Oklahoma lawmakers are getting a taste of teacher union entitlement, as they consider legislation that would restrict unions’ ability to treat public school educators as a captive audience. If passed into law, Senate Bill 1513 would keep districts from requiring or coercing teachers into engaging with unions, or giving preferential treatment towards any one union.
Here’s the language:
C. A school district is prohibited from:
- Requiring or coercing school district employees to meet, communicate, listen to, or otherwise interact with an employee organization or statewide professional educators’ association;
- 2. Distributing communications or membership solicitations on behalf of an employee organization or statewide professional educators’ association; and
- 3. Permitting an employee organization or statewide professional educators’ association access to or use of the school district’s meetings, events, facilities, communications systems, computer systems, equipment, supplies, or other resources on terms more favorable than extended to any other employee organization or statewide professional educators’ association seeking similar access or use.
The legislation – which already passed the Oklahoma Senate – can be summed up very simply: “School districts can’t force teachers to meet with anyone they don’t want to, and won’t be in the business of pushing union enrollment.” Note the legislation doesn’t even ban unions from accessing publicly-funded resources, or stop districts from collecting their dues. It just states that no single entity can have a monopoly.
Predictably, this legislation has been termed “anti teacher,” and “against free association,” condemnations which only make sense in a world where schools are viewed as a vehicle for union dues extraction and partisan political engagement.
Here is the question that Oklahoma parents should ask lawmakers who are on the fence about supporting this bill: “Does this legislation advance the education of students in Oklahoma?” That’s it. Taxpayers don’t fund public schools as a pass-through to unions, or send lawmakers to Oklahoma City to legislate what makes life easy for unions. They pay taxes to support education as a public good, and elect leaders to enact laws in the best interest of students. In turn, parents and taxpayers have a right to expect that school districts focus completely on education, not the entitlements of unelected, third-party unions.
Any effort to reform education – however small – will always be opposed by unions focused on institutional processes, not outcomes.