Welcome to public education’s Day of Reckoning.
During the go-go 1990s and early 2000s, many of the nation’s public schools played nice with the teacher unions, agreeing to collective bargaining agreements that were larded up with hidden and expensive costs.
A typical teachers’ contract includes dozens of perks like annual, automatic “step” raises (regardless of classroom performance), free health insurance and pension benefits, generous amounts of paid time off, payouts for unused sick days, paid time off for union representatives to tend to union business, retirement bonuses and overage payments for having one of two extra students in the classroom.
As a result, a typical school spends around 80 percent of its budget on labor costs. Most of those expenditures have no direct benefit for students. Schools could absorb the costs of those reckless giveaways during the days of wine and roses, but no longer.
The economic good times have come to a screeching halt, and Congress’ $10 billion “ edujobs” fund has been depleted. Now schools are reportedly left with no choice but to layoff record numbers of teachers, which is causing distress and panic for communities all across the nation, according to media reports.
The national debate has centered on “last-in-first-out” layoff policies – which are written into most collective bargaining agreements— that base dismissals on reverse seniority. “LIFO” has the perverse effect of leaving young, innovative teachers vulnerable to layoffs, while protecting some senior-level teachers who operate on auto-pilot.
A new poll finds that 85 percent of New Yorkers want to end “LIFO” layoffs, even as the teacher unions scramble to protect the policy.
Here’s what is not being sufficiently reported: a significant number of the forthcoming teacher layoffs could be averted if the unions would re-open their collective bargaining agreements and offer “givebacks” to school administrators.
If teacher unions agree to shoulder some of their pension and insurance costs, forgo a couple of annual “step” raises and phase out the ridiculous practice of payouts for unused sick leave, many school districts would be in much better financial shape and could avoid, or greatly minimize, teacher layoffs.
These provisions can cost millions, as was evidenced last week when officials in Jersey City, New Jersey said that city employees are owed $9 million for unused sick and vacation time. Taxpayers are left to wonder how many teaching positions $9 million would save.
Unfortunately, taxpayers may never find out because most local teachers unions across the nation have flatly rejected or been slow to respond to calls for contract concessions.
That leaves one last alternative to mass teacher layoffs: curb collective bargaining privileges for public servants (i.e. teachers), so labor negotiations involve only salary and working conditions.
That was the approach Gov. Scott Walker chose in Wisconsin. If allowed to take root, Americans will be able to judge for themselves the benefits of “controlled” collective bargaining.
This “layoff chaos” gripping our nation’s schools could have been avoided. Collective bargaining artificially drives up school labor costs, and it has the ultimate effect of hurting students and young teachers, who are the first to be let go.
