Teachers Unions Versus Students

The lead story in The New York Times this morning, titled “New York State Votes to Double Charter Schools,” describes a legislative victory for charter school advocates last night in the State Assembly and Senate. The bill will increase the number of charter schools across the state to about 460.

Passage of the bill was crucial if the State is to receive about $700 billion in federal grants under a program known as Race to the Top. The state’s eligibility for the program will also be assisted by a separate bill tying teachers’ salaries to their students’ performance on standardized tests.

Surprisingly, the State legislature avoided its useful dysfunctional results and may help to avoid thousands of teacher layoffs should the grant money be received. In fact, they passed the bill just in the nick of time since the deadline to apply for the federal grant is this Tuesday.

Mayor Bloomberg, who also supports an increase in charter schools, also won a hard-fought victory. And so in the end did students, who will benefit from these institutions, publicly financed but privately run.

Of course, the teachers in charter schools are generally not unionized, thus giving them more flexibility to pursue innovative strategies not commonly used in other public schools. And that seems to be the sole reason they are opposed by teachers’ unions. I’m one of the strongest union supporters around and applaud the entire history of unions in our nation, but, at some point, too much of a good thing is just that. And that is the story of teacher unions’ opposition to this bill.