Teacher Unions More Necessary Than Ever, Says Noted Education Historian

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The need for unions to protect teachers from heavy-handed administrators, arbitrary mandates, oppressive supervision and unfair compensation is as essential today as it was a century ago, according to Diane Ravitch, research professor of education at New York University, senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and the Brookings Institution, and former assistant secretary of education in President George H.W. Bush's administration. Ravitch takes on union critics in the current edition of American Educator, a publication of the American Federation of Teachers.

"These critics want to scrap the contract, throw away teachers'legal protections, and bring teacher unions to their collective knees," Ravitch writes in "Why Teacher Unions Are Good for Teachers—and the Public." Ravitch suggests that instead of assuming teacher contracts and tenure are to blame for low student performance, critics should be looking for a weak curriculum, mediocre leadership, inadequate resources or "a flawed, bureaucratic hiring process" that fails “to evaluate new teachers before awarding them tenure."

Ravitch says that today, when corporate-style reformers believe that the way to fix low-performing schools is "to install an autocratic principal who rules with an iron fist," the union is an important part of a school system's checks and balances, "necessary as a protection for teachers against the arbitrary exercise of power by heavy-handed administrators."

Unions will be vital as long as they speak on behalf of the rights and dignity of teachers and the essentials of good education, according to Ravitch, which are "a rigorous curriculum, effective instruction, adequate resources, willing students, and a social and cultural climate in which education is encouraged and respected."

Also in the winter issue of American Educator:

• Results from a groundbreaking study debunking the myth that collective bargaining increases teacher turnover in high-poverty schools.
• One teacher’s story about the union backing his efforts to stop administrators' manipulation of student grades to raise graduation rates.
• How schools in the South Bronx negotiated to attract good teachers—and retain them.
• How one teacher union local is ensuring teachers get the best research-based training in reading.

American Educator is on the AFT Web site, www.aft.org/pubs-reports/american_educator/winter06-07/index.htm.

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