By Steve Gunn
EAGnews.org

PALM DESERT, Calif. – There has already been a ton written about the nasty teacher union habit of “working to contract” during labor disputes with school boards.

But the latest report begs just a bit more commentary.

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Many teachers in the Desert Sands school district have agreed to “work to contract” over stalled contract negotiations, according to MyDesert.com. The main sticking point seems to be the size of a raise teachers will receive next year due to the November passage of Proposal 30, a statewide ballot initiative that raised taxes to provide more money for California schools.

The school board is offering each teacher a $600 salary boost. The union wants that figure to be $1,000.

In response to this disagreement, teachers are refusing to donate time to lead student clubs, provide extra help to struggling students, and many other extra tasks not specifically spelled out in collective bargaining agreements, according to the news report.

Now we receive word that the teachers will skip the school’s graduation ceremony, scheduled for May 23.

“We just want to let the board know we are frustrated,” said Rex Pruitt, a union representative.

If we were Desert Sands school board members, the message we would be getting from the teachers’ actions would be a little bit different. It would make us wonder how committed these particular teachers are to students, and whether they are the best possible educators for the district.

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For instance, every teacher knows that the denial of extra help to struggling students could be catastrophic for any particular at-risk student at any time. With dropout rates high across the nation, there are always going to be frustrated kids right on the edge of tossing in the towel and abandoning their education. There are almost certainly at least several youngsters who fit that description in the Desert Sands district right now.

We suppose those students picked the wrong month to be frustrated, because their time of need arrived when teachers are upset about the size of a tax-funded raise. Too upset to be available for students whose futures may hang in the balance.

Skipping graduation seems almost as sick. As school board members, we would have to wonder about a group of supposed professionals who invest years in teaching kids, then don’t bother to show up to watch them cross the finish line. It should be a matter of pride for teachers to see their work culminate in the annual rite of commencement. It should be a moment they share with their students, regardless of their disagreements with administrators.

Yet these teachers won’t show up due to a $400 disagreement with the school district.

This is another powerful illustration of why organized labor and collective bargaining are bad fits for public education. The focus should be on students, 100 percent of the time. But the presence of unions creates regularly scheduled distractions to the educational process, every two or three years when a negotiated contract expires. Students pay the price for these adult-centered distractions, and nobody seems to find anything strange or disturbing about that.

Something is very wrong with an education system in which student needs are purposefully ignored for any reason at all. Such a system is bound to collapse upon itself, and children will be the victims.