The issue of unions
When I watched the video "Waiting for Superman" I posed some questions here that some friends whose opinion I value responded. This week's post is from my dear college friend Amy whom I haven't seen in too many years to count, but our connection of caring for our children and society remains strong. She has a Ph.D. in Counseing Psychology at Indiana University, Bloomington; a M.S. in Counseling Psychology at Northeastern University, Boston; and B.A. in Psychology at Cornell College. But more than the letters and experience in acadamia, she is a mother and a caring member of society. Amy's thoughts are in black; mine in red. (By the way, I am not a member of a union although I have been; I just don't see the personal need and I'd rather spend the $$ on the dues on something else. I come to this arguement with more questions than strong opinions)
Thoughts from Amy Kleiner, Ph.D:
For me, the film accomplished two things: 1) once again reminded me of the extraordinary privilege my family has-- privilege that is not earned, but that insures my children will never face failure the way hundreds of thousands of American children will; and 2) affirmed for me what I have already come to realize over the past year (while choosing a school for my first child): If we want to improve the quality of education in the United States, tenure for public school teachers and teachers unions must be abolished. Teachers unions are not for children, though I am certain the leaders of these unions believe that they are. The unions stand in the way of improving our education system and rewarding those teachers who are making a difference in the classroom. In NO OTHER ORGANIZATION in this country can you maintain your job if you fail to produce positive outcomes. Being a teacher is not a RIGHT-- it is an honored and privileged position. Unions should not protect the teacher’s “right” to be a teacher at the expense of our children’s future and our country’s global future. The best teachers should be rewarded and imitated. We should be learning from their craft. When the top teachers can cover 150% of the required curriculum during the year and the bottom teachers only cover 50% of the required curriculum; when just removing the bottom 6% of our nations teachers would bring our children’s achievement level to the highest in the world (up from the bottom 25% in the world which is where we are now); isn’t the answer clear? Reward, emulate, recreate what the best teachers are doing.
These are strong words and a part of me wants to agree, but there is still that feeling deep inside of me that believes too many people think teaching is a an easy job. Why is their such distrust between teachers and the general public? Why does the public expect extraordinary results and willing to give mediocre pay?
The issue of paying teachers is the double-edged sword in figuring out the complexity of whether or not unions are helpful, because in those states where unions are strong, pay is higher. Doesn't it seem logical that where pay for teachers are higher, the market is more competitive, meaning you'd have better classroom teachers? Also, I wonder....if we got all the bad teachers out across the country, are there enough people to fill those slots?
Remediate the bottom teachers and if they don’t improve, terminate them and replace them with better teachers. There are a lot of problems in our country that have no clear answers, but education is not one of them. The answer is crystal clear: to improve our education system, we must remove the barriers to student and school success, namely tenure and unions. Improve the schools’ ability to hire and maintain excellent teachers, reward those teachers with merit pay, allow them to share their craft with other aspiring master teachers, and our kids (and nation) will always come out ahead!
I agree with this wholeheartedly. However, what is to protect a teacher in the face of students and parents with personal vendettas. It happens...some people are crazy. A fellow teacher in a strong union state said it best when she said, "most of the careers/jobs do not have a constant spotlight of blame set on them as does the teaching profession." How can unions protect the profession of teachers without protecting the bad teachers? Believe me, I want the bad teachers out, too. But I have seen many, many, many more wonderful teachers than I have bad ones.
Selfishly, I think my profession will get more respect without tenure, but I sometimes feel we are comfortable with this overprotection. Shame on us.
Selfishly, I think my profession will get more respect without tenure, but I sometimes feel we are comfortable with this overprotection. Shame on us.
I only hope that my children continue to have the opportunity to learn from extraordinary teachers like Sarah Bates and other friends of ours who make a difference everyday through their compassion, commitment, and love of learning and teaching.
Thank you, Amy, but I am not extraordinary. If I devoted more hours in the day to it, maybe I would be. I just don't have (or make) the time as I have a very busy second shift. There are teachers out there who are giving an enormous amount of their free time to this profession and are extraordinary. I’m content to be a good teacher so I can spend my weekends trying to be a good Mom, or good wife, or good friend, or good church member, or stay in good health...the list goes on in my striving to balance my priorities with being good enough at all of them. Believe me, I'm not extraordinary or great at anything, but the words of Teddy Roosevelt, "Do what you can, with what you have, where you are," comfort me.
I wish I had a tidy little way to wrap this up, praise Amy's stance or give a clear opinion on what the problem is with "bad" teachers. I don't know, but I do know that until public education pundits or policy makers get a grasp on the big and small picture by taking a qualitative look at classrooms and classroom teachers across the country, I'm left with more questions than answers.
In the meantime, I'm doing all that I can to be the best teacher I can be with the resources I have. And I'm not trying hard because I have tenure or am protected by a union, but because as Amy said I am passionate about learning and I continue to seek meaningful learning experiences for my students, my own children and for myself.
Harrison here, Amy’s husband. I’ve been enjoying your conversation here Sarah (“Stacy”).
ReplyDeleteI don't think it is unions per se that are the problem, it is unions that have lost contact with the mission of a union. I am all for unions that retain a connection to their guild roots. Unions can be a great force of solidarity which is necessary for advancing worker rights and fair distribution of benefits. Many great goods have been won by the efforts of unions of various kinds (safe working conditions, fair hiring practices, etc etc). However the union model only works when the good of the union members is intimately connected with the common good. What Amy argues here (and I agree), is that this connection has been severed. What serves the good of the teachers’ union is no longer connected to the common good; in fact, it frequently frustrates the common good. Unions have become inward looking rather than outward looking. (I would make this argument about many different kinds of unions in this country, not just teachers’ unions).
I am skeptical of the claim that adequate protections for teachers cannot be found outside of union and tenure protections. (Disclaimer: I am a teacher, but I teach at the college level). I think everyone agrees that teachers need protection from personal vendetta campaigns. So what you need is some kind of adequate way of measuring teacher competence. Keep in mind here that the bar can be pretty low. We need not measure for teaching excellence, but for basic teaching competence. Adequate would do (see the statistic from the film and Amy’s post that cutting the bottom 6% would make an enormous impact). You need a system that roots out the worst teachers. This is not a difficult matter; we know who these teachers are (they are the ones getting traded from school to school or getting impounded in the NYC rubber rooms). The problem is not an inability to identify the really bad teachers, the problem is getting rid of them once they have been identified.
One more thought:
ReplyDeleteSarah is right, there is a distrust between teachers and the public. Perhaps people do think that teaching is an easy job. And, as a teacher, I am frustrated as anyone by the public’s demand for extraordinary work for mediocre compensation. (Amy would share that frustration … and if Utah State University admins wants to pay us more, they are welcome to do so!!).
But I don’t see how that undermines Amy’s point. You don’t have to think teaching is an easy job to think that people who are just awful at it should be let go after sincere efforts are made at improving the teacher’s competency. As Amy said, no one has a right to a particular job. If you suck at something, you tend to not last long doing it. But that “meritocracy” (which is in effect in every other industry I can think of) is undermined by protections like tenure (at least tenure as it is currently understood).
Harrison, Thanks so much for your comments. I'm so honored that someone of your depth enjoys a conversation with me! And, you are on deck for next week's post. So, what I wanted to say about the distrust is I feel like a bad teacher when I grade during class when kids are doing independent work during classtime because I don't take work home to do over the weekend. I wonder if most people know all that teachers are supposed to be doing and there are times you may walk into my classroom and say -- that is a bad teacher. Someone might think I'm a bad teacher when I spend my entire planning time trying to track kids down who have been sneaking behind my desk to steal candy, talking to them, letting them hear from our school resource officer (sherriff's deputy) because I want them to learn a lesson that will not be on a standardized test. I completely agree about people who are just awful at it should be let go and we all know who they are. If public school teaching were more of a meritocracy, I wonder if teachers would have more power to make decisions about what is best for all because we collectively would receive more respect.
ReplyDeleteDepth? You flatter, Sarah. Keep in mind I still sometimes laugh at flatulence.
ReplyDeleteHere is where college level teaching is so different. First of all, I never have administrators - much less parents! - peering over my shoulder and making judgments based on what they see one afternoon in class. Also, at the college level, teachers have almost total control over the design and content of their courses. With the exception of teaching as a graduate student, I have never had anyone tell me what I had to include in my courses. The basic approach my superiors have had with me is: 'You have proved your chops through the acquisition of advanced degrees so we trust that you are competent. Now go do what you want.' If someone is not competent or if they are just a lousy teacher, then there might be some kind of an intervention.
Perhaps if school teachers were and were considered to be competent top to bottom, they could be given more power to make decisions. Of course, most teachers are competent. But they are hamstrung by curricular controls set in place to control the damage caused by lousy teachers (hence the tyranny of “assessment” and testing). The assessment regime and top-down control of course content and design just sucks the life out of a teacher. But if you could assume competence, study after study shows that it is not pay that makes people work harder and do better. People work harder and better when they have opportunities for mastery and self-direction. I don't think elementary and secondary ed teachers have enough autonomy.
Maybe things need to change earlier down the line. Make college education programs more rigorous (sadly, education degree programs do not always have a reputation for the greatest rigor in the academe). That way you weed out weak links in the degree phase. Then trust teachers to be competent and give them lots of room for self-direction once they are in the classroom.
Follow this link for a cool animated lecture on what motivates us - not pay, but mastery and self-direction.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc