In a recent
Education Sector online discussion, Laura Bornfreund states, “the challenge of teachers’ unions has little to do with the professional nature of the work and everything to do with the product they are producing: a public good.” I’d say the challenge has to do with both professionalism and the end product. But does this production of a public good mean that the union should be expected to lead or unreservedly support reform initiatives in the school system? Absolutely not. Let’s be real. That is not the union’s job, nor should it be.
Now I’ll be the first to admit that the union has its problems as the
Citizens’ Commission on Civil Rights so accurately lay out. Unions (NEA in particular) are wrong to create a system that can encourage complacency and resistance to instructional improvement in schools.
The real problem is that some unions oversimplify their function to protect teachers, creating a blanket protection for all teachers without accounting for teacher effectiveness. On the face of it, this egalitarian aim may seem favorable to its membership but the reality is that it does more to decrease the professionalism of teaching, backfiring on unions in the long run. A “protection for all” attitude may do more to delegitimize demands for higher compensation and increased funding, which is in everyone’s best interest. As in any profession, accountability is absolutely necessary to ensure productivity. There needs to be a way to evaluate teacher performance, providing incentives to teachers that are successful and getting rid of teachers who are not. However, the unions’ apprehension about increased accountability is not completely unfounded, and it is unfair to demonize unions for this reason. Reforms that are not backed up with resources and implementable strategies for improvement can do more harm than good to teachers AND students. I’ve seen it, experienced it, and it’s not pretty.
So yes CCCR, it would be great if unions would support or help shape more effective reforms like
these. And yes, they need to be more rational in their resistance to certain reforms. (This might happen if more teachers, who agree with these reforms, had more of a voice in their union…but that’s another discussion). However, we must not expect unions to accept every reform idea thrown at our school system and condemn them if they do not. Most (not all) teachers want what’s best for the students or we wouldn’t have entered this extremely challenging (and underpaid) profession. So the union’s perspective is one that definitely needs to be heard and respected in these reform debates, making sure that while we figure out what’s best for the students, the teachers who are the implementers of reforms do not get lost in the shuffle.
--Marilyn Hylton
4 comments:
The real problem is that some unions oversimplify their function to protect teachers, creating a blanket protection for all teachers without accounting for teacher effectiveness.
The other problem is that unabashed critics of unions blame any failures to reform K-12 squarely on the shoulders of the unions. A problem exacerbated by the fantasy that unions unilaterally write up their own contracts - ignoring the fact that the administration agreed to whatever terms are in the contract.
Unions' primary function is to support and enforce the contract. And more recently the level of anti-union rhetoric has reached a point that there are those out there who truly believe that a teachers union's primary function is to stop reform. Of course, as someone said the other day, one person's reform is another's status quo.
The other problem is that people seem to forget that unions are fundamentally democratic organizations. There's a membership, and they elect leaders. By and large the current so-called "reform" crowd (think DFER, KIPP, etc.) are all unelected. They're just a bunch of folks who got someone to give them a bunch of money to do something.
As for CCCR's report... I was pretty disappointed. CCCR has been on a steady decline in terms of actually advocating for equal opportunity in education for a number of years. But this anti-union screed takes the cake. Took a scan of the footnotes, and decent chunk of the quotes coming from "former union leaders" is a bit of a mischaracterization. I'm thinking primarily of their choice of David W. Kilpatrick as some kind of expert. Yes, he was a union leader. Now he spends his time writing pieces for a pro-free market, anti union outfit known as the U.S. Freedom Foundation. Referring to Kilpatrick as a "former union leader" is kind of like calling David Horowitz a "former civil rights activist." Yes, it may be true, historically, but it distorts current reality.
Figuring all that out took a few minutes, but that told me enough about the report that I didn't need to keep reading it. If you're going to begin an analysis of the impact of unions on education reform by quoting an anti-union mercenary, you're pretty much lost any claim to integrity. But I digress...
The real problem with this debate is that no one wants to take responsibility for their chunk of the enterprise. Yes, unions play a role. So do principals. And Superintendents. And local and state boards, and mayors and city councils, and legislatures, and national standards bodies. Oh, and don't forget the parents...
Very good post. Among its virtues is that it prompted a great comment by Marktropolis.
Mark's comment gets me thinking. Given that there are so many different players in education, why is it that teacher's unions get the brunt of the blame?
You rarely hear about principals unions, or even principals, as enemy's of reform. I think the answer is two fold:
1) there are just way more teachers than any other group (except kids and parents, but you can't blame the kids!)
2) teacher's unions have more political power than other groups. Yes administrators get to set policies, and yes principals make things happen in the school, but still. Its a fact that teacher unions (like NEA) have lots of political clout, they have millions of dollars to spend on lobbying and they use it. you can argue whether or not they use it well, but you can't deny that they have influence.
maybe there are other reasons?
Yeah, the NEA has a lot of money. That doesn't always translate into power. A good chunk of what the NEA - as a union - spends it's time doing is protecting its members. Which is what they're supposed to do. But of all the money the NEA has, it pales in comparison to the combined fortunes of the Gates, Broads, etc. from the so-called "reform" side of the house. You're talking millions vs. BILLIONS. You add a decimal point or two and that becomes real power. Esp. if you're not being held accountable by a democratic system that can eject you at the next election.
And yes, there may be more parents (numerically), but have you checked on the power of the PTA lately? Nationally? I'd be pleased as punch if parents flexed their muscles more. But they don't. And the only ones who get any financial or political support are those pitching vouchers or charters. And if you scratch below the surface of some of those "parent" organizations that support vouchers, you don't find a representative support network (a la PTA or NEA) - you find the big bucks. Evidence Black Alliance for Educational Options - from all appearances, it looks like this awesome grassroots (Black) thing. But it's really a front for the Bradley Foundation to pump money into their favorite cause (vouchers) and create a political wedge issue in the Black community. But again, I digress...
God help the parent who wants to support the teachers union. Who's going to be their sugar daddy?
Post a Comment