Editor’s note: This op-ed is by Armando Vilaseca, Vermont’s commissioner of education.
As education commissioner, I have no authority to intervene in the Southwest Vermont Supervisory Union (SVSU) strike or any other local contract negotiation. However, I believe I have a responsibility to speak up on behalf of the students. In 2005, as the superintendent of the Colchester School District, I experienced firsthand the impact of a strike on the community, the school board, teachers and staff, but most importantly on the students.
If we ever hear anything about the impact of strikes on students, it is typically about sports. During the current strike, seemingly due to the voices of students, varsity sports have continued to occur. However, I am more concerned about the impact that missed school has on the academic progress and well-being of kids.
Many Vermont students depend on the school day to meet very basic needs. More than one-third of the Vermont students are eligible for free or reduced- price meals, and strikes can hinder their ability to access them. In this case, the Abbey Group and the SVSU have distributed food to families at an alternate site to ensure those students do not go hungry.
Beyond the direct impact of students losing access to their education, this has a ripple effect for many students. Students who take Advanced Placement classes can fall behind the AP curriculum, which is set on a timetable for a national test which is given on a set day. Students who may be struggling in school lose critical instructional time. Students who have special needs lose that support. Media reports also note the impact that this particular strike is having on students’ college entrance work, as essays go unread and letters of recommendation go unwritten.
Families are extremely stressed during a strike in finding appropriate and affordable care for their children. During my time in Colchester, I knew of parents who had to take unpaid leave time to be able to be with their children, which puts significant financial strain on the entire family. Those who cannot find proper care are then forced to leave their children alone.
So, what do we do about it? I am not taking sides on local contract issues, and everyone needs to understand that this is the business side of education. But the business side should still be able to occur without impacting students and families.
Vermont is one of only 13 states, and the only one in New England, that allows teachers to strike. I will be seeking support for legislation that does not allow teacher strikes, but also bans school board imposition of contracts. The negotiations need to continue, with school in session, no matter how long it takes to settle a contract.
Will this be easy or without critics? Of course not. Teachers’ unions may complain that this would take away a significant bargaining option. School boards may be against losing their ability to impose contracts. But ultimately, schools, teachers and school boards should be about students and student success. Strikes and contract impositions do nothing to benefit students. This idea levels the playing field for both sides.
It is time to stand up for the silent victims of strikes: students. We created these current rules, so we can change them. It is too late to do anything for the current strike, but we can have a positive impact on students during negotiations for years to come.
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With all due respect Armando,
Bullshit!!
In this instance, a school board imposed working conditions on employees, essentially saying “work or walk, and eventually-when the board failed to again bargain seriously-the employees said ENOUGH. It is good you do not jump into that one.
In the end, working folks have only their labor as a bargaining chip. To be able to withhold that labor. without the ability to have a neutral third party, and they are getting harder to find, there is no balance.
These X number of days would raise no issue if they were at Christmas or the furnace had failed. Life would go on and the summer would be a little shorter. This process has worked well for years, and it really only fails when, as in this case, a board fails to realize that bargaining means more than simply saying NO to everything.
I walked that 2005 picket line. The Colchester board and the teachers eventually reached mutual agreement on the issues by sitting down and talking. Somewhere a lesson is in there for Bennington.
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Mr Vilaseca wrote above “I believe I have a responsibility to speak up on behalf of the students.”
In this area I think you have and continue to do a very good job; and as a local school board member I greatly appreciate your support for making changes in the way education is delivered to our state’s students.
The no strike/no imposition concept has some valid points, but by my understanding if in place today the SVSU situation would still be bad and getting worse: Vilaseca’s proposal provides no end game. The school boards and/or teachers’ union could just keep the negotiations going on forever.
I don’t believe we need to get rid of the contract imposition or strikes, but I could live with that as long as the two items are irredeemably attached.
There is, I believe, a better solution: all school master agreement negotiations must be held in public sessions (with no or very restricted public input); and all new contract agreements apply ONLY beginning in the fiscal year following the succeeding November 1st (sign a contract in October of 2011 and the agreement comes into play for the 2012-2013 fiscal year, sign that same agreement in December and it wouldn’t come into play until the 2013-2013 fiscal year).
Transparency and finality.
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The commissioner is correct and those other 37 states have done the right thing. Our children are innocent hostages of the union in a power struggle. The parents are also hostages to a lesser degree. There is no excuse for this.
I’ve served a total of eight years on school boards in Vermont. School boards should hire replacements for individual teachers who refuse to work.
Unions in the private sector their employers in a standoff where one party loses profits and the other loses income with no hostages. That is a fair game but teacher strikes are not.
The teachers should be ordered back to work and the legislature should act to prevent this from happening again.
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The third paragraph in my reply should have read:
Unions in the private sector strike against their employers in a standoff where one party loses profits and the other loses income with no innocent hostages on either side. That is a fair game but teacher strikes are not.
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If you want to introduce legislation that prevents contract imposition by boards and strikes by teachers, you need to define the process that would replace the current system. Your proposed “no matter how long it takes” sounds like you want to legislate a stalemate. Is that the best idea you can come up with? No finality of process? Do you want binding arbitration? Last best offer? Something else? Why not a defined process with an end game? You represent the best interest of the students right? Just like everybody else.
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I like Mr Robert Hooper’s word to describe the public educational system we have here in America. The rest of the world pays tuition and here in America we pile it higher and deeper. It’s a bull market. In other words, be careful where you step.