Teachers & Politics

The Vermont chapter of the National Education Association did a terrific job last week of demonstrating that it may indeed be what its detractors say it is—an ambitious political lobby intent on writing Vermont’s educatonal legislation for the benefit of its own members.

The teachers’ union turned over the podium last Thursday to Reg Weaver, the president of the National Education Association, for the keynote speech. It was the main event in VT-NEA’s annual three-day convention, which is a school holiday in districts all over Vermont, so that teachers can attend and, um, learn to be better teachers.

From Weaver, however, what the assembled teachers heard was a thumping political speech, revolving around the VT-NEA’s panic attack over bipartisan legislation passed last year. Weaver’s target—and the target of the state union leaders—was Act 82, passed late in the session as a compromise attempt to slow the growth of school budgets, which have greatly outstripped inflation.

Act 82 was born of a common understanding, shared by both Republicans and most Democrats, that the problem of school funding is partly a problem of excessive spending increases—not just a question of whom to tax. The law creates a "two-vote" system in higher-spending school districts whenever they ask voters for budget increases totaling more than 1% over the rate of inflation. The first vote would ask voters to approve the budget up to the inflation-plus-1% figure. A second vote would ask voters to approve the extra money that the school board believes to be necessary.

Act 82 was agreed to by Democratic House Speaker Gaye Symington and her leadership last session as a more palatable solution than the straight-out cap that Gov. Jim Douglas proposed for budget increases. The law passed by a comfortable margin.

Now, however, the statewide teachers’ union has decided that local voters are not to be trusted to take a second look at their school budgets. The two-vote system threatens the schools and—gasp—the children, VT-NEA believes, so it brought in Weaver (reportedly a rip-roaring public speaker) to fire up the troops for political activism.

VT-NEA President Angelo Dorta has said the organization will pressure the General Assembly to repeal the legislation even before it takes effect in March, 2009—that is, even before it’s known whether it works or not. Dorta promised to send delegations of teachers to their state representatives, to tell them to repeal Act 82. The union will also "get folks involved in the candidate recommendation process," Dorta was quoted as saying. It will also approach other labor unions in Vermont to stand in solidarity against the law.

Such a political campaign would be very helpful for those who criticize VT-NEA. It would indeed label it as an organization with minimal interest in good teaching and maximum interest in protecting the jobs, salaries, and benefits of its membership, regardless of the general good of the state of Vermont.