By Howard M. O'Cull

As the Legislature prepares to enter into special session to consider various education measures, including innovation zone legislation, the role of educational interests is quite instructive, including the very influential school employee organizations.

Consider the following:

• School employee organizations work to secure state- and locally-funded benefits, principally salary increases, for their members. While school boards, businesspersons, some legislators, newspaper editors and others wince at accompanying rhetorical pleas, this is the school employee group devotional - staying on message despite public perception and, even given scarce state revenues, the cringe of statehouse politicians. Getting off message signals weakness or, worse, allows "the other" organization in the case of the state chapter of the American Federation of Teachers and the West Virginia Education Association to lose or gain members in recruiting drives.
• School employee groups are organized political bodies more so than collegial organizations. Thus, political agendas are trawled before legislative candidates, incumbents and hosts of politicians. Given finesse at organization, down to the school level, what politician does not find such linkage to potential voters as compelling?
• Questions about why rank-and-file members join school employment groups, including considerations regarding legal representation for job-related grievances, is irrelevant. Although members may have individualized group affiliation aims, the organization's hierarchy has the upper hand, based on structure, communications and services as reinforced by well-honed internal and external rhetoric.
• The alliance between the WV-AFT and the state School Service Personnel Association changes the landscape of school employee politics seismically, meaning not only competition for memberships locally but also state-level battles over "who" will represent teachers on various boards and commissions.

History

Most school employee laws emanated from lawmakers' initial efforts to address declining student enrollments rather than employee working conditions, although both factors resulted in statutory uniformity as an alternative to state-sanctioned collective bargaining.

Buoyed by successful legislative victories in securing enactment of employee-oriented legislation, teachers' and service personnel organizations used established organizing prowess into holistic political influence when state dollars were available for pay raises.

Indeed, passage of school personnel laws - often combined with salary increases - became an annual legislative rite until, faced with scarcity of dollars and a declining economy, the Legislature applied the brakes in the mid-1990s, citing need to check unfunded mandates.

This became the legislative mantra, meaning teacher organizations have been committed to "out-unioning" one another, concentrating on salaries and benefits and preservation of "hard-won" work rules, although school employee organizations are committed to educational reforms albeit nuanced by salary and benefit considerations.

Indeed, salary enhancements became the most tangible outcome of the 1990 teachers' walkout - an activity in which both WVEA and AFT participated.

Even considering other legislation emanating from the special legislative session occurring after the walkout, including creation of faculty senates, these "reforms" must be viewed within context of a $5,000 teacher pay raise.

Educational policy

By Howard M. O'Cull

As the Legislature prepares to enter into special session to consider various education measures, including innovation zone legislation, the role of educational interests is quite instructive, including the very influential school employee organizations.

Consider the following:

• School employee organizations work to secure state- and locally-funded benefits, principally salary increases, for their members. While school boards, businesspersons, some legislators, newspaper editors and others wince at accompanying rhetorical pleas, this is the school employee group devotional - staying on message despite public perception and, even given scarce state revenues, the cringe of statehouse politicians. Getting off message signals weakness or, worse, allows "the other" organization in the case of the state chapter of the American Federation of Teachers and the West Virginia Education Association to lose or gain members in recruiting drives.
• School employee groups are organized political bodies more so than collegial organizations. Thus, political agendas are trawled before legislative candidates, incumbents and hosts of politicians. Given finesse at organization, down to the school level, what politician does not find such linkage to potential voters as compelling?
• Questions about why rank-and-file members join school employment groups, including considerations regarding legal representation for job-related grievances, is irrelevant. Although members may have individualized group affiliation aims, the organization's hierarchy has the upper hand, based on structure, communications and services as reinforced by well-honed internal and external rhetoric.
• The alliance between the WV-AFT and the state School Service Personnel Association changes the landscape of school employee politics seismically, meaning not only competition for memberships locally but also state-level battles over "who" will represent teachers on various boards and commissions.

History

Most school employee laws emanated from lawmakers' initial efforts to address declining student enrollments rather than employee working conditions, although both factors resulted in statutory uniformity as an alternative to state-sanctioned collective bargaining.

Buoyed by successful legislative victories in securing enactment of employee-oriented legislation, teachers' and service personnel organizations used established organizing prowess into holistic political influence when state dollars were available for pay raises.

Indeed, passage of school personnel laws - often combined with salary increases - became an annual legislative rite until, faced with scarcity of dollars and a declining economy, the Legislature applied the brakes in the mid-1990s, citing need to check unfunded mandates.

This became the legislative mantra, meaning teacher organizations have been committed to "out-unioning" one another, concentrating on salaries and benefits and preservation of "hard-won" work rules, although school employee organizations are committed to educational reforms albeit nuanced by salary and benefit considerations.

Indeed, salary enhancements became the most tangible outcome of the 1990 teachers' walkout - an activity in which both WVEA and AFT participated.

Even considering other legislation emanating from the special legislative session occurring after the walkout, including creation of faculty senates, these "reforms" must be viewed within context of a $5,000 teacher pay raise.

Educational policy

Are school employee groups indifferent toward students? No. Their operational framework, however, is couched within the rhetorical context that enhanced pay and benefits translates into more qualified educators, guaranteeing heightened student successes.

Secondly, education organizations support what is best for students but within their milieu. Indeed, school boards argue deregulation will promote bettered teaching and learning. Many educators view this as wrong-placed rhetoric, arguing school personnel laws are "necessary" to check cronyism which may demoralize staff, thus affecting students' educational progress.

While policymakers seek to refocus education employee association agendas, hoping to garner greater reform emphases, this will not happen - nor will it transpire easily with any educational association, given the penchant of honoring cultivated membership values.

Reform, however, will occur if the focus is school-directed.

Thus, Gov. Joe Manchin's innovation zone legislation is critical. Why? State-level uniformity, epitomized by school personnel laws, often constrains during times of retrenchment and student achievement ambiguity. Lawmakers will not eliminate these laws. They can, however, allow schools to develop localized teaching and learning strategies, to reorganize and to determine how to meet various accountability requirements, including use of staff training.

With innovation zones, individual teachers and individual schools will be held accountable compared to today's hidebound adhesion to state mandates. Thus, the norm will mean less regulation and more accountability.

If state policymakers acquire a broadened worldview, forging alliances with parents, citizens, the business community and others, innovation zones will not be shaped largely through "inside baseball."

Admittedly, educator collaboration is necessary to effectuate education reform. Yet the result should not be repackaged status quo thinking.

While less organized, less focused and less concerned about educational policy nuances, let us opt for fresh thinking - thinking outside the norm of the state's entrenched educational interests whether it be school boards, teachers, service personnel, school administrators or others.

The dividends -- innovation, heightened accountability, empowered teachers and students truly equipped for the 21st century.

O'Cull is executive director of the West Virginia School Board Association.