Highlights from the Teacher Union Debate

The comment thread to the "Do Teacher Unions Deserve the Bashing?" post is yielding a lot of great dialogue between the yea's and the nay's. Space and time don't permit highlights from all 47 comments so far, but the following four show the value of conversations like this, that go beyond the mainstream media's soundbites and one-inch "analyses" of the issues.

(It reminds me a lot of the media's latching on to Bobby Jindal the GOP's talking points about "pork" in the appropriations bill for this year. Cable and print giants ran with it, but more thoughtful journalists, normally alternative, put on their skeptic's hats and said, "Those examples sound silly, but are they really?" - and then went on to answer "No" in many, many cases.)

Joy is a unionized teacher. She read my paraphrase of another reader's example of how unions can get in the way of healthy reform. Here's the paraphrase:

The union in my area refused to sign a contract that made them submit grades by computer instead of pencil and paper. Sometimes things aren't what they seem.

Here's the response from Joy, whose administrators forced her union to implement a grading-and-attendance software program:

Very true--Sometimes things aren't what they seem. That poster indicated that unions weren't good because technology should be a good thing and therefore the union was bad because they refused to submit grades by computer. Gee, I only wish that my local had been "strong" enough to counter our administration's desire to force us into a computer system that we weren't ready for. We now have to submit k-5 grades and attendance in a web-based system. The secondary schools 6-12 have been doing this for a long time. They post a final grade for each of about 165 students. Secondary teachers weren't affected much by the change.  They have a newer school and better technology.

But this has cost us, as k-5  teachers, untold amounts of lost hours a week especially around grade reporting time--(that time really good be better spent organizing lessons). Our computer system was not advanced enough, the training was not appropriate and the district can not afford enough tech support to keep things running smoothly. But as "good" teachers we patch it up, work around it and spend a lot more time on attendance and grades than we ever did with handwritten reports because the software  "system" that our district was able to afford was developed about 8-10 years by some college kid who understood what secondary schools needed but not elementary schools. The software hasn't been upgraded much and apparently won't be because the company has enough contracts with school districts that can't afford anything more and can't afford to switch providers so the software company has no incentive to change. And the really stupid thing is--nobody but us knows the truth (and now you)---we dare not make the district look bad, especially in these tight times with competition among the school districts for enrollment. My guess is that those teachers in that district, that fought off the requirement,  knew that they were not ready tech wise (as a district) to have to submit their grades by computer. I only wish we were that knowledgeable a few years back.  No one had any idea that we all couldn't be online all at once, that our server wasn't "big" enough and that the software would be so slow and cumbersome. Was that the union's fault?  Sometimes things aren't what they seem.

There are lots of stories like this......"The union in my area refused to sign a contract that made them submit grades by computer"..... (unions seem "bad") and the media picks up on them. Newspapers and TV news have to develop stories that the public will read or watch so their publications and broadcasts can be ranked "highly" to charge advertisers enough to not only make their product but make a profit.

Re: seniority pay, Rich Elster says: (more below the fold: click "read more" below)

Just because a teacher has been teaching for a while and has seniority doesn't mean they are good. It breaks my heart to see good, young teachers get the axe because some dinosaur has seniority.

Rich Vander Klok, a local union rep and ten-year teacher, replies:

How would you determine which teachers would get more pay?

Remember, teachers have no control over which students get put into their classes nor do they have much control over which classes they teach.

In my ten years of teaching I've taught eight different classes, advised three different extracurricular activities for multiple years, and furthered my education through grad classes. How would you compare me to the teacher who has taught only three classes for the last 10 years, did no advising of extracurriculars, and took no grad classes because she got her teaching credential before there was an ongoing education requirement?

Regarding your point about seniority: one of the most compelling reasons to take seniority into account is because it is an objective criterion.

A counterpoint: it troubles me to see good veteran teachers forced out of their jobs by districts who want to hire unproven younger teachers just to save a buck.

And on it goes. I hope it goes further. (If you want to comment, go to that post, not this one. I'm closing comments here to keep the thread coherent.)

There's lots to learn in that exchange. Stay tuned for the next one, on teacher evaluation, coming soon.

NEA photo by Llima