Jake Davison

After 16 years, the cap on charter schools is dead. As I write this, Gov. Snyder is signing the bill into law that will sentence the cap to the ash heap of history in 90 days. That will make March 24, 2012 a glorious date in state history.

Sadly, 49 of Michigan’s 110 state representatives and 16 of its 38 state senators voted to keep children locked in schools for no other reason than to maintain the Michigan Education Association’s near-monopoly on the state’s most important industry. In the House, only one of the 43 Democrats voted for parental and child freedom. None voted for it in the Senate.

So what does this mean for Michigan, parents and students? It means that as soon as August, thousands of children on the waiting list to get out of the MEA’s mediocrity machine will have that chance. Some opponents of this Emancipation Proclamation claimed they were not necessarily against charters, but only open to them as competition for “failing schools.” According to them, if your local traditional public school isn’t a complete basket case like Detroit Public Schools, the ambition of you and your child to get the best possible education isn’t as important as maintaining the teacher union’s plantation.

Each child who attends a school brings that district $6,800 per year. Therefore, each parent who chooses a charter school costs that district $6,800. That’s 6,800 fewer dollars to pay teachers an average of $63,024 per year (not counting benefits) for working nine months per year. It’s fewer taxpayer dollars to maintain a system in which it is illegal to reward in any way the greatest teacher who ever lived a single penny more than the worst teacher who ever lived.

Imagine how you would perform at work if you knew no matter what miracles you achieved, you’d only be paid according to how long you’d worked there and whether or not you had a master’s degree? While a majority of MEA members are likely unhappy about the lifting of the charter school cap, I want to praise all of those who do more than necessary to avoid being fired (which for all practical purposes requires committing a felony at work or punching a student) when they have no incentive besides their own interest in their students for doing so.

On a personal note, I’d like to thank my high school calculus and advanced chemistry teachers for teaching those challenging subjects –– all the while knowing our gym “teacher” made more money because he’d been telling kids to run around the gym longer than the calculus teacher had been teaching kids how functions function (man those were hard). I hope they’re happy with their union representation. If they’re not, they can quit the union but will still be required to pay 95 percent of their union dues until they retire.

But not at charter schools. Charters can be an escape route for teachers as well.

© 2011 North Star Writers Group

Jake Davison is a North Star Writers Group columnist and President of Advantage Associates, a Michigan-based campaign consulting and public relations firm. Jake can be reached at jd@youradvantage.org.

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