By Larry Sand -
LOS ANGELES – Last week, Nathan Saunders, president of the Washington Teachers Union, announced his intention to push for legislation that would force charter school teachers in the nation’s capital to become unionized.
(Charter schools are public schools that can bypass certain rules and regulations — including union contacts — if they can produce certain prespecified results.) As things stand now in D.C., unlike their traditional public school brethren, charter school teachers don’t have to join the union. But according to Saunders,
his members are concerned they will lose their union-negotiated contracts when DCPS closes some of its campuses next fall and teachers look to charter schools for jobs. The school system recommended Tuesday that 20 schools close at least temporarily and consolidate with other traditional neighborhood schools.
The 20 schools that are closing are doing so because they are bad enough for parents to want to send their kids elsewhere…like to charter schools. Therein lies the problem for Mr. Saunders: 41 percent of kids in D.C. presently attend these innovative schools and fewer unionized teachers mean less money and power for the American Federation of Teachers local. Clearly, Saunders needs the legislation to force charter school teachers to join his union because he knows that most of them don’t want to. (Nationally, only about 12 percent of charter school teachers belong to a union.)
In fact, the main reason teachers go to work in charter schools is that they like the freedom that these schools offer… including freedom from top-down restrictive union contracts that dictate a teacher’s every move. (D.C. teachers are lucky; their contract is “only” 114 pages long. In Los Angeles, the union contract weighs in at a flatulent 349 pages.) Also, as Stanford Professor Terry Moe has pointed out, a union dominated school system often ignores the needs of children. And considering that on the latest 4th grade NAEP math test, D.C kids came in dead last in the country, maybe we need to pay more attention to them.
In this brief video put out by the California Charter School Association, we hear teachers explain why they like to teach in a less restrictive setting:
- I feel like an innovator.
- We have more freedom and can be more creative.
- We can be places that empower teachers.
- Charters are the result of people saying, “This isn’t working; we want to try something different.”
While Saunders’ motivation is obvious, his success is anything but a slam dunk. As Emma Brown in the Washington Post reported, changing the law
…would require approval from the D.C. Council and Congress, which seems politically unlikely given a Republican-led House with little interest in helping teachers unions grow and strong bipartisan support for charter schools.
“I don’t see how it could be a worse idea, and it’s not going anyplace because the Congress will never approve it,” said Robert Cane, executive director of the pro-charter Friends of Choice in Urban Schools.
The freedom to employ non-unionized teachers is part of what sets the charter movement apart from the traditional school system, Cane said.
Additionally, in response to the comment by Saunders that the union is “prepared to dedicate significant resources” to changing the law, Mike Antonucci wrote,
That would be pretty scary if a) WTU had significant resources; b) charter schools didn’t have bipartisan support; and c) Republicans didn’t control the U.S. House of Representatives.
Whether he is successful or not, Saunders’ quest highlights the unfairness and un-American nature of forced unionism that exists in 27 states and D.C. Interestingly, teacher union leaders are always telling its members how much they have done for them. But have they? To that end, I have asked many union supporters in non-right to work states over the years the following question:
“If unions are so good for teachers, why must you force them to join?”
I’m still waiting for an answer.
Larry Sand, a former classroom teacher, is the president of the non-profit California Teachers Empowerment Network – a non-partisan, non-political group dedicated to providing teachers with reliable and balanced information about professional affiliations and positions on educational issues.
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November 26, 2012 at 7:56 AM
Simply ridiculous. I am a member of CTA, part of NEA, and my local union subsidiary. What a pile of rubbish. My union has nothing whatsoever to say to me about how, when, where I do my job. My union does not interfere with my choice to take work home, help students after school, visit my classroom on the weekend to work… This is a LIE.
My union negotiates working conditions with administration that preserve my right to be a professional teacher in my classroom w/o having my every move DICTATED by administration. They protect my ability to use my professional judgement by agreeing to days/times the administration can mandate meetings, etc. They offer small protections against “arbitrary” moves and changes coming from administration, though really very little here (my classroom has been moved 6 times in 6 years, for various reasons and represents easily a week of my time packing, moving, unpacking and setting up anew). Yes, there are pages in the contract agreement, all of which clarifies the rules by which administration plays with us, like a constitution does for a government, it sets up a playbook so everyone is clear about how things are to be done. My union does not now, nor has it ever restricted me in anyway. Without my union, I would most likely be subjected to a greater likelihood of whimsical administrative behaviors and choices, and the rules by which we operate would be vague or nonexistant.
Yes, some teachers don’t like unions, and usually these are the folks who have a bias against unions. Charter schools, on the average, are no better than school district schools, and are rarely hotbeds of innovation.
My sister teaches in one, and she tends to be less sympathetic toward unions, however she has lamented that teachers are let go for reasons that are not apparent (teachers in question were not bad teachers, etc.) and she has worried, to me, on several occasions that she might be arbitrarily let go one day herself as she is one of the older teachers on staff and earns a salary above the mean. A union would not allow this.
November 26, 2012 at 2:54 PM
@ Teacher with a brain- Your response was excellent, but I’d take this article with a large grain of salt. Jimmy has to meet his quota of b.s. he must publish from anti-union sources, like the Orwellian-named California Teachers Empowerment Network (CTEN). I realize there are a lot of dense folks out there, but clearly few who have taught for any length of time would buy this particular crock.
I suppose we are to believe Mr. Sand has the slightest idea of what is going on in schools 3,000 miles away from California even though he provides no indication he ever set foot in a DC public or charter school.. Looks more like he’s just cashing in on the Right wing money that goes to just about anyone who is willing to create an anti-union astroturf group or an anti-union website. Hey, the guy has to earn a living. So why Sand, who obviously has no expertise in his subject? Maybe Kyle Olson was unavailable (perhaps back home for the holidays lying to his relatives about finally EARNING a living.) My guess is that Sand wasn’t much of a teacher. He certainly isn’t a particularly good liar, given that he claims the CTEN is “non-political.” Maybe he’s a satirist. If so, it looks like he needs more practice.
November 26, 2012 at 3:51 PM
BTW- If anyone is actually curious, they can go to the link in to the DC teachers’ collective bargaining agreement kindly provided by Mr. Sand. As you will see, there is nothing in the contract that stifles an individual teacher’s creativity. Here’s the table of contents:
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page No.
PREAMBLE 4
DEFINITIONS 5
ARTICLE 1 – RECOGNITION, OTHER ORGANIZATIONS AND
DUES DEDUCTION
8
ARTICLE 2 – QUALITY EDUCATION 12
ARTICLE 3 – FAIR PRACTICES 24
ARTICLE 4 – TEACHER TRANSFER POLICY 25
ARTICLE 5 – PERSONNEL FILES 33
ARTICLE 6 – GRIEVANCE AND ARBITRATION 35
ARTICLE 7 – DISCIPLINE PROCEDURE 40
ARTICLE 8 – CHAPTER MEETINGS 45
ARTICLE 9 – CONSULTATION WITH SCHOOL CHAPTER
ADVISORY COMMITTEE
45
ARTICLE 10 – INFORMATION AVAILABLE TO THE WTU 46
ARTICLE 11 –TRANSPARENCY AND DISCLOSURE OF
INFORMATION
46
ARTICLE 12 – BULLETIN BOARDS 48
ARTICLE 13 – TEACHER PROMOTION POLICIES 48
ARTICLE 14 – DAMAGE OR LOSS OF PROPERTY 49
ARTICLE 15 – TEACHER EVALUATION 49
ARTICLE 16 – GENERAL PROVISIONS RELATING TO SCHOOL
OPERATIONS
50
ARTICLE 17 – LEAVE POLICIES 54
ARTICLE 18 – BEHAVIOR MANAGEMENT AND STUDENT
DISCIPLINE
60
ARTICLE 19 – REPORTING STUDENT PROGRESS 63
ARTICLE 20 – RELIEF FROM NON-TEACHING DUTIES 65
ARTICLE 21 – ADDITIONAL SCHOOL FACILITIES 66
ARTICLE 22 – STUDENT ACTIVITY FUND 67
ARTICLE 23 – POLICIES RELATING TO WORKING CONDITIONS
OF TEACHERS
68
ARTICLE 24 – AUXILIARY AND ANCILLARY SERVICES 83
3
ARTICLE 25 – SUPPLIES, EQUIPMENT, TEXTBOOKS,
TECHNOLOGY, AND RELATED EDUCATIONAL MATERIALS
88
ARTICLE 26 – SUPERVISORY RELATIONSHIPS 90
ARTICLE 27 – EXTRA DUTY PAY ACTIVITIES 90
ARTICLE 28 – PERSONAL AFFAIRS DURING NON-DUTY HOURS 92
ARTICLE 29 – SUMMER AND PART-TIME SCHOOLS AND
PROGRAMS
92
ARTICLE 30 – MEETINGS ON POLICY MATTERS 93
ARTICLE 31 – COPY OF AGREEMENT 93
ARTICLE 32 – TAX-SHELTERED ANNUITY 93
ARTICLE 33 – NO STRIKE CLAUSE 93
ARTICLE 34 – CONFORMITY TO LAW-SAVING CLAUSE 94
ARTICLE 35 – MATTERS NOT COVERED 94
ARTICLE 36 – COMPENSATION 94
ARTICLE 37 – BENEFITS 100
ARTICLE 38 – PAYMENT POLICIES 101
ARTICLE 39 – REDUCTION-IN-FORCE, ABOLISHMENT AND
FURLOUGH
102
ARTICLE 40 – SUFFICIENT FUNDS 103
ARTICLE 41 – AVERAGE TEACHER SALARY 103
ARTICLE 42 – DURATION OF AGREEMENT 104
FY 2008-2012 ET 15 SALARY SCHEDULE – ET15/10 (10 MONTH) 105
FY 2008-2012 ET 15 SALARY SCHEDULE – ET15/11 (11 MONTH) 107
FY 2008-2012 ET 15 SALARY SCHEDULE – ET15/12 (12 MONTH) 109
FY 2008-2012 ET 15 SALARY SCHEDULE – EG 09 111
If anything, the WTU contract mostly addresses compensation and working conditions. It attempts to provide some channels for input and job protections to teachers who are employed by a massive bureaucracy. Sand’s claim that: “In fact, the main reason teachers go to work in charter schools is that they like the freedom that these schools offer… including freedom from top-down restrictive union contracts that dictate a teacher’s every move” is unsupported by the actual terms of the DC Teachers’ contract. How does this contract “dictate a teacher’s every move?” Sands is purposely conflating the loss of autonomy that occurs when teachers work for a large urban bureaucracy with the effect of the union contract. Moreover, it is not at all clear that corporate EMOs provide teachers with more autonomy, especially those EMOs that use canned and scripted curricula. Another fact Sands conveniently ignores is the higher rates of teacher turnover in charters.
November 26, 2012 at 6:34 PM
There is absolutely nothing to keep those teachers from being hired at the charters while retaining their union membership — and even organizing their fellow teachers IF they wish to join the union. But what is unconscionable is to require charters to accept the same bloated contract that caused the failure of the closed schools in the first place — and to force membership on unwilling teachers.
November 27, 2012 at 7:54 AM
Placing the blame on the teachers’ union for school failure is foolish. To refute this, I invite you to visit the grand old South, were most teachers are NOT unionized and where we have a concentration of some of the lowest test scores in the country, along with poverty. Teachers’ unions have nothing to do with this.