, and tell which ones understand what you're trying to teach them, which ones are genuinely lost, and which ones understand but don't care. (And then, figure out what to do with each group.) That's hard to evaluate in general, but a principal is in a much better position to do so than the students themselves or their parents.

Posted by Cyrus | October 17, 2007 10:29 AM

That's why there are things like "customer feedback forms" and "please rate your customer support representative at the end of the phone call".

For certain sorts of services--like getting a bank location, I guess--sure. But do I trust customers to evaluate complicated things, like medicine? I certainly wouldn't be comfortable with the idea of replacing licensing boards with customer surveys that required a "Well, he did a good job on me" score.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | October 17, 2007 10:31 AM

Note to Dan the Man an others of his ilk: Everything in life can't be reduced to a comparison with getting a new TV at Best Buy.

Posted by BlueStreak | October 17, 2007 10:36 AM

Yea check out here where Bob Herbert bravely goes after the teachers union.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CE7D91339F931A35753C1A9619C8B63&n=Top/Opinion/Editorials%20and%20Op-Ed/Op-Ed/Columnists/Bob%20Herbert

A synopsis of Bob's brave thoughts->

I believe we can identify good and bad teachers. We need more good teachers and less bad teachers.

Ending tenure and getting rid of any current union members is of course off the table.

I suggest we hire better teachers.

Nope no signs of any teacher's union influence here folks. Just keep moving along.

Keep on enabling and denying. No dependency here! Now, the Republicans, they are addicted to the idea of tax cuts making money grow on trees. That is a habit. You just smoke a few cigarettes.

Posted by SomeGuy | October 17, 2007 10:40 AM

I haven't read McArdle's piece and know little about the teachers' union or education policy, so perhaps this is a silly question. But is there anything that the teachers' union insists is true that the field expert consensus insists is false?

Agree with SCMT - the teachers union analogy is odd.

A much better anaolgy is the insane left-wing idea that going to universal health care will save money. This is left-wing orthodoxy, which nobody on the left would ever be willing to challenge (see, e.g., Obama's advisors kowtowing the left wing orthodoxy), but defies all sanity. Sure, you can find some people the left would call "experts", but who are just bought and paid for insane freaks, no difference than the so-called "experts" on the right pushing the Laffer curve nonsense.

Posted by Al | October 17, 2007 10:53 AM

Dan the Man,

One can hope that students will not be illiterate once they've taken a course, any course. But note, I explained that way too many students entering my college are pretty close to that condition even after they've been through Texas high schools. My colleague, a comp teacher, was just in saying that too many of his second semester comp students can't write using parallel construction or the active voice. Thats not even really considering the studnt I had who avowed that he wouldn't complete my course because he would not be able to stick with his plan to not read a book while in College if he did so.

How is a customer satisfaction survey going to do anything useful under these circumstances.

Posted by jerry | October 17, 2007 11:06 AM

I think the testament to teachers union power is that they exercise such influence DESPITE opposition from both major parties. The unions are powerful, yes, but their power is separate from the Democratic party rather than having sway over it.

Posted by Marshall | October 17, 2007 11:09 AM

How is a customer satisfaction survey going to do anything useful under these circumstances.

How is the "customer satisfaction survey" (ie student evaluation form) at your school useful under these circumstances now?

Posted by Dan the Man | October 17, 2007 11:20 AM

Dan the Man,

I said is isn't.

Posted by jerry | October 17, 2007 11:23 AM

Let me add that the evaluation process does have a particular consequence. It generates a permenant bureaucracy with local, state and national interests inthe preservation of that bureaucracy. Such a bureaucracy costs time and money--lots of both.

Posted by jerry | October 17, 2007 11:30 AM

I said is isn't.

OK. And yet, amazingly enough, colleges in general do find student evaluations useful enough to use them. Since we're trading anecdotes, let me give you one. There was once a teacher who was really smart (I will call him Mr. A) who taught a highly technical class. When Mr. A first started teaching, students didn't like him because he wrote too fast on the blackboard (yes, he still used one of those), and didn't explain things well enough because he thought everyone would be as smart as him. Students wrote about this in their evaluations, and the administrators told him about it.
Over the years, he simplified the class and bacame more patient. Students still graded him as a tough teacher, but they also regarded him as fair and earnest in his approach. Of course, the smart students talked about what a genius he was. So here is a teacher who improved because of the evaluations.
Now of course there is no perfect solution to "performance evaluation". Perhaps there should be little evaluation and simply trust the teachers. I think this is pretty reasonable view. But if there is evaluation, it certainly makes more sense to have the performance evaluation done by people who see the performance rather than those who don't. And generally assuming students are all idiots just because a few are is of course absurd.
And dismissing some of it as a "beauty contest" might be accurate, but what's so wrong with that? Being able to relate to students is important as a teacher. Read Cyrus's post at October 17, 2007 10:29 AM on this.

Posted by Dan the Man | October 17, 2007 11:47 AM

> And yet, amazingly enough, colleges in
> general do find student evaluations useful
> enough to use them.

K-12 (or at least K-10) education is compulsory, universal (supposed to be anyway), and serves societal purposes at societal expense. A certain percentage of the students don't want to be there and see no purpose in it, but society says "tough - you must show up and we will try to compel you to make some effort". K-6 also serves as a group socialization process which is more controversial but has been true since the 1700s.

No one is compelled to go to college[1]. Even the attendees at what is considered the lowest-level business college had to fill out an application and have to get themselves there on class days. They might hate the process, they might hate the class - but they have some basic non-imposed motivation for being there. And they are at least nominally adults in a peer-to-peer situation not minors. Which makes it a completely different situation and one that does have an element of customer satisfaction to it (although my engineering professors would have laughed to think that had any validity earlier than the 2nd year of an MS program if then, but still).

Cranky

[1] OK, there are a few out there where a judge or probation officer said "College, Army, or jail: your choice" but not many.

Posted by Cranky Observer | October 17, 2007 12:11 PM

Dan the Man,

College administration's may find evals useful. I'm not in the administration and have no desire to be. If a student has a useful comment, I like lots of teachers take it on board. But thats not what evals are really about.

Equally pertinent is my other comment that the students I see coming up lack many basic skills but are really good at multiple guess exams--i.e. at working within the permenent bureaucracy's preferred testing format. I find this worrying. I find the suggestions coming out of the permenent bureaucracy worrying. That bureaucracy has an interest in producing measures, but they can only assert that those measures have a connection to pedagogy. That bureaucracy is often very insulting when they discuss the activities of teachers.

We all know what would likley work. Generally smaller classes. More reading and writing, and more difficult reading and writing (and fewer multiple guess exams). More parental and community involvement. But we're not likely to see this; its expensive and much of the result is not susceptible to measurement. This situation makes me wonder about the interests of the permenent bureaucracy.

Posted by jerry | October 17, 2007 12:45 PM

I find it odd that everyone here is behaving as though the right attacks teacher's unions because of some good-faith reasoning, and we just have to figure out the nature of their complaints. I have a simpler explanation: it's a way to attack public education itself, without looking like you're attacking public education, or students, or the overworked, underpaid teachers themselves.

Posted by Chilly | October 17, 2007 1:07 PM

A much better anaolgy is the insane left-wing idea that going to universal health care will save money.

Gawd help me, I think that's close to fair: true for some set of conditions, untrue for others which reasonable people think might better reflect the state of affairs here. That said, I don't think that(a) the claim is made with anything like the same strident dogmatism, or (b) the claim is nearly as central to the argument for the policy.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | October 17, 2007 1:50 PM

@Chilly: 1:07pm

You are likely near-correct here: most conservatives' attacks on teachers' unions are probably NOT "good-faith reasoning", but stem from general, uncritical adherence to various rightwing shibboleths: of which organizations like the NEA and UFT are merely outstanding exemplars.

1) A general rightwing dislike of unionization (especially of public employees).

2) A widespread belief - particularly among those motivated by ideological extremism and/or religious fanaticism - that the public schools (under the rubric of "community values") ought to exist primarily to indoctrinate their students with the precepts of extremist ideology and fanatical religion. Liberal, secular organizations like teachers' unions are seen as stumbling blocks to this goal, and, thus, are to be opposed.

3) Pocketbook issues: local schooling is one of those few "political" structures in this country run (in practicality) almost entirely on a town or county level. For conservatives who have conditioned themselves to reflexively oppose virtually ANY form of taxation, "getting one's value for money", given the high costs of public education in this day and age is ever harder and harder: union wages and benefits are just a handy target.

Of course, this doesn't mean that there are not real problems inherent with the pervasive unionization of educators: performance and tenure issues CAN be a block towards improving general educational quality, and cost concerns are far from trivial in large areas of the country. But sadly, as with most "political" things nowadays, reasoned discussion of complicated issues seems to be just too difficult: far better to resort to simplistic rants like this gem from Megan's comment thread:

Comparing a right wing publication with a party line with an organization consisting of goons that have virtually single-handedly disabled the children of America is hyperbole at best and moronitude at worst.

Posted by Jay C | October 17, 2007 2:48 PM

Why don't be we start teachers out at $75,000 per year so we can undermine the unions.

Posted by Outside a Box Thinking | October 17, 2007 3:37 PM

How the fuck can you compare and interest group to a dumbass idea? Its not even apples & oranges.

Posted by yoyo | October 19, 2007 4:59 AM