Local teachers join online panel discussing the pros and cons of teachers' unions

July 1, 5:26 PMNY Education ExaminerLorri Giovinco-Harte

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Mention the topic of teachers' unions and you are bound to elicit some very emotional responses.  There is perhaps no subject more volatile than that of their involvement in the school system. 

Over at Education Sector, member and facilitator Andrew Rotherham has compiled a panel of educators for the purpose of contributing to an online dialogue about the subject of teachers' unions.  The panel consists of  various educators from around the country who possess varying views about the role of unions.  Some of the members are from right here in New York City.  Here is the introduction from the site:

Welcome to Education Sector's online discussion of teachers' work and teachers unions. Last year, we released results from a survey of public school teachers, Waiting to Be Won Over: Teachers Speak on the Profession, Unions, and Reform, which revealed a mix of opinions about the role of unions in school reform. Teachers believe unions are essential, the survey found, particularly for safeguarding jobs. But the survey also found teachers to be surprisingly open to change, and to the idea that unions should drive rather than resist reform. So what does this mean for the future of teachers unions? To delve into this further, we have assembled a group of current and recent teachers from different kinds of schools, different parts of the country, and with different views on this question.

Briefly, they are, Laura Bornfreund, a former Florida teacher who now works for Common Core, an organization focused on the liberal arts in education; Julie Eisenband, a teacher and adviser at SAGE Academy Charter School in Brooklyn Park, Minn.; Arthur Goldstein, who teaches English as a Second Language at Francis Lewis High School in Queens, N.Y.; Caitlin Hollister, a third-grade teacher from Boston Public Schools; and Bruce William Smith from Green Dot Public Schools in Los Angeles. Education policy expert Paul T. Hill from the Center on Reinventing Public Education is also joining us to provided national context and to discuss research he has done on teachers unions and charter schools. (Panelist biographies here.)

To read the discussion or to post a question for the panelists, visit the Discussion Room over at Education Sector.