Its in their DNA Bailey said. They cant help themselves."
Tracey Bailey and I were discussing teacher unions and their seeming drive to politicize education with partisan endorsements and controversial social issues. He is Director of Educational Policy for the Association of American Educators and was National Teacher of the Year in 1993; is extraordinarily articulate and his command of his subject has enabled him to testify for the AAE before Congressional committees. We talked while he drove south on Interstate 95 and I hunched over my keyboard in Phoenix balancing a portable phone on my shoulder. I was trying to understand the differences between the NEA and AFT on the one hand and the regional teacher associations on the other for which the AAE is a national umbrella.
The big turning point was in the early seventies Bailey said. Before that time the NEA had been more loosely organized and a teacher could belong to a local organization not affiliated with the national. When the American Federation of Teachers suddenly began drawing members away from the NEA it took a more assertive approach to organizing.
The trigger really was what happened to the dues a teacher paid changing to what was called unified dues. This meant that like it or not a large portion of your local dues would go to the national teacher union.
There were waves of revolt about that. Among teachers you have many independent thinkers and many in Right-to-Work states decided to do something about this affront to their independence. In some cases huge numbers said Were not going to pay to your national union dues. We dont want our money going to Washington DC! In Missouri the entire state organization disaffiliated from the NEA en masse. In some states now the independent associations are 2 or 3 times bigger than NEA." Bailey placed this turning point in the context of overall union membership.
How many American workers were in unions in the 1930s? he asked me. I had no idea. It was probably about 80 or higher in that industrial age he said. And how many public employees were in unions? I didnt think there were any.
Right he said it was against the law then. But how much of the US workforce now is in unions?"
I estimated 11 which he affirmed. Depending on how you calculate it he said it could be anywhere between 8-12.
But how many employees in the public sector are in unions now?" he asked.
The number was big I knew but had no idea that it was 80 or higher.
As our society has changed union membership has remained flat. In the private sector workers unions have declined while the public sector unions pick up a few more and overall the membership is steady maybe up or down a percentage point from year to year. The NEA is the single largest union in the country but its not growing while independent teacher associations are growing 10 annually.
So what is it that attracts people to the independent teacher associations over the unions? I asked.
Now I dont want this to seem critical of many great teachers who are members of a union but from my perspective I see many of them just putting up with it. Many experienced teachers have said to me Ive been in the union for twenty years but no more. They no longer represent what I believe in."
What does the union do that they dont believe in?" I asked.
There are three main problems" Bailey said. The first is that the unions spend their members money and the unions staff time on partisan politics. Remember that teachers as a group reflect the makeup of the general population. Some lean conservative and some liberal. So by endorsing or contributing primarily to just one party and having their staff support those candidates the unions alienate almost 50 of their members every election cycle.
Secondly teachers pay between $500 and $1000 annually in union dues with $750 a good average. This is a lot of money to a teacher so they notice what its used for. Yet because of that social activist DNA among union leaders they cannot help themselves from taking stands on issues that bear no direct relation whatsoever to teaching and the classroom. How does your unions political position on abortion or gay marriage affect how well you teach your subject or how well you are compensated? Too often teachers see their union dues going to sheer political activity reflecting neither their classroom priorities nor their personal beliefs.
Finally when we ask new members of our association what they like most about it they tell us they like the updates and the newsletters and so on but the primary thing is that they get twice the legal and liability coverage. They want help in the classroom and they want to know whats happening in their profession that might affect them. We spend our resources on these things that matter most to teachers and they notice it."
I wanted to know how membership in a union versus an association might influence how a teacher then affected students. Bailey reframed my question.
Start with the impact on the teachers themselves. Once I was giving a workshop in a school where the teachers were just great and we were staying after school talking about teaching and sharing ideas. Unfortunately the union stepped in and said that we couldnt do that. We had to leave the school because we werent permitted to have the building open any later under their union contract without prior approval. Think how that limits the most productive and creative teachers when they arent permitted to do things a little differently or when the union contract and the bureaucracy make it harder for them to do what they know is best for kids." Instead of union contract issues our primary question is How is this helping the child?
Acknowledging that this was just one example with generalizations involved he explained how industrial union attitudes about such things as piece work hourly rates and shop stewards were out of step with professional teaching. I grew up in construction and I know what thats about" Bailey said but thats not what professional teachers are like. Were more like doctors and lawyers and scientists. Our focus is on doing the best job we can for the people we serve. Our respect for doctors is not due to their being in a union. I tell teachers all the time that lawyers doctors and scientists do not achieve their compensation or respect as professionals through union representation or collective bargaining.
I taught in Florida where the legislature decided to reward entire schools with $100 a child if the school made sufficient academic progress. From the legislatures point of view it wasnt that much money but in a school with 2000 students this was $200000 for teachers to work with and the faculty got to vote on how to use the money. Did we want more copy machines or higher salaries? Usually we voted for a combination of things. Then the union sued the state asserting that You dont have a right to give extra money like that unless it comes through the union bargaining contract.
If your genuine concern is How is the child doing? then that union position is indefensible. Its worshipping the bargaining contract instead of what benefits both teachers and students. Furthermore it shows the difference in mindset between true professionals and some union leaders. When you pursue a principle like that and exclude all other reasonable principles how can you say youre a professional?"
Somebody told me once that there are three types of people in all organizations including schools: speedboats barges and rocks. The speedboats dash around and want to make changes and want to innovate. The barges arent bad either. They consistently carry a heavy load and are great as long as they can go straight ahead though it can be hard to get them to change direction. But the rocks well the rocks are bound to cause a lot of damage."
I couldnt help but think about the rocks Ive known. One of them made my sons primary grade years miserable. Others would rather see students funneled to juvenile justice than meet their needs in schools. Another humiliates students so they hate coming to school. Last week I welcomed seeing the problem posed in the August 31 issue of The New Yorker The Rubber Room: The Battle Over New York Citys Worst Teachers by Stephen Brill detailing how the union defends incompetent teachers.
I was curious how the historical origin of unions would play out under an association. Since unions arose because employers took advantage of workers vulnerability with unfair pay and working conditions I wondered how that issue might play out.
There are several angles Bailey said. Were working now within a system that began a hundred years ago when young women had far fewer occupational choicesusually a nurse teacher secretary or housewife. Their salaries were abysmally low and often considered less important because viewed as a supplemental second income for their familytalk about gender discrimination! Now their options have expanded greatly. They can be astronauts or brain surgeons but teacher salaries and benefits still have not caught up with other professionals.
Regarding salaries and the difference in teacher representation between unions and professional organizations Bailey said let me give you a personal experience that stands out in my memory. Id been named Teacher of the Year for the State of Florida and had a chance to meet several Teachers of the Year from other states. Three were from Georgia all members of the Professional Association of Georgia EducatorsPAGE. Georgia is one of the states where the independent association with over 75000 members is far larger than the NEA state affiliate.
They were consummate professionals and told me how PAGE had taken the lead in approaching the Governor about teacher salaries. Theyd offered accountability a willingness to do new things and expected to be compensated as professionals for that. They knew what was wanted and stepped up to the plate and in four years in increments of about 6 percent each year Georgia teachers salaries went up almost 24 percent. This was not only a more professional approach but demonstrated to me that it could reap great rewards for teachers.
Once a contract is formalized and the school year begins the AAEs main concern is implementing it and helping teachers in the classroom. They inform teachers about laws and policies that affect them help resolve classroom problems and insure that policies are implemented correctlythat both sides play by the rules. For what most teachers say they really want from a union or an associationlegal and liability insurancethe AAE offers twice the coverage of most union policies $2 million per member per incident.
A common confusion in union-oriented states Bailey explained is the assumption that the union can force a teacher to be a member. Nobody can force you to be a member of a private organization you dont want to belong to. The union is a private organization similar to a church in many ways. You would never tolerate anyone requiring you to belong to a church and pay tithes to teach in a public school! Unions may give the impression that they can force you to be a member but they cant.
In the vast majority of states teachers can choose whatever association or union they want to belong to but in a diminishing number about 18 now unions can still require a compulsory bargaining representation fee. Even then a teacher can demand a rebate of around $100 to $150 of it and for a religious objection have their entire years dues be redirected to an independent third-party charity. These are protected rights under state and federal law. Independent professional teacher groups can get started and sometimes decertify the union as the bargaining unit.
For an individual teacher Id just suggest that you know your rights Bailey concluded that you dont need to join a teachers union no matter what anyone tells you. Join the organization that best represents your needs and your personal beliefs and that most resembles your view of teaching as a profession.
John Jensen is a licensed clinical psychologist and author of The Silver Bullet Easy Learning System: How to Change Classrooms Fast and Energize Students for Success (Xlibris 2008). He can be reached at jjensen@gci.net.
Its in their DNA Bailey said. They cant help themselves."
Tracey Bailey and I were discussing teacher unions and their seeming drive to politicize education with partisan endorsements and controversial social issues. He is Director of Educational Policy for the Association of American Educators and was National Teacher of the Year in 1993; is extraordinarily articulate and his command of his subject has enabled him to testify for the AAE before Congressional committees. We talked while he drove south on Interstate 95 and I hunched over my keyboard in Phoenix balancing a portable phone on my shoulder. I was trying to understand the differences between the NEA and AFT on the one hand and the regional teacher associations on the other for which the AAE is a national umbrella.
The big turning point was in the early seventies Bailey said. Before that time the NEA had been more loosely organized and a teacher could belong to a local organization not affiliated with the national. When the American Federation of Teachers suddenly began drawing members away from the NEA it took a more assertive approach to organizing.
The trigger really was what happened to the dues a teacher paid changing to what was called unified dues. This meant that like it or not a large portion of your local dues would go to the national teacher union.
There were waves of revolt about that. Among teachers you have many independent thinkers and many in Right-to-Work states decided to do something about this affront to their independence. In some cases huge numbers said Were not going to pay to your national union dues. We dont want our money going to Washington DC! In Missouri the entire state organization disaffiliated from the NEA en masse. In some states now the independent associations are 2 or 3 times bigger than NEA." Bailey placed this turning point in the context of overall union membership.
How many American workers were in unions in the 1930s? he asked me. I had no idea. It was probably about 80 or higher in that industrial age he said. And how many public employees were in unions? I didnt think there were any.
Right he said it was against the law then. But how much of the US workforce now is in unions?"
I estimated 11 which he affirmed. Depending on how you calculate it he said it could be anywhere between 8-12.
But how many employees in the public sector are in unions now?" he asked.
The number was big I knew but had no idea that it was 80 or higher.
As our society has changed union membership has remained flat. In the private sector workers unions have declined while the public sector unions pick up a few more and overall the membership is steady maybe up or down a percentage point from year to year. The NEA is the single largest union in the country but its not growing while independent teacher associations are growing 10 annually.
So what is it that attracts people to the independent teacher associations over the unions? I asked.
Now I dont want this to seem critical of many great teachers who are members of a union but from my perspective I see many of them just putting up with it. Many experienced teachers have said to me Ive been in the union for twenty years but no more. They no longer represent what I believe in."
What does the union do that they dont believe in?" I asked.
There are three main problems" Bailey said. The first is that the unions spend their members money and the unions staff time on partisan politics. Remember that teachers as a group reflect the makeup of the general population. Some lean conservative and some liberal. So by endorsing or contributing primarily to just one party and having their staff support those candidates the unions alienate almost 50 of their members every election cycle.
Secondly teachers pay between $500 and $1000 annually in union dues with $750 a good average. This is a lot of money to a teacher so they notice what its used for. Yet because of that social activist DNA among union leaders they cannot help themselves from taking stands on issues that bear no direct relation whatsoever to teaching and the classroom. How does your unions political position on abortion or gay marriage affect how well you teach your subject or how well you are compensated? Too often teachers see their union dues going to sheer political activity reflecting neither their classroom priorities nor their personal beliefs.
Finally when we ask new members of our association what they like most about it they tell us they like the updates and the newsletters and so on but the primary thing is that they get twice the legal and liability coverage. They want help in the classroom and they want to know whats happening in their profession that might affect them. We spend our resources on these things that matter most to teachers and they notice it."
I wanted to know how membership in a union versus an association might influence how a teacher then affected students. Bailey reframed my question.
Start with the impact on the teachers themselves. Once I was giving a workshop in a school where the teachers were just great and we were staying after school talking about teaching and sharing ideas. Unfortunately the union stepped in and said that we couldnt do that. We had to leave the school because we werent permitted to have the building open any later under their union contract without prior approval. Think how that limits the most productive and creative teachers when they arent permitted to do things a little differently or when the union contract and the bureaucracy make it harder for them to do what they know is best for kids." Instead of union contract issues our primary question is How is this helping the child?
Acknowledging that this was just one example with generalizations involved he explained how industrial union attitudes about such things as piece work hourly rates and shop stewards were out of step with professional teaching. I grew up in construction and I know what thats about" Bailey said but thats not what professional teachers are like. Were more like doctors and lawyers and scientists. Our focus is on doing the best job we can for the people we serve. Our respect for doctors is not due to their being in a union. I tell teachers all the time that lawyers doctors and scientists do not achieve their compensation or respect as professionals through union representation or collective bargaining.
I taught in Florida where the legislature decided to reward entire schools with $100 a child if the school made sufficient academic progress. From the legislatures point of view it wasnt that much money but in a school with 2000 students this was $200000 for teachers to work with and the faculty got to vote on how to use the money. Did we want more copy machines or higher salaries? Usually we voted for a combination of things. Then the union sued the state asserting that You dont have a right to give extra money like that unless it comes through the union bargaining contract.
If your genuine concern is How is the child doing? then that union position is indefensible. Its worshipping the bargaining contract instead of what benefits both teachers and students. Furthermore it shows the difference in mindset between true professionals and some union leaders. When you pursue a principle like that and exclude all other reasonable principles how can you say youre a professional?"
Somebody told me once that there are three types of people in all organizations including schools: speedboats barges and rocks. The speedboats dash around and want to make changes and want to innovate. The barges arent bad either. They consistently carry a heavy load and are great as long as they can go straight ahead though it can be hard to get them to change direction. But the rocks well the rocks are bound to cause a lot of damage."
I couldnt help but think about the rocks Ive known. One of them made my sons primary grade years miserable. Others would rather see students funneled to juvenile justice than meet their needs in schools. Another humiliates students so they hate coming to school. Last week I welcomed seeing the problem posed in the August 31 issue of The New Yorker The Rubber Room: The Battle Over New York Citys Worst Teachers by Stephen Brill detailing how the union defends incompetent teachers.
I was curious how the historical origin of unions would play out under an association. Since unions arose because employers took advantage of workers vulnerability with unfair pay and working conditions I wondered how that issue might play out.
There are several angles Bailey said. Were working now within a system that began a hundred years ago when young women had far fewer occupational choicesusually a nurse teacher secretary or housewife. Their salaries were abysmally low and often considered less important because viewed as a supplemental second income for their familytalk about gender discrimination! Now their options have expanded greatly. They can be astronauts or brain surgeons but teacher salaries and benefits still have not caught up with other professionals.
Regarding salaries and the difference in teacher representation between unions and professional organizations Bailey said let me give you a personal experience that stands out in my memory. Id been named Teacher of the Year for the State of Florida and had a chance to meet several Teachers of the Year from other states. Three were from Georgia all members of the Professional Association of Georgia EducatorsPAGE. Georgia is one of the states where the independent association with over 75000 members is far larger than the NEA state affiliate.
They were consummate professionals and told me how PAGE had taken the lead in approaching the Governor about teacher salaries. Theyd offered accountability a willingness to do new things and expected to be compensated as professionals for that. They knew what was wanted and stepped up to the plate and in four years in increments of about 6 percent each year Georgia teachers salaries went up almost 24 percent. This was not only a more professional approach but demonstrated to me that it could reap great rewards for teachers.
Once a contract is formalized and the school year begins the AAEs main concern is implementing it and helping teachers in the classroom. They inform teachers about laws and policies that affect them help resolve classroom problems and insure that policies are implemented correctlythat both sides play by the rules. For what most teachers say they really want from a union or an associationlegal and liability insurancethe AAE offers twice the coverage of most union policies $2 million per member per incident.
A common confusion in union-oriented states Bailey explained is the assumption that the union can force a teacher to be a member. Nobody can force you to be a member of a private organization you dont want to belong to. The union is a private organization similar to a church in many ways. You would never tolerate anyone requiring you to belong to a church and pay tithes to teach in a public school! Unions may give the impression that they can force you to be a member but they cant.
In the vast majority of states teachers can choose whatever association or union they want to belong to but in a diminishing number about 18 now unions can still require a compulsory bargaining representation fee. Even then a teacher can demand a rebate of around $100 to $150 of it and for a religious objection have their entire years dues be redirected to an independent third-party charity. These are protected rights under state and federal law. Independent professional teacher groups can get started and sometimes decertify the union as the bargaining unit.
For an individual teacher Id just suggest that you know your rights Bailey concluded that you dont need to join a teachers union no matter what anyone tells you. Join the organization that best represents your needs and your personal beliefs and that most resembles your view of teaching as a profession.
John Jensen is a licensed clinical psychologist and author of The Silver Bullet Easy Learning System: How to Change Classrooms Fast and Energize Students for Success (Xlibris 2008). He can be reached at jjensen@gci.net.
