The website of the University of Virginia has a wonderful digital archive of materials by and about Thomas Jefferson. It’s a fine source of quotations from Jefferson’s writings, especially on freedom of the press. A list of quotes opens with one of Jefferson’s best known remarks: “…were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.”
I think about that whenever someone suggests that binding arbitration would be a “fair” way to end teacher strikes in Pennsylvania. It’s a special case of the decision-making choice described by Jefferson: a choice between transparency and a government dictate. The procedural rules on binding arbitration would probably be similar to those we now have for fact-finding and non-binding arbitration. Each party – school board and teacher union – would submit a secret “best and final” offer for review by the arbitrator.
Courts and arbitration panels are needed to resolve disputes between private parties and to deal with charges that a public agency has broken a law or violated existing contracts with private parties. But to rely on them to allocate public money to private interests undercuts the whole point of representative democracy. Strikes are the lesser evil.
School board members (like almost everyone at one time or another) sometimes grumble that editors “only want to sell papers.” So we justify suppressing information on contract negotiations as a way of avoiding public controversy. Jefferson said much the same thing, that editors, “like the clergy, live by the zeal they can kindle and the schisms they can create.” And he was often bitter about the press, complaining of “the putrid state into which our newspapers have passed and the malignity, the vulgarity, and mendacious spirit of those who write for them.”
And yet. Here’s Jefferson, a year before his death, writing to Lafayette: The only security of all is in a free press. The force of public opinion cannot be resisted when permitted freely to be expressed. The agitation it produces must be submitted to. It is necessary, to keep the waters pure.”
That’s the case for transparency on board-union contract negotiations. Openness about any proposal — whether it’s about the design of a new school, the adoption of a new textbook or the hiring of a new coach — may well lead to “agitation.” I’m convinced that “the force of public opinion” will eliminate or reduce the impact of most strikes. It will not, however, lead to scrimping on public education.
My experience – and the judgment of our school board’s most conservative members – has always been that the overwhelming majority of taxpayers will support tax increases for public education if they’re convinced that they’re getting value for the money. In fact, because of the high esteem with which most people hold teachers, the public is eager to be convinced – witness the widely held belief that schools in general are going to hell in a handbasket but that “We have good schools.” It’s when boards and unions evade their responsibility to make the case for value that public cynicism about public education festers and grows.
