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SPEAKOUT: American teachers unions: the fatal flaw

By Bill Moloney

Published February 1, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.

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The refusal of the Denver Classroom Teachers Association to support the contract waivers sought by Bruce Randolph School has resulted in one of the worst public relations disasters ever suffered by a Colorado labor union. In rejecting the very reasonable reform requests sought by the great majority of the school's teachers, supported by parents and approved by the Denver Public Schools board, the DCTA has gotten a very public black eye that no amount of union doubletalk or sophistry can conceal.

The message is clear: Union power trumps both the wishes of teachers and the needs of children.

As this tragedy unfolds, observers sigh and say, "Oh, that's just the way all teachers unions behave." Not so! It's just the way American teachers unions behave, and it is profoundly important for public policy-makers to understand this critical distinction.

Believe it or not, teachers unions in France, England and Japan are much more powerful than their American counterparts. Teachers union leaders in France truthfully boast that they can put a million people in the streets of Paris to back their salary and benefit demands. In England, the National Union of Teachers vastly exceeds the legendary power of the British mine workers.

Yet in none of these countries are the teachers unions the dangerous obstacle to student progress and quality teaching that they are in America.

How can this be so? The answer is that teacher unionism in America arose from dramatically different historical circumstances than was the case in Europe.

In Europe, today's teachers unions trace their origin to the centuries-old system of guilds or craft associations. These entities were as devoted to advancing the material interests of their members as any modern union, however they always understood the fundamental link between good work and good pay. They also knew that the best guarantee of good work was good workers, and this meant requiring high standards for anyone wishing to enter their ranks.

In keeping with these ancient traditions, becoming a teacher in Europe involves a highly demanding admission process including university training with strong content (i.e., no "education" courses), rigorous examinations and a strict apprenticeship prior to full admission to the profession.

These demanding qualifications for teachers allied to similar traditions of strong academic content measured by rigorous national examinations for students goes far toward explaining the repeatedly demonstrated inferiority of U.S. student achievement in those embarrassing international comparisons that invariably show America at or near the bottom of the class despite per-pupil expenditure nearly twice the average of the European Union.

American teachers unions as we know them are a relatively new invention. The National Education Association through much of its history included both administrators and teachers and had very little to do with issues like salaries and benefits. When teacher organizations finally went their own way - much influenced by the fierce Albert Shanker-led labor wars in New York City in the 1960s - the structural models they chose were the industrial trade unions. Thus, organizationally, American teachers unions looked much more like the United Auto Workers or the Teamsters than teachers unions in Europe.

The union role was seen as protection of the "workers"; product quality was viewed as exclusively a "management" concern.

This indifference to "product quality" would eventually bring disaster upon competition-driven private sector industries and their unions. However, in the competition-free public education sector, product quality (i.e., student achievement) never became an industry-threatening issue. In effect, it remained an exclusively management issue toward which unions need only offer the hypocritical lip service we so commonly see today. As Shanker - always the realist - once brutally put it, "I'll start worrying about kids when kids start paying dues to the union."

This attitude - so dramatically different from other nations - is the Achilles' heel of American education reform. Until it changes, any renaissance in American public schools is a pipe dream.

William J. Moloney was Colorado education commissioner from 1997 to 2007.

Comments

  • February 1, 2008

    6:41 a.m.

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    sqjnk writes:

    It's disconcereting to see Mr. Moloney refer to students as products. As a classroom teacher this is what I see as the major problem in education in America today. Treating schools as businesses dehomanizes our children. Mr. Moloney picks his bones with the teachers unions conveinently ignoring other critical factors in student achievment like parental involvement, nutrition and health care for all kids, testing statistics (who is taking the "tests" in these countries?) and the higher value these cultures put on education. Teachers are the ones who put in their blood ,sweat and tears for kids and their growth everyday, while buearaucrats like Moloney figure out ways to waste money on corporately produced programs and tests that turn our children into numbers and products.

  • February 1, 2008

    7:09 a.m.

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    stuckiniowa writes:

    sqjnk --- dehomanizes????? Buearaucrats????? As a classroom teacher - I would expect that you might own a dictionary and have basic spelling and typing skills. You are the definition of what the writer is describing. Teachers who talk about "blood ,sweat and tears" but dont put in the effort. If you care as much about your students as you do your writing, I fear for our future.

  • February 1, 2008

    9:45 a.m.

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    jibbons writes:

    I said it yesterday, & I will say it again to today & tomorrow, the big problem is the bureaucracy, and the next biggest problem is the uneven distribution of school funds.

    From what I understand of the article, there could be a real problem with the teacher's union taking on a blue collar union scheme, when they really are white collar professionals. However, the union should only care about the wishes and wellbeing of the teachers, that is their function. That is not to say that the teachers should not care about the quality of education that their students receive (I would bet that most care a great deal), but rather that that is their job, and getting the teachers a good deal is the role of the union. If the management wants to improve the quality of education through their relationship with the unions, then they should make it a higher priority in the bargaining process. They could try to improve the quality through management of the schools and managing teachers into producing better results, and when they fail to implement the improvements do to the unions, take it up with the unions. The teachers certainly do not hold all of the chips here.

    Yes there are bad teachers out there, however you cannot get rid of them if the only people with the ability to do so are rarely in contact with the teachers, and rarely get a first hand look at the work they are doing. The Principals should be running the schools rather than an administrator micromanaging particular content areas. Then, should the principals see a problem teacher through their in class observations, then the teacher should get the axe. Just like any other professional career. And yes, tenure is an idiotic method of retaining employees.

    And for God's sake, please stop deriving the value of a student’s education through the property value of the homes that surround their school. That is classism. All students deserve a high quality education despite the economic situation of their parents and neighbors. The state must implement equal education standards to insure that all students have the same amount of funds and effort being expended on them.

    If the school system where to cut the administrative budgets by lets say 75% and transfer that fat to the schools and teachers, then they would not have to spend all of their bargaining efforts fighting over how much to pay, and they could use their leverage to achieve better education quality rather than bargaining for lower cost education as they seem to do now.

    How many poor schools have air conditioning in their schools, and in those same districts how many have air conditioning for their administrators. How many administrators have secretaries, business cards, parking spaces, cell phones, fancy letterhead, internet connections, nice offices…? How much do these administrators accomplish in terms of improving the educations of their students? What resources do these people eat up?

  • February 1, 2008

    9:46 a.m.

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    jibbons writes:

    Maybe I should have simply written a letter to the editor, rather than putting a page in the discussion board!

  • February 1, 2008

    10:21 a.m.

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    Elwood writes:

    The unions just care about the wishes and wellbeing of the teachers, not the quality of the teachers they are supporting. Therein lies the problem. If I were trying to get the best wages, benefits, working conditions, etc. for my clients, I would try to ensure that the product I was offering (teacher) was the best I could make it. Why doesnt the union promote higher qualificaitons, standards, training, etc on their product (teachers) and spend some of the union dues they collect on such?

  • February 1, 2008

    4:03 p.m.

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    rellimpank writes:

    --some years ago the head of one of the major teachers unions put it out in front when he stated that the union would start being concerned about the students when the students started paying union dues---

  • February 1, 2008

    10:06 p.m.

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    edlyell writes:

    Bill Moloney is correct again.
    When on the state school board I visited schools in many countries (on my own money). It was clear that students there get a much better education. Many factors cause that difference including higher expectations, parental pressure to succeed, national testing for promotion or graduation, etc. However, the biggest difference is in the quality of the teachers.

    They are well educated professionals who are not actually paid any more than in the US, on a per hour comparison basis. They are far better at getting the poor teachers 'fixed' or fired, doing it within their union (guild) structure. US teachers have contracts based on the UAW, and focused on punching in and out on time. Like auto assembly line workers they focus on process not performance their master contracts have hundreds of pages of detail that prevents innovation or improvement while insuring that the teacher union staff can stay employed fighting the administration.
    The only way a teacher in the USA can make over a hundred thousand dollars yearly is to be a union representative, not a good teacher.

  • February 3, 2008

    12:17 a.m.

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    kathyM writes:

    So European teachers are better than American teachers because of their union origins? (I guess Pink Floyd wrote "The Wall" just for fun.) School teachers in Europe's "guilded" age were generally the scholars who weren't smart, rich, or connected enough to get a church post, a teaching job at university, patronage from or tutoring for a rich family, or to get into law or medical school. That model stuck around for quite a long time, even into the 20th century.

    Yes, our system needs to be fixed; and yes, unions can often do more harm than good for our kids. But to hold up a flawed model to emulate certainly won't improve our children's education.