The teachers in Los Angeles went on strike earlier this week, and it is increasingly apparent that they will do the same in Denver, as early as Jan 28. There is some argument as to whether these events are simply localized eruptions reacting to local circumstances, or part of a semi-coordinated national effort, but in any case the situations in LA and Denver, while not identical, offer up some arresting similarities.

The Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) faces insolvency in a year or two owing predominantly to expensive labor contracts featuring absurdly generous benefits that eat up more revenue than the district brings in – this despite a major tax increase enacted in 2012 and extended recently out to 2030. California also faces a major and looming problem with its teachers’ defined benefit pension plan, the California State Teachers’ Retirement System. The state legislature approved a bailout in 2014 that implemented a mandate on local school districts to increase payments into the system in an effort to shore it up. It apparently hasn’t worked as planned, and the consolation prize is that pension costs to school districts in the Golden State have more than doubled since that time.

So the LA school district finds itself in some pretty dire financial straits, which has not given the teachers’ union bosses pause in their quest. The LAUSD offered the teachers a 6 percent raise over two years, a pretty good deal coming from an organization that is contemplating bankruptcy, and yet the union demanded more. As an editorial in the Wall Street Journal points out, they will probably get it, and soon thereafter shift their gunsights back onto the legislature to authorize another tax increase referendum. Rinse, and repeat.

Denver Public Schools are not in quite as bad shape financially, so the situations in LA and Denver are not identical, but similarities emerge.

The main contention, stretching back at least to last spring’s protests, has been the issue of teacher compensation. By way of response during the recent negotiations, Denver Public Schools offered the union a 10 percent increase in the teacher starting wage. Rather generous, especially considering that in virtually any private-sector field of endeavor, even a substantial promotion is rarely accompanied by anything approaching a 10 percent raise.

Alas, evidently not generous enough. The sticking point now appears to be that the District will not embrace in its entirety the unions’ demand to adopt their salary schedule, which among other things greatly accelerates the timeframe for a teacher to receive a raise and eliminates some of the requirements for further education before a pay increase will be awarded. The district seems to be sticking to its guns in insisting that in order to qualify for a substantive increase in wage, a teacher must do something to intrinsically increase his or her value.

More pointedly, should not a teacher who has gone to the time, effort, and expense of enhancing his or her knowledge and skills by attaining a graduate or post-graduate degree be rewarded for that effort?

The unions do have one point that is actually quite defensible, and that is the administratively top-heavy nature of the District organization. Chalkbeat reported the since widely disseminated figures that DPS last year employed one administrator for every 7.5 instructional staff members, compared to the state average of one per 11.3.

Well of course it did. DPS is, after all, a government bureaucracy, and administrative overhead is a core feature of government bureaucracies, a major contributing factor to taxpayers’ overall reluctance to toss more of their money into the system. But it lends credence to the union’s argument for more pay.

Still, the District has committed to shedding some of its excess weight, and their offer to the union is a fair one. DPS is presenting to them what most in the state agree ought to be offered, more pay for classroom teachers. The union should accept the offer and reject a strike which will accomplish nothing beyond manufacturing an opportunity for showboating at the expense of the district’s students and parents.

Should they elect instead to walk out, the episode will likely reignite some long-simmering issues in the public mind concerning the out-sized influence and power of unions, particularly the public-sector kind, and the basic structure of educational delivery. They would essentially be inviting parents to wonder if perhaps it were not time to explore alternative options to the public, union-dominated educational paradigm that left them in the lurch.

Kelly Sloan is a political and public affairs consultant and recovering journalist based in Denver. He is also an energy and environmental policy fellow at Centennial Institute.