Add to favorites Examiner Bio

Teacher unions and the education reform

Everyone who is thinking about a real education reform has to consider the teacher unions. There are two major ones: The American Federation of Teachers, and the National Education Association, and I encourage people to read the union’s own sites and publications. If you are faithful member of one of the two political parties, you probably have an opinion already. Let me try to summarize, simplifying by necessity:

If you are Republican, you probably believe that the unions are selfish, that they protect incompetent teachers, and use threats of strikes to negotiate ever-better contracts. The teacher unions are the enemy of accountability, merit pay, school improvements, and are the major reason for faltering education reform. The solution is to defeat the unions, to make education competitive, leaner and smarter.

If you are a Democrat, your opinion would depend on which faction you belong to. There is a serious split on education: more traditional labor-oriented Dems believe the unions are actually the key advocate of education reform. The solution is in improving teachers’ working conditions, giving teachers real voice in running school and districts, attracting better people through higher salaries and job security, providing meaningful training and support to young teachers, and introducing well-designed merit programs.

Now, if you’re a centrist Democrat, you’re growing more and more frustrated with the teacher unions. You may still believe in increasing public support for public education, but want the unions to embrace accountability, to rid itself of poorly performing teachers, allow for serious merit pay schemes, and to endorse alternatives such as charter schools. You would also demand that the unions accept more alternative routes to teacher certification.

Of course, there are more nuances, and many more positions and factions, especially among the Democrats. However, this is the basic outline of the positions. What really complicates the picture is the political considerations. Both unions support Democrats, with votes and with a lot of cash. So, when attending to the debates about the unions, always keep in mind, who is talking, and what political agenda they have in mind. Anything that weakens the unions would be pleasing to a Republican, and suspicious to a Democrat. But we cannot play political games forever, because our schooling does need a reform.

Here is my attempt at a balanced view of the unions. I agree with the union leaders that no one can hire and fire their way to a meaningful reform. Teaching is a massive profession, and when someone like Michelle Rhee is able to attract the best teachers, it simply means some neighboring districts lose those best teachers. Blaming teachers for poor performance of students ignores the fact that teachers are only a part of the equation. Students need to want to learn, and have resources and opportunities to learn. However, the unions absolutely need to devise a system where their members who stopped working and stopped trying long ago are fired. They also need to allow excellence to be rewarded. This is something labor unions with their values of equity and fairness have a hard time to embrace. Yet education is not manufacturing – it is about excellence, about talent and ability.

It is important that teachers have a real voice in the reform. Unfortunately, in most places, they are treated not like professionals, but like timecard-punching employees. And very often, teachers learn to behave like industrial workers. This has to change, but the union members have to learn to be tough on each other, to maintain professional standards and ethics, to embrace new ideas and creative thinking. There is just too much inertia, and too much conservatism in the unions. Here would be a good place to mention that not all unions are the same. The national organizations are really federations of state and local organizations, each with significant autonomy. But nevertheless – just read those websites linked above. Even when they embrace reform, and call for change – it is without much spark or conviction.

Both of the teacher unions have distinguished history of being on the right side of the history. They struggled for the rights of working women, against racism and discrimination. They were always deeply involved in whatever the education issues of the day. However, I can’t help but conclude that they were unable to articulate a compelling position with respect to the new challenges of mass education, accountability and raising costs of schooling. There is just no clear message or a clear vision. They seem to believe that incremental improvement of the existing education system will solve its problems. More and more people have a hard time believing it. The teacher unions should not repeat the errors of the autoworkers: the struggle for your rights, but make sure you do not take the entire industry with you. Refuse to change, and you can lose everything.

K-12 education can only be significantly improved if we reconsider the economic foundations of our education system. For example, I believe we should start paying students directly for learning. Those who want and need help, would pay part of their earnings to schools, individual teachers, or to anyone who can help. This would put an end to schooling as we know it.

If we to try the pay-to-learn route, market will force the teaching force to shrink significantly. Any efficiency gains in education are only possible if more learning per unit of input is produced. Teacher payrolls are the largest component of educational spending. To be exact, in 2005/06, American schools paid 262 billion in salaries and benefits, out of 449.6 of total expenditures on K-12 education. No reform will be successful without reducing the number of teachers. Even if one finds flaws with my pay-to-learn proposal, any alternative must still provide for a reduction of the teacher force. Since increasing class sizes or reducing salaries do not seem to be viable alternatives, some other mechanism should be shown to increase the overall teacher to student ratio. In my view, this can be done only if students significantly intensify their own effort, and if they teach themselves at least partially. In other words, students should require less teaching.

Teaching must stop being a wholesale operation, and instead become flexible, on-demand and right-on-time service. Teaching will become a service profession; only those who need and want teaching will receive it, those who can learn on their own will be left alone. Expert teachers will set up private practices, just like accountants and doctors do, work for a larger commercial school, or form smaller teaching firms. A former teacher and a teacher educator for over a decade, I would be sad to see the feisty communities of teachers dissolve, and their numbers decrease. At the same time, I am looking forward to seeing teacher millionaires and teacher entrepreneurs, a leaner and stronger group of well-educated, independent professionals. I would like to witness an end to the tremendous turnover of teachers, increased competition in the profession, and more selectivity in teacher education schools. Teachers’ self-respect will improve, if they are relieved from the shameful obligation to impose their services on many unwilling clients. Their political influence may eventually rise. As one may see, political strength is not necessarily in numbers. Much smaller, but better organized and more independent professions such as lawyers and doctors exert political influence comparable to that of the multi-million member teacher unions.

The new market-based economy of learning will produce larger demand on other education-related occupations, and many teachers will need to retrain to enter those. For example, the national network of testing centers will need staff. While the same or better amount of knowledge can be produced with a much leaner teaching force, public will demand more and more sophisticated assessment to prove that learners are paid only if they show strong evidence of learning. New curriculum units will need to be constantly developed, supplemented by study guides and tests. Therefore, we will need many more curriculum developers and assessment specialists.

Students will have to answer one entirely new question: What kind of learner am I, and what kind of teaching or coaching do I need? If people are put in charge of their own learning, they will need to figure out what does and does not work for them as learners. Massive questioning will undoubtedly spur the growth of educational consultants, coaches, and diagnosticians. Will the unions be ready to face the new world?