SPOTLIGHT: FEATURE ARCHIVE

According to many critics, the teacher unions have been problem number one. They have been called many non-flattering names including bureaucratic, obdurate, and self-interested defenders of the status quo. Union supporters reply that the criticisms are misguided. Teachers and other members are, in fact, the most critical people to school reform. They know the difficulties of public education intimately. They are the ones slugging it out on the front lines every day. Further, if any reform will take place it will require teachers and their unions to implement the changes.

The unions are right. The ease and success of reform hinges on their cooperation - but what about the question: are unions an obstruction to reform?

Yes, the unions have been slow to change. When unions won the right to bargain collectively in the 1960s they based their negotiating model on the 1935 Labor Relations Act. The act, designed for the needs of early 20th century industry, imparted a confrontation bargaining model that (pitting the union v. company management) to secure vital economic interest for workers. It worked well. The industrial bargaining secured vital professional economic interest for teachers such as higher wages, productive working environments, and protection from abuses such as discrimination.[1] Unions have also rapidly grown. For example,

since 1961, membership in the NEA has increased from 766,000 to 2.2 million, almost 300 percent. […] During this same period, NEA/AFT revenues also increased dramatically. The NEA budget just for its national office increased from $7.7 million in 1960-61 to $186 million in 1995-96; as Chapter 9 shows, state and local union revenues have also increased in similar fashion. [2]

Yet, too much success may beget inflexibility. Industry has given way to data, rivets to code, physical capital to intellectual capital. Education has taken a prominent role in the health of our economy as we become more information and data driven (and, yes, this holds true even as brick-and-mortar companies regain admiration in a bear market). It follows, then, that teachers should reap the benefits of this economic shift. They are the experts building intellectual capital. Yet they have not, largely because the labor negotiating model is somewhere back with heavy industry and the Ford Edsel. The majority of bargaining styles remain focused on their member's economic interest, not their professional skills. Without labor contracts that center on the teaching craft it becomes easy for critics to charge that unions are not focusing on the child's education.

Much of the criticism, however, is oversimplified. Implementing structural reform does not happen overnight, especially when the organizations are 2.3 million (NEA) and 900,000 members (AFT) strong and when this strength was realized through traditional union practices. On top of that, we are not just talking 2 groups, but the political operations of many state and local affiliates, and 30 closely related independent state and national groups that serve near 300,000 members.[3] Indeed, anything this big is called inertia, and it's been moving successfully since Americans bought Edsels. However, all successful organizations shape with the times.

And these times, they are a changing. The public school system is under pressure to produce more accountable and effective public schools for all children, and the ways to do this are increasing. Charter schools, inter and intra district choice, private schools, home schooling, and vouchers are making public education an increasingly competitive market. The mantra and business strategy for each alternative are similar - focus on the child's education, provide quality education services that will please parents, and, most important, demonstrate academic success. If this is done the happy customer base will grow and financial security will follow. These changes (which are simply Marketplace 101) will energize the unions to incorporate the need for education quality into the traditional industrial labor representation model.

Not only is there a more competitive education market, but there are more unionizing options as well. The NEA and the AFT are not the only groups on the block. The increasing education options also bring increasing ways to organize personnel. Alternative groups like the Missouri State teacher's Association, Professional Association of Georgia Educators, Association of American Educators (AAE) are actively driving traditional union positions away from the industrial mindset toward the education-centered contracts.

The changing times could play into the hands of the large unions. While traditional industrial contracts and negotiating methods have made the unions targets of many reformers, they have a resource advantage that makes this fairly easy to resolve - the teachers. As noted above and well documented in reform literature like United Mind Workers: Unions and Teaching in the Knowledge Society (1997), teachers are positioned to capitalize on larger shifts towards an information society because they are the true education experts. So by focusing on the skills of their own membership, the unions should be able to quickly change with the times. They simply have to tailor their competitive advantage, and they are beginning to do just that. New teacher quality and compensation programs demonstrate the point.

• Sandra Feldman, president of the AFT, has proposed adopting "thin" contracts which leave many of the details to individual schools, rather than relying on a one-size-fits-all labor agreement. So instead of an arrangement in which schools negotiate exceptions to a districtwide contractual agreement or policy, there might be contractual provisions that give school level labor/management teams the authority to decide how issues will be addressed at the school level. Such contracts allow more discussion of academic and individual teacher expectations.
• In 1996, Helen Bernstein, then head of United Teachers Los Angeles; Adam Urbanski, the head of the Rochester (N.Y.) Teachers Association and a vice president of the American Federation of Teachers; and Robert Schwartz, then with the Pew Charitable Trusts, formed a group of 21 teachers' union presidents from across the country to redesign teachers' unions to become active participants in school reform. The resulting Teacher Union Reform Network, or TURN, envisions will continue to protect its members' economic interests, but it will also expand its historic charter to include taking on responsibility for educational quality and partnering with management to improve education.[4] (For more on Adam Urbanski read this week's Spotlight).
• In April 2000, the AFT released a tough criticism of teacher training and testing.[5] Building a Profession: Strengthening Teacher Preparation and Induction calls for more rigorous standards and preparation for new teachers, for teacher education programs to be more closely linked to the teaching profession and more directly involved in the teacher induction activities of local school districts. [6]
• The NEA is working with the National Staff development counsel (NSDC) to identify content-specific staff development initiatives that improve student achievement in the core content areas of language arts (including reading, writing, and literature), mathematics, science, and social studies. The program intends to strengthen the quality of staff development available to teachers in elementary and high schools.[7]

Indeed, the list of union led programs intended to improve the quality of instruction goes on: from early literacy programs, to developing state standards, to helping under performing schools, to greater accountability and higher standards in colleges of education, to attempting merit pay plans, national and local teacher unions are working on many fronts. With over 3 million card carrying union members of one affiliate or another this should not come as a surprise. There are many good minds at work.

Critics Still Make a Good Point

Despite recent union efforts, the critics persist. Their strongest argument may be that unions are plagued by an irresolvable mission conflict. The basic interest for teacher unions is to promote the material well-being and job security of their members, and, in so doing, to promote the financial and political strength of unions themselves. Terry Moe, senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, and a professor of political science at Stanford University, spoke on this point at the April 2000 Brookings Institute conference on teacher unions and education reform. "Notice what I have not said. I have not said anything about good schools, making the schools better, or doing what's best for kids. Now, I think teachers care about that, definitely, and union leaders care about that. But it's not fundamental to the interests of the union. Now, this may sound offensive, but I think it's flat-out true."[8] Because it is not a fundamental interest, even the most well intended reform efforts will not be implemented if there is potential harm to their fundamental interests - and that means anything that will threaten the financial stability of every labor member, including the worst teacher on staff. Tweaking contracts to highlight the teacher does nothing to resolve failing schools and moving mal-practitioners out of the profession.

Conclusion: On The Brink?

So are unions an obstacle or an important vehicle for reform? The answer is likely both. Unions are obstacles because they have a legal legacy and financial incentives to resist change. Yet they are facing changing times, and this presents the most influential organizations in our schools a tremendous opportunity. The demands upon public education will likely steer unions to blend traditional labor representation with greater market accountability that focuses on education quality. Adam Urbanski , president of the Rochester Teachers Association and vice president of the American Federation of Teachers, summarized the blend at the Brookings' Institute conference. "I think we should expand the scope of collective bargaining to include instruction on professional issues. I think that we should be optimistic. […] And I think we should continue to put a premium on harnessing the collective wisdom of teachers in our deliberation on school improvement."[9] Indeed, if this blend is effectively pursued then the unions will carry the banner of education reform to the cheers of the nation. But the recipe of this blend is presently uncertain, and until the national unions can make that clearer, the critics' arguments remain strong and the spirited debate continues. In fact, we hope YOU carry the debate onto our Feature Forum, please use the link below.

David A. DeSchryver
Issue 1.13
3/26/2001

Resources

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TOM LOVELESS, ED., CONFLICTING MISSIONS? TEACHERS UNIONS AND EDUCATIONAL REFORM (2000), http://brookings.nap.edu/books/0815753039/html/index.html, visited March 27, 2001.

TURN (Teacher Union Reform Network) is a union-led effort to restructure the nation's teachers' unions to promote reforms that will ultimately lead to better learning and higher achievement for America's children,http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/hosted/turn/turn.html, visited March 23, 2001.

Teachers Unions: Do They Help or Hurt Education Reform? A Brown Center Issues in Education Series event, April 14 2000, http://www.brook.edu/pa/transcripts/20000411a.htm, visited March 27, 2001.

The National Council on Teacher Quality is a new nonprofit organization devoted to the pursuit of teacher quality by bringing common sense to bear on this urgent national priority. NCTQ aims to provide up-to-the-minute information on what the various policy options are, which may work well, which seem not to work at all, and how we could learn more, http://www.tqclearinghouse.org/, visited March 27, 2001.

The National Education Association (NEA) is America's oldest and largest organization committed to advancing the cause of public education. Founded in 1857 in Philadelphia and now headquartered in Washington, D.C., NEA proudly claims more than 2.5 million members who work at every level of education, from pre-school to university graduate programs. NEA has affiliates in every state as well as in over 13,000 local communities across the United States. http://www.nea.org.

The American Federation of Teachers (AFT) is one of the fastest growing labor unions in the country. As an affiliate of the AFL-CIO, they are committed to being an active part of the larger labor movement. The AFL-CIO is one of this country's oldest advocates for free public education and social and economic policies that benefit working people and their families. http://www.aft.org/.

Bob Peterson, "What Will be the Future of Teacher Unionism?" Rethinking Schools On Line, Vol. 12 No. 4 , Summer 1998, http://www.rethinkingschools.org/Archives/12_04/unbook.htm, visited March 24, 2001.

Public Service Research Foundation, "Independent professional organization groups," listing alternative professional organization groups by state, http://www.psrf.org/peg.html, visited March 20, 2001.

The Association of American Educators (AAE) is a nonprofit, national professional association that is meeting a critical need for many of America's educators, http://www.aaeteachers.org/index.html, visited March 22, 2001.

Dr. Myron Lieberman, "Teacher Unions: Is the End Near?" Claremont Institute, Golden State Center for Policy Studies, Briefing Paper: 1994-37, December 15, 1994, http://www.educationpolicy.org/files/tchrunio.htm, visited March 27, 2001.

Endnotes:

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[1] See CHARLES KERCHNER, JULIA KOPPICH, AND JOSEPH WEERES, UNITED MIND WORKERS: UNIONS AND TEACHING IN THE KNOWLEDGE SOCIETY (1997), http://63.197.216.234/crcl/mindworkers/journal.cfm, visited March 24, 2001.

[2] MYRON LIEBERMAN, THE TEACHER UNIONS, (1997), http://www.schoolchoices.org/roo/unions_i.htm, visited March 26, 2001.

[3] See Public Service Research Foundation, "Professional Education Groups," http://www.psrf.org/peg.html, visited March 19, 2001.

[4] Wellford Wilms, "Marginalizing Unions: Formula for Disaster," Education Week, Oct. 2, 1996.

[5] Richard Whitmire, "Union Calls for Reforming Teacher Colleges," Gannette News Service, April 14, 2000.

[6] See AMERICAN FEDERATION OF TEACHER, HIGHER EDUCATION DEPARTMENT, BUILDING A PROFESSION: STRENGTHENING TEACHER PREPARATION AND INDUCTION (April 2000), http://www.aft.org/higher_ed/reports/k16report.html; see also Robert Siegel, "All Things Considered: American Federation of Teachers Releases Study and Recommendations," National Public Radio, April 14, 2000.

[7] See National Education Association, Results-Based Staff Development Initiative, http://www.nea.org/teaching/profdev/proj.html, visited March 19, 2001.

[8] See "Teachers Unions: Do They Help or Hurt Education Reform?" A Brown Center Issues in Education Series event, April 14 2000, http://www.brook.edu/pa/transcripts/20000411a.htm, visited March 23, 2001.

[9] See "Teachers Unions: Do They Help or Hurt Education Reform?" A Brown Center Issues in Education Series event, April 14 2000, http://www.brook.edu/pa/transcripts/20000411a.htm, visited March 23, 2001.

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