When Will They Ever Learn?

The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board has seen through teacher union bosses’ mantra, “it’s all for the kids”.

When will the nation’s kids ever learn?  When teachers are left alone to teach in freedom, to devote their time to their profession instead of following teacher union official dictates?  When will teachers ever learn they will never have the freedom to negotiate their own salaries based upon concrete evidence of their skills?  When will teacher union officials ever learn the most skilled and effective teachers can think for themselves?

The Denver teacher union official strike has ended, with generous bonuses and increases with no added accountability.  The same offers were rejected previously by teacher union officials because they were under the ProComp plan which offered pay-for-performance increases.

The very same increases and bonuses.  Except that ProComp demanded accountability for those same increases.  Teacher union officials rejected efforts to make the system more clear

Protest signs hoisted by more than 2,600 Denver teachers would have you think this week’s school strike was “for the kids” or simply about higher wages. But the standoffs in Denver and elsewhere in recent months are also about something else: unions rejecting accountability for student performance.

The two sides reached a deal early Thursday morning that offers teachers higher base wages, but the real reason for the strike can be found in a new salary schedule that undercuts pay-for-performance bonuses.