A Schools Veteran Girds for a Broader Battlefield
Randi Weingarten has spent more than a decade cultivating a reputation as the archetypal union leader: a combative dealmaker and consummate political street fighter for city teachers. Yet at a recent education conference in Nashville, there was a fellow from the conservative Hoover Institute, Eric A. Hanushek, gushing with praise for Ms. Weingarten, and promising to do all he could to support her bid to become the president of the American Federation of Teachers, the national union.
Just one thing, he added with a laugh: “I don’t know if that’s good for your image.”
Later this month, Ms. Weingarten is expected to announce her candidacy to run the national teachers’ union, with her election widely considered virtually assured. The position would put her in place to be one of the most important people in shaping the national debate on education policy in the next few years.
I think she's one of the most forward-thinking teacher union leaders in the country (not to damn her with faint praise), as evidenced by embracing Green Dot among other things. She's smart, very effective at her job, and I think she really cares about what's best for children -- but the interests of her union and the interests of children often do not intersect, which puts her in terribly difficult positions...When she advocates something that I don’t think is in the best interests of children, I blast her for it, but it’s not personal -- she’s just doing her job!
Many school reformers become outraged when this happens, but this is an unreasonable expectation. Just like any other union, they exist to fight for the interests of their members – things like higher pay, better benefits, shorter work hours and greater job protection – and they have been extraordinarily effective at achieving these aims. Does anyone get angry when the head of the longshoreman’s union fights for work rules that create more jobs, hours, benefits, job protection and privileges for his members, at the expense of the efficient and cost-effective operation of the port? Of course not – he’s just doing his job!
There is, however, one huge difference: no-one thinks that the longshoreman’s union cares one iota about the efficient and cost-effective operation of the port, yet the general public, media and politicians tend to suffer from the delusion that the teachers unions represent the interests of children!I'm a Democrat and I believe in the importance of unions in protecting workers, helping level the playing field with management and ensuring that workers receive fair pay and benefits and have job protections against unreasonable dismissals, retaliation, etc.
But in districts where the teacher unions have developed a great deal of power -- typically in large cities -- they have gone far beyond this role and frequently start behaving like the longshoreman's union, trying to intimidate or blacklist perceived enemies (just ask Eva Moskowitz), etc. Worst of all, when it comes to what's best for children, they -- like many unions -- seem to think it's part of their duty to protect the very worst teachers. Randi's union, for example, grieves every attempt to remove a teacher, no matter how egregious the circumstances -- something that is not generally the case with other teachers unions.Finally, while I think the teachers unions are, in general, obstacles to genuine reform, they are unfairly blamed by many for everything that is wrong with our schools. They are certainly easy targets for reformers to rail against, but I've never heard a good answer to my response: "Look at schools in Houston, for example, where the teachers union is very weak -- not much more than a professional association. The schools there are every bit as awful as those in other big cities with strong unions, so what makes you think that if the union went away tomorrow that things would get any better?" My point (to paraphrase Bill Clinton): It's the system stupid!There's a bit of chicken-or-egg, but I think, in general, the unions are not the cause of the dreadful system but rather the result of it. Go back and look at the history of teachers unions and you'll see that they rose in response to a system that treated teachers horribly, discriminated against women and minorities, etc. To a large extent, sadly, we got the unions we deserve. And once this vicious cycle begins, it's really hard to break.
A Schools Veteran Girds for a Broader Battlefield
Randi Weingarten has spent more than a decade cultivating a reputation as the archetypal union leader: a combative dealmaker and consummate political street fighter for city teachers. Yet at a recent education conference in Nashville, there was a fellow from the conservative Hoover Institute, Eric A. Hanushek, gushing with praise for Ms. Weingarten, and promising to do all he could to support her bid to become the president of the American Federation of Teachers, the national union.
posted by Whitney Tilson at 8:46 AM
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