Get schooling ready for Generation Z

ANALYSIS/OPINION:

It’s always interesting to see what’s on the minds of teachers, unions and state leaders, especially during contract negotiations.

We first listen in on Boston teachers to learn that the men-are-from-Mars, women-are-from-Venus thing has a new twist. And, of course, since Washington is in the official name of my newspaper, I cannot pass up poking around contract talks between D.C. Public Schools and the Washington Teachers Union, discussions that always spin on dollars and cents (instead of sense).

Let’s first hit I-95 and head to Boston, where contract negotiations are more than a year old and where, interestingly, teachers pushed genderism onto the front burner.

Boston Teachers Union President Richard Stutman says the only reason protracted contract talks with the city are even an issue is because the majority of the union members are from, well Venus — 76 percent in fact.

“We have little doubt that, were the BTU a workforce 76 percent male, we’d have settled the contract by now,” he wrote in his weekly newsletter.

The union also is complaining that policemen make more money than women teachers, which isn’t true. Patrolmen make an average salary of $80,000, minus overtime and the like, while the average teacher makes $90,000 minus stipends.

The problem more than likely is that the contract talks got off on the wrong foot in January 2016 by putting maternity benefits ahead of teaching and learning.

Humph. Women teachers. Can’t learn with ’em, can’t learn without ’em.

And we’re off to the Empire State, where the New York State Board of Regents is pondering this question: Should prospective teachers be required to pass the literacy skills test on the board exams? The answer, of course, is N-O.

Why this is even in play is because supporters of the proposal played the race card.

“It’s alarming because we’ve now abandoned or watered down the teacher evaluation process, and now we’re lowering the bar for entry certification as well,” said Charles Sahm, director of education policy at the Manhattan Institute.

Critics of the literacy test claim it is skewed against minorities.

Phooey. As Mr. Sahm said: “This is a literacy exam. If you’re going to be a teacher in New York state, this is a criteria you should be able to meet.”

And if exams can be watered down for potential teachers — especially English and reading teachers — you know who will fall victim to those teachers’ illiteracy.

Garbage into the minds of young New Yorkers, garbage out.

If that’s not alarming enough for you, toodle around the Beltway to D.C., where teachers have been pissed since then-Chancellor Michelle Rhee got the game-changing teacher accountability into the teachers’ contract in 2008.

For the teachers’ union these days, it doesn’t matter that D.C. Public Schools have the highest first-year teacher salary in the country at $51,500. Or that teachers can buy Housing and Urban Development homes at 50 percent the listing price. Or that teachers can earn $20,000 in a single school year if they are deemed “highly effective” — rhetoric that is oh so similar to union leaders’ “quality” teacher.

The accountability factor is critical because teaching and learning are inseparable in any school setting. Teachers should be judged on whether children are learning, not merely because teachers enter a schoolhouse.

Now we pop into Charlotte, North Carolina, where Gov. Roy Cooper has thrown education spending proposals into his new budget to see what sticks. It’s the Democratic Party way of doing things.

Mr. Cooper wants to give teachers, principals and administrators raises, cover the costs to add 4,700 slots to the universal pre-k program, and give North Carolinians up to $40,000 in forgivable loans if they agree to teach in low-performing or low-wealth schools.

There’s so much more spending you’ll turn Carolina blue holding your breath while reading the wish list. Unfathomable.

Suffice it to say, Mr. Cooper wants you to pay every student’s schooling costs until the cows come home — and if those cows are free roamers they never will.

Our jaunt ends in the Sunshine State, where House Democratic Leader Janet Cruz is egging on Florida Republicans on the jobs front by pushing teachers’ pay.

Ms. Cruz claims state teachers deserve huge raises because they have long lagged the national pay average, which is $58,353 compared to Florida’s $49,199.

That $9,000 difference means one thing in expensive coastal and beachfront communities, something entirely different in rural and farming areas, and in urban areas in, say, South Florida, something akin to big-city, union-pleasing advocates who, like Cuba Gooding in “Jerry McGuire,” wail “Show me the money” all the time.

It helps everyone’s wallet, for sure, that Florida does not levy a state income tax and that even folks who cannot tolerate real mice are drawn to Mickey and Minnie’s magical kingdom.

So Florida’s conservative-minded leaders should do the math before falling for Ms. Cruz’s ploy to treat all teachers the same.

One-size-fits-all no more works for the teaching corps than it does for students, as we are finding out the hard way.

And remember why this East Coast jaunt was necessary in the first place: We have to stem the tide for the post-Millennial kids, Generation Z, and the generation that will follow them.

• Deborah Simmons can be contacted at dsimmons@washingtontimes.com.