Are unions perfect? No. Ask anyone involved with one.
But it comes down to this: Do you believe that people have the right to a say in their own workplace?
If so, do you believe that their voice will be stronger collectively or alone?
If you believe that teachers have more ability to have a say in their schools collectively, then you believe in unions. Whatever frustrations, whatever issues, whatever problems you have with the manner in which a specific union may or may not have acted...so be it. You believe in unions.
We should have a great debate in this country about what teaching and learning looks like. Part of that debate should be about what role the teacher assumes and how that life is sustainable, livable and just. The teachers unions will be at the table for that conversation. They should be; they need to be.
In our schools, it is very easy to run roughshod over the rights of adults. "It's for the children... you're for the children, aren't you?" It's an easy sell, and it tugs at the heartstrings of all -- but the most hardened of hearts. It's too often a cheap line, and too many people have used it to push teachers too far, burn them out, abuse their compassion and care.
Teachers unions make sure that individual teachers don't have to do that every day. They remind administrators that there are limits, and that for teachers do be able to do this job, day in and day out, year after year, they need to be taken care of as well.
They remind politicians, as unions always have, that a fair day's work is worth a fair day's wage. And that contracts are not just platitudes, but binding documents.
And they remind all of us that those on the front line of the teaching profession have a right to a say in their working life; that teacher voice is an important -- in fact essential -- piece of how we will make our schools better and more humane for students, teachers and even (heaven forbid) principals.
Teachers' unions remind us that when you say, "We love teachers...the good ones..." you demean the profession, and you demean the hard work that millions of teachers do across America every day.
Unions remind us that those who are recent to the struggle of educating a nation may have some good ideas, but that they must work in concert with the teachers, not against us. Because in the end, they are our schools as much as they are our children's schools. Our work, our passion, our energy, our lives are in the classroom walls. And we have every bit as much of a right to a say in how our schools will evolve as those who would take our voice from us.
Because unions fundamentally fight for teachers' rights to have a say in what a democratic education in America looks like, I stand with teachers' unions.
[This post is part of the #EduSolidarity postings, started by Stephen Lazar and supported by an incredible group of teachers.]
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Michelle Rhee: Why StudentsFirst Supports Teachers' Right to Collective Bargaining
Christal Watts: Why I Proudly Belong to a Union
Congratulations on being named founding Principal of the Science Leadership Academy and results you have achieved. Apple computers has a lot of nice things to say about you on their web-site:
http://www.apple.com/education/profiles/science-leadership-academy/
Hoping you could share some thoughts on what teachers unions and school districts should consider
when comparing an Apple platform to a Microsoft platform.
Do you see a time in the near future when teachers unions will have access to the tools you are using to help your students?
Any links for supporting teachers and their unions on bringing about the reforms you have implemented?
I'll concede that teachers unions are necessary to protect teachers rights. But that should not mean that the rights of children, parents and the taxpayers footing the bill are subordinate to theirs. Or that they get to enjoy a posiiton in which their every stance and deed are unquestioned.
This debate in this country is happening now because there is a deep sentiment that unions have run roughshod and accumulated too much at the expense of students, parents and taxpayers.
Teachers should not be super-glued to their jobs. They should not be fired arbitrarily but they should not be afforded a due process on steroids.
Teaching is an important job. It should be paid as such. But when they are being paid more than most to put in a shorter year than most, salary complaints work that last nerve.
Teachers deserve a secure retirement but it shouldn't bankrkupt those who will never see a secure retirement without great personal sacrifices.
Teachers are not exempt from sharing the pain of a troubled times. The CTU's conduct last year when it spit in the eyes of the taxpayers was unfrogiveable and disgraceful.
Invoking the harm to children that Union demands may do is not cheap. It brings the debate in the right context.
Disrespecting teachers is just as bad as disrespecting police and firemen. (Remember how Obama had to apologize to the cops in Boston and have a beer summit). Teachers and all union members should tell the real story and control the message. It is not about education; it is about union busting and cutting middle class wages and benefits.
Yes, policy makers SHOULD have to work with teachers, not against them, when deciding how to run schools. But many politicians are finding that they don't actually have to do so. They're running roughshod over the unions, to the detriment of teachers and kids alike.
I can assure you that in my district we have administrators who like to make decisions about what and how we do our jobs, though in many instances they have NOT done OUR job, though they have done A teacher job at sometime. We get bad decisions that affect our ability to do our jobs effectively when the people who do the jobs are not part, an important, part of the decision process. There are nuances in every job that an outsider may be unaware of, so decisions that do not factor in nuances are bad decisions that affect students, not to mention teachers as well.
I bring this up because this happened in my teaching situation a year ago when a well-meaning (I think) district administrator who was formerly an elementary general ed. teacher, then elementary principal, made a unilateral decision on behalf of the high school special education teachers. There was just so much she didn't know, but she was adamant.
If the anti-education narrative about how powerful the union is, how impossible it is to get any "reform" pushed through because of union resistance, was true, we'd be in much better shape as a nation. But it's not.
ITA. Most of the work that my union does is about improving working conditions. No strong-arming, like you see in most blue-collar unions.
Given the generally negative and very misleading portrayal of teachers' unions in most media, I'm increasingly dubious as to whether blue-collar unions are as bad as the media would have us believe. But regardless of that, the teachers' unions are a generally positive force in education, though one with less power than it should have.