Teachers’ Unions Declining? Really?

Just about all the teachers–and administrators–in my district belong to one teachers’ union or another. We do this because we are scared. If we should be sued by some litigious parent whose child has somehow been offended–or if indeed there is a legitimate suit against us, heaven forbid–we pay our dues so we’re covered legally.

The dues are expensive, almost $50 a month, a high price to pay on most teacher salaries.  But we do it, even though our votes in the organization count for almost nothing. We all know it and we all do it anyway.

Despite this almost universal acceptance of unions within the profession, at least in my state, I would agree that there’s a knee-jerk popular disaffection with unions.

I was at an artist reception during the summer and one of the rather famous artists held forth thus:

“Those d—n teachers unions keep those older teachers in place. There’s no way to get rid of these bad teachers and make room for the [good] young ones. We need to get rid of teacher unions so we can bring in better teachers.”

I really like this artist but he’s wrong about this. There’s no formula about age to teaching excellence. I’m an older teacher; I admit it, but I’m a very good teacher. The younger teachers I know are often good, sometimes not. Good teaching doesn’t correlate with how old you are.

I disagree with a culture of fear that makes it necessary for me to fork out $50 a month for union dues, but I don’t disagree with the idea of unions. To my mind, they protect teachers from litigation, not from being fired.

Teachers Unions Protect Bad Teachers

That’s the argument anyway: it’s impossible to get rid of bad teachers because teachers’ unions make it nearly impossible to fire them. Statistics say that it takes up to $219,000 to fire a bad teacher protected by tenure (http://teachersunionexposed.com/protecting.cfm).

But what makes a bad teacher? It’s not as easy a call as you might think.

Answering that question, an anonymous poster on a blog site wrote: “Great question! And I am a teacher. 1) Little or no sense of humor, and/or ability to laugh at oneself. 2)burnt out/uninspired/bored teachers. 3) Teachers w/ poor skills in communication, orginization, creativity. 4) judgemental teachers who are unable/unwilling to recognize their student’s strengths. 5) teachers who focus more on their student’s weaknesses. 6) those who do not differentiate their teaching styles/behavior management for individual students.7)those who simply do not care. cold, uncaring teachers…..I could go on…. ” You can read other good opinions here: http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/188300.page.

As you can surmise, determining bad teaching is a very subjective proposition. I remember one of my professors in college describing an eye-opening conversation with a public-school student. The professor had always considered himself to be a a pretty darn good teacher. The student had had a bad year with him and said, with great sincerity, “You are the worst teacher I’ve ever had.”

The professor’s point? A teacher may be good for some kids and not for others. Who says who’s bad? Disgruntled parents, unhappy about a bad grade, can put negative pressure to get rid of a teacher. A principal may just not like someone. A teacher struggling with depression or illness may have a few bad years. A struggling teacher may improve with help.

OTOH there really are bad teachers. I would say there are not very many of them. However, does it take dismantling teachers’ unions in order to remove them? What other approaches might we have?

 

No More Salary Negotiations? It Happened in Utah….

The Ogden Utah School District sent notices to all its teachers around the first of July, informing teachers that it would no longer negotiate with the teachers’ union to set salaries. Instead, the district required teachers to sign their contracts with salaries determined by the district. If the teachers do not support this move, their positions will immediately be posted and the teachers are thereby terminated.

Furthermore, the district announced that it is going to phase out its “steps” which determine pay according to education and experience and instead give merit pay for those teachers who “improve student performance.”

We all know what that means: test scores. The article also pointed out that some veteran teachers shouldn’t be allowed to step foot in the classroom (because, we assume, they are so dreadful). All of these moves are to better “meet the needs of children.”

There are some major flaws in thinking here.

For one, this kind of move presupposes that teachers are fat cats who rake in armfuls of money, more every year because the greedy teachers’ unions demand excessive pay.

Nothing could be further from the truth. In Utah, starting salaries for teachers average $26,521 (and just for comparison, please note that the national poverty level for 2011 is set at $22,350). You can see average teachers’ salaries, state by state, here. As you read the chart, you will see that the average salary for teachers in the United States is about $45,000, hardly a living for a fat-cat.

Another flaw? That veteran teachers are inherently worse than new teachers, and that they don’t deserve raises based on service.  Of course, there are superior teachers among beginners and veterans, but all teachers know that we get better as we go along. It usually takes a few years to find our pace and begin superior teaching.

There is a knee-jerk reaction among politicians and in the press that teachers’ unions ride roughshod over the desires of the public, setting salaries and policies that are outrageous. On the contrary, most teachers’ unions have limited power and stand as advocates for educators and for children.

Another flaw? That school districts have developed good ways to evaluate superior teaching. The Ogden District blithely says that it will go beyond test scores and include parent, student, administrator, and community input, but as most teachers know, there are plenty of outstanding teachers laboring in the classroom every day that no one really recognizes.

Furthermore, there are plenty of untested subjects–like mine, Art. How can anyone know I am an amazing teacher? How could I ever qualify for merit pay?

Advocates of the Ogden District mentality scoff at the idea of group merit pay, which rewards teachers across the board in schools that achieve. But here again, we are back to test scores. If we really want to measure achievement by looking at test scores, we will have to move to formative assessments, which measures individual student achievement throughout the year rather than comparing last year’s test scores with this year’s results. As every teacher knows, each group of students is markedly different, and it reveals little to compare scores year by year.

In my experience, there are few “bad” teachers out there. Most of us are dedicated to kids and passionate about teaching and learning. However, if this flawed thinking prevails, there will likely be fewer excellent teachers willing to enter the profession.