Do Unions Place Adult Needs Before Children in Education?

Yes.

And they are supposed to. Unless school children are members of the teachers' unions, which unless I am woefully mistaken, they are not, then the union has to place their members' (adult) interests first. Corey Bunje Bower takes up the issue in a recent post. There are lots of parties making the argument that teachers' unions are bad for education, and I usually agree with them because I do think that teachers' unions are one of the biggest obstacles, second only to bureaucratic inertia/incompetence, to making our schools better than they have been. But that is not a result of their existence or even supposed mission, but rather of the acceptance by the public that unions know what is best about education and the rhetoric that unions care about kids. They may care about kids, but kids aren't their mission and that is a massively important distinction.

Bower wrote:

One could argue that the main goal of a teachers' union is to ensure that its members are treated fairly and paid well, and they would have a point; that's probably their main goal. But that doesn't necessarily mean that they do that at the expense of students. Ultimately, teachers care about their students . . . and a union of teachers, when you boil it down, is really just a large group of teachers.

I will agree wholeheartedly with the first segment of this quote. Teachers unions exist to protect their members. I don't believe they do it necessarily at the expense of students, at least not consciously. It may simply be a consequence of what happens with some workplace protections--like tenure.

However, there is a very distinct difference between a teacher, a group of teachers and a union. I would say that a teacher, indeed almost every teacher, really cares about what is educationally best for their students. And unless proven otherwise, even a small group of teachers can have that motivation, even on a school wide level.

But the minute you start talking about a union, you are talking about another entity all together. The union is supposed to exist to serve its members--fine--as far as it goes. But a union also exists to project power in the political arena (and union contract negotiations are political--make no mistake about that). Therein lies the dichotomy between a group of teachers and a teachers' union. Unions have a need to a) be relevant in political discussions involving teachers/education and b) to continue to exist, thus some of their actions actually run counter to the professional needs of their members (see my posts on the professionalization of teachers).

A union is a far different actor, because of its own corporate needs, than a group of teachers. Once you move beyond a school based local group of teachers into a union, which has paid (well paid), professional, full-time staff, you remove the entity into a realm in which union motivations may run counter to what is good for the students. The "at the expense of students" meme is injected at this point. I don't think unions are consciously and conspicuously aiming to injure the interests of students, it is often a by-product of aiming to get the most for their members. Education is a game of finite resources and to give some of those resources and decisions to teachers usually means that some other group doesn't get them--and sometimes that groups is the students.

But it is also important to delineate something about unions. When it comes to protecting teachers' rights/pay/standing, I have no quibble with unions trying to extract the best deal for their members from school management, that is their job and purpose. However, I make a big difference when unions proclaim that they do what they do because it benefits students. That is nothing but pure P.R. B.S. It is a lie that has become accepted by the public to the point that it is viewed almost as a accepted premise. But, the students are not the unions' concern and the sooner we in the general public accept this, the better we will understand the motivations behind union actions. When students start becoming the unions' priority, they are not longer serving their members needs and thus are a failure as an organization.

Again, unions are neither inherently evil nor inherently opposed to student interests. But it is important to realize that unions tend to dominate the educational dialogue when it comes to education particularly at the local level. They have an interest and the right to speak, but we mustn't delude ourselves into thinking that the union knows best for our children. The children are not supposed to be, and when push comes to shove won't be, their top priority. Just because an organization represents individual practitioners does not mean the individual practitioner motivations can be ascribed to the union. They may actually be diametrically opposed.

Don't Give Up on Public Schools? Don't Get Duped by Teacher Union Rhetoric

When I read things like this editorial in the Richmond Times Dispatch, my blood simply starts boiling at the propaganda that teachers' unions want you to buy.

WE AT THE Virginia Education Association absolutely believe that we owe it to our children to ensure that they have every opportunity to succeed in the 21st century. That is, in fact, what we are all about and what we advocate for every single day. We vigorously disagree, however, with proponents of school choice programs on how to provide that opportunity to each and every child. I believe that the promise of vouchers and tuition tax credits programs is a false one for too many of the children who need our public schools the most.

Instead of dreaming up so many different ways to abandon our public schools, wouldn't it be more helpful and productive if folks spent the same amount of time and energy trying to work for meaningful reforms within the system?

Politicians want to blame teachers for being in the way of school reform, but I would suggest that teachers haven't yet been asked to be a meaningful part of the solution. Instead we are just being blamed for the problems caused in large part by policies that were adopted as short-term fixes for long-term problems. Practicing educators would love to be part of the conversation around how to fix some of the problems that exist in the current system -- just give us a place at the table and listen to us for a change!

Let me be very clear: Public schools are not perfect. They never have been. But our public schools should certainly not be abandoned by the very public they strive to serve. The fact of the matter is that, with all of their various problems, public schools in America need to be defended and protected: It is there that the vast majority of our nation's citizens learn about what it really means to be an American.(emphasis added)

I have emphasized three sections in the above passage and let me take them apart one at a time.

First:

WE AT THE Virginia Education Association absolutely believe that we owe it to our children to ensure that they have every opportunity to succeed in the 21st century. That is, in fact, what we are all about and what we advocate for every single day.

Um, no actually teachers' unions don't and more importantly they shouldn't. Teachers unions exist to protect the working conditions and so-called rights of teachers first and foremost. If any teachers' union official tells you otherwise they are lying to your face. When push comes to shove, the concerns and welfare of teachers will always take precedence over the welfare of students and parents! And there is nothing wrong with that. In fact the unions have that duty to their members, it is why they exist. I have no problem with that mission, as much as I may not like the tactics.

However, when a union leader tells you, "we are in it for the kids" you should read the next words very carefully and figure out what is in it for the unions. In this case, whenever funds are used in charter schools or in voucher programs, those are schools where the unions have no presence or power. In short, the unions don't have a say or role--that is what they want, power, position and prestige. In school choice programs, unions don't have them.

I will embrace any union official in honest competition who says, "My goal is to get the best for my members first. Everything else after that is gravy." That is honesty ladies and gentlemen, not spin.

Second:

Politicians want to blame teachers for being in the way of school reform, but I would suggest that teachers haven't yet been asked to be a meaningful part of the solution.

There are actually two parts to this. Let's take the second part first. I will conceed that teachers, actual classroom, practicing day-in, day-out teachers, are often not called in to discuss the policy and program problems in education. I think that is clear, but I also think it is changing. I think practicing teachers are trying to contribute more and I think policymakers are making a concerted effort to have more teachers at the table.

But, and here is the crucial caveat, by teacher, I don't mean just a union official. If I am a policymaker, I want a real life, preferrably acknowledged as successful, teacher at the policy table, not a teacher union official. Unions probably get a seat at the table, but when it comes to actual education, in the the classroom policy, the unions should sit down and let the professionals run the table.

I do think that politicians sometimes do a poor job of distinguishing between teachers (i.e. the people in the classroom) and the teachers' unions. I am sorry, there is simply too much information out there that points to union obstructionism when it comes to making our schools better at performing their mission--educating kids. The unions cannot claim to be "doing it for the kids" when they stand in the way of incentives to get better teachers in hard to service schools, or object to programs to take successful professionals from the business world to the classroom. In truth, I think a lot of politicians who "blame teachers" are really blaming the unions and just doing a poor job of distinguishing the two, which is not surprising for politicians.

Third:

Let me be very clear: Public schools are not perfect. They never have been. But our public schools should certainly not be abandoned by the very public they strive to serve.

Translation: Our public schools suck, but don't give up on us.

If a I go a restaurant with good food but bad service, why would I keep going back if the service was so poor, no matter how much I liked the food. If my mechanic sucked, I certainly wouldn't continue going back to him to get my car fixed, no matter how much I love my car. If my doctor sucked, I wouldn't keep seeking treatment from him, no matter how sick I got. If my child's dance teacher sucked, I certainly wouldn't pay tuition to keep sending my child to that dance studio, no matter how popular that studio might be. If my politicians sucked, I certainly wouldn't keep voting to keep them in office, no matter what they promised. Do you see my pattern? We pay for a service that isn't going its job. Why on earth then, should we continue to keep paying for bad service?

The interesting thing is that when you look at the number of teachers union officials and teachers themselves who send their kids to private school, you have to wonder at this position. Yes, we suck, but keep sending your kids to our bad schools.

If the schools are that bad, and the public that is supposed to staff them and the public that is supposed to ensure their quality can't do so, why shouldn't the public abandon them? If the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result, the public would be insane to continue going to a public school system that routinely fails them. That is simply common sense.

See the teachers unions feed this propaganda as if they should somehow know better than you. Take the mechanic or doctor example from above. I don't know much about cars, but I understand servicing my needs. I don't know much about medicine, but still I understand servicing my needs. Teachers want you to think that you don't understand education, but that you also don't understand your needs and whether or not public education is serving your needs.

If the unions would ever embrace the idea that public education is a service for the public and not a sinecure for their members, then we might see some real change.

Denver ProComp Negotiations

The Quick and the Ed has a good summary about the economic principles, including incentives that go into designing a compensation system for teachers. The summary does a good job, but fails to account for one big mover--what is the market, i.e. the voters, willing to bear in terms of salaries.

But what the story does reflect is the tension between old-school union ideas of compensation and the package put together with teachers (as opposed to union officials or negotiators) providing imput.

That is why the political maneuvering in pay negotiations is far more important than the actual terms of the negotiation itself. Threatening a strike when thousands of Democratic activists are in town (many of them teachers or union supporters) makes the possiblity of a strike more palatable for the Denver teachers and less so for the city.

However, the City can pull an ace out of their hat--the voters--which supported the ProComp plan to the tune of cedeing $25 million to make it work. The City should not shy away from breaking out the big gun of public opinion.

This is where too many cities and school systems lose. They don't play the big guns. ProComp was negotiated and endorsed by the union, the school system and the voters. The City should just call the union on it and actually dare them to strike and shut the schools down.

The primary effect of the strike will be to put the union into the position of having to admit that their primary goal is protecting teachers. There is nothing wrong with this position, but the unions often couch their spin in terms of "good for the students." Striking is good for the teachers, not the students and such a position is clearly exposed when teachers strike.

Of course, you will also see a number of teachers cross the picket lines and the size of the line crossing contingent surely indicates the relative strength of the union.

Thinking Like This Is How Our Schools Got To Be The Mess We Have

NY Times writes:

Randi Weingarten, the New Yorker who is rising to become president of the American Federation of Teachers, says she wants to replace President Bush’s focus on standardized testing with a vision of public schools as community centers that help poor students succeed by offering not only solid classroom lessons but also medical and other services.

snip

“Can you imagine a federal law that promoted community schools — schools that serve the neediest children by bringing together under one roof all the services and activities they and their families need?” Ms. Weingarten is expected to ask in the speech, a copy of which was provided by the union to The New York Times.

“Imagine schools that are open all day and offer after-school and evening recreational activities, child care and preschool, tutoring and homework assistance,” the speech reads. “Schools that include dental, medical and counseling clinics.”

Ever since the "War on Poverty" we have been asking schools to provide more and more social services to the students. While I can see a pretty direct correlation between providing school breakfasts and lunches to poor students (a hungry student can't learn), I am not sure why a school needs to be providing many of the "social services" that we now ask schools to provide. We ask schools to provide psychological services, counseling, and other non-educational services under the rhubric of "it will help the student learn." I think that is a fine line, but I would be willing to listen to an argument.

But why does Weingarten think that schools should provide things like medical and dental clinics? Could free or reduced price clinics use the schools as a service point? Sure, just like many schools are used by churches to hold services. At my local school district, after school care is provided on sight by the YMCA, for which parents pay to have their kids supervised by generally minimum wage earning, and otherwise unqualified college students (at best) who are for all intents and purposes providing babysitting services for dozens of kids. Simply put, I have no objection use the school facilities for various activities, for a reduced fee or even free (ideally I would want some rental and cleaning fee).

What I object to is having the schools, i.e. school personnel provide the services and activities using taxpayer funded employees. In Weingarten's vision, I don't see an distinction between unionized teachers and unionized social services personnel who work at schools.

As for the mission of schools, when and if the schools are actually providing high quality education to every student, regardless of income or location, then and only then will I consider whether it is appropriate to add futher social services to the school's mission. Until, unless you can paint me a direct line between teh social services Weingarten proposes and increasing student achievement, then these services should not be paid for with taxpayer funds. Weingarten has no evidence, not even AFT manufactured evidence that even tangentially hints at these services helping a kid learn.

The problem is that Weingarten and lots of other so-called "social reformers" and advocates for "social justice" have failed to recognize the core mission of the schools. Since the mid-60's we have asked more and more of our schools to help close some socially worrisome gap, that the schools have forgotten how to do their basic mission--educating kids. Adding more "social missions" to the school's is not going to improve schools.

Weingarten can claim that NCLB has not improved American schools and she would have a decent case to make. However, her substitute certainly isn't going to work. Love it or hate it, NCLB actually talked about educating kids. Weingarten is not.

Teachers Unions Still Needed

Kevin Carey talks about a new Education Sector report which Carey touts as standing for the proposition that even among teaching newcomers, union protection is essential.

I suspect there's a hope among some union antagonists that teachers unions will fade in power and importance over time, much as their private sector counterparts have. That hope is often based on a generational theory of change: as the teachers who remember or participated in the initial struggle for unionization retire in large numbers in the next few years, they'll be replaced by a younger generation that grew up in a more de-unionized society, people who don't see teaching as a 30-year career leading to a comfortable retirement and will thus be less supportive of what unions have to offer.

According to a new survey of teachers published this week by Education Sector, these hopes are unfounded. From 2003 to 2007, the percentage of teachers who see teachers unions and associations as "Absolutely Essential" increased from 46% to 54%, a statistically significant change. And the change among teachers with less than five years of experience was even more striking: 30% to 51%.

Interestingly, this is despite the fact that most teacher are quite open to reforms of traditional labor arrangements that many teachers unions fail to actively support at best, and oppose at worst.

While one can quibble with Carey's and Ed Sector's conclusion, the fact is that more and more younger teachers think that the positions that the union opposes regarding the profession, i.e. recruiting teachers, salary and compensation changes, may make for a change of heart as the progress through the ranks.

Just as an aside, it is worth noting that the number of "newcomers" with less than five years of experience was 110 and the number of "veterans" with greater than 20 years was 363. By contrast a similar study in 2003 pegged those numbers at 211 and 484 respectively. Based on this, while the changes may be "statistically significant" the sample size between the two studies alters the statistics.

Like Carey though, I don't object to the unionization of teachers on a conceptual level. My beef with the unions is their professed stance of being there "for the kids." Such a stance simply chafes me to no end. The unions are not there for the kids, indeed when push comes to shove in school politics, the kids are usually the last group to be considered. No unions have a duty to protect the interests of their members--the teachers. The teachers themselves may care about their students, but the union doesn't, shouldn't and can't. Unions have a duty to protect the teachers, first, last and only. "Protecting" students isn't their job.

When the union sticks to the business of protecting teachers, I will be willing to allow them a little more latitude in making their case (this is not say that I won't call them on studid assertions), but they can make their case. What I won't stand for, and what no one else should either, is the premise that their concern is for the students.

Unions In 2008 Elections

Viathe AP:

Union membership is down. The labor movement has split in two. Conservatives control the White House, the Supreme Court and, until last year, Congress.

Yet AFL-CIO leaders say things are looking up as the nation's largest labor federation heads toward the 2008 presidential elections.

"We're stronger in many ways," said AFL-CIO president John Sweeney, in Chicago for the federation's executive council meeting and Tuesday forum with the Democratic presidential primary candidates.

Organized labor played a large role in Democrats taking over Congress in the midterm elections, Sweeney said, and is trying to hold on to that momentum going into 2008.

The initial assertions are true, aside from public sector unions, like govnerment workers, transit unions and teachers unions, union membership has been in a decline, if not a freefall, in America largely due to a shift away from traditional manufacturing jobs to an information economy.

However, I have to disagree with Mr. Sweeney's assertion of a "large role" in the Democratic takeover of Congress. Unions are still massive turnout machines, but the union members they turn out are not nearly as monolithic as they would tell you or as their senior leadership would indicate. In any large organization (and unions are large organizations), the rank and file are not nearly as unanimous in opinion as Sweeney and other labor leaders would have you think.

Union household make up less than 15 percent of the voting public, which while a sizeable bloc of voters, they are not the huge bloc that can sway the vote one way or the other. The movement away from unions is affecting their membership, with only die-hards remaining in the ranks and that means they will have less and less of a chance to alter the elctoral vote, simply on a matter of numbers.

How To Save A Union--Strong Arm Tactics

George Will looks at union tactics to ensure their survival when most American workers don't belong to a union.

Last Thursday, the Supreme Court ruled 9 to 0 against the Washington Education Association (WEA), Washington state's teachers union, which was claiming a perverse government-conferred entitlement. Five days later, organized labor and its political allies, including she who would be president, marched in Washington, D.C. They were asking Congress to deny to workers, whom unions are trying to organize, the right to a secret ballot. Both cases also illustrate the increasingly casual resort to abridgements of the rights of free speech and association.

Contrary to what some people, including me initially, thought, the Davenport case really is not about campaign finance or free speech, but about a person's First Amendment associational rights, that is whether an agency fee payer wants to be associated with a union's political message or not.

Amazingly, the WEA convinced the state Supreme Court that requiring it to ask permission before using other people's money -- for political speech that those people do not want to finance -- was an unconstitutional burden on the WEA's right of free speech. This novel (to be polite) theory did not persuade even one of the nine often fractious justices of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Speaking for the court, Justice Antonin Scalia noted that when government allows agency-shop arrangements, it creates a remarkable entitlement: It gives a private entity, a public employees union, "the power, in essence, to tax government employees." The WEA's complaint -- a notably brazen example of the entitlement mentality -- was against the supposedly burdensome "opt in" condition placed on its exercise of that power. With understandable asperity, Scalia said: "The notion that this modest limitation upon an extraordinary benefit violates the First Amendment is, to say the least, counterintuitive."

But if you think the WEA was audacious in its argument, wait until you read the description of the misnamed Employee Free Choice Act. The bill, which has passed the House but remains stalled in the Senate (thankfully)

would deny employees the choice of a secret ballot when voting on unionization of their workplace. Instead, union organizers would use the "card check" system, which allows them to pick the voters they want: Once a majority of workers -- exposed one at a time to face-to-face pressure from union organizers -- sign a union card, the union is automatically certified as the bargaining agent for all the workers.

The Supreme Court has said that the card-check system is "admittedly inferior to the election process." Hillary Clinton, who has given herself a makeover as a moderate, and who was elected by secret ballots, and who hopes that next year voters will use their secret ballots to give to her the power to nominate Supreme Court justices, nevertheless toes labor's line when she advocates abolishing workers' right to a secret ballot. Abolition, she says, will "create a fair and level playing field between workers and employers."

When in March the House passed card-check legislation for unpersuasive unions, a principal sponsor was Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), who in 2001 wrote, with 15 colleagues, to Mexican officials, on behalf of the rights of Mexican workers, insisting "that the secret ballot is absolutely necessary in order to ensure that workers are not intimidated into voting for a union they might not otherwise choose."

What a stunning hypocritical position.

Make no mistake, were it not for public employee unions, like teachers' unions, most labor unions in the United States would be dead or such a minor political force as to be just another interest group trying to maintain its position and achieve its goals. But the unions carry a great deal of political power, power that is out of balance with their membership, for exactly one reason--they coerce, not persuade, people into behaving according to their desires.