{"id":201,"date":"2019-02-11T19:08:22","date_gmt":"2019-02-11T19:08:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.buckfinancial.net\/blog\/?p=201"},"modified":"2019-02-11T20:30:28","modified_gmt":"2019-02-11T20:30:28","slug":"its-this-simple-teachers-unions-fear-losing-monopoly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.buckfinancial.net\/blog\/2019\/02\/11\/its-this-simple-teachers-unions-fear-losing-monopoly\/","title":{"rendered":"Its this simple: Teachers Unions Fear Losing Monopoly, $$"},"content":{"rendered":"

Three cheers for Ray Reinhard’s article in today’s Santa Cruz Sentinel<\/em>, which says out loud something we all know.\u00a0 Teachers unions are behind the call for a moratorium on charter school growth, and the call for a Blue Ribbon panel to consider changes to CA’s Charter School Act.\u00a0 Let’s first draw a distinction between teachers and teachers unions.\u00a0 What we are talking about here are unions, not the thousands of individuals who show up (almost) every day to try to make a difference (except, of course, when they are on strike).\u00a0 Unions are concerned about losing their influence (some would say “monopoly”) in public education.\u00a0 Witness the fact that, during the recent strike in LAUSD, the over 138,000 charter school students and their families were not disrupted at all because thousands of charter school teachers went to work.\u00a0 That’s a problem for the union, tantamount to requiring their members to “re-up” every so often (which is another subject we should be talking about, but which the unions would rather eat glass than see happen).<\/p>\n

Whether charter schools financially hurt traditional school districts isn’t an honest question.\u00a0 The cause of the financial stress for districts has been pointed out in audits, CAFRs, and rating agency reports for decades, long before charter schools enrolled 10% of K-12 students in CA.\u00a0 Unfunded pension and other retirement obligations resulting from the defined BENEFIT plans (as opposed to defined CONTRIBUTION such as private sector plans like yours probably is) are why more and more funds are diverted from the classroom in traditional school districts.\u00a0 These benefits were awarded because many well-intentioned people on both sides of the aisle who sat on school boards knew how disruptive a strike would be.\u00a0 \u00a0The disruption would result because there were NO OTHER OPTIONS\u00a0 for families.\u00a0 So, they kicked the can down the road for future generations to deal with.\u00a0 That road is beginning to run out of pavement and is a serious problem.<\/p>\n

But a moratorium and a “show-trial” panel won’t fix this problem, nor will removing an important choice for families.\u00a0 This is about the waning union influence on public education.\u00a0 This is about money for adults.\u00a0 What this isn’t about at all is what is best for the students and families, many of who are low-income and disenfranchised, who are helping themselves<\/strong><\/em> through a quality education provided by many charters.\u00a0 The unions would rather see your child languish in a poorly performing school district than lose money or their influence.\u00a0 For the teachers union, and the politicians who do their bidding, their disingenuousness knows no bounds.<\/p>\n

Ray Reinhard | Goodman, Moynihan don\u2019t understand California\u2019s charter schools<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n