Gov. Scott Walker's move to curb collective bargaining for most public workers gives school districts unprecedented authority to run schools as they see fit, without consulting teachers unions.
But that freedom could come at a price. By shutting unions out of discussions about teacher pay and performance, districts risk losing a key partner in developing and carrying out education reforms, some say.
And with the changes accompanied by deep budget cuts, districts will keep grinding out efficiencies to stay solvent, not necessarily to improve public education, said Miles Turner, executive director of the Wisconsin Association of School District Administrators.
"You can run a McDonald's with one employee," Turner said. "But it's going to be dirty, you're going to have poor service and bad food."
School boards are likely to make changes such as tying layoffs to performance, changing health insurance providers, scaling back post-retirement benefits, developing virtual classrooms, privatizing programs such as 4-year-old kindergarten and developing merit pay, said Bob Butler, a lawyer for the Wisconsin Association of School Boards.
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Some districts may hesitate to vary pay among individual teachers because it could open the door to gender and age discrimination lawsuits, Butler said. Instead, districts might find ways to reward a particular school or group of teachers that meets a goal, such as improved attendance, discipline or performance on standardized tests.
First decrease since 1993
Districts have been cutting programs and staff for several years despite annual increases in funding because of the increasing cost of things such as salaries, fuel and health insurance premiums.
Walker's budget proposal calls for the first decrease in school funding since the state imposed revenue limits in 1993. However, the Republican governor has suggested his changes to collective bargaining, including requiring employees to pay more for health and pension benefits, will allow districts to save money and innovate. Many district officials say the benefit contributions aren't enough to counter the funding cuts.
In an interview Friday, Walker said he expects some school districts will adopt merit pay plans and make some changes to work rules.
"We do it elsewhere in society, and it's proven to be quite successful," Walker said of merit pay. "We should do it here."
Walker said his administration will work with state schools Superintendent Tony Evers and others to develop a framework for merit pay. Walker said such a plan should use several measures to determine how well teachers are helping students learn.
"It's not just one standardized test, it's not just grade point, it's not classroom performance," he said. "It's a series of things."
Flexibility for administrators
The new state law, held up pending a legal challenge, forbids most public worker unions from negotiating salary schedules, benefits and workplace rules with employers. It still allows bargaining over inflationary increases in "total base wages," but generally makes it harder for unions to operate.
It also means school administrators would be able to make major changes to pay scales, school calendars and work rules without consulting teachers.
Mary Bell, president of the Wisconsin Education Association Council, the state's largest teachers union, said that while teachers won't necessarily obstruct changes, they are less likely to offer new ideas themselves if they are not covered by a union contract.
"Innovation takes risk," Bell said. "Risk in an environment where your protection is gone is a much different proposition."
Just days before Walker announced his changes to collective bargaining, WEAC had announced support for a statewide teacher evaluation system and performance-based pay. That overture, however, has been largely overshadowed by the union controversy.
Bell said the union remains interested in pursuing a statewide teacher evaluation model, but it still has to be implemented at the local level — something that could be harder if teachers do not have a say in the matter.
"If you lose that voice, you are doomed to innovations that are incomplete or difficult at best," Bell said.
Most districts haven't extended agreements
The provisions of the new law won't take effect for local units of government until their employee collective bargaining agreements expire. At least 73 school districts have extended agreements with their employees for one or two years, but most of the state's 424 districts have not, according to the school boards association.
The Albany School District in rural Green County just inked a two-year contract that also allows it to set the calendar and enter cooperative agreements with its neighbors. The district could have made those changes without a contract, but Superintendent Steve Guenther said cooperating with employees is the better way.
Guenther sees major changes on the horizon, including the possibilities of year-round school with four-day weeks, sharing staff with neighboring districts in virtual classrooms and rewarding teachers for performance instead of only seniority and educational attainment.
"There's a fire under us," Guenther said. "We've got to look at doing things differently."
In Wood County, the Nekoosa School District has not extended a contract with teachers. Superintendent Wayne Johnson said that will allow his district to change its health insurance provider to save money - something the union previously opposed. The current insurance provider, WEA Trust, is affiliated with the state teachers union.
"It's been the number one bargaining issue with the school board and the teachers union," Johnson said.
Otherwise, Johnson isn't planning to use the new collective bargaining law to push for any dramatic changes in education. Nekoosa has eliminated half of its administrators and a third of its staff in recent years, and he expects the focus will continue to be on cutting costs.
"We joke that the way school funding is going in Wisconsin, we're going to have only one employee, the superintendent, who will supervise all students in the high school gym," Johnson said. "We say that tongue in cheek, but that certainly seems to be the direction that public education is headed."
Assistant City Editor Mark Pitsch contributed to this report.
