What if the NFL Played by Teachers' Union Rules?

Hall of Famer Quarterback Fran Tarkenton imagines what it would be like if the National Football League (NFL) adopted teacher's unions rules with regard to hiring. It's worth a read: Imagine the National Football League in an alternate reality. Each player's salary is based on how long he's been in the league. It's about tenure, not talent. The same scale is used for every player, no matter whether he's an All-Pro quarterback or the last man on the roster. For every year a player's been in this NFL, he gets a bump in pay. The only difference between Tom Brady and the worst player in the league is a few years of step increases. And if a player makes it through his third season, he can never be cut from the roster until he chooses to retire, except in the most extreme cases of misconduct. Let's face the truth about this alternate reality: The on-field product would steadily decline. Why bother playing harder or better and risk getting hurt? No matter how much money was poured into the league, it wouldn't get better. In fact, in many ways the disincentive to play harder or to try to stand out would be even stronger with more money. Of course, a few wild-eyed reformers might suggest the whole system was broken and needed revamping to reward better results, but the players union would refuse to budge and then demonize the reform advocates: "They hate football. They hate the players. They hate the fans." The only thing that might get done would be building bigger, more expensive stadiums and installing more state-of-the-art technology. But that just wouldn't help. If you haven't figured it out yet, the NFL in this alternate reality is the real -life American public education system. Teachers' salaries have no relation to whether teachers are actually good at their job—excellence isn't rewarded, and neither is extra effort. Pay is almost solely determined by how many years they've been teaching. That's it. After a teacher earns tenure, which is often essentially automatic, firing him or her becomes almost impossible, no matter how bad the performance might be. And if you criticize the system, you're demonized for hating teachers and not believing in our nation's children. Inflation-adjusted spending per student in the United States has nearly tripled since 1970. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, we spend more per student than any nation except Switzerland, with only middling results to show for it. These same misguided beliefs are front and center in President Obama's jobs plan, which includes billions for "public school modernization." The popular definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results. We've been spending billions of dollars on school modernization for decades, and I suspect we could keep on doing it until the end of the world, without much in the way of academic results. The only beneficiaries are the teachers unions.Over the past 20 years, we've been told that a big part of the problem is crumbling schools—that with new buildings and computers in every classroom, everything would improve. But even though spending on facilities and equipment has more than doubled since 1989 (again adjusted for inflation), we're still not seeing results, and officials assume the answer is that we haven't spent enough.

What if the NFL Played by Teachers' Union Rules?

Hall of Famer Quarterback Fran Tarkenton imagines what it would be like if the National Football League (NFL) adopted teacher's unions rules with regard to hiring. It's worth a read: Imagine the National Football League in an alternate reality. Each player's salary is based on how long he's been in the league. It's about tenure, not talent. The same scale is used for every player, no matter whether he's an All-Pro quarterback or the last man on the roster. For every year a player's been in this NFL, he gets a bump in pay. The only difference between Tom Brady and the worst player in the league is a few years of step increases. And if a player makes it through his third season, he can never be cut from the roster until he chooses to retire, except in the most extreme cases of misconduct. Let's face the truth about this alternate reality: The on-field product would steadily decline. Why bother playing harder or better and risk getting hurt? No matter how much money was poured into the league, it wouldn't get better. In fact, in many ways the disincentive to play harder or to try to stand out would be even stronger with more money. Of course, a few wild-eyed reformers might suggest the whole system was broken and needed revamping to reward better results, but the players union would refuse to budge and then demonize the reform advocates: "They hate football. They hate the players. They hate the fans." The only thing that might get done would be building bigger, more expensive stadiums and installing more state-of-the-art technology. But that just wouldn't help. If you haven't figured it out yet, the NFL in this alternate reality is the real -life American public education system. Teachers' salaries have no relation to whether teachers are actually good at their job—excellence isn't rewarded, and neither is extra effort. Pay is almost solely determined by how many years they've been teaching. That's it. After a teacher earns tenure, which is often essentially automatic, firing him or her becomes almost impossible, no matter how bad the performance might be. And if you criticize the system, you're demonized for hating teachers and not believing in our nation's children. Inflation-adjusted spending per student in the United States has nearly tripled since 1970. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, we spend more per student than any nation except Switzerland, with only middling results to show for it. These same misguided beliefs are front and center in President Obama's jobs plan, which includes billions for "public school modernization." The popular definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results. We've been spending billions of dollars on school modernization for decades, and I suspect we could keep on doing it until the end of the world, without much in the way of academic results. The only beneficiaries are the teachers unions.Over the past 20 years, we've been told that a big part of the problem is crumbling schools—that with new buildings and computers in every classroom, everything would improve. But even though spending on facilities and equipment has more than doubled since 1989 (again adjusted for inflation), we're still not seeing results, and officials assume the answer is that we haven't spent enough.
Right to Work is right for Virginia

Right to Work is right for Virginia

From the Richmond Times by NRTW President Mark  Mix: Weathering an economic downturn is never easy, but some states are managing better than others. Despite the recession, Virginia boasts a modest unemployment rate, and its average hourly wages top the national mean. What's the Old Dominion's secret? One factor that sets Virginia apart from its less fortunate neighbors is the state's popular Right to Work law. Virginia's Right to Work law ensures that no employee can be forced to join or pay dues to a union just to get or keep a job. Protecting employee choice has always been the most important argument in favor of Right to Work, but Virginia's economic performance is another point for worker freedom. Recent studies from the Cato Institute and the National Institute for Labor Relations Research indicate that right-to-work states enjoy higher job growth and more disposable income (after adjusting for families' cost-of-living) than their forced-unionism counterparts. Eight of the top 11 states for wage and salary growth enjoy right-to-work protections. Meanwhile, 13 of the 14 worst performers lack right-to-work laws. Workers and their families are also voting with their feet: According to the National Institute for Labor Relations Research, the young adult population in forced-unionism states has basically stagnated since 1980. Virginia, on the other hand, continues to attract a stream of new workers and entrepreneurs. Protecting worker freedom also prepares states to handle a difficult recession better than their forced-unionism counterparts. Virginia's robust job and wage growth compares favorably with the sluggish performance of union-dominated states like Michigan, Illinois and Wisconsin.

'Systematically Biased' Against Schoolchildren

[stream provider=youtube flv=w4TkzWcGTxo img=x:/nrtwc.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/TerryMoeCEAFU.png embed=false share=false width=580 height=280 dock=true controlbar=over bandwidth=high autostart=false /] Dr. Moe: As long as monopolistic teacher unions "remain powerful," effective schools "will be short-changed." Stanford Professor Lambastes Monopolistic Teacher Unionism (Source: July 2011 NRTWC Newsletter) On June 1, Tennessee achieved a legislative milestone when its elected officials effectively repealed a 33-year-old state statute authorizing and promoting union monopoly-bargaining control over teachers and other K-12 public school instructional employees. Under the new K-12 reform law approved by the Legislature and signed by Gov. Bill Haslam (R ), no union or other organization will be handed a legally protected monopoly over all "employee" input in discussions with school boards over working conditions. Once this law, known as the Collaborative Conferencing Act, takes effect, teachers who choose not to join any union will, for the first time in decades, have a voice in discussions throughout Tennessee regarding salaries, benefits and grievances. Tennessee revoked teacher union bosses' monopoly-bargaining privileges last month largely thanks to persistent lobbying by the roughly 46,000 National Right to Work Committee members and supporters in the Volunteer State. And, according to Stanford University political scientist and education specialist Terry Moe, the Tennesseans who helped pass the Collaborative Conferencing Act have done an enormous favor for their state's schoolchildren. From Children's Standpoint, Union Boss-Perpetuated Salary Rules 'Make No Sense at All' In his new book Special Interest: Teachers Unions and America's Public Schools (Brookings Institution Press), Dr. Moe documents how teacher union monopoly bargaining, still statutorily enshrined in more than 30 states, impairs school outcomes while sharply raising the cost to taxpayers. In practice, charges Dr. Moe, "exclusive" union bargaining routinely produces "key decisions that depart from -- and are systematically biased against -- what is best for kids and effective organization." One example among many are so-called "single salary schedules" that furnish teachers with extra pay for additional degrees and course taking, even though "research has consistently shown" that simply accumulating degrees and/or additional course credits, "does not make teachers more effective." From "the standpoint of what is best for children," such Big Labor-perpetuated salary rules "make no sense at all" (emphasis Dr. Moe's). But teacher union officials ferociously defend "single salary schedule" rules, because they keep educators dependent on the union for securing better pay and career advancement. Monopolistic Unionism Can Never Be 'Reform Unionism' In today's America, Special Interest goes on to point out, many education policymakers and other leaders "recognize that teacher unions are standing in the way of effective schools," but mistakenly believe that union officials "can be persuaded to do good things with their [monopolistic] power." This is the false hope of what is commonly called "reform unionism."