Education Today

Teacher Unions

Every rookie teacher enters the classroom naive. Whether you are a 22 year old just out of college or a 49 year old starting a second career, little if anything you learned in Teacher Credentialing Programs prepares you for managing an elementary classroom of 25 third graders all day long or six classes of 30-plus juniors in high school. But if you make it through a couple of years then you have developed some competency. Unfortunately, the classroom is not the only part of the educational game teachers show naivety.

First year teachers show up inspired. After all, they are part of a noble profession, looked upon fondly by the community, in possession of the moral high ground. Again, naive. Most quickly develop a healthy suspicion of administrators (see my blog post here) because their job depends on that evaluation done by the principals and vice-principals. In addition, they have been turned against administrators by veteran teachers in the dreaded teacher lounge where bitching about anything and everything is fair. Once tenured, teachers figure out that many administrators are just following orders, clueless, or flat out incompetent. The new teachers soon realize that school is not a place of professional bliss and is permeated by political maneuvering, parents and the community have more complaints than compliments, and that colleagues are not the epitome of moral professionalism.

The biggest shock to the new teacher is that their "teacher association" is not a club of professionals. The second or third week of school you get an ID card from your state organization (I live in California so will use CTA as an example). You feel kind of special standing there with your CTA card and membership number. As you nibble on that tuna fish sandwich in the lounge, you think about belonging to a "teachers' association." It sounds so formal. An organization for education professionals where important issues are debated in a civil manner in order to improve the public education system. Nope!

Soon you receive the association's publication monthly publication. You toss it on an end table to flip through as you watch television. Some typical first issue topics: "How To Manage Your Classroom Like A Pro"; "Beginning of the Year School-wide Team-building Tactics;" and, "Balancing Content and Skills in the Classroom". Your excitement builds as all three look promising to read. Continuing down the table of contents you see: "How to Reach an LGBT Student"; "Know Your Weingarten Rights Inside and Out"; and, "Why Card Check Is a Good Idea." This set of articles, while dealing with education, makes you a little uncomfortable, but every teacher should treat students fairly, know their workplace rights, and...ummm...what the heck is card check? That seems to be about it, but you notice in the back, where a lot of the advertising is, a section focused on pending state legislation with CTAs position on each. While it seems to make sense that CTA supports bills providing funding for public schools, they are vehemently against expanding charter schools or any school of choice program. CTA strongly endorses and co-sponsors a bill calling for a state-level single payer insurance program and is promoting a whole new series of gun control laws.

For the newbie teachers that last set of articles are ignored. They tell themselves it's just politics at work. What nags at you though is the fact that no real justification is given for CTA's positions, especially on issues having little if anything to do with education. Over time that newbie realizes that the top governing body of their state organization is not composed of "normal" teachers representative of the union population but of progressive ideologues. There's shock number one. It also becomes obvious over time that the association or union is concerned only with its own survival. CTA is not opposed to charter programs because they are bad for kids but because the "charter" written to govern the school does not allow for unions. Shocker number two--it's not about the kids, it's about members and membership dues. All of a sudden that professional association holding the moral high ground is now a labor union rolling down the hill, bumping its head along the way.

Once that rookie teacher has put in fifteen plus years they know what CTA is. A third of those teachers hop aboard because of ideology or the desire to be important. A third don't care. As long as they get raises every couple of years all is cool. And then there's about a third that hate it due to political differences or the fact that the association is just another big bureaucracy. Less than 40% of a members dues makes it back to their Uniserve area (mine serves all schools in Kings and Tulare counties) and probably three-quarters of that (30% of your total dues) makes it back to your local chapter. There are multiple layers of leadership that filter out common sense-thinking educators that do their job for the kids and not for the union. What filters to the top ranks of CTA are progressive activists, union strong arms, and big wigs in the Democratic Party. President Eisenhower warned the nation about the military-industrial complex. Today, especially in California, the danger is the Democratic-union complex.

Been there, done that. I was naive once, but no more. Unfortunately what should be a professional organization is merely a labor union. A group that should put kids first only puts themselves first. An organization that should value and embrace differences in opinion and honest debate instead tells members how to vote. A CTA rep spoke in front of my staff last year about an upcoming proposition and said, "it's a no brainer," like she was addressing a bunch of idiots. I raised my hand and said, "Anytime someone tells me 'it's a no brainer' I'm thinking they are trying to sell me something I don't want." She didn't appreciate that. Teacher unions are a necessary evil but they are also one of the factors hurting education. Some advice to prospective teachers question everything a union does or stands for, because they are only out for themselves in the end.

Posted with Blogsy