Paid to do nothing

Public education's never-ending complaints over teacher pay and working conditions conveniently ignore a few important taxpayer concerns: It's exceptionally difficult to fire an educator for any type of misconduct, it's impossible to fire one for poor classroom performance, and when school districts actually try to terminate a terrible teacher, the public often ends up providing the instructor with a lengthy paid vacation before union-backed appeals overturn the firing.

Last month, a Los Angeles Times investigation found that about 160 Los Angeles Unified School District teachers and administrators were doing nothing while collecting full salaries and benefits pending district inquiries and dismissal proceedings. Paying those employees to stay away from classrooms cost the district $10 million last year, even as officials made budget cuts and began planning layoffs.

As a follow-up to that investigative series, The Associated Press this month determined that about 700 New York City public school teachers have been banished to so-called "rubber rooms" -- off-campus offices where they must sit during school hours, doing whatever they like -- pending the resolution of disciplinary hearings and the termination process. This practice, which keeps teachers accused of offenses as severe as sexual misconduct on the payroll for years without giving the public any productivity in return, costs New York taxpayers about $65 million per year.

Both investigations found that union-negotiated contracts have created a disciplinary and dismissal process that consumes so much time and money that administrators only dare to fire teachers for egregious actions not related to actual teaching.

Educators shouldn't be denied due process in the event that they are fired. But the procedures negotiated by teacher unions aren't geared toward a speedy, objective examination of alleged misconduct -- they've been designed specifically to discourage school districts from removing even the worst, most unprofessional educators from their payrolls, and to provide the least-skilled teachers with a level of job and income security that doesn't exist in the private sector.

The Clark County School District puts teachers and administrators on paid leave pending the completion of an inquiry and the termination process. But the district doesn't put them in a "rubber room," a la New York City, and it doesn't take nearly as long as Los Angeles or New York to complete its reviews of individual cases.

School district spokesman Michael Rodriguez said educators are "assigned to home" and expected to perform some of their duties. Depending on the severity of the allegations, a termination can be completed within a few months.

But why must fired teachers and administrators be allowed to keep collecting pay until their appeals process has concluded? Why not dismiss them without pay, then allow them to collect back pay if their firing was deemed unjustified? Doing it the other way around ensures that people with no business educating children are allowed to stick around, then get a sizable reward for their failures before being shown the door.

All this lays bare the teachers unions' true priorities: protecting public education's worst instructors and squeezing taxpayers for every dime possible.