Economic downturn provides opportunity ... to bust teachers' unions!

The logic is impeccable.  Assuming that the economic downturn results in the loss of 574,000 state funded jobs, many of them teachers (in Oregon, the state provides 70% of school operating money), it stands to reason that any proposal to ameliorate such a catastrophic job loss would be welcome. 

Enter the Center on Reinventing Public Education.  It recently issued a report concluding that teacher layoffs based on seniority, something that's in every union contract, would force a reduction in staff of 14.3%.  But

"...if [a] district followed a seniority-neutral layoff policy—say by a standard of employee effectiveness—only 10 percent of the workforce would lose their jobs."

So there we have it.  Throw out the union rules, and lose fewer teachers, especially "effective" teachers rather than the burned-out relics who have been teaching for 20 years.

Who can resist such an argument?

Well, I can.  I'm always suspicious of proposals relying on the notion of measurable teacher "effectiveness".  Sure, some teachers are clearly better than others, but if it were a simple matter to come up with standards of teacher efficacy, standards which are neither arbitrary --the school principal doesn't like you, for example-- nor based on standardized student test scores, it would already have been done.  The seniority system, although imperfect, implies some level of pedagogical competence.  Other proposed systems are problematic at best.

Now don't get me wrong.  The Center on Reinventing Public Education, located at the University of Washington, appears to be a legit operation, not some knee-jerk right-wing think tank bent on ridding the nation of "government" schools. 

But its list of funders gives me pause.  They include

• The Gates Foundation (of course)
• The Broad Foundation
• The Business Roundtable
• NACSA (National Association of Charter School Authorizers)
• National Alliance for Public Charter Schools
• The Fordham Foundation
• The Walton Family Foundation

Moreover, one of the Center's lead researchers on school choice and charters, Paul Hill, is also a fellow at the Hoover Institution, a decidedly right-wing think tank.  And no friend of teachers' unions.

So.  I read the recommendations of the Center on Reinventing Public Education with, shall we say, a healthy dosel of skepticism.