The pendulum swing

In the minds of many teachers, collective bargaining was a permanent right.

Until the early 1960s, though, teachers weren’t organized and had little political power. Many teachers saw collective bargaining as the province of private-sector industrial unions, not public-sector professionals.

Sometimes, an unexpected gift changes everything.

In 1959, a Wisconsin Democrat with strong union ties, Gov. Gaylord Nelson, persuaded his party and some Republican lawmakers to make Wisconsin the first state to grant public school teachers and local government workers the right to form labor organizations and negotiate over wages, hours and conditions.

The legislation came after a decadelong push by state and local government employees who were in unions but had no bargaining authority.

Teachers got the power, too, though they didn’t even ask for it, according to a detailed account by labor expert Gregory Saltzman at Albion College.

Rick Wood / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Kaley Olles instructs English students as part of a block overload teaching schedule that includes four 85-minute classes. As a young teacher at Oconomowoc High School, she received a $24,000 raise when she moved to Oconomowoc, which pays $14,000 extra to teach the more demanding schedule.

Rick Wood / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Kaley Olles instructs English students as part of a block overload teaching schedule that includes four 85-minute classes. As a young teacher at Oconomowoc High School, she received a $24,000 raise when she moved to Oconomowoc, which pays $14,000 extra to teach the more demanding schedule.

Some Republicans looking to kill the bill calculated that Democrats would never pass it if teachers were included. That was a bridge too far, they thought.

Wrongly.

Within a few years, once teachers took advantage of the changes, unions and administrators had become adversaries in negotiations.

Teachers union dues funneled millions into efforts to lobby for legislation on issues such as smaller class sizes, to reward the campaigns of lawmakers who backed their agenda and to punish political opponents.

By the late 1960s and early 1970s, illegal strikes were sweeping the state, as teachers held out for better pay and working conditions.

Democrats — early on at least — and Republicans alike felt the sting as the union influenced key races that could tip party control of the Legislature.

Buoyed by bargaining rights and arbitration, Wisconsin teacher salaries pushed into the top 15 nationwide; the state had lagged national averages in the past.

School spending — mostly pay and benefits — pushed to 12th highest nationwide on a per-pupil basis. Wisconsin ranked third in benefits for instructional workers, 64% above the U.S. average.

But trouble was ahead for the union.

Property taxes spiked, becoming a major issue for both parties, but especially for Republican politicians running on tax-cut platforms. Teachers union dues were going more and more to support Democrats.

School district health costs rose quickly, in part because the largest association of local teachers unions also ran an insurance company that it fought to have designated as the exclusive vendor during contract negotiations.

Rafael Burgos-Rivera – First-grade teacher, La Escuela Fratney, Milwaukee On staying in Milwaukee Public Schools:

“My heart is here in Milwaukee.” Burgos-Rivera has seen many teaching colleagues depart for suburban districts. He has resisted. “I’m needed here,” the 36-year-old says. He has seen resources shrink at the school, but is proud that the Milwaukee Teachers’ Education Association has fought to restore some. Act 10 cut into his take-home pay, he says, causing him to put off buying a house. He works a less flexible schedule now that teachers have no formal bargaining power. But morale is pretty good at Fratney, where most teachers stayed in the union and meet regularly with administrators. “We still have a voice,” he said.

Rafael Burgos-Rivera – First-grade teacher, La Escuela Fratney, Milwaukee On staying in Milwaukee Public Schools:

“My heart is here in Milwaukee.” Burgos-Rivera has seen many teaching colleagues depart for suburban districts. He has resisted. “I’m needed here,” the 36-year-old says. He has seen resources shrink at the school, but is proud that the Milwaukee Teachers’ Education Association has fought to restore some. Act 10 cut into his take-home pay, he says, causing him to put off buying a house. He works a less flexible schedule now that teachers have no formal bargaining power. But morale is pretty good at Fratney, where most teachers stayed in the union and meet regularly with administrators. “We still have a voice,” he said.

In the 1990s, Republican Gov. Tommy Thompson won limits on teacher bargaining power and caps on school revenues.

In 2011, Walker went much further than Thompson. With Act 10, he took a page out of the Wisconsin Education Association Council’s power-politics manual — going after the public-employee unions that typically backed Democrats. Act 10 spared law enforcement unions, which often backed Republicans.

WEAC, with by far the largest group of local teachers unions, was still spending $16 million as of 2014.

In and around urban areas, such as Milwaukee and Green Bay and Madison, teachers union membership rolls and influence remain as robust as ever.

But WEAC is half the political force it used to be.

The union reported statewide dues collections of $23.5 million in 2008, and $12.4 million in 2013. With little bargaining power, membership is a tougher sell, especially among younger teachers with no union history. Membership is down more than half.

Lobbying spending at the Capitol nearly dried up as focus switched to school boards.

WEAC’s sprawling headquarters high above Madison, from which it had held powerful sway over state politics, still stands.

But it's up for sale.

'Golden handcuffs'

The Journal Sentinel review of now-expired labor contracts found that in most school districts, administrators had negotiated away key powers.

Rick Wood / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel More photos Pat Bleich, a 38-year veteran teacher at Pardeeville High School in central Wisconsin, grades papers alone in her classroom in the spring of 2016 long after students had left for the day. Gus Knitt, her superintendent, praised her work ethic for putting in 12-plus hour days to keep up with the extra responsibilities on the teaching staff.

Rick Wood / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel More photos Pat Bleich, a 38-year veteran teacher at Pardeeville High School in central Wisconsin, grades papers alone in her classroom in the spring of 2016 long after students had left for the day. Gus Knitt, her superintendent, praised her work ethic for putting in 12-plus hour days to keep up with the extra responsibilities on the teaching staff.

Among them: the ability to competitively bid health insurance, to set the length of the school year, or even the frequency of faculty meetings.

The same was true for their power to unilaterally select teachers for layoff, rehire or transfer. Seniority was king.

A strict seniority system, the union hoped, would block districts from dumping older and more expensive teachers in tough times.

Instantly unfettered after Act 10, most districts dropped seniority as the leading factor in layoffs. Performance is the key consideration now.

One striking example of seniority protections lay in the fine print of the now-expired contract between teachers and the school district of Barneveld, a small district in southwest Wisconsin.

In Barneveld, even when two teachers had equal seniority, management didn’t get to select who got laid off. Under the contract, it was “decided by a lottery.”

After Act 10, seniority fell to last as a factor in layoffs in the Brown Deer district, bordering Milwaukee. It now trails educational needs, performance evaluations, duties outside class, adaptability, professional growth and history of subjects taught.

In essence, the old teacher contracts were loyalty pacts.

Job and assignment protections kicked in after reaching tenure in a district, typically after three years. Automatic pay raises were tied, in part, to years worked in a district. So were other valuable benefits, such as retirement health insurance starting around age 55.

And contracts often rejected giving teachers full credit for years of service gained at other districts.

The old way prized stability, but many administrators didn’t like the “golden handcuffs” that kept teachers in place.

“We had people who didn’t want to be here and I didn’t want them here,” said Superintendent Patricia Deklotz of the Kettle Moraine District in Waukesha County.

“I want people here who believe in what we’re doing.”

The revolving door

Many school district leaders criticize the costly, time-consuming and sometimes-chaotic competition that marks the new “free agent” teacher marketplace.

Their own decisions, however, were crucial in creating it.

Once union contracts expired, most moved quickly to ditch teacher tenure and the host of seniority-based benefits that had led teachers to pile up service in one location.

About Act 10 Act 10, which was passed in 2011 over bitter opposition, made sweeping changes in collective bargaining and compensation for public sector unions — except for those in law enforcement. The law: Barred collective bargaining over benefits, hours, working conditions and wages, except for total base wages.

Capped base-wage increases to inflation, unless voters pass a referendum to go higher.

Repealed requirements that school districts bargain with unions over changes in teacher evaluation and workday.

Allowed workers to refrain from paying dues or “fair share” payments to unions.

Required labor organizations to recertify annually as bargaining agents.

Mandated that school and general municipal employees make a pension contribution to the Wisconsin Retirement System.

Prohibited strikes under all circumstances. Sources: Wisconsin Legislative Council, Wisconsin Association of School Boards

At the same time, Act 10 limited raises on base wages to the rate of inflation — 0.12% or $48 on a salary of $40,000 this year. The law sliced teacher take-home pay by mandating a pension contribution from workers.

“It will be a considerable time before people feel whole again,” said Milwaukee Superintendent Darienne Driver.

The financial hit pushed teachers to move to where they could make more money.

In the past, teacher mobility was concentrated in shortage areas such as technical and special education. Now it is also common in core teaching areas.

School districts most commonly give raises of $1,000 to $5,000 to lure teachers they want, but in some cases pay up to $20,000.

Even in Madison, where collective bargaining continued into 2015 and where pay is among the highest in the state, teacher turnover doubled in part due to free-agent moves.

In West Allis-West Milwaukee, turnover tripled amid a teacher backlash against rapid changes in technology, workloads and student behavior policies, as well as teacher fears about raising objections without union protection.

“You have turnover now that you haven’t seen in years, because people can,” said John Hedstrom, a longtime school administrator now leading the Wisconsin Association of School Personnel Administrators.

More than four of every 10 districts are reporting a five-year teacher turnover rate of 33% to 50%, or more.

The new normal in many districts is scrambling to fill teaching vacancies right before the school year begins — or during the year.

And filling a vacancy in one district often creates one in another.

“It just goes around and around in a chain-reaction effect,” said Pam Casey, human resources director at Oconomowoc Area School District, west of Milwaukee.

In 13 years overseeing the Portage school district north of Madison, Charles Poches remembers only a couple teachers reneging on contracts right before school started to go elsewhere.

“Five times last summer,” he said of the 2015-’16 school year.

To discourage defections, districts have jacked up breach-of-contract penalties as high as $2,000-$3,000.

But teachers rarely end up paying them — the district that hires the teacher typically pays the losing district as part of the deal.

Richard Erickson – Science Teacher, Bayfield On negotiations:

“People somehow were spoon fed that collective bargaining meant teachers got whatever they wanted ... We compromised.” Erickson, an award-winning high school science teacher, says school leaders still listen despite the loss of collective bargaining. Erickson is a respected voice who connects easily with students, and gets them outdoors often, setting up cameras along hiking trails, tracking wolf packs, tapping trees for sap and collecting mushrooms. He’s also a pro-union guy and thinks Act 10 did damage. Take-home pay for many teachers is still below 2011 levels, he says. Many good teachers he knows around the state have left the field, or teach in other states or overseas. Others left to preserve early retirement benefits. Erickson is still simmering over comments from friends about how teachers were overpaid because their benefits were so lucrative. “It seemed more logical to me that people would have gotten on a different bandwagon and said, ‘Hey, I didn’t know teachers had that. Maybe we should all be fighting for those kinds of things.’"

Richard Erickson – Science Teacher, Bayfield On negotiations:

“People somehow were spoon fed that collective bargaining meant teachers got whatever they wanted ... We compromised.” Erickson, an award-winning high school science teacher, says school leaders still listen despite the loss of collective bargaining. Erickson is a respected voice who connects easily with students, and gets them outdoors often, setting up cameras along hiking trails, tracking wolf packs, tapping trees for sap and collecting mushrooms. He’s also a pro-union guy and thinks Act 10 did damage. Take-home pay for many teachers is still below 2011 levels, he says. Many good teachers he knows around the state have left the field, or teach in other states or overseas. Others left to preserve early retirement benefits. Erickson is still simmering over comments from friends about how teachers were overpaid because their benefits were so lucrative. “It seemed more logical to me that people would have gotten on a different bandwagon and said, ‘Hey, I didn’t know teachers had that. Maybe we should all be fighting for those kinds of things.’"

“As a taxpayer, it doesn’t make sense that districts are exchanging money with each other,” said Rick Penniston, former principal at East Troy High School.

Younger teachers are more prone to shift districts than experienced educators, school leaders say.

East Troy High School lost ground when 25% of its staff departed in one year, mostly to free agency, including an AP calculus teacher recruited by text message during the district’s opening week inservice, Penniston recalled.

“It took us six weeks to fill it with a full timer,” he said.

At the tiny, 26-teacher Butternut district in northern Wisconsin, Superintendent Joseph Zirngibl waved $6,000 and $7,000 salary bumps at a teacher and a guidance counselor he wanted to keep, but it wasn’t enough to convince them.

One of the replacements Zirngibl later hired got $12,000 more than Butternut had been paying, jumping past some 20-year veterans and causing dissension.

Butternut’s counterparts at the largest district in the state, Milwaukee Public Schools, saw teacher turnover rise after Act 10, but they rarely ply teachers with retention bonuses.

“It has to be someone exceptional for us to give someone a raise to stay,” said Daniel Chanen, MPS chief human resources officer. “It’s so hard to justify in a system so large.”

Such raises have cut into the size of pay increases for teachers who stay put, many districts report. That makes discrepancies worse and can fuel more desire to move.

To Rick Erickson, a nationally recognized high school science teacher in Bayfield, there’s something awful about having to threaten to leave to get a raise.

“I don’t want education to be like that,” he said.

Facebook Live: A discussion on Act 10

Facebook Live: A discussion on Act 10

Money matters

Act 10 was explicitly intended to rein in base salary growth for teachers by limiting the money pool for district salaries to the inflationary rise of the Consumer Price Index.

Mission accomplished: Just over 60% of districts surveyed said teachers’ average annual salary growth had either slowed (50%), stopped (8%) or reversed (3%).

Still, about one in 4 districts reported better growth in average base salary after Act 10.

If they desire, school boards can supplement raises for individual teachers outside collectively negotiated base pay, which is the lone vestige of the old bargaining system.

Some do, relishing new freedom to reward their stars. Some don’t, or say they can’t.

A much higher proportion of rural districts said their teacher wages are lower than those in competing districts, as compared to differences among urban and suburban districts, an analysis of survey results found.

Nearly four in 10 districts surveyed said they were making use of performance reviews in determining pay, almost all of them starting after Act 10.

A little more than 25% of districts said Act 10 helped them better motivate teachers — but 60% said the opposite, often citing low teacher morale.

Michelle Uetz – Teacher, formerly in Prescott On Act 10:

“I didn’t agree with how Scott Walker did it, but it was an end to a means.” Uetz was not sorry to see collective bargaining go. The special education teacher, who recently left Prescott for a teaching job in Minnesota, didn’t like the teachers union’s political bias toward Democrats and felt the union was not focused on students. Without collective bargaining, she paid more for health insurance, but still less than private-sector costs. She cited a litany of unattractive working conditions at her former district — uncompensated extra duties, larger class sizes, more paperwork for performance reviews — but doesn’t lay that on Act 10. “Teachers blame everything on Act 10,” said Uetz, who joined the Association of American Educators, a non-union professional organization. Still, she says Walker’s uncompromising style and decision to cut school funding hurt Wisconsin’s attractiveness for teachers. “The compensation, resources and support for teachers in Minnesota is significantly better than what I experienced in Wisconsin in the the last five years,” she said.

Michelle Uetz – Teacher, formerly in Prescott On Act 10:

“I didn’t agree with how Scott Walker did it, but it was an end to a means.” Uetz was not sorry to see collective bargaining go. The special education teacher, who recently left Prescott for a teaching job in Minnesota, didn’t like the teachers union’s political bias toward Democrats and felt the union was not focused on students. Without collective bargaining, she paid more for health insurance, but still less than private-sector costs. She cited a litany of unattractive working conditions at her former district — uncompensated extra duties, larger class sizes, more paperwork for performance reviews — but doesn’t lay that on Act 10. “Teachers blame everything on Act 10,” said Uetz, who joined the Association of American Educators, a non-union professional organization. Still, she says Walker’s uncompromising style and decision to cut school funding hurt Wisconsin’s attractiveness for teachers. “The compensation, resources and support for teachers in Minnesota is significantly better than what I experienced in Wisconsin in the the last five years,” she said.

Many districts resist merit pay as unfair, and others say they can’t afford it given the financial straitjacket of state-mandated revenue limits.

“Education is a tough enough game the way it is,” said Earl “Gus” Knitt, superintendent in small-town Pardeeville near Wisconsin Dells. “I don’t need to put my principals under fire with the staff because they’re recommending raises for some people and not others.”

Beyond pay, districts also have gone different directions on benefits.

More than one-third of districts surveyed said they had “greatly reduced or eliminated” non-pension post-employment benefits, such as retirement health insurance for teachers. About 30% “somewhat reduced” them.

But 30% held pat, and a few say they enhanced the benefits. Many districts exempted teachers near retirement from changes in benefits.

Depending on the district, those non-pension retirement benefits before Act 10 could range in value from $30,000 to $250,000 or more over a lifetime for a single teacher, according to estimates by Dave Osterndorf, partner and chief actuary at Health Exchange Resources in Glendale.

Reducing those benefits can save districts a lot, but if teachers delay retirement, that goal is undercut and can leave disgruntled workers on the job.

“It’s not an easy trade-off,” Osterndorf said.

Beyond the paycheck

Attractive working conditions — not just pay — are a huge driver in keeping and luring new teachers.

For many teachers, the wiping away of work rules negotiated by unions over decades means the work is harder, more time-consuming, more pressure-packed.

Rick Wood / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Claudia Felske reviews East Troy student blogs for advanced English students as they discuss Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.

Rick Wood / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Claudia Felske reviews East Troy student blogs for advanced English students as they discuss Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.

Around the state, in more districts, teachers face tighter rules on attire, speech and political activities, a review of changes made by 100 districts showed. Teachers lost power over limiting the school calendar and leverage on limiting class sizes.

A former business manager at a district that welcomed Act 10 said while most administrators have thoughtfully and compassionately used their new authority, some “petty tyrants” have pushed too far on required work hours, use of time outside class and health insurance changes.

“Mostly I fear them because they say ‘Why don’t we do X? The teachers will hate it, but they can’t do anything about it,’” said Emily Koczela, who spent 20 years as a business manager and school board bargaining team member in Milwaukee area districts.

With unions facing reduced power, teachers have far less clout to fight a much longer list of disciplinable offenses.

In Kewaunee, the old teacher contract was so strong and detailed that it calculated teacher course-planning time down to 15 second intervals.

In Beloit, a contract section spelled out what consensus between teachers and administrators on new ideas should sound like:

“Whether or not I prefer this decision, I support it because it was arrived at openly and fairly and it is the best solution for us at this time.”

When Act 10 banned negotiations on working conditions, some districts made unpopular rules changes.

Initially, West Allis barred makeup or hairstyles drawing “undue attention.” Great teachers should make a “positive” contact with each elementary student’s parents more than once a month, it said.

Changes in working conditions can fuel departures from a school district.

That was a big factor in Dodgeville this summer, when 20 of its 120 teachers, young and veteran alike, left for other districts. Purely personal reasons were a factor for some — teachers are more free to move without worrying about losing seniority.

But Dodgeville teachers were put in a tough spot when student discipline problems festered due to a lack of support for special-needs students.

The district educates special-education students in regular classrooms but lacked programs to allow them to be be taught separately when problems arose, said Jeff Jacobson, the superintendent.

“We hope the environment is better this year,” said School Board president Mike Humke. “We’ve added resource rooms” for those students.

Act 10 leads to churn in the classroom In a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel survey of superintendents, 38% said turnover had a negative effect on teacher quality, with 28% saying it was positive. They gauged the impact of all teacher staffing changes since Act 10 passed in 2011, including losses to free agency and other professions, retirements and non-renewal of teacher contracts. When asked specifically about the wave of retirements in 2011, far more were negative (45%) than positive (26%) about the effect on quality of education. Mosinee High School lost 12 of 55 teachers to retirement, “three-fourths of them high-end leaders,” said former Principal Ray Przekurat, who now works in Minnesota. In the Parkview School District, in a mostly rural area near the Illinois border, 20 of the 30 most-senior teachers left, mostly by retirement. Younger, lower-paid workers more open to digital curriculum and personalized learning were hired; some jobs were left open, Superintendent Steve Lutzke said. In many cases district salary costs dropped as the staff got younger. In the Elkhart Lake-Glenbeulah district near Sheboygan, Ann Buechel Haack thinks her veteran staff generates lots of ideas. In small districts, she said, a whole department can be wiped out if a teacher leaves. “If you have excessive turnover of young staff, you are constantly in a building mode,” she said. – By Dave Umhoefer

New teachers vs. old

For many teachers, high turnover and the competitive market model fly in the face of the ethos of teaching. These teachers tend to value close ties with each other and the community.

Young teachers are the majority of free agents and know little firsthand of the old collective bargaining days. They can be pitted against older educators.

“Suspicion in the faculty lounge” is a new reality, says Felske, the East Troy teacher.

Richard Meyers – Retired English teacher, Oconomowoc High School On the end of collective bargaining:

“We lost our voice immediately.” Meyers wanted to teach until he was 62, but fell about three years short. Act 10’s ban on collective bargaining over working conditions allowed Oconomowoc School District to force high school staff to teach an additional course. That in turn allowed the district to lay off 15 teachers to balance a budget deficit. Meyers’ family benefitted from the $14,000 “overload” payment Oconomowoc provided for teaching the extra class. But he decided to retire after the 2015-’16 school year, in part because of the load. “I’ve grown tired of it,” Meyers said. The end of collective bargaining and an equal voice for teachers bummed him out, too. Teachers "didn’t go from the top of the world to nothing," he said. "We went from an equal voice, to — well, we can still go in and argue our case, but we don’t have any teeth."

Richard Meyers – Retired English teacher, Oconomowoc High School On the end of collective bargaining:

“We lost our voice immediately.” Meyers wanted to teach until he was 62, but fell about three years short. Act 10’s ban on collective bargaining over working conditions allowed Oconomowoc School District to force high school staff to teach an additional course. That in turn allowed the district to lay off 15 teachers to balance a budget deficit. Meyers’ family benefitted from the $14,000 “overload” payment Oconomowoc provided for teaching the extra class. But he decided to retire after the 2015-’16 school year, in part because of the load. “I’ve grown tired of it,” Meyers said. The end of collective bargaining and an equal voice for teachers bummed him out, too. Teachers "didn’t go from the top of the world to nothing," he said. "We went from an equal voice, to — well, we can still go in and argue our case, but we don’t have any teeth."

One official laid out one of the new competitive realities this way:

“Most districts are getting to the point where the highest paid teachers are going to have to be frozen in order to provide raises to their lesser-paid peers,” said Brad Boll, Beloit Turner schools’ business services director.

Shortly before classes resumed this year, David Dyb, superintendent in Iola-Scandinavia, scrambled to replace a technical education teacher who left for an 11% raise at another district.

Dyb said he can’t afford to get into a central Wisconsin bidding war, in part because he doesn’t want to turn the salary structure upside down.

“I’ve had to tell candidates, ‘We don’t go that high.’”

It’s an unenviable position to be in at a time when Wisconsin’s pool of newly graduated teaching students from education colleges continues to shrink — as does the nation’s. From 2008 to 2014, enrollment in Wisconsin teacher preparation programs fell 28%, a decline that started before Act 10.

“The quality and the quantity have really gone down,” said Blankenheim, the Kiel superintendent.

She’s far from alone in making the complaint.

Some superintendents say they are getting just a handful of applicants for positions that used to draw hundreds. The lack of supply fuels the seller’s market, giving more pay leverage to teachers willing to shuffle.

For his part, Walker says the Act 10 changes give the very best of the best teachers a chance to get “paid what they are worth.”

But even in the geographic heart of Walker’s political base, the reaction is mixed.

Oconomowoc High School Principal Joseph Moylan thinks Walker was right to puncture union power over school operations.

Still he denounces the budget squeeze that accompanied the changes — and shakes his head at the new merry-go-round reality of teacher staffing.

“It can’t be that bidding against my neighboring districts is the way forward,” Moylan said. “That’s not the way the world is supposed to work.”

Marquette University O’Brien researchers Stephanie Harte and Brittany Carloni contributed to this story.

What is your take on the impact of Act 10. Leave your comments here.