February 26, 2003
BILL
O'REILLY: In the "Unresolved Problems" segment tonight,
we continue our reporting on whether political agendas
are harming children in the nation's public schools.
With us now
is Peter Brimelow, the author of the book
The Worm in The
Apple: How the Teacher Unions Are Destroying American
Education.
I want to
get really specific here, because teachers are different
than teacher unions, all right? And we applaud—I used to
be a teacher and teachers are—work for less money than
they should get and most of them are very dedicated
people.
What's the
primary way that teacher unions, in your opinion,
undermine education?
PETER
BRIMELOW, THE WORM IN THE APPLE AUTHOR: Well,
basically, Bill, the inmates are running the asylum.
They've seized control over—over managerial prerogatives
that exist in other industries.
You can't
reward a good teacher, you can't buy—pay more to get a
math teacher. And you can't fire bad teachers.
So basically
the management has no control.
O'REILLY:
All right. So you say that the rules they've imposed on
the school boards make it impossible to reward good
teachers, because they all get paid the same, and get
rid of bad teachers.
BRIMELOW:
Exactly. The contract can run for 1,000 pages, you know,
in a school district. So it's like—it's like shackles on
the school board.
O'REILLY:
Are all school districts—not all unions are the same,
though, right? It varies from area to area.
BRIMELOW:
No, it...
O'REILLY: It
varies from area to area.
BRIMELOW:
One of the points I made in "The Worm" is—"The Worm
in the Apple" is it varies immensely depending on
the legal arrangement in each state because teacher
unions are quite new. They came on the scene in the
1960s. Until then, public employees couldn't unionize.
O'REILLY:
Now are some of them more political than others?
I mean,
Newark, New Jersey, you had this crazy poet,
Baraka. You know, this is insane.
And then you
have the Oakland school district—we're going to talk
about this tomorrow with Bill Bennett—which basically
has a day of study about the war with all left-wing
anti-war people, not one person to support the war.
Now those
are extremes, but most unions aren't like that, most
school unions aren't like that, are they?
BRIMELOW:
Yes. The union is infested, of course, with left-wing
loonies but, fundamentally, it's an extortion racket
that's designed to get money out of the taxpayer and
into the hands of the—somewhat the teachers firstly,
and, also, the union executives themselves do very well.
It's a business being in the union. It's...
O'REILLY:
All right. So you believe that it's economic driven
rather than ideologically driven.
BRIMELOW:
There is a strong ideological element, but it
is—fundamentally, it's an extortion racket, and it's
hard on the Democratic Party. In large part, the teacher
union has become the Democratic Party. It's leading the
Democrats around by their nose.
O'REILLY:
Why is that? Why do the unions favor the Democrats? Why?
BRIMELOW:
Because they—they want to see a government-owned system
because it's easier for them to manipulate, and they
desperately don't want to -
O'REILLY: Is
that because the government doesn't pay attention to it?
Is that why?
BRIMELOW:
You know, it's because there's one—there's one point at
which you can attack. If there were lots and lots of
different private schools educating and parents making
different decisions about them, the parents have choice,
it would be much more difficult for unions to organize.
O'REILLY:
Yes, sure, if the parent—if the voucher system came in,
that would make it—now have the unions, in general,
fought against standardized testing?
BRIMELOW:
They hate standardized testing. They've conceded only
very reluctantly, and the reason is that they—first of
all, they don't like their own members being exposed as
bad teachers, but, secondly, they—there's an ideological
issue. They don't like anything that shows up individual
differences. They really are, you know, a...
O'REILLY:
But is—it's accountability, though.
BRIMELOW:
Yes.
O'REILLY:
You can see which schools are doing well, which classes
are doing well, which aren't, and they don't want
accountability.
BRIMELOW:
They don't want that. They don't want that, no.
O'REILLY:
All right. Now what can Americans do about the union
system because it seems like the public school system in
this country is in deep, deep trouble? The unions
basically tell the school boards exactly how it's going
to be. Can we do anything about it?
BRIMELOW:
Yes. You know, the unions have come about because laws
were changed. Teachers were allowed to unionize and
collective bargaining was put through so that teachers
could get—unions could get monopoly control over the
bargaining process. That's got to be undone. We've got
to undo the collective-bargaining statutes in the public
area.
O'REILLY:
Yes, but, you know, I worked at a school that didn't
have a union, a Catholic school, and the principal was a
brutal—you know, I—you fill in the adjective. He was
awful.
BRIMELOW: It
happens in journalism, too, doesn't it?
O'REILLY:
Yes. Awful. I mean just a horrible human being...
BRIMELOW:
Right, right.
O'REILLY:
... who exploited all the teachers, all right, and—you
know, we had no protection. So I don't know if I'm on
with this.
BRIMELOW:
That's why I say, you know, the government school system
itself is the mother of the teacher trust —of the
teacher union. It's because it's a top-down centralized
system, the government school system itself, that the
union...
O'REILLY:
Wouldn't the solution be...
BRIMELOW:
... responds—the union responds...
O'REILLY:
Wouldn't the solution be that—I think it would be best
if the teacher chose or not chose to be in the union.
That would deintensify their power.
BRIMELOW:
But with collective—if you have a collective-bargain
statute, the union can more or less force you to join.
O'REILLY:
Yes, but that's what a—that's what the government can
attack, all right?
BRIMELOW:
That's right. There's a whole slew of laws.
O'REILLY: It
would be Right To Work. And I think that's the way to
go.
Mr. Brimelow,
thanks very much. We appreciate it.
BRIMELOW:
Thank you.
