Penn Hills School District is cancelling classes in response to a teacher strike. This situation is all too commonplace in the state that annually leads the nation in teacher strikes. 

Contract negotiations reached an impasse over issues of pay raises and contributions to health care.  The District asked for a freeze in wages and for a ten percent contribution to health care costs.  The union led off negotiations by asking for a 15 percent increase in wages in each of the five years of the contract and for the teachers' 1.2 percent contribution to health care to be decreased to as little as 0.4 percent.  They also wanted the District to offer health coverage from the time a teacher retires until they qualify for Medicare-an action that could add significantly to the District's legacy costs.  The union now claims it can be flexible on the size of the raises as they are willing to accept a six percent annual increase.

These demands come at a time when the nation and area are struggling to recover from a recession and many people are unemployed.  As one PTA president said, "...teachers ought to be happy they have a job."  But this only underscores just how public school teachers have become a privileged class in Pennsylvania-emboldened by the right to strike and the knowledge that school funding is effectively guaranteed and underwritten by state and local taxpayers, no matter how poorly a district performs.  They are heavily protected from firings and layoffs and have pension plans that are second to none-and with the impending large funding shortfall for teacher pensions, this too will be propped up by even greater extraction of money from taxpayers. 

The Penn Hills teachers' union says it just wants pay in line with other Allegheny County public school teachers.  According to 2007-08 Pennsylvania Department of Education data the county pay average was slightly more than $52,000 while the Penn Hills average was just under than $49,000. 

While the average salary appears to be within shouting distance of the county average, how does the performance of the students in their charge compare to even neighboring districts?  In 2009 college bound students from the Penn Hills District scored an average 885 on the SAT exam, well below the averages from Gateway (1022), Plum (994) and less than that of Woodland Hills (933).  All four districts had roughly the same number of students taking the exam as the districts are close in enrollments.  Over the past five years Penn Hills students were heavily outscored by both Gateway and Plum students while besting those from Woodland Hills in only three of five years.  A score of 885 doesn't even begin to compare to the best school districts in Allegheny County such as Upper St. Clair (1148), Mt. Lebanon (1147) or North Allegheny (1135). 

While the SAT's compare only college bound students, the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment (PSSA), tests all students from certain grades.  For eleventh graders in the Penn Hills District-those closest to graduating and entering either college or the workforce-only 41.7 percent of the students scored proficient or advanced in math while 55.8 did so in reading on the 2009 PSSA exam.  Having nearly 60 percent of your students not performing at grade level in math and almost 45 percent not performing at grade level in reading is unacceptable and certainly calls into question the outrageous teacher compensation demands.  

What is needed in Penn Hills and across Pennsylvania is for the Legislature to pass and the Governor to sign a ban on teacher strikes and get the state and its school districts out from under the thumb of unions as they are in 37 states where teacher strikes never occur and nine more where they rarely occur.  This atrocious bending over backwards in servile obeisance to public sector employees is the epitome of self-destructive policy.

All that will happen in Penn Hills is that students will be out of school for six or seven days with the attendant hardships for parents and caregivers. Undoubtedly, the probable short duration of the strike will not be long enough to engender sufficient public support for the strikers to brow beat the school board into caving in to union demands.  So, the strike is happening for one reason only-to create as much disruption of students' lives as possible and to create difficulties for working parents who must find child care.  

That is what we have come to because of the right to strike which has allowed and encouraged these public employees to act with willful disregard for the people and community they supposedly serve and who pay their salaries and generous benefits.

Teachers in the South Butler School District are on strike for the second time in the last twelve months.  They can stay on the picket lines until early October under Act 88.  They face no punishment, fines, or possible loss of union decertification as happens in other states when teachers strike.

Yet ten high school students staged a protest over their frustration with the negotiations and failed to report to class by 8 A.M. last Friday. They will face punishment.  The district's assistant superintendent said "we can't have students leaving school on their own". 

Can there be a clearer example of just how the power structure is tilted toward teachers' unions in Pennsylvania?  Isn't it astounding that students in Pennsylvania can be compelled to attend class or face disciplinary action while teachers can blithely and with impunity refuse to show up for work? That tells us in a nutshell all one needs to know about the mindset of the political power structure in the Commonwealth.

We have demonstrated in two earlier reports that Pennsylvania is the perennial leader in the number of teachers' strikes, with none of the other twelve states that permit strikes coming close.  Indeed, Pennsylvania has accounted for more than half of all U.S. teacher strikes since 2000.

South Butler is the second district so far this year to experience a teacher walkout (a strike in Easton ended September 9^th) and there are sure to be more with over 85 school districts negotiating contracts according to the PA School Boards Association. 

During a November 2008 public hearing regarding last year's walkout  a South Butler resident told the school board "don't put our students and [taxpayers] through this only to fold at the end and give them what they are asking for".  The strike ended due to the requirement of holding 180 school days prior to June 15. The dispute went to arbitration, but no contract settlement was reached.

A major problem is that the state is constantly giving in to what the teachers ask for-setting the tone for what happens at the local level. The Governor's proposed budget spending hike for education-while the state is in the throes of a serious recession and has falling revenue-and the looming pension time bomb that will require substantial tax increases are two examples of the short shrift hard working taxpayers receive in the Commonwealth. That's why the school board-in its dual role as responsible for quality education and being a good steward of tax dollars while watching out for taxpayers' interests-has to hold firm in the face of demands for wage increases that could top out above 4 percent annually.

The newly announced (albeit tentative) budget agreement would boost education spending by $300 million above last year's level at a time when other states have made spending and personnel reductions.  Keep in mind that the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report for the state (ending June 30, 2008) shows that the function of "public education" grew by 28 percent from $10.198 million to $13.076 million from 2003 to 2008.  By comparison total government expenditures grew at a rate of 23 percent across the same time period and the northeast urban Consumer Price Index increased 19 percent. Taxpayers are forced to fund additional increases in education spending, even though there is little evidence of a correlation between money and performance either on student achievement or teacher performance.  

In addition, taxpayers across the state are going to have to face the prospect of millage rate hikes in the coming years thanks to promises made to teachers through the Public School Employees Retirement System (PSERS).  On this item the Governor's office noted in a white paper that "under current law and using the system's annual earnings assumption (8.5%), the Commonwealth contribution will increase from $340 million in FY2011-12 to $728 million in FY2012-13 (114%).  School districts' cost for retirement will spike at the same rate, with total contribution growing from $261 million annually to $662 million (153%)."  It is hard to see how taxpayers in school districts anywhere, but especially in a district like South Butler where teachers are trying to extort above-market increases in wages and benefits, can absorb the costs of such a hike in addition to mounting teacher salary costs.

So there we have it: a state with no sanctions on strikes, looking to grow education spending again, and with a huge tab coming forward in the next few years for retirement costs.  Can South Butler be the vanguard of a movement to stand against this avalanche of irresponsibility? 

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