Forbes | July 28, 2020
By Jeanne Allen, Founder and CEO of CER

Massachusetts is a textbook case of vested interests over kids

The Massachusetts Teachers Association secured a major concession to delay school another two weeks to give teachers time to “prepare” for school. Districts will now be starting school September 15, rather than provide for students to begin their education on time or at least close to it, by taking advantage of the varied and innovative approaches that exist in these unprecedented times. That may work for wealthy families who can stay at the beach, or afford tutors, but what about the vast majority of families whose students lost ground this spring?

As Robin Lake of the Center on Reinventing Public Education at the University of Washington argues, learning loss can have profound effects. A few weeks time lost can be life-altering.  “For some students, half a year of lost schooling might not ever be recovered. This can affect their odds of graduating from high school or doing any college work and, thus, their lifetime incomes — often multiple years’ worth.

It would be one thing if the union had said, “Hey, we’re on the verge of creating a major new educational program that is unlike anything we’ve done. We’ve figured out how to educate all kids, wherever they are. Just give us 2 more weeks and watch the amazing results occur and don’t worry, we’ll stay in school until it’s done, well after the 170 days are up.”

Teachers and supporters gather for the rally on the first day of strike by the Chicago Teachers Union on October 17 2019 in Chicago, Illinois. (Photo by KAMIL KRZACZYNSKI / AFP) (Photo by KAMIL KRZACZYNSKI/AFP via Getty Images) AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

But instead, the union boasted right after the deal was done: “When we fight, we win! Educator unions’ agreement with DESE reduces the student school year to 170 days to give educators crucially important time to plan.”

Meanwhile, over in the Boston Archdiocese, schools are opening for live instruction beginning in August. In Fall River, the plan for reopening schools includes both a five-day week as well as preparations for remote learning, should students need to stay home again. In Massachusetts, charter educators and school leaders have been working since their schools shut down to devise plans to continue, no matter what challenges the fallout from the pandemic would bring. MATCH Charter Public School for example, which serves 1,250 students in grades preK-12, on July 17 issued a memo to its entire community laying out in great detail how they are planning for reopening and soliciting continued parent feedback.

Preparations for learning, scheduling, structure and safety were underway at Brooke Charter School, a high-performing K-12 public school, in July. It will be ready to go after Labor Day educating its almost 2,000 enrolled students who are more than 90% free and reduced lunch kids. There are dozens more like that, which operate around the state but whose enrollment has been artificially capped because, wait for it, the Massachusetts unions spent more than $12 million to defeat a referendum calling for the cap to be lifted.  Meanwhile 25,000 students are on waiting lists which could easily fill another life-saving 25 schools if permitted to open.

The Catholic, private and public charter schools in Massachusetts, just like around the nation, have been working round the clock since March to deliver instruction, despite having less money, and not being funded by billions in stimulus funds that propped up the traditional public schools.

They will be open to their kids on time, and are committed to delivering what is needed by their mission, even as their nemesis, the teachers union, is fighting the state and in Congress to keep any stimulus funds from reaching them to teach their kids.

And where was the organization that just negotiated the un-kid friendly concession to delay school again when Covid-19 hit?  It was busy negotiating contracts that forbid teachers to be working more than five hours in asynchronous work, and limiting to 15 hours real-time interactive work (including meetings with colleagues and professional development), setting a maximum limit of 20 hours of work per week. There were no requirements for student-facing time, no requirements for daily work (only per-week), and video could not be required at any time.

Yet those are precisely the tools and approaches that ensured continuous learning for students around the world! From Miami to Shanghai, students of all income levels were able to access education continuously because technology was in fact a requirement of the schools.

The goals of the Massachusetts Teachers Association, an affiliate of the National Education Association, is clear in this treatise, which outlines what they expect from the government during the crisis. This is not a proactive, forward-looking plan of action, but a manifesto with nothing about how education should be delivered.

Teachers are understandably confused. Said one on Twitter in response to criticism of the teachers unions’ move to delay schools, “I’m one of those teachers that has done work this summer on my own….If your expectation was that teachers come together and collaborate to start preparing over the summer, then a contract should have been drafted.”

Ah, but there’s the rub. Schools that are working around the clock to open are not requiring the teachers to do the work; it’s the leaders of the charter schools and Catholic schools who are working with their staffs and volunteer governing boards to develop, and prepare innovative approaches to teaching and learning. Then the teachers can start their prep time as usual a couple of weeks before school officially starts, and students can safely return when school is supposed to begin.

That the traditional districts are not doing the same begs the question: How has the $215 million that Massachusetts districts received from the federal government been spent, if not to prepare for reopening?

The answer should have been the job of the interest groups allegedly working to represent teachers. Instead, they’ve been spending their time negotiating concessions, and organizing around a national day of resistance!

“The national collective of teachers unions is advocating for 8 demands in order to reopen schools safely, including: no reopening until the scientific data supports it, safe conditions, equitable access to online learning, and more. Read more about the collective’s purpose, demands, tactics and targets.”

Among those demands – a moratorium on charter schools and vouchers, the two tools that most have supported poor kids learning now.

You just can’t make this stuff up.

But irony aside, student success around the country now hinges on the selfish motivations of adults whose power puts them in a position to demand that educational delivery suit their needs more than students, the beneficiaries for whom schools were intended.

Keri Rodrigues, the founder of the National Parent Union and a former labor organizer puts it this way.

“When your Resistance is protecting a status quo that continues to hurt Black and Brown children you can keep it.” Rodrigues, who is mobilizing parents all over the country, doesn’t agree that we should be opening schools only physically for all students given health and safety concerns, but that they should be making remote learning effective and not delay it.

“This is an equity issue. Shortening the school year is not a decision based in equity.”

Nor are the unions relentless attacks on charters – which in her home town of Boston are focused on the needs of minority students – based on equity concerns. “Charters were so much better adapting to remote learning,” Keri Rodrigues argues. “Instead of looking to these schools as models they are doubling down on their agenda” to close these schools.

“These folks represent the wants of adults over the needs of children. Our kids are underserved on a good day, and the idea that spending more time away from learning is a good idea is ludicrous.”

Rodrigues’ group has created a National Parents Union Family Bill of Rights to guide better thinking and it rightly argues that we must as a society change our focus from funding systems to funding students, which would take only a few simple policy steps to accomplish.

Without that, not only is education at risk, but so is our national security. As retired Adm. William McRaven, the Navy Seal in charge of the Bin Laden capture argues, “…Unless we are giving opportunity and a quality education to the young men and women in the United States, then we won’t have the right people to be able to make the right decisions about our national security…They won’t have an understanding of different cultures. They won’t have an understanding of different ideas. They won’t be critical thinkers.

“So we have got to have an education system within the United States that really does teach and educate young men and women to think critically, to look outside their kind of small microcosm because if we don’t develop those great folks, then our national security in the long run may be in jeopardy,” McRaven argues.

Students whose fate we permit to be left to politics rather than parents will never understand how true that is.

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