If anyone was born to be a union leader, it was Judy Fenton. Both her parents and grandparents were educators, and she learned early on about the struggles teachers endured to secure better salaries and improved working conditions. "My father taught in Queens (N.Y.) in the '50s and was a union chapter leader in his school," Fenton explains. "All my life, I heard the horror stories of what happens when teachers aren't represented."
Fenton is now a pre-kindergarten teacher and the union delegate for P.S. 127, an elementary school in Brooklyn. She thinks the New York United Teachers Federation has made significant gains for teachers, obtaining "wonderful benefits and decent salaries," especially compared to her counterparts in private schools. " Fenton adds, however, that she fully supports the union's growing emphasis on teacher professionalism. In her view, teachers still need to be protected from exploitation; but they also need a union that supports "the pioneers" in education reform, teachers whose philosophies may require them to bend the rules specified in their contracts. "Union rules should be there to protect us, not prevent us from doing innovative things," Fenton states.
Such is the balancing act teacher unions in the United States must achieve, experts say. Unions must support teacher empowerment, while also safeguarding teachers' benefits. And, although one function of unions will always be to protect teachers from unreasonable demands, the new role of providing staff development to teachers, to help them become leaders in education reform, will eventually be the teacher union's primary purpose, experts contend.
Many teachers can recall a time before they were unionized when salaries were meager and job security was won through acquiescence. Collective bargaining helped balance the employee-employer relationship, but the battle for such balance was frequently rancorous, often resulting in teacher strikes that made headlines across the United States. This "old-style" unionism, which pitted management against rank-and-file teachers, had its place, says Al Shanker, president of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT). "In the 60s, a confrontational style was effective," he explains, because teachers had few rights.
Take tenure, for example. "The purpose of securing seniority protections was to take away the power of principals to be dictators," Shanker explains. These protections gave teachers a right to question management decisions without fear of being sent to another school in retaliation for voicing their opinions.
Still, despite the benefits won by using "old-style" union tactics, Shanker now believes such strategies are no longer helpful. "Teachers today do have a voice," he says, and they should use their collective power to improve the quality of the teaching profession.
The new style of unionism Shanker supports no longer seeks to separate managers from the rank and file. Instead, he thinks teachers and administrators can work together to carry out school programs. In this new collaborative relationship, student needs will guide union activity, and unions will have to "take a hard look" at whether some of the protections teachers possess may actually hurt public education. Shanker cites due process agreements as a case in point. Although such accords provide for job security, they may also make it far too difficult to fire unfit teachers. Fairness, Shanker insists, should not shield mediocrity. "We fought to have due process, to give teachers a fair trial," Shanker says. "We did not fight to protect incompetence."
The AFT's role in helping unions evolve will be primarily one of sharing information and praising those who are more collaborative, says Shanker. "The AFT has no power to order our locals to change," he notes, "but we can show how much we value those innovators."
Linda Darling-Hammond, a professor of education at Columbia University's Teachers College, agrees that unions need to redefine their roles. She points out that it is the union gains of the turbulent past that make such reflection possible: "Achieving adequate salaries and tenure have made the teaching profession more attractive to more people," says Darling-Hammond.
As a result, a "different type" of person is entering the teaching profession, a person who has been better prepared to take on professional responsibilities. "These teachers are interested in participating in school decision making," Darling-Hammond contends. "These new teachers want to collectively influence curriculum and assessment reform." Teacher unions, she says, must therefore be involved in redesigning schools and in supporting teacher involvement in such reform efforts.
Still, cautions Ellen Dempsey, teacher unions will be slow to fully embrace a new role because unions are membership organizations and must, therefore, still adequately represent those who aren't interested in change. Dempsey is president of The Teachers Network (IMPACT II), a national, nonprofit teacher networking organization that awards grants to exemplary educational programs in hopes of helping teachers in other schools implement similar programs. In her work with teachers who are also union leaders, she's found that, although unions have become more open to teachers' taking different roles, "Teacher unions answer to two constituencies—those teachers who want the status quo and those who are willing to take on new roles and responsibilities." Unions, therefore, are in a tough spot. Dempsey adds that if unions change, "it'll be at the grassroots level. The union chapter chair can set the direction."
Models of Change
When Cyndy Novotny and six of her colleagues first proposed opening a school that featured multi-age classrooms, thematic instruction, shared decision making, and parent participation, they enjoyed the enthusiastic support of a visionary superintendent and the cautious consent of their union. Because the school they proposed didn't fit within the framework of a traditional union contract, the Natrona County Education Association (NCEA) in Casper, Wyoming, was, at first, uncertain of their role in representing the teachers, most of whom were NCEA members, in their new venture, Novotny recalls.
Still, by the time Woods Learning Center opened its doors to elementary school children in 1991, the NCEA was ready to learn from this nontraditional school, which required nontraditional commitments from its teachers, including an agreement to work an extra 45 minutes each day and spend Friday afternoons planning with other teachers. Woods teachers were also asked to handle the administrative chores usually performed by a principal.
"We wanted a school that was totally site-based managed, where everyone would have a voice and would be able to do things without going through red tape," says Novotny. Creating such an environment meant eliminating the principal's position. That, she concurs, "was a different concept for the union to cope with." To accommodate such an innovation, the NCEA had to be equally imaginative. To ensure that teachers would be evaluated fairly, for example, the union worked with teachers and administrators to devise a plan authorizing principals from other schools to evaluate Woods teachers on a rotating basis.
The district and NCEA's willingness to support an innovative school like Woods Learning Center resulted in the district being identified as a Learning Lab district by the National Education Association (NEA). Nell Pederson, NCEA President, explains that, as a Learning Lab site (there are 28 such sites across the United States), the union is now tasked with helping teachers become more involved in the change process. "We're moving to help teachers engage in action research," she says. "The goal is to ensure that reforms are guided by research, not politics."
Learning Lab projects also encourage union leaders to form partnerships with "people we haven't traditionally worked with," says Pederson, such as superintendents, principals, and school board members. The ultimate aim, she explains, is for the union to become a "collaborative, solutions-based, professional organization" that not only "gives teachers a unified voice in our district," but also helps administrators see the benefits of having unions involved in solving problems.
The Glenview (Illinois) school district is another cited by the NEA as a model in school reform. In 1989, teachers from the seven schools in the district, represented by the Glenview Education Association (GEA), voted to adopt a constitution giving them a role in making educational decisions. "We believe authority for decision making should be shared among board members, administrators, and teachers," says Marilyn Miller, human resources director for Glenview School District 34 and GEA President at the time the constitution was ratified. The constitution, she explains, "sets the parameters" for such collaborative decision making and "describes how teachers and administrators will work together."
Georgia Gebhardt, current GEA President and 5th grade teacher, says the constitution allows teachers to focus on instruction and teaching without worrying about the details of a union contract. "Teachers here don't think, 'Well, I can't do this because my contract says my day starts at 8:00.'" Indeed, says Gebhardt, teachers at Glenview understand that they "are expected to do what it takes to educate students," even if that means working an occasional long day. And most teachers, she insists, are quite willing to devote whatever time it takes to exercise control over what happens in their classrooms and their schools; most teachers, she observes, are willing to attend meetings at which decisions about the budget, curriculum, and staff development are made.
If teachers are to be seen as professionals, says Gebhardt, "they must have some control over what happens in their work and in their profession. Too many teachers work in systems where it's dictated what they will do and how they will do it." Teachers in Glenview, she says, expect the GEA to protect their right to make decisions about curriculum and instruction.
Looking to the Future
The impetus for transforming the labor-management relationship and supporting teacher leadership, according to teachers, union leaders, and administrators, is the shared desire to improve student learning and build public support for public education.
"When you empower a staff, teachers have greater confidence," explains Molly Carroll, assistant director of the Chicago Teachers Union's Quest Center. And that, she says, "makes everyone a better player—which translates into improved classroom practice." Carroll says teacher unions in the United States need only look to the Edmonton Public School District in Alberta, Canada, for proof. Edmonton moved to site-based management in 1979, and student test scores have improved steadily since then.
It's all about respect, says Miller. Her experiences as a union leader convinced her that both teachers and students perform better if their opinions are valued. This insight transformed how she taught speech and language skills to primary students. "When I first entered teaching, I would select the activities and tell the kids what we were going to do," she explains. But as Miller became more involved in making decisions about her profession, she gained a personal understanding of how respect motivates people and wanted to give her students the opportunity to direct their own courses as well. "As a union representative, I wanted to know that I could say something and have it count," she explains. "And it became clear to me that you have to model the behavior you expect." As a result, Miller's classroom became much more collaborative, and she and her students worked together to determine what speech-related exercises they would do each day.
Improving student learning is the goal of the Teacher Union Reform Network (TURN). This network of union leaders from both the NEA and the AFT hopes to bring about "a more comfortable marriage" between teacher unions and education reform. Helen Bernstein, outgoing president of United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA), will direct the project. "Our goal is to provide research and models of high-performing unions." She defines as "high-performing" those unions that are more responsive to the needs of their members. "We held a focus group to find out what union members want," she says. "Most want staff development to learn how to become better teachers (see box). Our members don't necessarily feel served by the union and if we don't serve our members, we'll be out of business."
Unions will also be out of business if they don't convince a skeptical public that the work they do is for the good of public education, says Shanker. "Public education as an institution is in danger, and teachers and unions have a responsibility to rescue a dying institution." Part of the resuscitation effort, in Shanker's view, is for unions to show the public that they are willing to work with school administrator, parents, and the community to improve public education. "Public support is greater when teachers show an effort to collaborate," he says.
Bringing New Issues to the Bargaining Table
Bringing New Issues to the Bargaining Table
Teacher professionalism should guide union leaders when they work with administrators to hammer out a new contract, experts say. According to the people we interviewed, the following items should be included in teacher contracts:
Plans to reward excellent teachers. "I believe in merit pay if it's implemented fairly," says Cyndy Novotny, a teacher at Woods Learning Center in Casper, Wyo. Novotny would also like to see unions work for what she calls "career-enhancing benefits," such as negotiating with universities to "give teachers a break" in the cost of continuing their education.
More waiver provisions that enable schools to opt out of certain contract agreements if a majority of teachers vote to do so. Teachers at P.S. 127 in Brooklyn primarily use their waiver provision—"School-Based Option"— to build flexibility into their schedules. "We wanted to change the time of class periods," Judi Fenton, a teacher at P.S. 127, explains. "A lot of the issues subjected to the School-Based Option are time issues because the old system of scheduling just doesn't work."
A bonus program to encourage teachers to work together to improve their teaching, says AFT's Al Shanker. "There's an unwritten law that one teacher does not question another's effectiveness or performance," he says. Shanker maintains that, if teachers know that a substantial bonus is available to them, and that a colleague's performance may jeopardize their chances of receiving that bonus, teachers are going to be more inclined to talk with that colleague about his or her performance. Such incentive systems, Shanker says, will encourage collegiality among teachers.