Union death grip on public education

From the "Better Than Nothing" file come four pieces of Nevada legislation touted as public education "reform."

Gov. Brian Sandoval signed Assembly Bills 225 and 229 and Senate Bills 197 and 212 into law last week, calling the measures "groundbreaking" and "historic."

With all due respect to Nevada's new (and so-far-so-good) governor, calling these measures "groundbreaking" is something like suggesting the woes of Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y., stem from his photographic skills.

While these four bills may be a miniscule step in the right direction, Nevada has continents to traverse before it breaks free of the pull unions have on public education.

As long as the antiquated union approach to teachers-first public education remains, Nevada's children will be forced to exist in a below-par, hit-and-miss system.

Now, don't get me wrong. Some children and families have the strength and knowledge to fight the system and thereby successfully navigate public education in Nevada. (Teachers who know the system's pitfalls are especially good at this.)

Of course, those with the motivation and wherewithal can opt out of public schools into any number of quite good private schools. Lucky for them.

But most Nevadans take what they get -- and most likely what they will get in 12 years of Nevada public education is one great teacher, a slew of average teachers and two or three horrible and/or unmotivated teachers who should have been quickly identified, fixed or dismissed.

Unions never do that because unions exist for the protection and well-being of their dues-paying members -- good and bad teachers, alike. Not students.

That's the unvarnished truth.

This is not to say that unions don't have a place, it is only to point out that unions should never, ever be fully in charge of education -- as they clearly are in Nevada. And not only do the teachers have a union, the bosses (administrators) have a union, too.

Look, you can hold public education up for scrutiny at any angle you wish, but it will always come back to that -- unionized teachers and administrators creating rules and a system that looks out for themselves first.

And so we come to these four pieces of "groundbreaking" legislation:

AB225: Allows tenured teachers to be busted back to probationary status after two consecutive unsatisfactory evaluations. Frankly, I doubt this ever results in the release of a single substandard teacher. But even if it did, why should it take two-plus school years to get a bad teacher out of the classroom?

AB229: Allows districts to fire teachers for "gross misconduct" (like selling drugs to kids on the playground, which actually happened, by the way). We need a piece of legislation to tell school administrators that they can fire drug-dealing teachers? Oh, my. It also allows districts to lay off teachers without using seniority as the only factor (a good provision, but I promise you it won't be used) and gives teachers facing dismissal the right to appeal through arbitration.

SB197: Gives the governor, not the State Board of Education, the authority to appoint the state superintendent of public instruction and changes the make-up of the board from a 10-member elected body to four elected and three appointed members. (This might take a small amount of power away from ballot-powerful, teacher-first unionistas, but only if the governor isn't beholden to the teacher union lobby.)

SB212: Creates a charter school authority to oversee the formation of charter schools. This could be a very good thing, if it facilitates more charter schools. Big "if," but a far better chance of that outcome than with the State Board of Education overseeing charter school births.

Yes, there are some spectacular teachers and administrators out there who slog through Nevada's educational industrial complex because they believe in their calling and the promise of public education. Let me say once again, "thank you" for your dedication.

That said, while the four pieces of legislation passed in the last legislative session didn't hurt, they will have no immediate impact on what really ails public education in Nevada.

Groundbreaking? Historic? If saying that gets you through the day, then fine.

But let us not forget to face up to the fact that, overall, our public educational system fails to hit on all cylinders. And the No. 1 reason for that is the death grip teacher-uber-alles unions have on the classroom.

Sherman Frederick (sfrederick@reviewjournal.com), the former publisher of the Las Vegas Review-Journal and a member of the Nevada Newspaper Hall of Fame, writes a column for Stephens Media. Read his blog at www.lvrj.com/blogs/sherm.