The Two Million Minutes Blog

Are Teachers Laborers or Professionals?

NEA calls for national summit on labor-management collaboration

The Teachers Unions (AFT, NEA and their local affiliates) are sending mixed messages about how teachers view themselves and how they want to be treated.

The Unions proclaim teachers are "professionals" and want to be treated like other professionals, such as doctors, lawyers, accountants and architects.

But if teachers are professionals, why are AFT President Randi Weingarten and NEA President Dennis Van Roekel calling for a National Summit on Labor-Management Relations?

 
When was the last Accountants National Summit on Labor-Management Relations? Are doctors "laborers?" 

I have always disliked the term "labor" when referring to a group of people- it diminishes their intellectual contribution. In the knowledge economy, very, very few jobs involve just manual labor.

Now in the steel, airlines and auto industries,the labor-management schism clearly delineates how those employees want to be treated. They are "labor" and the other side is "management."

Their relationship is confrontational and adversarial. And we see where that approach has taken the people employed in those industries. United Auto Workers membership has declined from 1.5 million in 1979 to 390,000 today.

Teachers and their Unions need to choose - are teachers "laborers" or "professionals?" 

One is either a "professional" - distinguished by education, experience and paid according to ability and performance. 

Or one is "labor" distinguished by union representation, undifferentiated compensation and postured as an adversary to "management" - management for teachers ultimately being the taxpaying public, I guess.

The Unions can't have it both ways - switching from one to the other when most convenient.

I hope teachers see themselves as the professionals they are and demand their Unions end the 20th century mindset of "Labor-Management Relations." 

Background on the Teachers Unions:

THE AFT UNION: The American Federation of Teachers is an affiliate of the AFL-CIO, and represents 3,000 local affiliates nationwide, 43 state affiliates and 1.5 million members. It's tag line is "A Union Of Professionals."

THE NEA UNION: The National Education Association is the "national voice of more than 3.2 million public education employees." Tag line - Great Public Schools for Every Student. 

Union Tag Line Mashup - "Professional Laborers in Great Schools"

 

Cowed by Teachers’ Unions, Democrats have too often resisted reform

When a New York Times reporter and opinion columnist speaks up for American children and against Democrat and Union resistance to improving education - you know know our kids' education is in very bad shape.

A few of the devastating comments are listed below:

Op-Ed Columnist
Democrats and Schools

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

Published: October 14, 2009

"Good schools constitute a far more potent weapon against poverty than welfare, food stamps or housing subsidies. Yet, cowed by teachers’ unions, Democrats have too often resisted reform and stood by as generations of disadvantaged children have been cemented into an underclass by third-rate schools."

"The effort to remove a [NYC] teacher is expected to cost about $400,000, and the outcome is uncertain. In New York City, with its 80,000 teachers, arbiters have removed only two for incompetence alone in the last couple of years. We tolerate failed teachers — and failed arbiters — as long as it’s not our own kids who suffer."

"In another case cited by Mr. Brill, the union hailed its defense of a high-school teacher — who had passed out in front of her class, allegedly smelling of alcohol, with even the principal unable to rouse her. The union fought to secure her return to teaching, Mr. Brill wrote, until she passed out again, and her “water bottle” turned out to contain alcohol."

"A Los Angeles Times article this year recounted how a teacher rebuked an eighth grader who had been hospitalized for slashing his wrists in a suicide attempt. “Carve deeper next time,” the teacher allegedly advised. He was even said to have added: “You can’t even kill yourself.” A review board blocked the termination of that teacher.

Research has underscored that what matters most in education — more than class size or spending or anything — is access to good teachers. A Brookings study found that if black students had four straight years of teachers from the top 25 percent of most effective teachers, the black-white testing gap would vanish in four years. Download Brookings Institution Study

Read Kristoff Article

Teachers Unions Have Power - The Power to Punish Success

From WSJ:

"The Ujima Village Academy is one of the best public schools in Baltimore and all of Maryland. Students at the charter middle school are primarily low-income minorities; 98% are black and 84% qualify for free or reduced-price school meals. Yet Ujima Village students regularly outperform the top-flight suburban schools on state tests. 

Ujima Village is part of the KIPP network of charter schools, which now extends to 19 states and Washington, D.C. KIPP excels at raising academic achievement among disadvantaged children who often arrive two or three grade-levels behind in reading and math.

However, Maryland’s charter law requires teachers to be part of the union. And the Baltimore Teachers Union is demanding that the charter school pay its teachers 33% more than other city teachers, an amount that the school says it can’t afford. Ujima Village teachers are already paid 18% above the union salary scale, reflecting the extra hours they work.

Until school choice puts more money and power in the hands of parents, public education will continue to put teachers ahead of students."

Read Full Story