Garrigan
So, if we were to put into dialogue how the local teachers’ union most recently sabotaged its own membership—and, worse, Metro public school students—it would go something like this:
(Phone in union president Jamye Merritt’s office rings, and she answers.)
Merritt: Hello.
God: Is this the head of the Metro Nashville Education Association (MNEA)?
Merritt: Yes.
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God: God here. How are you?
Merritt: Well, I’d be better if I could get the school board to give teachers even more holidays. We’re always working on that.
God: Well, tell your membership they can celebrate time off during that long summer break. Meanwhile, I’ve got something more important to talk about. I’ve located a Nashville family that’s richer than King Midas and they want to give some money to teachers, food service workers, janitors—everyone involved in the lives of students—to reward them for helping kids improve academically. They’d give up to $2 million to two schools over five years for a pilot project, after which they’d help recruit others to do the same all over the city. I haven’t been this excited since Mel Gibson got outed for being a drunk, hateful anti-Semite. It sounds pretty good, huh?
Merritt: I’m skeptical. Why do they want student performance to improve? What’s their motive? I mean, are they trying to get teachers to put in more than the nine months a year they already do?
God: Um, you don’t have to believe in predestination to crack this, genius. This is a good family of parents, thinkers, people who want to help their city and boost incentives for those who do the most important work in Metro. It’s not complicated. These family members and I talk often, and I know their hearts. Besides, what’s the downside?
Merritt: Oh, we always find a downside.
God: So I hear. Will you at least think about it, and maybe take a vote among that numerically challenged percentage of local teachers who are actually willing to pay dues to your pathet…I mean, to your organization?
Merritt: We will print a ballot and let membership vote, but we won’t go out of our way to explain what they’re voting on and the leadership won’t endorse the proposal. It will be a defiance of biblical proportions….
God: Well, you’ll have my assistant Saint Peter to answer to for this wicked insubordination…. By the way, I have an in with Santa, so kiss goodbye that iPod Nano you have your heart set on, beeyatch.
OK, so we got a little creative here to make a point. But the essence of this is entirely factual.
Rich family steps up, wants to do something good, negotiates a merit pay pilot program with the local union, even cedes to a few of the union’s unreasonable demands for the sake of getting the program in place and hopefully propagating it all over the city. The union leadership—angry, obstructionist, useless as ever—grudgingly sends the idea through to its membership for a vote. But because it represents so few Nashville teachers, and because the leadership clearly didn’t explain what was at stake, the vote sends the proposal circling the drain. This, despite the fact that the teachers at the two schools in question—Alex Green Elementary and Inglewood Elementary—overwhelmingly supported the plan. Bottom line: about $2 million of free money is rejected, and teachers and other employees who would have received between $2,000 and $10,000 annually for student improvement will instead get bupkis.
Among Merritt’s explanations in the media, which she says have offered “inaccurate coverage,” about why her membership rejected the proposal: 1) It wasn’t enough money. She must be unfamiliar with the mathematical truth that $2 million > 0. And 2) The donor is anonymous, and the union questions the motive for the generosity. Interesting—and what a load of steaming, smelly crap. Merritt was on a chartered King Air with schools director Pedro Garcia, Nashville Alliance for Public Education director Kay Simmons, then-school board chair Pam Garrett, one of the members of the donating family—who bankrolled the fight—and others so that they could visit Little Rock, where a similar project is in place. Merritt spoke with one of the donors on the flight. Not that the identity of the donor should even matter.
In a speech she prepared to give to the school board at Tuesday night’s meeting, she again questioned private money being offered to public schools. “Why is our elected school board being ordered around by someone who showed up with a sack full of money?” was one of her choice remarks.
“The fact that you have in control a group that just refuses to do anything that could possibly help the kids is just really frustrating,” says one of the lead donors, who wishes to remain anonymous in part because “the donors are insignificant in this story.” He goes on to say that nobody in the union seems to be looking out for the students. “They’re stuck there. They ain’t going to hurt my kids because, you know what, they aren’t going there. That’s the sad thing about this.”
In fact, on this issue, it’s nearly impossible to find opponents to the plan besides a few controlling MNEA officers. Garcia, the leadership of the Nashville Alliance of Public Education (which marshals private resources for public schools), the school board, teachers and everyone else the Scene spoke with find the union decision unfathomable.
“We were very careful as we structured this to make sure we weren’t asking the teachers to do anything more,” says an exasperated Simmons, who is normally unflappable. “Not only did the teachers’ union stand in the way of teachers, they stood in the way of clericals and others who could have benefited from this program,” she says.
Simmons, school board members and the philanthropists say that they will continue to search for a way to institute a merit pay program of some sort within Metro schools, and our bet is that they’ll ultimately circumvent what may be the most consistently unconstructive institution in the city: the teachers’ union. In the meantime, we urge the union membership to recognize the MNEA’s hostility to both members and students and to jump ship accordingly.