Teachers Strike Back

Our founders knew that an educated populace is essential to the American experiment. But a guerrilla war on public education is being waged by the same old bad actors who seem to value capitalism over democracy. Who are they, why are they doing this, and how do we enlist on the side of teachers and students?

It’s Red for Ed at the Colorado State Capitol as teachers rally. Photo courtesy of Colorado Independent.

Note: This article was revised on May 4, 2018, because WTF learned that the teachers’ pay ranking for 2016 had been misreported by the National Education Association due to an error made by the State of Colorado.

Who and Why

Public education, both here in Colorado and nationwide, is under attack by a coalition of interest groups, not all of them “special.” What they have in common is a desire to move activities out of the Public sector, and into the Private sector where their interest can exert more control. They are:

Douglas Bruce, author of Colorado’s TABOR law.

• Anti-Tax Activists
• Religious Extremists
• Union Busters
• For-Profit Education
• Corporate Lobbies.

There is considerable overlap among these groups because of how well their interests align. For example, both anti-tax activists and corporate lobbyists generally oppose taxes, though for different reasons. Douglas Bruce, the author of Colorado’s Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR) is a Libertarian who opposes taxation for ideological reasons, and sought to cap tax revenue in Colorado in proportion to the population, rather than the size of the economy.

Big business sees government institutions as competition. It’s a myth that government-run enterprises are always clumsy and inefficient. But it’s absolute truth that it’s harder for corporations to profit from government institutions than when money stays in the private sector. So the corporate lobby likes to control legislators through donations, to get them to privatize as much government activity as possible.

Nationwide, religious groups who oppose liberal education (in the sense of liberal arts, not liberal politics) because it encourages young people to question all their beliefs, including religious beliefs, are allied with for-profit educational enterprises desiring to privatize education under the banner of “School Choice.” If this worries you, ask yourself this: If I am a living example of my faith, will my children not be inspired to be like me? And, are not Church and State supposed to be separate so that I am free to practice my beliefs in private?

Union busting is a favorite tactic of both corporate interests and the anti-tax, small-government right wing. Unions traditionally were a check on corporate power in the private sector. In the public sector, for public servants such as police and firefighters as well as teachers, Unions acted in opposition to the small-government right because they bargained for higher wages that had to be funded by higher taxes.

Teachers’ unions were criticized particularly because they were said to protect incompetent teachers by means of tenure and resisting evidence-based metrics. Today, however, teachers’ compensation is so low in comparison to that of other professionals with similar levels of education that only the passionately dedicated tend to remain in the field. That weakens the incompetence argument. Public support of teachers is high. The recent “Red for Ed” rallies at Colorado’s Capitol and elsewhere drew tremendous popular support. Now is a window of opportunity to strengthen public education.

How did this happen?

TABOR is actually the second, and weaker blow in the legislative one-two punch that knocked education funding on its heels in Colorado. The lead punch was the Gallagher Amendment. Not many people know how it works.

Adopted in 1982, Gallagher fixed the ratio of personal property tax collections to business property tax collections at 45:55. That means that if home values increase faster than business property values, as in fact they have, a smaller and smaller percentage of the market value of a house is taxable. In 1980, according to Chalkbeat, that was 21%. Today, it’s just south of 8%. Most of property tax collections go to support public schools, but Gallagher means that a smaller and smaller share of the community’s wealth goes to the local school district.

While school finances were staggering under Gallagher, TABOR came along a decade later and delivered the knockout. TABOR requires that total tax revenues collected by Colorado be in proportion to population and inflation. When the economy contracts, so does the cap. And if revenue exceeds the cap, the excess must be refunded to taxpayers. We can lose under TABOR, but education can never win.

Since 1992, there have been repeated attempts to fix education funding in Colorado. But with the State Legislature closely divided between Republicans and Democrats, it’s hard to pass anything that isn’t seriously limited. TABOR and Gallagher have successfully stymied Colorado’s attempts to fund public services, including education, at a level that’s competitive with other states.

The Bottom Line

If this was the goal, Colorado has won. Photo Courtesy of Colorado Independent.

So here we are. It is 2018, and in absolute dollars, Colorado teachers’ pay ranks 31st among the 50 states and the District of Columbia. This, while Colorado’s unemployment rate is holding at 3.0% flat, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In many cities, including Boulder and Longmont, teachers’ starting pay is well below the Area Median Income, in some cases qualifying them for subsidized housing. A school districts such as Cherry Creek also have such exceptionally high pay rates that it distorts the statewide average.

So what are we gonna do about it?

Coloradans, we ought to be ashamed. Republicans in the Legislature are actually asking, straight-faced, why our teachers are protesting now, when the legislature has just passed a budget that reduces the acknowledged under-funding of public education by $100 million, and pays back the PERA pension fund $225 million. Shouldn’t that be enough? Apparently we must accept that Colorado has chosen low taxes over every public good, and that’s a choice we must live with forever. Even in the budgetary shortfall game, the Senate favored transportation (which got $500 million) over education.

WTF? We call BS. We say no way.

Let this be the last year that this game is played. We are a wealthy state. We are an educated state. We know what to do. Here’s a short list.

1. Stop saying school choice. Call it what it is: Stealing from public schools. Example: Betsy DeVos advocates stealing from public schools.
2. Stop saying vouchers. Call it what it is: taxpayer-funded scholarships. Republicans are always saying that charity should be funded by churches and philanthropists. Tell those fat cats to put their money where their mouth is. If they want more kids to be able to choose tony private schools or message-controlled parochial ones, they should go for it! Endow a scholarship today!
3. Support teachers’ unions any way you can. Put together child-care rotations to allow them to strike without costing parents money. Express your gratitude, not your complaints, to the school administrations who closed schools all across Colorado so teachers could participate in the Rallies last week.
4. Never, never, never miss a chance to vote for education. Here’s one: In Senate District 1 (that’s the whole top half of CD4, you know) there’s a teacher, Deb Gustafson, running against Jerry Sonnenberg. She’s got some ground to make up if she’s gonna catch Jerry. Get involved! You can mail donations to Debra at Debra Gustafson for Senate District 1, PO BOX 206, Keenesburg CO 80643.
5. Put public education at the top of the community mind. Keep it there. Talk about it at cocktail parties, candidate forums, and picnics. Find ways to donate, big or small, to schools, and to the candidates who will support them. Start a trend. Give the proceeds of your next garage sale to your child’s school to buy pencils and pens and paper. Dare your neighbors to do the same.
6. Last but most important, when the State Legislature reconvenes in 2019 with a more education-friendly Senate, we must already be laying the groundwork for modifications to Gallagher and TABOR. Ideally, it should be a legislative fix that doesn’t require Constitutional amendments. But if an amendment is what it takes, we must be ready. A solution that can win will have to be more nuanced than simple repeal. Colorado’s grassroots healthcare lobby has set a good organizational example on how to get ideas out into the public discourse.

Focus, people. Be creative about fixing education in Colorado. (photo credit here)

That’s the list, but let’s talk a bit more about #5. It shouldn’t need to be there. Fifty years ago, in Colorado the school system supplied the paper and the pencils. You couldn’t tell a rich kid from a poor kid by her crayons.

It seems a bit counter-intuitive to fight for the schools by removing the obstacles to running them on a shoestring, doesn’t it? But here’s the deal. What we are doing by making the schools look good, donating pencils and art supplies, volunteering to bring snacks, is keeping teachers. Don’t make them supply their classes out of their own pockets. You do it. Do some other stuff, too. Be thoughtful. Be thankful.

Every teacher who doesn’t get frustrated into leaving for the private sector and a better job is a win. The better our public schools are, the easier it will be to convince the legislature and the voters to make them better. And the better they will serve democracy and the American people. Everybody loves a winner. Let’s place our bets on public education. And get ready to win.