Mr. Moe addresses how the teachers' union have the real power because they have votes, and how the unions aren't for the benefit of students and education, but for their members.
Following are excerpts from publications either written by Mr. Moe, where he is quoted, or from an interview. They are followed by weblinks to the entire articles.
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Democrats favor educational "change" -- as long as it doesn't affect anyone's job, reallocate resources, or otherwise threaten the occupational interests of the adults running the system. Most changes of real consequence are therefore off the table. The party specializes instead in proposals that involve spending more money and hiring more teachers -- such as reductions in class size, across-the-board raises and huge new programs like universal preschool. These efforts probably have some benefits for kids. But they come at an exorbitant price, both in dollars and opportunities foregone, and purposely ignore the fundamentals that need to be addressed.
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"The bottom line is the interests of teachers and unions are not aligned with the interests of children, and the organizational arrangements [i.e. collective bargaining contracts] pursued by unions will ultimately diverge from those that are best for students," Moe writes.
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In an interview with George Clowes of School Reform News (2003)...
Clowes: The 1983 report, A Nation at Risk, set off what you have called a "frenzy of reforms" to improve the performance of public schools. Why did those reforms produce so little in terms of better performance?
Moe: The fundamentals of the system never changed, even though the system now spends a ton more money. The reforms just nibbled about the edges of the system--changing graduation requirements, teacher certification standards, and so on. Now they're tinkering with class size, when that's not the problem.
These may have been called "reforms," but they didn't actually change the system in any fundamental way. All the reforms that would have done that--like pay for performance--were defeated by the unions and others with a vested interest in the status quo.
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AS NOTED ABOVE, MR. MOE IS A STANFORD PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL SCIENCE - a teacher.
