Blue Collar Conservatives: Recommitting to an America That Works (16 page)

I often ask parents, “Who is the customer of the education system?” The answer I almost always get is “Our children.” To which I reply, “Wrong!”

Then I ask, “Who is responsible for the education of your child, you or the school?” The light goes on as parents recognize that they, not the school, are responsible for their child’s education. Therefore
they
are the customers, and the school’s job is to help them provide an educational setting that will maximize their child’s potential.

We have allowed the education establishment to convince us that we parents are simply not capable of overseeing our own children’s education—that we need trained professionals to decide what is best for our children. But who knows your children better, you or the superintendent? Who was your child’s first teacher, you or the superintendent? Whose singular concern is the best interest of your child, yours or the superintendent’s? Who loves your child the most, you or the superintendent? Actually, no one in the government-run school system is focused on the best learning environment for
your
child. Not that there aren’t well-meaning, wonderful people in the system; it’s just not their job. Like everyone else in government, they are overwhelmed with process—filling out forms to show they are complying with federal and state mandates.

If the first step to reform is encouraging parents to take command of their kids’ education and not delegate it to the government, the second step is to break the stranglehold of the teachers’ unions on public education. Unions were once an important part of the industrial economy, and they protected workers from unreasonable conditions and demands
and ensured basic safety in factories. My coal miner grandfather was the treasurer of his mine workers’ local and a union man through and through. In those days, there were few laws to protect workers, and the conditions he had to endure in the mines because immigrant labor was cheap and expendable were really tough. Thankfully, those days are gone, but I still support the right of private sector workers to organize and negotiate wages and working conditions.

But teachers’ unions, in the name of protecting their members, are often the biggest obstacles to reforming our schools for the benefit of both teachers and students. Part of the problem is collective bargaining. Federal employee unions are barred from collective bargaining and using union dues for political purposes. Many teachers’ unions have no such restrictions. They use the power of collective bargaining to richly fund the union’s political operation. They use that machine to elect school board members who pay back the unions with pay raises while blocking efforts to remove incompetent teachers, to institute merit-based pay, and to expand school choice.

The link is pretty clear. Our schools as a whole are doing poorly, but school systems with collective bargaining tend to do far worse. For example, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, in 2011 only 40 percent of fourth-grade students performed at or above their grade level in math, and a mere 32 percent performed at or above their grade level in reading.
⁴
But consider this: in Chicago, which
permits collective bargaining by teachers’ unions, students are barely halfway to the national average, with only 20 percent of students at grade level in math and only 18 percent at grade level in reading. Meanwhile, Charlotte, North Carolina, a large urban school district, prohibits collective bargaining. Charlotte’s students are beating the national average, with 48 percent proficiency in math and 36 percent in reading, besting the Chicago students by 28 and 18 points, respectively. You’ll find similar disparities between New York City, where there is collective bargaining, and Austin, Texas, where there isn’t.
⁵
Most of us take the commonsense view that schools should be focused on student and teacher performance. But the teachers’ unions are often opposed to that commonsense goal.

It is easy to lay the blame on an antiquated education model, but that model worked much better when I was in grade school. It is failing now in part because it is being called on to do so much more. I have yet to meet a teacher that didn’t tell me that family is the most important determinant of success in the classroom. Too many children arrive at school unprepared to learn or with serious behavioral issues or both. Of course, the president’s idea is taking kids out of the home and putting them into a government-structured day care program instead of trying to address the root cause, broken families.

It’s extremely important that our children’s education at home and in school equip them with the basic skills they will
need in their career. Parents are right to be concerned about the kind of character being formed in our public schools, but the foundation of character, like the foundation for learning, is built at home. Karen and I thought this was so important for our children that we searched for tools to help us impart those virtues to them. She ended up writing a book,
Everyday Graces: A Child’s Book of Good Manners
, which, along with Bill Bennett’s
The Book of Virtues
, became our homeschool curriculum on character formation.

Every child who goes through twelve years of public schooling should have what he needs to be a good citizen and to take part in the working life of this country. Not everyone has the aptitude or can afford to go to a four-year college. For many kids, a job or vocational training is the better option. All kids are different, and if one of mine decided to become the best auto mechanic in the country, that would be fine by me. I’m not requiring my kids to go to Penn State (though they do have to be Nittany Lions fans). And I’d much rather my children know how to fix an eighteen-wheeler or enlist in the navy than spend $150,000 to marinate for four years in the toxic ideology of academia while never missing a weekend party.

When politicians talk about the need for a better-educated workforce, they generally follow that up with talks about
increasing Stafford Loans and Pell Grants for kids going to college.
⁶
But what about the 70 percent I have been talking about who won’t graduate from college? What about the unglamorous task of making sure that the next generation of American workers have the education and training they need to succeed by using their minds
and
their hands?

I think the answer is found in institutions and programs such as the Latin Builders Association Academy, a charter high school for construction and business management in Miami, Florida. We need more places like LBA Academy, which is the first charter school in the country started by a business association. The goal for the students at the LBA Academy upon graduation is to continue to college, then work for a member company in a well-paying job or start their own business. And the association members mentor and guide the students. It’s a ground-up, community-based approach to providing real skills and experience to students who need these kinds of options.

Career and technical education (CTE) like this equips secondary, postsecondary, and adult students with the skills for high-paying jobs. With roots going back to the Civil War, CTE is the tried and true way to help young people be competitive in the workforce. It’s the best way to train students for good blue collar jobs, and industries such as health science and manufacturing desperately need skilled laborers. In fact, when unemployment was at its worst in the Great Recession,
there were half a million open jobs in transportation and utilities, and a quarter million in manufacturing, to name just a couple of sectors.
⁷

Right now, approximately twelve million students are in secondary and postsecondary CTE programs across the nation. Both federal and state policies should support access to robust CTE programs as we look for creative ways to encourage workforce readiness. For instance, how about encouraging or even creating incentives for business associations to sponsor charter schools like LBA Academy? And as a way to help finance charter schools, how about expanding tax-free education savings accounts that could be started at birth and funded by friends, families, or businesses to help pay the tuition for charter or private schools?

As I traveled across the country in 2011 and 2012, I visited countless communities and schools to develop a plan to revitalize our economy. I did not visit the Harvards and Yales of America—their voices are heard in Washington every day. Instead, I visited institutions like Kirkwood Community College outside Cedar Rapids, Iowa, where they are actually training students for real jobs. I talked to the administrators at Kirkwood about my plan for increasing manufacturing jobs by having businesses and schools like Kirkwood work together on job training. Unbeknownst to me, the hotel where I stayed
was staffed by Kirkwood students learning about the hospitality business. They were as professional as any staff I’ve come across in a Marriott or a Hilton. I later learned that the hotel had even earned the “Four Diamond Award” for its services and amenities. Practical instruction like this might not confer Ivy League prestige on its students, but schools like Kirkwood can play a vital role in helping kids make the transition from finishing high school to getting a job and all that entails—becoming a productive part of the community, getting on a career ladder, and eventually getting married and starting a family.

Education reform should begin with the family. Let’s empower parents to give their children the keys to success and then give them the choice of the school that is the best setting for them to live their American Dream. A century ago, Republicans took pride in breaking up corporate monopolies. Now it’s time to end the near-monopoly of government-run public schools.

CHAPTER NINE

GIVING THE AMERICAN WORKER A FIGHTING CHANCE

J
ames Harrison grew up in the shadow of an aluminum manufacturing plant in northeastern Ohio. When he was born, in 1964, the plant employed his father and more than five hundred others, and the business was booming. Since the end of World War II, the company had experienced tremendous demand from around the world, and it ran three shifts to keep up. There was a job in the factory for anyone who had finished high school and was willing to work hard. After a few years on the job, the pay was enough to buy a home in town and comfortably provide for a family.
The owner of the company became quite wealthy but always lived in the town, attended a local church, and sat in the stands at the high school football games. He knew most of his employees by name and never missed the company’s summer picnic.