San Diego Union-Tribune Editorial

Power grab

School district under siege by teachers union

2:00 a.m. June 26, 2009

Wake up, San Diego. Your public schools are being stealthily hijacked by the powerful teachers union, which readily sacrifices the needs of students for its own avaricious ends.

If you think this is hyperbole, consider the plain facts:
Due in part to declining enrollment, the San Diego Unified School District has about 185 surplus elementary teachers for whom their are no classroom assignments. Yet, even though faced with a crushing budget deficit, the school board majority of Shelia Jackson, John Lee Evans and Richard Barrera capitulated to the teachers union's demand that not a single teacher be laid off. All three board members owe their seats to the potent backing of the 8,300-member teachers union.

To preserve the jobs of the surplus union members, the school board instead slashed spending on classroom supplies by 25 percent, put off replacing aging textbooks, and reduced other vital student support services, such as guidance counselors and vice principals. Then, in a galling payoff to their union patrons, the board voted to spend approximately $8 million in scarce funds to pay for many of the surplus teachers to get master's degrees or other post-graduate training so that they might one day qualify for other positions in the school district.

Meantime, the teachers union defiantly fended off any and all suggestions that it pay more for its health benefits or accept modest pay cuts or unpaid furlough days to help protect classrooms from deeper cuts.
The inevitable effect of these and other budget decisions is to hollow out classroom instruction – the essential needs of students – to satisfy the interests of adults. Adults come first. Students come second. Indeed, under an intense pressure campaign from the teachers union, the school board is spending most of its time addressing adult demands instead of focusing on student achievement.

At a school board meeting earlier this week, teachers union President Camille Zombro, backed by a phalanx of red-shirted union members, intruded abruptly on the agenda to present a petition aimed at forcing out reform-minded Superintendent Terry Grier. In a disheartening throwback to the union's divisive clashes with Superintendent Alan Bersin, the petition railed against “another top-down administrationâ€