Non-Union Teacher Contract Bargaining Requires Flexibility

Finding, retaining and empowering great teachers must be a top priority for Indiana schools. However, the state’s teacher bargaining law ties the hands of administrators and forces the union-bargained contract and all its controls on every teacher in a district, whether or not they choose to even join the union.

Senate Bill 302, authored by Sen. Pete Miller (R-Avon), would allow school districts to negotiate employment contracts directly with individual teachers or groups of teachers that choose not to join their union, instead of being forced to negotiate exclusively within the bargaining agreement and impose those same contract provisions on all teachers.

Today, schools and districts cannot recruit superb educators and those with specific skills needed (e.g. STEM, foreign languages, etc.) and cannot be offered higher pay or other incentives. And in districts with teacher shortages, there is no room to negotiate a contract to hire a teacher that might be needed to fill an important gap. There is no flexibility – it’s the union’s contract or nothing, even in a right-to-work state like Indiana.

Teachers are professionals and should be treated like it. They have the right to be a union member and bargain collectively should they so choose, but they also should have the right to negotiate their own contracts. If we want better teachers in this state, we need to encourage and support excellence.

The bill would free teachers from a longstanding stranglehold on contracts, allow for excellence to be rewarded and recruited, and stop treating all teachers like interchangeable parts under the same contract terms regardless of skills, performance or a school’s needs.

Please take a moment to send a message to your state senator and the Senate Pensions and Labor Committee to ask for support of Senate Bill 302 to provide for more flexibility for school districts and teachers.

Legislative Testimony: Employment for Non-Union Teachers

The Indiana Chamber’s Caryl Auslander testified today in support of Senate Bill 302 – Employment Contracts for Non-Union Teachers, authored by Sen. Pete Miller (R-Avon) and Sen. Jim Smith (R-Charlestown).

The Indiana Chamber has long supported similar legislation allowing employees to choose whether or not they want to join their union. And as such, those that choose NOT to join their respective union for whatever reason should have the opportunity to negotiate their contract outside of the collective bargaining agreement that was set forth by that union – just as any other employee in the state might be able to do.

We feel that this legislation empowers both the employer and the employee to negotiate a contract that works best for BOTH parties.

Indiana Hits It Big in Year in Review

There’s nothing like a little teaser to whet your appetite for more. Here’s what we included in today’s INside Edge e-newsletter about this blog post:

When a national organization lists the top five events in a particular field for a certain year, it’s quite an accomplishment to gain a mention. It’s even better when you’re cited three times in those five entries, including an individual recognition for overall efforts. Find out who and what we’re talking about.

The answers are Indiana education reforms in 2011 and the accolades come from the Hoover Institution at Stanford University as it ranks the best education events of the past year.

Here’s the full press release, with Indiana’s mentions below:

BEST Education Events of 2011
1. Reinvigoration of school choice via opportunity scholarships and vouchers.
Despite the attractive choice that private schools (especially Catholic schools) offer in many inner cities and notwithstanding the Supreme Court’s resolution of issues of federal constitutionality, private school choice remained largely politically taboo until this year.  In what history may view as a watershed, private school choice moved ahead in many places in 2011, including the District of Columbia, where the scholarship program was resuscitated in Congress by Speaker John Boehner; Indiana, where opportunity scholarships were made available to perhaps half the state’s students; and Ohio, which lifted a too-tight cap on its program for kids exiting low-performing schools.

2. The rollback of collective bargaining agreements (CBAs) in Wisconsin, Indiana, New Jersey, Idaho, and (temporarily) Ohio.
Progress in improving education is slowed by union contracts that impede sensible decisions about the hiring, firing, deployment, and compensation of educators.  CBAs also drive up costs.  Moreover, many public sector workers are generously compensated—and enjoy relatively secure jobs—and their gold-plated benefit systems are bankrupting states and school systems.  Voters and courageous state leaders finally put these issues on the table in 2011, and five states made major reforms in the pertinent statutes.  (Ohio’s were undone in a November referendum.) 

5. Indiana’s overall record of education reform.
During 2011, Indiana abolished collective bargaining for teacher benefits and work rules.  It allowed all universities to authorize charter schools and removed its cap on charter schools.  The legislature also enacted a program of opportunity scholarships for low-income students that Indiana state superintendent Tony Bennett has correctly described as “the nation’s most expansive.”  Indiana moved school board elections from spring to fall, in effect empowering the broader public to participate in the governance of its school systems.  In sum, Indiana has the best reform record of any state in 2011.

There’s Always News Coming Out of D.C.

A few Washington-related items that came across my radar screen in recent reading:

  • Presidential candidate Jon Huntsman says he never considered running for president while in his service as U.S. ambassador to China. I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt on that. But Huntsman notes that he never intended to stay in the previous role for more than two years — and admits that he failed to tell that to President Obama. Oops!
  • While many are criticizing the federal health care reform effort for what it tries to do, a former administration official is blasting it for its failure to address a related subject. Former OMB Director Peter Orszag says that as long as doctors follow evidence-based protocols, they should be exempted from medical malpractice suits. "His quote: "Unfortunately, in the health act, this was one of the largest missed opportunities." Anything to help curb the lawsuit mania that grips our country would be a good thing. Can we start over on that reform thing?
  • News flash! The U.S. Postal Service is a broken system — and Congress wants to fix it. Ending Saturday delivery and closing more branches are part of the plan, as well as renegotiating collective bargaining agreements. I don’t know the answer, but something must be done sooner rather than later to fix an uncompetitive, costly government-run program.

Bennett: No Slowing Down on Education Reforms

If you haven’t heard Indiana Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Bennett talk about education, you’re at a disadvantage. Reading the words here, in a newspaper story or on a web site do little justice to the passion he brings to what is not only his current job, but his mission to improve opportunities for all Indiana students.

Bennett spoke to Chamber members earlier today in our monthly Policy Issue Conference Call. (The next round is June 4 at 9:30 a.m. EDT, the topic is infrastructure and the guest is INDOT Commissioner Michael Reed. Registration details will be available here soon). Bennett, by the way, will receive an honorary degree and speak at Marian University’s commencement ceremony on Saturday.

Just a few of his key points from Friday’s discussion:

  • Bennett says you generally need "either a legislative framework to make bold reforms or union buy-in. And we don’t have either." While that may have kept the state from being a contender for federal Race to the Top funding, the implementation of the reforms will move forward under the Department of Education’s Fast Forward program
  • Annual teacher and principal evaluations are a necessity, with student growth data being part of that process
  • A barrier that needs removed are some collective bargaining laws that keep the lowest-performing teachers in the classroom simply because they have been there the longest
  • Bennett sees many opportunities for municipal and school partnerships to maximize services that are offered
  • The General Assembly has given the State Board of Education broad authority to establish a third grade reading proficiency program. He is hoping for board approval by the end of the summer
  • Looking ahead, Bennett says work will continue on the student growth model, grading of schools (on a letter grade scale, as approved earlier this week), evaluations of teachers and schools, teacher tenure, additional options for children and more. "Indiana students can’t wait for us to act," he closed, emphasizing the need to move forward quickly and effectively