This set off a lengthy roundabout on the right side of the edublogosphere featuring a wide range of opinions, everything from "No, teachers unions are always terrible and must be stopped" all the way to "Yes, teachers unions are always terrible but it's possible to have a good school system anyway, although not as good as it could have theoretically otherwise been."
At no point did anyone note the other thing Massachusetts and Finland have in common: they're both chock-full of socialists.
Seriously, who thinks this is a coincidence? Massachusetts is a famous bastion of liberalism while Finland is a Nordic welfare state. According to the anti-tax Tax Foundation, Massachusetts has the fourth-highest corporate income tax rate and the second-highest unemployment insurance taxes. According to the pro-health Kaiser Family Foundation, Massachusetts is one of a minority of states to extend federal SCHIP health insurance benefits to tens of thousands of students from families with income above 200% of the federal poverty line. Finland, meanwhile, cheerfully provides universal daycare, healthcare, and massage therapy for all I know. It's so egalitarian that taxes are 150% of income and everyone is legally required to be friendly, Lutheran, and of equal height.
Which is not to say that teachers unions aren't sometimes--even often--barriers to smart policy. Bob Costrell, who was there, convincingly recounts the Massachusetts teachers unions' opposition to MCAS exit exams. Readers of this blog know that I disagree with teachers unions--particularly the NEA--on a host of policy issues including teacher pay, certification, schools of education, Teach for America, and No Child Left Behind.
But I've also been to Finland, and my best guess is that Finnish success is a function of four main factors: fair distribution of school funding, a strong social safety net combined with high-quality family services for all, an unusually smart and well-trained teacher workforce, and a standard, high-quality national curriculum. American teachers unions are, as a rule, in favor of the first two of these things and may yet come around on the fourth.
In other words, strong unionism may make it harder to implement good education policies, but it may also be the natural outgrowth of political and social attitudes that make children easier to educate. That doesn't mean we can't have it all--without it all, the odds of really making a dent in the achievement gap are long. But that means engaging teachers unions, not pursuing futile dreams of tearing them down.
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In addition to weighing in on education policy issues, teachers unions provide an important source of support for teachers. Teachers facing unsubstantiated claims from students or parents can rely on their union reps for assistance. I interviewed more than 50 teachers for my book, "The Teacher Chronicles: Confronting the Demands of Students, Parents, Administrators and Society," and I was surprised to learn how common and easy it is for disgruntled students and parents to tarnish a teacher’s reputation and put his or her job in jeopardy.
I spoke with a middle school teacher in California who said one of her students tried to have her fired because he was offended when she announced her pregnancy to the class. A middle school teacher in New York was nearly fired when a student falsely claimed the teacher locked him in a closet. A former elementary school guidance counselor told me parents aggressively campaigned against teachers they didn’t like. One parent wrote a lengthy letter to the principal, accusing a teacher and the guidance counselor of a host of misdeeds, ranging from neglect to harassment.
Public discourse on education often centers on policy issues. But what about the many challenges classroom teachers confront every day—such as disruptive students, disrespectful parents and unsupportive administrators? Teachers also provide support to students facing crises in their personal lives. We rarely discuss how we can help teachers deal with the pressures they face and the challenges they must overcome to educate our children.
I am interested to know Kevin Carey’s position on The Teachers at the Table Act of 2009, introduced by U.S Senator Russ Feingold. Teachers have firsthand knowledge of how policy decisions affect students, teachers and schools. I think a systematic approach to gathering input from teachers is long overdue.
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