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The Public Policy
Union-Run Schools
To prevent further movement toward charter schools, teachers' unions are starting to take direct control of public schools -- which for once might give them a sense of where the problem lies.
Even among the oft-intransigent locals that make up the American Federation of Teachers, United Teachers Los Angeles is renowned for its bellicose opposition to any kind of school reform. Notorious for its successful battles against efforts by former L.A. Mayor Richard Riordan and one of his successors, Antonio Villaraigosa, to overhaul the infamously laggard Los Angeles Unified School District, United Teachers behaved in typical form last August when the nation's second-largest school district finally gave in to school reformers and agreed to a plan that included spinning off 12 of its worst-performing schools into private hands and creating 24 new schools to be run by a hodgepodge of operators. Besides filing a lawsuit against the district to prevent the reform measure from being implemented without "majority teacher approval," the union staged a series of protests against the plan. Declared A.J. Duffy, United Teachers' square-jawed president: "We will stand up against violations of the law and our members' rights."
But this past month, when L.A. Unified announced the organizations that would run the schools, United Teachers pulled off a major surprise. Thanks to electioneering that would have done legendary Chicago mayor Richard Daley père proud -- and the political pressure United Teachers placed on the elected school board -- the union gained operational control of 22 of the schools either being spun off or newly created by the district. Most of the very charter school operators that United Teachers opposed -- including Green Dot Public Schools, which had bested L.A. Unified two years ago for control of one of the district's high schools -- were shut out altogether. Pronounced Jed Wallace, the CEO of the California Charter Schools Association: "the supporters of the status quo and adult concerns trump[ed] making good decisions on the behalf of children."
United Teachers now bears the burden of actually running schools instead of the indirect control it has exercised for decades through an array of state laws, collective bargaining agreements, campaign donations and the rallies of rank-and-file teachers. It isn't the only one. These days, the AFT and the National Education Association find themselves becoming school operators -- and even embracing the charter school movement in their rather schizophrenic way -- in order to prove that traditional teachers union principles, including seniority and degree-based pay scales, and work rules that allow the average teacher to work just 35 hours during a work week, won't get in the way of high-quality academic instruction and innovation. Whether or not the unions can pull it off is an open question.
This is an area where the AFT has been a clear pioneer. Its Boston local already operates something called a pilot school -- sort of a charter but without full independence from the school district -- while the union's New York local (America's largest) operates two charter schools, including one in partnership with Green Dot, the legendary charter school operator best known for improving academic achievement among poor children of Latino immigrants. The NEA, with its base largely in the Midwest and South -- which haven't been hotbeds of school reform -- has been slower to take up the concept. Its Denver local started the Math and Science Leadership Academy, an elementary school in which teachers actually run operations and evaluate each other's performance.
There is the possibility of even more schools landing in teachers' union control. As L.A. Unified continues to hand off more of its existing schools, United Teachers -- likely with the encouragement of AFT President Randi Weingarten -- will push for control of most of these campuses. Two programs run by the unions to encourage their versions of school innovations also mean the likelihood of directly operating more schools. Even further impetus for further school-running efforts may come courtesy of President Barack Obama's Race to the Top reform initiative, which has been narrowed to 15 states (at least for now). Its emphasis on increasing the number of charter schools all but assures that the NEA's and AFT's longstanding efforts to stifle their growth (and banish them altogether) will be an abject failure. If the unions can't beat them, they'll just as well join them.
Certainly preserving the status quo is at the heart of these moves. Emerging research, the development of value-added assessment (which allows for the measurement of student test-score growth and, in turn, teacher performance over time) and the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act and other accountability measures, have weakened support for the traditional teachers compensation system the NEA and AFT so zealously defend. The high cost of teacher pensions and retirement benefits -- which has helped to make the profession among the best-paid in the public sector -- is also forcing states and school districts to breach the deals they have made with teachers unions. Then there is the success and popularity of the nation's 4,912 charter schools, which now educate five percent of the country's students. The fact that almost all of them operate without being subjected to union contracts and work rules has not gone unnoticed; the AFT and NEA hope to expand their paltry 5.7 percent of charter school teaching staffs.
By operating their own schools, the NEA and AFT hope to show that the academic problems within American public education -- and especially among such woeful urban districts as Detroit and L.A. -- lie not with collective bargaining agreements, but with bureaucracies that fail to embrace the best practices advocated by unions and other defenders of traditional public education. It isn't exactly a new argument. The development of charter schools, for example, can be partly credited to legendary AFT president Albert Shanker, who advocated them as both a defense against vouchers and as laboratories for improving the quality of teaching and curricula.
But can teachers unions actually prove their point without eventually abandoning their defense of traditional teacher compensation and union contracts? This is already proving difficult. Two years ago, the chief administrator of one of the AFT New York local's charters walked away from the job after teachers and parents complained that she had shown "negligence, irresponsibility, untrustworthy accountability, and bias." The charter it operates with Green Dot is governed by a contract that greatly digresses from the kinds of contracts it arranges with traditional districts. It specifies only that teachers will work a full workday (unlike traditional contracts, which specify the content of a day down to the minute); the teachers also don't have seniority rights or even procedures for gaining tenure. The teachers aren't even represented by the AFT; they are part of a separate union that represents all of Green Dot's teachers.
Before all this is over, the NEA and AFT may echo the same complaints about teacher contracts that school reformers and superintendents have been making for the past three decades. Now that would be ironic, don't you think?
About the Author
RiShawn Biddle the editor of Dropout Nation , is co-author of A Byte at the Apple: Rethinking Education Data for the Post-NCLB Era. He can be followed at Twitter.com/dropoutnation.
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Alan Brooks| 3.16.10 @ 8:16PM
i for won suport publik skoolz, they haff a grate futur!
FRED SCULCO| 3.17.10 @ 4:27PM
I think Mr. Baker has an extremely perceptive comment in view of my years as a biologist and not having, according to evolutionary biologists; flying pigs, like union interest in education are mythical phenomenon.
Union self-interest in reducing teacher hours spent with students while increasing pay for less hours, protecting ineffective teachers with costly litigation, raising the flag of "seniority" in place of the flag of "competency", leave the greedy unions with no justifiable rights to direct any educational facility, except perhaps, those attempting to get "pigs to fly".
basur| 10.27.10 @ 6:16AM
I think teacher unions have achieved too much power to protect ineffective teachers in many school systems, and clearly school reform should include taking a second look at unions.
However, the results on charter schools are IN.
Charter schools were originally meant to be small laboratories where new pedagogical methods would be developed and tested for wide use in public schools.
Instead, they have developed into organizations that see themselves as competing with public schools for funding and the best students.
This market mentality may improve products and restrain prices in markets, but in education it is detrimental.
A mother doesn't ask her children to compete for her love; a minister doesn't implore his parishioners to compete for grace; a conductor doesn't ask the floutist to compete with the bass violin.
Public education -- as the Founders knew and as generations of Americans have discovered -- is the foundation of the American polity.
It is intended to be the "level playing field" upon which future competition in markets is based.
Charter schools -- which, incidentally, are NOT improving student scores on standardized tests and are NOT working to help public schools improve, as they supposed to do -- are not a part of the solution to school reform.
Richard Baker| 3.16.10 @ 10:56AM
As the old expression goes, I'd expect pigs to fly before the public schools and their union teacher apologists contribute ANYTHING noteworthy as regards "education" of anyone's kids. Close the public schools, give the parents the money, and allow them to seek a private/parochial school of their choice. Could they do any worse than the present abysmal system?
Petronius| 3.16.10 @ 11:35AM
Most schools, public and private are incubators for mediocrity and herdthink where the teacher has become a zookeeper. The cheetah gets hobbled and shackled. The sloth gets ridiculed and humiliated. The rest become gnus with no independent thought displacing the liberal mush in their captive skulls. Woe unto the pupil who stands outside the herd and doesn't draw flies.
As for the teachers and their unions, they view themselves as a priesthood and hold parents in utter contempt. Their mission is to separate the student from any opposing beliefs held by the parents whatever they may be. Any student who wants to make it jumps through the hoops and says as little as possible in class. Let's hope they are on our side.
Oldefarte| 3.16.10 @ 12:54PM
Even though teachers should not be blamed for the poor performance records of public schools, the teacher unions are repsonsible for the hiring and tenure of inept teachers [mostly those hire because of their minority status, as opposed to their teaching credentials]. The reson for public schools inadequacies is simply the poor home environment from which school children come from. If student attendance, school work dedication, etc was tied to governmental welfare received of their [home] relatives, the students' and schools' records would improve substantially!!!!!!!
Sheila| 3.16.10 @ 1:38PM
For an enlightening history of American public schools and the theorists behind them, read http://www.johntaylorgatto.com.....index.htm. Until you understand exactly what Horace Mann and John Dewey thought of the American citizen and the State, you have no idea what you're dealing with. It cannot be controlled or reformed, only utterly destroyed. I doubt our ignorant, lazy, immigrant-enriched populace has the fortitude to do so. Decline and fall.
ed crusader| 3.16.10 @ 2:34PM
for a rigourous, no-nonsense, hi-quality, economical, classical education light years ahead of the public and many private schools, see:
http://www.classicalliberalarts.com/
Its not worth wasting any more time, web pages, breath on shcools. They are a graveyard, one where you dont want to send you children.
LiveFreeOrDie| 3.17.10 @ 11:09PM
Thank you for this link!
Marc Jeric| 3.16.10 @ 2:48PM
The history of every union shows, that given time, any union will fall into hands of either Mafia or marxists - that is a natural law without exceptions. The same law holds for any professional association - be it the bar, engineers, scientists, doctors, etc. I my own work i found it almost like a law of nature: being extremely busy with a number of dificult technical problems, I was asked to send a delegate to the American Nuclear Society (ANS) or to the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME); I would look around for suitable candidates. Since I could not sacrifice the services of the best engineers, I would regularly send drones instead. After a while all those professional societies are full of useless drones. Teacher unions are directed by either drones or dedicated marxists - it is the law of nature!
Quartermaster| 3.16.10 @ 6:18PM
The American Society of Civil Engineers and the National Association of Professional Engineers is in the same boat. Alas, both are run by idiots who are after the best interests of their societies and not the welfare of the public, as they claim they are. It's all part of the degradation of American Society.
Pingback| 3.16.10 @ 2:55PM
School Sports: Records tumble at Otago championships | Otago Daily … | sports | News links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Liberal Reader| 3.16.10 @ 3:18PM
I think teacher unions have achieved too much power to protect ineffective teachers in many school systems, and clearly school reform should include taking a second look at unions.
However, the results on charter schools are IN.
Charter schools were originally meant to be small laboratories where new pedagogical methods would be developed and tested for wide use in public schools.
Instead, they have developed into organizations that see themselves as competing with public schools for funding and the best students.
This market mentality may improve products and restrain prices in markets, but in education it is detrimental.
A mother doesn't ask her children to compete for her love; a minister doesn't implore his parishioners to compete for grace; a conductor doesn't ask the floutist to compete with the bass violin.
Public education -- as the Founders knew and as generations of Americans have discovered -- is the foundation of the American polity.
It is intended to be the "level playing field" upon which future competition in markets is based.
Charter schools -- which, incidentally, are NOT improving student scores on standardized tests and are NOT working to help public schools improve, as they supposed to do -- are not a part of the solution to school reform.
bob alou| 3.17.10 @ 1:32PM
Your remarks may be based on information that you have read but that does not make them based on fact. You might want to read todays article bye Paul E. Peterson: Charter Schools and Student Performance - WSJ.com. Furthermore you might want to actually visit a charter school so that the differences can become more than academic. I am associated with two; one as a member of the governing council, the other as a parent and the husband of the principal. Both schools are eight years old. Both have made AYP every year, among the best record in the state. Both provide an education that is different and turning out students who are capable, and encouraged to think for themselves and discover rather than simply learn to repeat information. The reason charter schools are necessary are obvious to anyone who knows the current sorry state of public education under unionization, among other factors. the reason they are beneficial is that they provide alternatives for those seeking alternative learning strategies for whatever reason. The thing you need to remember is that they are still public schools and deserve public funds.
Larry in Iowa| 3.16.10 @ 3:46PM
The ones I feel sorry for are the kids who are being sacrificed to prove the unions wrong. I just hope the lesson is learned once the union is given a free hand to destroy those kids education.
Hey Liberal Reader, Public education did not exist at the time of the founding. there were some local schools but they were supported by parents and donors.
By what evidence do you claim that competition does not improve education? The athletes compete, as do the musicians, the chess team, debate team and almost everyone. Non competition only leads to mediocrity, something public schools increasingly excel in.
James Orleans| 3.16.10 @ 4:17PM
There is no such thing as a "level playing field". What the above poster seems to advocate is an equality of outcome, as opposed to an equality of opportunity. Without some sort of meritocracy, be it in the form of market based charter competition or magnet schools, the bar will be continually lowered so that no one fails and everyone gets a "A". Real life, "upon which future competition in markets is based" doesn't operate that way.
While I agree that teacher unions can be a huge problem, nothing will change until parents stop treating public schools like daycare and actually take responsibility for the education of their children. Taxpaying parents who value education shouldn't have to turn to a private school to get away from disruptive students and indifferent parents. This is why charter and magnet schools are needed. The difference between stand alone charter schools and typical public schools that are part of a large system is that market forces and stricter governance demand the charter failures are remedied in the course of a few years, while public systems languish for decades churning out illiterates. Given the inertia of giant government bureaucracies and union agenda, little can be done unless you reinvent the whole system. This has been done. And while you purport that charter schools aren't working, there are many successful examples of them in New Orleans, as well as some failures. At least New Orleans took the bold step of dismantling the entire system. If you ask me, it's the only solution for other large city school systems that are, so sad to say, stuck on stupid.
Liberal Reader| 3.16.10 @ 5:23PM
I certainly agree with much of what you say in your second paragraph.
The ideal of a "level playing field" is of course unreachable.
However, a MERITOCRACY, which is what this country aims to be, becomes a simple in-bred ARISTOCRACY without public education.
To be sure, public education is a redistribution of wealth, but it redistributes wealth in order to ensure that opportunities to achieve and compete are equally available to all. This ensures that competition will not only be among those fortunate enough to be able to afford private schooling and it ensures more competition.
Nick| 3.16.10 @ 5:40PM
Marxist Reader,
Are you also going to argue that Christ wanted us to pay more in taxes for public education?
Quartermaster| 3.16.10 @ 6:21PM
With public education that meritocracy actually is becoming an in-bred mediocrity. Given what the left is doing to breed ignorance of our history and our civilizational inheritance, you need to go back and read what Jefferson said about liberty and ignorance.
Richard Baker| 3.16.10 @ 5:41PM
Larry in Iowa:
Only liberals believe that competition is bad. Can't think of one Conservative American, public or private, who would believe such nonsense. For these fools, watching the World Series, Super Bowl, the Stanley Cup, and the Olympics must engender excruciating pain and angst. How DO they get through the day?
Pingback| 3.16.10 @ 7:37PM
Remainders: Celebrities take up the teacher quality debate | GothamSchools links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Pingback| 3.16.10 @ 8:20PM
Online Education in America » Blog Archive » Remainders: Celebrities take up the teac links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Jeamar| 3.16.10 @ 8:48PM
Parents have the schools they want. No where is one's vote more effective than in school board elections, where one's presence is more influential than in school board meetings. How many parents and citizens evern participate in either? Ironically, several studies have shown when asked people who complain about poor schools in general quite often express satisfaction with their own child's school. Go figure!
dance...dance to the radio| 3.17.10 @ 3:09AM
I have to counter what the teachers tell my kids with my own hard learned view points when I come home after work.
They are in grades three and four.
They read very well.
And can keep up with the closed captioning on the tv.
And I was very laissez faire about reading them stories.
I told them if you want to know what's in those books you'll learn how to read.
Calvin and Hobbes helps, too.
"Dad, what's that mean?"
I'll give the teacher's some credit for teaching them how to read but there is also an innate ability.
When it comes down to the basics, I have no complaints.
When they come home telling me the earth is going to fry then I get out my newfound Old Man voice and tell them my truth.
Richard Baker| 3.17.10 @ 12:19PM
My wife and I homeschool our kids and they are working at a very high level, SAT proven. The public schools are a waste of time and should be closed, the money given to the parents to either homeschool or seek a private/parochial school of their choice, and the administrators, particularly, given positions at TSA.
Mark| 3.18.10 @ 1:21PM
You have GOT to be kidding! Do you REALLY want the TSA to be even WORSE than it is now?
sangredulce| 3.17.10 @ 7:37PM
Mr. Baker is right on. Governemt shoud lbe out of the school business. The parents would have some skin in the game. Also, not all kids are academically inclined.. And we need plumbers, auto mech's, tradesmen, etc.. As long as it not unionized.
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