I am anxious to see the results of the Washington Teacher's Union vote on the new contract proposed by Chancellor Rhee. Basically it boils down to a significant pay increase for teachers who make significant strides with their students and agree to trade in their tenure (please feel free to correct me if you think I am inaccurate). I love the idea because it is something new, daring, innovative, and I think it challenges the teacher unions in a good way. Pressing for results while stripping people of their entitlement status to a job in the classroom because of years of service.
I was a strong supporter of unions a few years ago, but I watched for two years as the WTU protected a teacher in my former school, fighting for this man to keep his job when he arrived to school late on a regular basis, when he wasn't late he wasn't there, didn't provide lessons for his students, and was accused of three separate incidents of physical abuse of students, one of which he admitted to in a conversation with me. After all of that, he was still employed by the district, still received a paycheck until he finally left the school. When I caught up with him months later, not knowing he was no longer working at the school, I asked what happened and he said, "I just stopped going in."
The bottom line for me is this-unions are designed and work for adults. The union protects the interests of adults at the detriment of student learning. So many of us have witnessed it ourselves-teachers refusing to do work that would help a child or the school as a whole because it is "not in my contract." Teachers leaving the school at 3:15 on the dot regularly, their classes packed up and students ready to walk out the door five minutes before school is over. I think the unions give a bad name to the many teachers who work hard everyday, stay late, arrive early, dedicate their days, nights, and weekends to the achievement and development of their students only to see school wide success held back by the few who live by the union contract.
Jo-Ann Armao recently asked the question 'Is the public turning against teacher unions?" in this piece in the post. I would really like to hear what people think. I am very open to hearing ideas and explanations as to why unions are needed for teachers and the counterpoints to the ideas I presented.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Why hello. What an interesting and insightful blog this is. My thoughts are:
ReplyDelete1. I agree that historically the union has been counter-productive for kids.
2. However, I think teachers need some collective organization that can protect them from shenanigans such as DCPS pretending of have a budget deficit, riffing teachers, then magically procuring money for a raise.
3. None of us, or people we know, ever attempted to involve ourselves in the union. Perhaps if the union doesn't reflect the interests of many of us, we should instead involve ourselves in trying to make the union better, rather than abandoning the union.