This past weekend I was making a few personal-life stops in the state with the lowest union representation in the nation.  Using the long stretches of travel through misty forests and freshly planted fields to catch up on reading, I came across AFT President Randi Weingarten’s teacher bailout pitch in Thursday’s opinion section of the WSJ.

Allowing myself to lose complete touch with reality for just a moment, I started to consider whether it is possible that R.W. is genuinely concerned with outstanding young teachers losing their jobs.  After all, she wrote:

There is much good going on in our public schools. I have seen countless teachers putting their hearts and souls into their jobs, working long hours well beyond the school day, ready to do what it takes to provide their students with an excellent education. They belong in their classrooms, not on the unemployment lines. And they need support, tools and resources to do their important work.

Pretty convincing rhetoric, right?  It was for me until I snapped back to reality and remembered what R.W. had written two paragraphs prior:

Unfortunately, there are attempts to load up the final version of the bill that is sent to the White House with everyone’s favorite education initiatives. These amendments will stall or even halt what must be a swift response to safeguard children’s education. The only way to prevent the cuts is to pass a clean bill—quickly.

A “clean bill?”  What does this mean?  Well, it certainly doesn’t mean that the proposed teachers jobs legislation is brushing its teeth and getting a new haircut.  Oh, no.  What R.W. and the AFT-NEA duo want is a large helping of federal cash that will, first and foremost, maintain the wages of their older teacher-members (the dedicated and ineffective alike) while sparing some of the jobs held by younger workers.  In other words, teachers unions want funds to preserve the current unjust system of laying off teachers solely by experience (i.e., age).

If public policy were made based on rationalism, and if teachers unions really cared about the collective good of all teachers, the current system of preserving the jobs and wages of older, ineffective teachers at the cost of younger, outstanding teachers’ positions would have been replaced long ago.  That’s essentially what the teacher reforms that R.W. is fighting against are: discriminating by teachers’ effectiveness, dedication, and success instead of discriminating by their age.

So now we hear that if we just give teachers unions “clean” money today, we can accomplish much-needed reform later with the reauthorization of ESEA.  Is anyone out there deluded enough to believe that unions are going to be reform partners when that day finally comes?

More federal money for teachers must come with changes in how teachers are hired, fired, laid off, evaluated, and paid—if it comes at all.