Date: 1998-06-24
Speaker: BOB SCHAFFER (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Colorado

School choice and a competitive approach to school reform really does threaten the union mentality that the National Education Association has come to represent. At one time the NEA was a legitimate professional organization that was designed to try to assist teachers and to help them become more professional at their job. to help them to become more proficient. and to provide kind of a continuing education agent for its members. Over time it really has evolved into a full and complete -union. They file taxes as a labor union. They act as a labor union when they get involved in the political process. They act upon this Congress and State legislatures throughout the country on a political basis. Their goal really has become to preserve the status quo to the greatest extent possible. to preserve these union wage scales. where the worst teacher in the district receives the same pay as the best. teacher in a district. Within that context. it is hard to imagine that there are too many teachers who are able to. year after year after year. just bring their own energy and their own enthusiasm to the classroom to rise above that kind of system. Yet. remarkably. many of them do. But it is through a sense of altruism. a sense of compassion for their profession. a sense of real zeal to educate youngsters and realize that these children are the future of the country. But successful. thriving teachers are not there by design of the system. by any means. They are only there because of the compassion that they carry with them in the door when they become new teachers. Hopefully they will be able to hang on to it and sustain it for 4 or 5 or 6 years. Some manage to sustain it longer. But year after year after year. I have heard from teachers. They write letters. When I go to schools. I visit them and they speak to me and they tell me that after 10 or 15 years in a system. it becomes very clear that there are no greater rewards financially. professionally. or organizationally for those teachers who truly thrive. And. again. my heart goes out and my hat goes off to those teachers who are truly great teachers. because we can find them throughout the country. We can find them in my school district and the school district of the gentleman from Florida. I presume. But I submit they are not there by design. They are there out of the passion for teaching that they bring with them. We ought to reform schools so that we reward good teachers and treat them like professionals. I love the response I get back home when I say that I think teachers ought to be treated like physicians. They ought to be treated like basketball players and football players. the things that we care about. so that the truly great teachers can become wealthy if they are the best in their industry and craft. They have a huge line of potential customers outside their door who want to get in and receive their services. That teacher ought to be paid a heck of a lot more than the teacher who runs the classroom where people are trying to escape because they are not learning anything or because they are in a dangerous environment. Yet in todays model. that kind of comparison does not exist. The worst teacher in the district under the NEAs union contract rules are treated exactly the same as the best teacher. That is not a model for success. That is what school choice allows us to get around. treating parents like customers to reform a system that looks more like every other great industry and every other great delivery system in our country.