Sad failure of teachers and their union chiefs

Washington state lost out on $13.2 million in new funding to help turn B students into A students. Blame belongs at the door of the teachers union.

The National Math and Science Initiative would have funded efforts at a handful of high schools to increase the number of students taking Advanced Placement courses in math, science and English.Two Seattle high schools, Franklin and West Seattle, would have received $114,000 the first year, with more money from the grant in later years.

But here's where the road turned rocky. Grant makers wanted to pay the teachers directly, an appropriate way of maintaining accountability and paying for a job well done. But the Seattle Education Association smelled merit pay. The horror!

The union could have overcome its general opposition to merit pay to accept the grant. Steve Pulkkinen, the union's negotiator over the grant, says teachers could have requested such a waiver but didn't. According to Seattle School District officials, Franklin teachers did. And so the finger-pointing goes.

Pulkkinen and the teachers were wrong. Complaints about pressure to do uncompensated work were answered by the grant's direct payments. Washington state's collective-bargaining laws require negotiation about pay, but that doesn't preclude reasonable agreement.

Other states reached agreements, including ones with strong unions, such as Massachusetts and Connecticut. Seattle's union should have been able to do the same.

Schools are struggling for money. At a recent teen summit, students complained of classrooms without enough textbooks. As the city schools move away from busing students, pressure is growing to offer rigorous programs at every school.

Yet, a promising grant was blocked because adults couldn't cede an inch of turf. Disappointment doesn't begin to express the feeling.