MCEA President Doug Prouty submitted the following response to The Washington Post regarding their recent editorial about the proposed contract settlement between MCEA and the BOE:
The Post’s editorial “Teachers over Students” (5/25/12) displays the Post Editorial Board’s antiquated thinking about two important aspects of the Montgomery County Public Schools, its budget, and the work of the system and its employees: the first erroneous thought is that unions and management cannot work together productively to increase student achievement and the second is that short term budget gimmicks are preferable to realistic long term planning.
The fact is that the three employee unions and the school system work together on all important matters. The collaboration between the employees and the system is so well regarded by the US Department of Education that we were invited to present to over 300 other systems at a DoEd conference on collaboration for the second year in a row. The Post itself ran a front page story on this collaboration and the positive effect it has for our students on March 10, 2012. But the editorial board seems to know better- so much so that they say with absolute certainty how we conduct our bargaining, despite the fact that they have no firsthand knowledge of the bargaining process, or the MCPS budget process. They don’t even bother to ask. Their fallback assumption is that the union is bad- especially if it is a teachers’ union. This is true even when the Montgomery County Education Association is the partner with MCPS in a nationally recognized Peer Assistance and Review program, which has been a successful partnership focusing on the quality of instruction for over 12 years. How do we know this? Numerous systems from around the country visit to learn about this program, which provides both specific and timely feedback on practice and structured support to address areas of concern. The Harvard School of Education website about PAR programs features MCPS and MCEA. There was also the front page story published by the Post on June 9, 2009. The story focused on a tenured teacher who improved her craft through hard work and the assistance of the PAR program.
In addition, the editorial board falls all over itself to credit teachers as being hard working, dedicated, and deserving of a raise- but not too much of one, apparently. The Post editorial board prefers budget gimmicks such as bonuses and furloughs- which just kick the can down the road for a year. Either the employees of MCPS and the county government deserve a raise, or they don’t. If they do, then pretending a onetime bonus is a solution while ignoring the 4.7% increase in the county government budget, as opposed to the 2.2% increase for MCPS, reveals an anti-union and anti-employee bias. The fact is that increasing the budget, no matter how the money is spent, inherently sets up the following year for either sustaining that spending level or making cuts. MCPS has, in partnership with its unions, made a commitment to its employees and its students. Education is a people business and the Superintendent and Board of Education recognized that now is the time to provide stability and a sign of a reciprocal commitment to the people who educate our students, who oversee high achieving schools, who drive the students to school each day, fix their lunches, and keep the schools clean. If increasing the budget is not affordable, as the editorial board contests, then we should expect to see future editorials blasting the increase in the county budget, in the budget in Fairfax County (an 8% increase for the school system), and the budget in Prince George’s county (a 3.1% increase in the school system budget). If increased spending is the issue, why single out MCPS? If paying teachers a decent wage is the issue, we should expect to see an editorial about the starting salaries in the District of Columbia Public schools, which are higher than those in MCPS.
At the end of the day, it is the work the members of the three associations and MCPS have done together for more than a decade that has made the school system one of the best in the country. The editorial board can go on writing negative editorials about the teachers’ union in Montgomery County- the most recent one makes half a dozen in the past three years- but we will continue to do what is right for the educators, schools, and students in MCPS.
Doug Prouty, Rockville
President, MCEA
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