Emancipating the Schools

In recent decades we Americans have become a litigious people, and our schools are afflicted worst of all by this appetite. School policies often are determined not by reason, prudence, and experience, but by court orders. Sometimes these commands issue from judges eager to erect themselves into one-man school boards, with full power and no responsibilities. Other court orders result from the pressures of ideological cliques, ethnic groups, or unions. “Busing” is merely one of the quagmires into which education has fallen in consequence of this passion for going to law.

Another perplexed field of “educational” litigation is the compulsory unionizing of teachers. In forty states, public-school teachers, like other public employees, lawfully can organize themselves into “bargaining units”—unions or similar associations. In 15 of these states, the “agency shop” is allowed by law: that is, the union becomes the exclusive bargaining agent for all teachers in a school; and teachers who won’t join the union are compelled to pay fees which are equivalent to union dues. Often a large part of such dues and fees is used for political campaigning and lobbying.

In recent decades we Americans have become a litigious people, and our schools are afflicted worst of all by this appetite. School policies often are determined not by reason, prudence, and experience, but by court orders. Sometimes these commands issue from judges eager to erect themselves into one-man school boards, with full power and no responsibilities. Other court orders result from the pressures of ideological cliques, ethnic groups, or unions. “Busing” is merely one of the quagmires into which education has fallen in consequence of this passion for going to law.

Another perplexed field of “educational” litigation is the compulsory unionizing of teachers. In forty states, public-school teachers, like other public employees, lawfully can organize themselves into “bargaining units”—unions or similar associations. In 15 of these states, the “agency shop” is allowed by law: that is, the union becomes the exclusive bargaining agent for all teachers in a school; and teachers who won’t join the union are compelled to pay fees which are equivalent to union dues. Often a large part of such dues and fees is used for political campaigning and lobbying.