Randi Weingarten and Racial Disparities in Education

Randi Weingarten isn’t known for self-awareness. Right on cue this week the teachers union chief denounced the Supreme Court’s ruling on racial preferences without so much as a bow to her own role in creating racial disparities.

“This decision ignores the original sin of this country—it’s a throwback to a cruel, racist past that admissions policies like this tried to repair,” the American Federation of Teachers chief said. Has she read the briefs by teachers unions in the case?

The briefs admit that colleges use racial preferences to increase enrollment of minority students who are often less academically qualified because they’ve been trapped in rotten public schools. “Our schools, from K-12 to higher education, still struggle to provide equitable opportunities for students of color,” the National Education Association lamented in its brief.

But why is that? Because the unions fight educational choice for minorities and protect bad teachers in low-income schools from accountability. Teachers usually receive tenure protection after two to three years. After that, school districts must spend inordinate time and money to remove them. Instead, they are typically rotated around poor, mostly minority schools in what’s known as the “dance of the lemons.”

Former Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent John Deasy testified in a lawsuit brought by minority students last decade that it can take 10 years and $250,000 to $450,000 to fire a lousy teacher. Fewer than 0.002% of teachers in California were dismissed for unprofessional conduct or poor performance.

A single year with a grossly ineffective teacher can cost a classroom of students $1.4 million in lifetime earnings. Less experienced teachers are more likely to be assigned to schools in lower-income neighborhoods. Yet these schools can’t recruit higher-performing teachers by offering higher pay since labor contracts base salaries on experience.

The unions more than anyone else are responsible for racial differences in education. College racial preferences try to paper over those disparities while easing political pressure for education reform. Ms. Weingarten can’t admit this because she’d indict her life’s work.