Teachers, elected leaders demonized

A full page ad entitled "Unions Declare War on Idaho Kids!" has appeared in many Idaho newspapers. It was paid for by right-wing agitator Frank L. Vandersloot, Dutch for "from the ditch," which describes the nature of the ad quite accurately.

Vandersloot charges that teacher unions "fought Governor Scott Walker's educational reforms in Wisconsin. The kids won. The unions lost." This conclusion is a tad premature.

On March 30 U.S. District Judge William Conley ruled against a provision of Walker's bill that required, just as Idaho now does for teachers, that public employee unions hold bargaining elections every year. This is a burden that no democratic system has ever imposed.

Then on Sept. 14 Dean County Judge Juan Colas ruled that Walker's bill deprives public employees of their "rights of free speech, association, and equal protection."

Vandersloot wants us to believe that teachers have finally realized they have been duped by union "bosses" in Washington, D.C. A survey of K-12 teachers done by the think-tank Education Sector found that 81 percent believed that they "would be vulnerable to school politics or administrators who abuse their power" without union contracts.

In a recent appearance in New York City Mitt Romney brushed off a comment by a parent and school board member, who reported that parents supported the union by 3-1 over Mayor Michael Bloomberg. In Chicago thousands of parents marched with 50,000 union members in support of the Chicago Federation of Teachers.

A McKeon & Associates poll of registered Chicago voters showed that 47 percent supported the strike while 39 percent opposed. Only 19 percent said Mayor Rahm Emanuel, President Obama's former Chief of Staff, was doing an above average job addressing the teachers' issues.

Vandersloot and his ilk spit out "union bosses" as if they were dictators with devious control over millions of teachers and school boards. Labor unions, however, are some of the most democratic organizations in the nation. All unions gain their right to represent workers by a majority vote of the bargaining unit. My union's officers at all levels are elected every two years.

Instead of dictates from D.C., union members also decide for themselves whether to withhold their services. Over the years they have held fewer and fewer strikes. The number of work stoppages in the nation's 16,000 school districts fell from 271 in 1975 to 15 in 2004.

The National Education Association (2.2 million members), the American Federation of Teachers (1.5 million members), and millions of parents are not happy with Obama's continuation of Bush Era policies, which place far too much emphasis on test scores and pit states and school districts against one another.

Many union contracts have reduced the percentage that test scores count in teacher evaluation to 25 percent. The NEA-AFT union in Los Angeles has convinced its board that test scores will no longer be used in teacher evaluation. In stark contrast Idaho law now requires that lump sum merit pay appropriations be sent to school districts solely on the basis of test score improvement.

In 1983 the National Commission on Excellence in Education issued a report entitled "A Nation at Risk." As the new president of the Idaho Federation of Teachers, I went on a state-wide speaking tour and committed my union to education reform.

The IFT offered a Master Teacher Plan in response to the report's call for merit pay. Master Teachers would be responsible for curriculum development and mentoring new teachers and would receive substantial salary increments for that work. The State Board of Education failed to respond to our plan, even though we introduced the concept of Master Teacher 30 years before Superintendent Tom Luna did.

I urge voters to ignore these vicious attacks on teachers and repeal the Luna Laws by voting "No" on Propositions 1, 2 and 3.

Nick Gier is president of the Idaho Federation of Teachers, AFT/AFL-CIO.