Paul Zimmerman joins the Students Over Systems podcast to discuss the teachers unions’ pernicious influence on K-12 education. Paul, who leads the Defense of Freedom Institute’s Teacher Unions Accountability Project, explains how unions use collective bargaining agreements to implement their radical political agenda. He also exposes the alarming “passing the trash” process that protects union members who have abused students. We conclude with a few bright spots on the horizon, including states that recently ended the automatic deduction of union dues from teachers’ salaries.
TRANSCRIPT
Ginny Gentles:
Today on Students Over Systems, we’re focusing on the pernicious influence of teachers unions. Paul Zimmerman, with the Defense of Freedom Institute, joins us to discuss teacher unions’ accountability. Welcome to Students Over Systems, a podcast that celebrates education freedom. I’m your host, Ginny Gentles. At Students Over Systems, we typically talk with the creators, advocates, and beneficiaries of education freedom. On today’s episode, however, we’re focusing on the entities that cause the most harm in public education, and do everything in their power to trap students in failing schools. And that’s the teacher’s unions. For this important conversation, we’re joined by Paul Zimmerman. Paul leads the Defense of Freedom Institute’s, Teacher Union’s Accountability Project. He previously served as counsel at the US Department of Commerce, and held a variety of positions with the Federalist Society. Paul, thank you so much for joining us.
Paul Zimmerman:
Thank you very much for having me, Ginny.
Ginny Gentles:
Well, as I mentioned, we typically discuss school choice, education freedom on Students Over Systems. We’re celebrating all the victories that are happening this year, and we’re talking through the 30 years of school choice history. And we find episode after episode, the teachers unions are frequently mentioned. With both of the teachers unions, the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Associations meeting the summer, we wanted to bring you on to discuss the role that teachers unions play in K-12 education. And we appreciate learning more about the work that you’re doing at DFI, Defense of Freedom Institute. Let’s start with a product that you have created, The Corrupt Bargain, How Unions Use Collective Bargaining to Impose Their Political Agendas on Schools. What was the goal of that publication?
Paul Zimmerman:
What we really wanted to do with that publication is take a look at the collective bargaining agreements that teacher unions agree with public K through 12 local school districts. And take a look at what those agreements actually say. What are teacher unions actually trying to accomplish through those agreements? And what we found was that in some of the most heavily unionized school districts throughout the country, and some of the biggest school districts throughout the country, those unions are really using those collective bargaining agreements to advance a radical ideological agenda when it comes to indoctrinating students into woke principles. When it comes to school discipline methods, ensuring that the school district disciplines people and students differently based on race.
And so, we found a lot of these provisions in some of the largest school districts. We published a report on that, just spotlighting some of those really troubling provisions. These are not parts of their contract that you would assume would be in these collective bargaining agreements, which would relate to salary, of course, and benefits of the teachers involved. But some of them are really … Including the disciplinary provisions on things like restorative justice, they do a disservice to teachers. So we were really disappointed, but perhaps not surprised to find some of these provisions in these collective bargaining agreements.
Ginny Gentles:
Well, many parents and community members might be surprised. They might hear about their local teachers union striking, and they assume it’s because, “Well, the teachers are underpaid, of course. And so, they must be striking in order to ensure that their salaries are increased.” But what you mentioned in the report is that these collective agreements can span hundreds of pages, contain nearly impenetrable jargon, vague electoral accountability, and effectively impose leftist policy goals on school systems as a matter of contract. Let’s start with the beginning there. “Span hundreds of pages.” That’s definitely more than just their salaries that’s being negotiated there. Can you walk us through a collective bargaining process that would lead to a product that’s this huge?
Paul Zimmerman:
Yeah, absolutely. Well, I would raise the Minneapolis Teachers Union collective bargaining process with that school district. Where, essentially, the teachers union used a strike, and a time without an agreement to negotiate a deal that was reached at about three o’clock in the morning, that imposed duties on the district to fire white teachers prior to firing teachers of color. And provided other benefits to employees of color in that school district, that white teachers didn’t have access to.
I mean, I think teachers are exercising leverage when their contract runs out. We’ve seen various contracts coming to an end recently in Los Angeles and New York. And really, the people in those districts need to pay attention to the negotiation process in those districts to ensure that these kind of woke, progressive ideological provisions aren’t taking precedence over just simple salary and benefits. These agreements spanning hundreds of pages, I know that they know, that parents don’t have time to just parse these legalese provisions, and take a look at what’s really happening there. But we tried to do that some in our report. We hope that it encourages parents and teachers to be honest across the country. To really look into the agreements that their unions are striking with the school districts.
Ginny Gentles:
Right, and you don’t just give that Minneapolis example. You have basically pages of examples from school districts and collective bargaining agreements from around the country that are very similar. Let’s talk a little bit more about the discipline provisions that you had referenced, and what you’re talking about there. Particularly in a time when everyone is concerned about just how unsafe schools are. When community members, parents, and of course teachers are concerned about physical assaults on teachers happening in schools. And certainly the violence that breaks out between students in schools. These contracts are setting everyone up for failure. You talked about how … That they put both teachers and students in danger by replacing traditional disciplinary measures with policies that emphasize dialogue and understanding. What is this? What’s happening when it comes to school discipline in these bargaining agreements?
Paul Zimmerman:
Well, I would do a brief history of this. I think it goes back, at least to the Obama administration. Where the Obama Department of Education looked at school disciplinary data, and decided that schools were … The outcomes of the discipline in K through 12 public schools wasn’t being meted out on an equal basis between races. And so, they went after school districts with guidance to tell them, “Hey, you have to have equal outcomes in your disciplinary techniques.”
And I think this is essentially in line with that, the restorative justice principles. It’s really a way of helping everyone avoid accountability for their discipline problems. And essentially what it is, is not disciplining people, not removing students from their classroom when they misbehave. And not removing students from school based on very serious allegations. And so, I think the purpose of this is to try to equalize disciplinary outcomes across races, which I don’t think is really an appropriate thing for a government entity to be doing.
I think a lot of people would agree with me, and obviously, the effects are clear. I mean, if you don’t remove a disruptive student from the classroom, the other students suffer. If you don’t remove a disruptive student from the classroom, teachers have a harder time actually teaching the students who want to learn. And teachers are put in danger in some cases, as we’ve seen kind of an epidemic of violence across school system. So I think this disciplinary model is not helping teachers, and it’s just another example of teachers unions not really being representative of the average teacher in a classroom, and definitely not being a student’s friend when it comes to the policies that they’re pursuing.
Ginny Gentles:
Well, something that’s important to us at IWF is to emphasize and expose the role of the National Teachers’ Union. So it might not even be that the local teachers’ union is ideologically captured as some of the entities in our country. But the National Teachers Unions, the NEA, the AFT and the activists that create the business items and the resolutions that the unions vote on each year, are truly left, and progressive, and definitely not representing the views of the majority of teachers. Let’s talk about how this happens. What is the role of the National Teachers Unions when it comes to the collective bargaining language?
Paul Zimmerman:
I would say that the local unions are really driven by the priorities of the national unions as announced at their annual meetings. And listen, I mean the resolutions, new business items at these meetings … I know the NEA just completed its annual meeting a few weeks ago. This is not in line. These progressive goals, such as just abandoning teacher evaluations, abandoning tests of whether students are actually learning things in classrooms, among other things.
These are not representative of your average teacher. They’re not what parents want and what students deserve in classrooms. And so, I think that these local union chapters that come to these meetings and push these new business items, push these resolutions, they go back feeling emboldened. They feel like they’re part of a real ideological struggle on behalf of their national organizations. And then really, that’s where the rubber meets the road.
That’s really where you see the unions affecting students’ opportunity to learn, students’ opportunity to choose their school. Whether it’s a charter school, whether it’s a public school or a private school. It’s really where these opportunities for students to learn are choked off, at the local level with these collective bargaining agreements. And also, where I think that there is a priority on secrecy, and there’s a priority on protecting teachers at all costs in these collective bargaining agreements. Prioritizing teachers being retained on staff over information getting to parents, students, and other teachers. I think that’s where really this problem is largest.
Ginny Gentles:
So before we turn to your very important report, Catching the Trash, I did want to ask you about your recommendation that parents review the collective bargains in place in their communities. You acknowledge that these are dense agreements. They’re filled with bureaucratic gobbledygook. They’re negotiated in the shadows without knowledge of the public. So tell us how parents would find the documents, and what specifically should they look for?
Paul Zimmerman:
Yeah, so school districts keep these collective bargaining agreements on their website. I would just go to your local school district’s website, go to an employment section. You can even Google your school district plus collective bargaining agreement. And that should come up. I apologize for anyone who actually has to go through these things. They are very dry for the most part until you hit upon something that just doesn’t belong in there. But I think that everyone owes it to their children if they have a student in the school system, to look at what the teachers’ unions are actually trying to do. And to make sure that the school system is not promoting progressive politics over the safety and wellbeing of students in the system.
Ginny Gentles:
Right. And historically, there would’ve been a local education beat reporter at the local paper covering and exposing this. We don’t have that as much anymore. So that does put the responsibility on the parents to go and look into what’s happening, and pull it out of the shadow. Shine the light on these local bargaining agreements. Alright, so you wrote a report more recently called Catching the Trash, Holding Teachers Unions, School Districts, and the US Department of Education Accountable for the Epidemic of Sexual Abuse in Public Schools.
And Paul, to be honest, nobody really wants to talk about this, right? This is a really uncomfortable conversation. But we need to, because what you found when you looked at data from the US Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights was that sexual violence in public K-12 schools more than tripled over about a nine-year period. Tell us a little bit more about that finding. What do you mean when you say it tripled?
Paul Zimmerman:
Every school district is required to enforce a federal statute that most people have heard of called Title IX when responding to sexual assault complaints and sexual abuse complaints in their district. And if the school district doesn’t respond properly, then students and parents have a right to file a complaint with the office for civil rights against their school district. And that’s something everyone should know. Between 2010 and 2019, the number of sexual violence complaints filed with the Office for Civil Rights more than tripled, as you referred to.
And I would just pinpoint between the school years 2015, and ’16, and 2017 and ’18, which are the last years for which we have data for the education department’s civil rights data collection. Incidents of sexual violence in K through 12 schools rose by 43%, to nearly 14,000 incidents. And incidents of rape or attempted rape rose by 74% to 685 incidents.
And that’s a national survey of at least 17,000 school districts, or schools across the country. This is a disturbing trend. This is why we decided to really look into the phenomenon and the epidemic of sexual abuse in schools, and really look at what’s happening. Why are schools failing to keep students safe, and why is this epidemic on the rise. As well as what should each actor, whether it’s at the local, state or federal level, be doing about this.
Ginny Gentles:
And so, these are incidents that have been reported up through the chain to the district, to the state, to the federal government, because they weren’t resolved at some point or addressed. So this likely under reports the extent of the issue, I would think, which is extremely alarming. Were you able to look at the data and determine which of these incidents were teachers abusing students, versus just student to student abuse?
Paul Zimmerman:
Not in this particular data. And that is actually a key drawback in the data right now, that I mention in the report. We really need to know to what extent is this student on student sexual violence, and to what extent is this employee on student sexual violence? Because I think those two are unacceptable, but they’re a little different in terms of what would you do about it. In the civil rights data collection, the department during the Betsy DeVos Education Department era started to collect data on, “All right, how many of these are actually employee on student sexual abuse allegations? And how many of these are incidents in which teachers are allowed to quietly resign and move elsewhere, rather than actually face an investigation?”
In the Biden administration, they tried to put a halt to those questions, they tried to ask those questions from the CRDC until a large public outcry stopped them, stopped the administration from doing that. I think that’s just indicative of something that we point out in the report, which is that I don’t think that the … When it comes to potentially ruffling the feathers of the teacher unions, I don’t think that the education department is really interested in doing that, even at the expense of finding out more about such a horrible phenomenon that’s happening across the country.
Ginny Gentles:
All right. So you called the report, Catching the Trash, and you wrote that, “Administrators choose to allow the abuser, the teacher, to operate in the shadows or quietly transfer the teacher to another school or district to find new victims, and restart the cycle of abuse.” Tell us about some of these incidences in school districts happening around the country.
Paul Zimmerman:
Yeah, absolutely. One example that is particularly troubling was pointed out in the Chicago Tribune’s, Betrayed series, which is just great and everyone should check that out. It’s horrible what they outlined happened in the Chicago public schools, and what really continues to happen in those schools. But a teacher started out in Wisconsin, got in trouble in mid-year. Had a conference with his union rep and the principal of the school who agreed to destroy all files related to the teacher’s misconduct, never speak of it again, never refer it to any future employer.
A few years later, he pops up in the Chicago public schools, at a school for kids with behavioral and emotional issues. According to the allegations from students in his class, he invites them home with him to watch movies in his bed. He allows them to access pornography on his computer. He strokes the pants zipper of one of his students. And after those allegations surfaced, he was allowed to resign from that school. The school said that it wasn’t going to say anything negative about his record, in return for him just slipping away. Not making a big deal about getting terminated, removed from his position.
And lo and behold, he pops up again in the Florida schools, which receive no information on these things. This is happening too much throughout the country. It’s called passing the trash. It is basically a function in which not just teacher unions, but I just think the public school bureaucracy of which the teacher unions are apart make it so hard to remove teachers that instead they’re just allowed to slip away under allegations of sexual misconduct instead of being properly investigated. Instead of the proper process being applied to them. And so, we really need to look at this issue. I think people need to be aware of this issue and make their school districts aware of the issue throughout the country.
Ginny Gentles:
So this horrible situation that you told us about Wisconsin, Chicago, Florida, it’s not so very unusual. Apparently there was a 2018 study that found that a teacher accused of abuse is on average passed to three different school districts, and could have up to 73 victims. You’re not talking about an anomaly or some sort of extreme example. You’re talking about an average example of an abuser in the system. What is the role of the union? You mentioned the union rep helps make it go away, I guess, as far as the document trail. What else is the union doing in this process?
Paul Zimmerman:
So we found that the union gets involved in three different ways. The first way is that when a teacher gets accused of sexual misconduct, when there’s an investigation that’s launched into that conduct, unions represent that teacher in negotiating a nondisclosure agreement, which is exactly what happened in the case that I was just talking about, Wisconsin, Chicago, Florida.
The second way in which these unions are involved is similar in that they negotiate collective bargaining agreements with school districts that basically prioritize secrecy over student safety. And if after a certain number of years, any allegations … Not just allegations, but findings of misconduct against teachers or investigations that occur in teacher sexual misconduct and the misconduct of other school employees as well, simply gets scrubbed from personnel files.
So no future employer is going to be able to find out about those. And then, the third way that teachers unions get involved is at the state level. They wield such powerful influence among state lawmakers that they’re able to veto any meaningful reforms that would effectively deal with this passing the trash phenomenon, and hold school administrators accountable if they simply try to sweep the problem under the rug and offer a positive recommendation to a teacher who is accused of sexual misconduct, rather than properly investigating them. And doing this in return for the teacher just disappearing and resurfacing in a different school system.
Ginny Gentles:
Well, Paul, let’s have a frank conversation about why and how the unions have such powerful influence in many state legislatures. How did that come about?
Paul Zimmerman:
Well, I think how it came about, I think that there’s a lot of interesting literature on this. But the unions are being subsidized by local school district. They’re being subsidized by state governments because they get all sorts of benefits. They’re allowed to draw teachers’ salaries directly from the schools to fund their dues. They are permitted meeting space in schools. They are permitted to take time off while they’re being paid a public salary to represent the union.
And so, they get all of these dues that the state and local districts really help them get. And then they use that to basically perpetuate themselves. Essentially, I would call it a protection racket. The teachers and other school employees give the union money, and in return, the union agrees to basically protect them both at the local level, but also at the state level from any kind of attempts at reforming the system to provide accountability. Both in terms of bad performance, but also in terms of actual dangerous, abusive teachers who are out there.
And look, I mean, I would be remiss to say that teacher unions are very different from the average teacher. I think by and large, almost all teachers out there are trying to do a good job and are trying to do well by the students that they teach, and try to promote a good future for them. But these teacher unions, they are really about self-perpetuation. They are about money, about funding, about influencing policy at the state level in order to continue to exist. So to kind of blur the line or to mistake teacher unions for all of the teachers that they represent, I think is a huge mistake, and something that we really should stop doing.
Ginny Gentles:
Well, there was much gnashing of teeth and lamentation at the recent National Education Association or NEA annual meeting. That a handful of states are ending the process of automatically deducting the union dues. And so, without that automatic deduction heading straight into the pockets of the teachers unions, they’re going to have a harder time convincing teachers, “Hey, we represent you. Give us your dues money. Sign up for this.”
I have to say, I think that this is some of the good news coming out of the NEA meeting and some of the good news coming out of the state legislative sessions. Let’s not make it easy for unions to do all these things that we’ve been talking about here. Let’s make the case to the average classroom teacher that they’re representing them, and likely they won’t be able to do that in many cases. Last question, as we wrap up for the day. We typically ask our guests, what is the myth about education freedom or school choice that you’d like to tackle? But Paul, given your area of expertise, let’s tackle the myth about teachers unions that bothers you the most, and that you want to dispel today.
Paul Zimmerman:
I think that the myth that I would like to dispel, and that I think really needs to be dispelled is when the teacher union bosses, both at the National Education Association and the American Federation for Teachers, say that teacher union interests are the same as student interests, that they represent the students just as much as they represent the progressive political agenda that they’re really pursuing. That is a myth.
I think they’ve shown at these meetings that they are not prioritizing the interests of students who are just seeking, and who deserve an education that is really quality. And whether they can seek that at a charter school, they can seek that at a public school or a private school. Teacher Unions do not want that. They don’t have that interest at heart. And so, to say that teacher unions really represent students, it’s not true.
As I said before, teacher unions are really about perpetuating their own interests. They’re really about continuing their own funding stream, and really about expansion. I think that they’re looking to not only represent employees in public schools throughout the country, but also expand to higher education. To expand to other educational options such as charter schools. And if we allow that to happen, and if we as a society and if our governments allow that to happen, I think that we are going to have a really tough time educating our children in this country, and preparing people for meaningful careers and preparing them for life.
Ginny Gentles:
Well, Paul, I definitely agree, and thank you so much for all that you’re doing at the Teacher Union’s Accountability Project, and thanks for talking with us here at Students Over Systems today.
Paul Zimmerman:
Thank you so much for having me, Ginny.
Ginny Gentles:
We hope listeners found today’s conversation informative, if alarming. And if you enjoyed this episode of Students Over Systems, please consider leaving a review on your favorite podcast app. And don’t forget to share this episode with your friends. To learn more about the work of the IWF, Education Freedom Center, please visit iwf.org/efc. Thank you for listening to Students Over Systems. Until next time, keep celebrating education freedom and brighter futures.
