Wendy,

Your first point regarding arbitration perfectly highlights the most significant shortcoming of Metcalfe's anti-strike proposal. While we agree that strikes shouldn't be permitted, as stand-alone legislation an anti-strike law would do far more harm to education in less affluent areas than good.

Strikes, as I mentioned earlier, are ultimately the only leverage that teachers have in contract negotiations. Removing that final option, without implementing any other recourse or altering the environment of negotiations, gives districts total power to dictate contracts. Now, in many districts, this wouldn't be a terrible problem. However, in rural, less affluent communities, like South Butler, this would almost immediately result in a general decline in the quality of staff and education. I think it's obvious at this point that South Butler's board would rather maintain a low average salary and an abysmal start salary for teachers. Unfortunately, the economic realities dictate that the better educated, qualified, and talented professionals will gravitate towards higher paying positions in their field. Already, teacher salaries are far below that of other professional fields with similar levels of education and experience, and I think the decline in quality in the last 5-10 years is noticeable everywhere. If South Butler maintains a significantly lower salary level, even if justified by tax revenue income, it will absolutely realize decreases in qualification in applicants and new hires, and consequently a lower overall quality of education for our children. Unless (as some seem to think) we're headed for communism anytime soon, the basic principles of capitalism will rapidly degrade our children's education and the prospects for their future.

Any education reform legislation needs to address the systemic problems we're facing. As you said, mandatory and binding arbitration should be imposed if districts and teachers cannot reach a settlement on their own. Professional mediation should also be afforded earlier in the process, replacing the costly and generally unproductive interference of private attorneys and state-wide unions. I think we would agree again that both Tom King, the district's solicitor, and PSEA have interests unrelated to and often conflicting with the good of our community in South Butler. Teachers and the board should sit down together to discuss their contracts, and outside legal or technical advice should be unbiased and without ulterior motives.

Strikes, while certainly disruptive, don't quantitatively affect the quality of a child's education. Test scores, graduation rates, college placement, and any other metric applied have remained the same at South Butler despite the recent strikes. Given this fact, I don't understand why legislators like Metcalfe aren't more concerned with implementing programs and redirecting funding that directly impacts education, rather than wasting time and taxpayer dollars on an issue that, while controversial and less than ideal, is comparatively minor. Why isn't Metcalfe doing something about the cost of higher education, or developmental programming for special education students, or advancing/facilitating business-community-school partnerships to provide internships/co-ops? The answer is simple. These aren't issues he could exploit for votes while accomplishing nothing.

I, too, once believed that Metcalfe's anti-strike legislation was a good idea. But once I started looking at the larger picture, and after watching Metcalfe waste years and hundreds of thousands of dollars pushing a bill without any success, despite his position on the Education Committee, I realized that we need a more substantial approach to the problem. One that is nuanced and comprehensive, not just easy to exploit to excite voters in November. Most importantly, it has to be effective - something Metcalfe, after 10 years and nearly $1,000,000 (yes, that's a million) in salary alone, has never been.

Speaking of people running for office:

A) I believe that if more common citizens, like you and I, got directly involved in the process at the local and state level, and even ran when we could, it would solve many of the problems we're seeing now with those that play politics with things as important as our children's education.

B) Have you heard about Zack Byrnes, who is running against Metcalfe this year? He's a moderate, and one of his primary concerns is education, and he has offered up a lot of practical solutions. As a bonus, he's also going to tackle our bloated, overpaid, and entirely corrupt legislature. If nothing else, it would be a nice break from Metcalfe's counter-productive antics and pointless partisanship.