How DARE you offer to pay us more for doing better work?!!

When you read about issues in the media, you have to consider the messenger. When conservatives rail against teachers' unions, you have to take it with a grain of salt; many conservatives have plenty of pretty obvious ulterior motives for wanting to see public schools go down the drain, and so it's generally not useful to take their opinion into account on any issue involving education.

When liberals start bashing teachers' unions, though, you know it's serious. Check out this report from the Citizens' Commission on Civil Rights, about how the national teachers' unions (the NEA and AFT) have consistently blocked the three most important public school reform proposals - merit pay, national standards, and the end of tenure. Or read this Center for American Progress report about the straw-man arguments the NEA/AFT throw up against merit pay. It's on, teachers' unions!

The key fact here is that teachers' unions are set up to protect the interests of teachers, and the interests of teachers and the interests of students are not always the same. Tenure and seniority pay may be a comfy security blanket for teachers, but by reducing aggregate teacher quality they end up hurting students. And when you think about the fact that only a small percent of Americans are public school teachers, while nearly 100% are public school students, you start to realize how unfair it is that the tiny minority's interests have routinely triumphed over the vast majority's. How many poor kids get crappy worthless educations so that their teachers can sleep at night undisturbed by the fear of losing their low-pay low-expectations low-qualification jobs. It's time for that to change.

Fortunately, the Obama administration is on the job, proposing big increases to the Teacher Incentive Fund (a national merit pay program). Naturally, the NEA/AFT have been fighting this tooth and nail, which sounds a little like "Please don't pay us more money because that means you might expect us to do a better job!". But Obama has so far been resolute in slapping down this reliably Democratic-voting interest group.

(Side note: Can you imagine the Republicans treating one of their own so harshly, just for the good of the country? But don't expect a wave of support or approval from Republicans over Obama's efforts to end schoolteacher privileges. Their faith that he is the Antichrist appears unshakable.)

Anyway, let's hope that the good guys prevail, and that the teachers' unions are finally forced to accept their status as the minority stakeholder in public education.

Addendum: As per a request from the comments, I should clarify my statement that "many conservatives have plenty of pretty obvious ulterior motives for wanting to see public schools go down the drain"...the ulterior motive is that many conservatives want to send their kids to schools that teach religion and lead children in Christian prayer. These things are forbidden in public schools because of the 1st Amendment. Don't believe me that this is a big deal? Ask Cynthia Dunbar.