Math and science education is limping along as it is. Now, our state’s stiff collective-bargaining laws have killed a proposal that would have improved students’ math and science skills, as well as teacher training programs. 

The proposal was part of a $13.2 million math and science grant from the National Math and Science Initiative, or NMSI, with major funding provided by Exxon and the Gates and Dell family foundations. NMSI grants provide teacher training and coaching, tutoring for students, materials and equipment, and incentives for teachers and students.

The need for the NMSI program is painfully clear. 

Only 29 percent of American fourth-graders, a third of eighth-graders, and barely 18 percent of high school seniors perform at or above proficient levels in science.

About a third of high school mathematics students and two-thirds of those enrolled in physical sciences have teachers who did not major in the subject or are not certified to teach it.

Each of the seven Washington high schools selected for NMSI grants in Vancouver, Seattle and Spokane would have received $114,000 a year. More high schools would have been added in subsequent years.

About a quarter of the money would have been spent on merit pay for teachers, based on their participation and performance in the program. Rep. Bill Fromhold, D-Vancouver, a former educator and public school administrator, even gave up his seat in the Washington Legislature to run the program.

The NMSI sponsors wanted to pay teachers directly, but Washington’s collective-bargaining laws require that teacher pay be negotiated between the teachers union and school districts. 

Since that didn’t work, NMSI pulled the plug, and our teachers and kids got shot in the foot. 

Washington Education Association leaders traditionally oppose differential and bonus pay. Instead, WEA continues to pour big bucks into expensive media campaigns to tell voters they just need to pony up more taxes for schools. 

Differential or bonus pay is not new to Washington. Buried in the bevy of education bills the governor signed on May 9, 2007, was $5,000 annual bonuses for teachers who become certified by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. Those bonuses, which increase with inflation, make sense because they help teachers teach better.

Apparently, those bonuses are OK with the teachers union because the money comes from the state’s taxpayers — but not when it comes from Exxon, Bill and Melinda Gates, and Michael and Susan Dell.
It is embarrassing that our state, one of just seven selected among 28 applicants, was the only state to tube the program. Meanwhile, heavily unionized states such as Massachusetts and Connecticut, joined by Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky and Virginia, embraced the six-year grants.

In other words, our state’s position was, “Tough cookies, kids, the union contract takes precedence.”

Incentives work

This is a shame, because incentives work. For example, a 2007 Cornell University study showed that offering a $100 merit payment in Texas high schools improved student attendance and increased the number of students who passed Advanced Placement math and science classes.  In addition, there was a 30 percent increase in the number of students who scored 1100 on the SAT exam.

American students are increasingly at a global disadvantage. Thirty years ago, more than 30 percent of the students attending college worldwide were Americans. Today, the United States can claim only 14 percent, and the number is declining.

The U.S. Labor Department reports that by 2014, there will be more than 2 million job openings in science, technology and engineering, while the number of Americans graduates with degrees in those subjects is plummeting.

We shot ourselves in the foot by rejecting the NMSI grants because of collective-bargaining rules. The question our elected officials should seriously ponder is whether we are strangling ourselves — and our children’s future — with red tape.

Don Brunell is president of the Association of Washington Business, Washington state’s chamber of commerce. Visit www.awb.org.