The teachers union in Washington State turned down millions of dollars in grant money that would have gone to boosting teacher salaries. What, you say? A pair of editorials today explain the story.
First, the Daily News Online:
That $13.2 million grant Washington state won last year to enhance the teaching of Advanced Placement courses in math and science is history. It’s lost because of the financial incentives it would have provided for teachers who improve test scores. The Washington Education Association didn’t much like the idea of tying teacher pay to student performance on exams. Neither did the teachers union like the involvement of an outside party, the grant provider, in teacher-pay decisions.
The zinger, though, comes from The Columbian:
Logic leads one to believe the WEA would support more pay for teachers, but because the NMSI grant money would come from an outside source, free from union manipulation, the union effectively killed the program.
Meanwhile, six other states will benefit from the grants awarded in September. WEA union bosses would point out that those are “right-to-work†states with weaker union rules. We would counter: That’s precisely the point, and those six states are also “right-to-better-education†states.
In our state, though, the union wins while students and teachers lose. For sheer accuracy, someone, please, take the “E†out of the WEA.
So why would we want to give Colorado’ teachers union more power?
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.