Furloughs in Hawaii: Platinum or not-so-platinum?

So Hawaii, like many states, is having a massive budget crisis. In education, states have chosen from a variety of alternatives in order to deal with the deficits. Some have laid off teachers under seniority and some have laid off teachers using other criteria(which may not be super platinum in it's own ways, HT: Courtney). Other states have used across-the-board salary reductions or just cut funding to specific programs.

Hawaii chose something a bit different: they decided to shorten the school year by having seventeen (yes, seventeen) fewer days of school annually through 2011 using furloughs. I haven't heard of another district using this specific approach when it comes to education. Personally, this seems like one of those too-perfect-for words examples of putting the interests of adults ahead of the needs of children. Adults get to keep the same amount of pay(proportionally) and get more days off while children receive less learning time (in a state with one of the shortest school days and years) and parents must scramble to figure out what to do with their kids seventeen days of the year they hadn't planned to. And now there are some lawsuits saying that the new contract is illegal and the Governor is evil blah blah blah.

So that's the background. Here's a few quick hits.

• Multiple friends of mine have posted on facebook pictures from a "teach-in" protest(with celebrities!) at the state capitol and are blaming the governor for the fact they can't be with their kids. This is completely disingenuous. The contract that cut out seventeen days was ratified by teachers by 81% to 19%. That means that the people protesting have already spoken (with their pocketbooks) and said that preserving the status quo (in pay, their responsibilities, class size) is more important than learning time for their students.
• Speaking of going back on their word, let's go back a couple years. In April 2007, Hawaii teachers voted on a contract (good summary article) that would give across the board raises (11%) for teachers, require only one year of teaching before tenure, and required mandatory randomized drug testing. That contract was also ratified by large margins (61%). Almost immediately after the contract vote, the union announced that their interpretation of random drug testing was that if someone was suspected of being under the influence, they could be tested. The governor, and now they are in court, still fighting two years later. Meanwhile, teachers have been receiving the raise that was part of the contract for the entire time (I'm not sure about the one year-tenure thing).
  

So what does all this mean? Personally, it suggests to me that neither the union nor the teachers they represent negotiate in good faith. Once you agree to something, you are legally obligated to follow through on it. It's impressive that no one stands up and says, "Hey buddy! You voted in favor of this! If this is so bad for the kids, why didn't you just take a pay cut or announce layoffs?" I personally think furloughs are a poor policy solution when it comes to education, but as a practical matter, they do solve the budget issue. But what I consider galling (and highly un-platinum) is the completely disingenuous behavior of everyone involved. Welcome to life in Hawaii.

Update: As soon as I posted the previous version of the post, I regretted using the word, "jackass" to describe some people who I believe are being hypocritical. My bad and I apologize. Completely non-platinum and this is me owning it.