Douglas County Colorado School Board Rebels Against Teachers Union

Three members of the Douglas County School Board have floated proposals to terminate dealings with teacher’s unions.

Three board members proposed three separate ballot questions, each chipping away at what have been traditional district-union relationships in the affluent county south of Denver.

• Should the district be prohibited from using public funding for the compensation of union leaders?
• Should the district be prohibited from collecting union dues from employee paychecks on the union’s behalf?
• Should the district be prohibited from engaging in collective bargaining with the union?

Board members are expected to vote at their Sept. 4 meeting on which of the questions – or all or none of them – to place before voters on Nov. 6. School boards have until Sept. 7 to submit ballot language to their county elections officials.

Three Superb Ideas

Hopefully this is the start of a trend because those are three superb ideas. I commend the board members for those ideas.

Willfully dealing with public unions when you don’t have to is blatantly stupid. Unions are 100% guaranteed to increase costs and reduce productivity, then demand tax hikes on top of it, while whining the whole while “it’s for the kids”

The clear-cut way to do something for the kids would be to eliminate the unions and pass some of the saving on to hire more teachers.

About the author: Mike “Mish” Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for Sitka Pacific Capital Management. His top-rated global economics blog Mish’s Global Economic Trend Analysis offers insightful commentary every day of the week. He is also a contributing “professor” on Minyanville, a community site focused on economic and financial education. Every Thursday he does a podcast on HoweStreet and on an ad hoc basis he contributes to many other websites, including UnionWatch.