{"id":812,"date":"2010-06-02T00:24:00","date_gmt":"2010-06-02T04:24:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rjaharrison.com\/?p=812"},"modified":"2015-10-19T10:04:13","modified_gmt":"2015-10-19T14:04:13","slug":"is-pendulum-swinging-against-teachers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rjaharrison.com\/?p=812","title":{"rendered":"Is the pendulum swinging against teachers\u2019 unions? (Updated)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Steven Brill had a remarkable piece in the New York Times<\/i> a couple weeks ago on the rise of the education reformers<\/a>, folks like Wendy Kopp, the founder of Teach for America; I\u2019ve kept meaning to post on it in detail, and I just haven\u2019t had the time to dig into it that deeply. It seems like a remarkably honest piece about the state of our educational system and the reasons for its problems, including the fact that<\/p>\n

If unions are the Democratic Party\u2019s base, then teachers\u2019 unions are the base of the base. The two national teachers\u2019 unions\u2014the American Federation of Teachers and the larger National Education Association\u2014together have more than 4.6 million members. That is roughly a quarter of all the union members in the country. Teachers are the best field troops in local elections. Ten percent of the delegates to the 2008 Democratic National Convention were teachers\u2019 union members. In the last 30 years, the teachers\u2019 unions have contributed nearly $57.4 million to federal campaigns, an amount that is about 30 percent higher than any single corporation or other union. And they have typically contributed many times more to state and local candidates. About 95 percent of it has gone to Democrats.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This, of course, creates powerful political inertia\u2014and political inertia makes a virtue of incumbency and stifles change. There\u2019s no question that the teachers\u2019 unions did great things in the past, but in too many places, the pendulum has swung far too far in the other direction (as pendula will usually do).<\/p>\n

Part of that, on my observation, is that the unions are at least as much about the good of the union leadership as they are about the good of their membership. Certainly, they stand up to governments and school districts to defend their members\u2019 incomes and benefits; but do they stand up to parents and trial lawyers to defend their members\u2019 freedom to teach? The greatest threat to our teachers, it seems to me, is the erosion of their authority driven by our individualistic and litigious culture, and by the spineless failure of principals and other bureaucrats to back teachers who seek to assert that authority by enforcing real discipline; where are the unions in that struggle?<\/p>\n

Brill paints a hopeful picture, but this rests on his belief that \u201cthere is a new crop of Democratic politicians across the country . . . who seem willing to challenge the teachers\u2019 unions.\u201d I\u2019m not so sure about that; we\u2019ll see when push comes to shove, I suppose. There are certainly those who are willing to push the unions a bit and go beyond the \u201call we need is more money\u201d paradigm, including President Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan; but to really challenge<\/i> them? Well, we\u2019ll see if Mickey Kaus can win the California Senate primary next Tuesday.<\/a><\/p>\n