Are teachers' unions helpful to US society?

Waiting for Superman is good for some things, but it’s heavily biased, and doesn’t present a well-rounded critique of the issues.

Feel free to provide the rest of the issue then. I’m asking this question to learn more about it.

the states with teachers unions have higher sat scores. The ones where it is illegal are the lowest. But correlation does not mean causation. But i think there is something to that.

Teachers’ unions are good… for teachers. And there’s nothing wrong with that. After all, if people don’t have their own self-interest uppermost, then how can we expect them to adequately serve others? I don’t work at my (non-unionized) job just because I love it so much (though I do like my job – quite a lot, in fact), but because it rewards me pretty well. That helps to aid in my enjoyment of it, I think.

So I have no issue at all with teachers combining their numbers and negotiating for better hours, conditions, salaries, etc. What I have a problem with is that in many school districts in the US there is no competing force. Oh, sure, private schools are all over the place, but it’s hardly fair to someone with less than high income who’s paying a pretty healthy property tax bill – in support of “public education” – and then expecting that they can avail themselves of the competition, when they’ve already been forced to pay for the alternative that they don’t want.

So I have no problem with strong teachers’ unions… and school vouchers.

Yes, teachers unions are a valuable asset; but they have much work to do to improve their contribution not just to teachers but to education. Union membership helped the USA end child labor, shut down sweatshops, build a safe workplace where appalling working conditions once prevailed, and establish the world’s strongest middle class. But right-wing objectivists have been working for 30 years or more to drive down and demonize unions. Union membership has been slipping, and its decline matches the decline of middle-class income.

As the chart shows, unions have not gotten too powerful. They have lost a great deal of their influence. They are under attack as never before, and will soon be history ifn we stand by and let that happen. Destroying unions would be a huge step toward forcing right-wing policy into practice locally, at the state level, and nationally. Corporations have most of the cash in the USA today, and they overwhelmingly support right-wing candidates. Unions are the only interest group with any serious cash opposing them. That’s why the GOP is so intent on destroying unions. Unions interfere with bringing in the corporatocracy, and with the idea of transferring wealth to the wealthy and corporate owners.

Teachers unions should not have pushed for tenure. College professors doing research need and deserve tenure. It serves no useful purpose in secondary education, and it does great harm. Instead of defending bad teachers against firing, teachers unions should view themselves like the old trade guilds that gave birth to the union movement. They should act as a force to lift the professionalism of their trade. But we don’t want to throw the baby out with the bath water. Teachers should have the same rights to collective bargaining as any other worker should have.

Are there good arguments for tenure for public school teachers? I’m only going on the info in the film I watched, which @MyNewtBoobs accuses of bias, and they allege it only takes two years to be tenured. At that point, the teacher can read a newspaper and ignore the kids in every class for the same salary as someone who still cares. Once an attitude like that sets in, there is little incentive for the teacher to change. A Washington D.C. district superintendent came up with a solid idea, in which the union members could either stay in the current system of tenure and pay increases, or opt out of the tenure system and strive for performance incentives that could result in nearly triple pay for success. Yet the union refused to even allow a vote on it. With such a vise-like grip, how can they be reformed?

@cockswain I see no good reason for a secondary school teacher, or a lecturer in a college, to have tneure. Tenure was originally intended to protect professors who conduct research and supervise graduate students doing research. Occasionally, their work uncovers inconvenient truths that the powerful don’t want known. Tenure is meant to protect the integrity of their work. Research should take you where the facts point, not where some entrenched interest group wants you to go. Secondary school teachers and college lecturers do not face the same pressures. They should be teaching a standardized cirriculum from accepted textbooks, not pushing their personal opinions.

I agree. The film also alleges that if we could eliminate the bottom 6–10% of the worst performing teachers, our educational system would be on par with Finland. It also claims a bad teacher can set a student back one full year of academic progress. If true, bad teachers are a cancer on our society. Unions protecting them are not providing a useful purpose in that regard.

@cockswain I think the problem is that it puts all the blame on bad teachers. There are incompetent people in every single job profession, and sure, bad teachers can be easily more problematic than bad sandwich-makers, but the system has some serious problems that can’t be solved simply by getting rid of bad teachers. By using teachers as a scapegoat, you avoid having a real and frank discussion about the myriad of small fractures that creates a broken system, and focus on assigning blame instead of focus on creating solutions.

I don’t agree that the documentary takes only that stance. In addition to blaming teachers, it also blames the conflicting standards and bureaucratic hindrances imposed by the federal, state, and local govt’s. The charter schools appear to be most effective since they receive public funds yet are able to function independently.

@MyNewtBoobs You are probably right that factors such as having a team of class clowns disrupting lessons impact teacher effectiveness as well. Actually measuring teacher effectiveness is much more difficult than measuring things such as hanging sheetrock, selling automobiles on a dealer’s lot, or working on an assembly line. But we do need some way to distinguish between good teachers that are getting the job done, and ones that fail class after class. One class may be comebody else’s fault. Class after class is not. And no other profession outside of teaching has tenure protection.

I have great respect for teachers. My mom was a high school teacher, and she was also the union steward for her school. I know for a fact that she worked late at school. She was head of the science department, and had duties outside a full classroom schedule. She also brought huge bundles of papers home to read and grade night after night. She often spent her summers working on a Masters in her subject, and studying teaching methods. I know there are plenty like her, that take the job very seriously. And those that do will not need tenure to protect them from firing.

@ETpro I’ve had many a good teacher, and some real stinkers. But I have never thought, if only I didn’t have bad teachers, my educational woes would be over, because that’s really just one part of the problem. Even with good teachers, usually, I didn’t get much attention – I was a good student who applied herself and understood the material, so any issues I did have seemed negligible compared to the students who came to class on drugs, or whose parents beat them, or were starving, or were rowdy, etc. Course, this meant that, when pared with my learning disability, I understood a lot of the material but couldn’t show that, so my grades were average. But I knew a lot of them tried and wanted to help, and some had quite a few tools to help – they just were only one person in a classroom of issues.

The movie also suggests that maybe it isn’t a bad neighborhood that produces a bad school, but perhaps vice versa. Students from a “dropout factory” are way more likely to die or go to jail. Their children are likely to be the same without hope of a better life that higher education may offer. A good school in the same neighborhood could achieve 90% or greater graduation rates.

Edit: I think I just wandered a little off topic on my own question. GAAH!

I haven’t seen waiting for Superman but I would agree that they can be harmful. I can see where they can be useful because with teacher cut backs, teachers are little more than babysitters in over crowded classes. I had a teacher years ago that was obviously suffering from dementia and should’ve been retired but the school administrations hands where tied because of the union and his tenure. Also had another teacher who would spend his entire day talking about his personal life and didn’t teach us a thing. At the end of class he would assign chapters for us to read at home. Again another teacher that had tenure.
I think teachers should be paid according to how well they are doing and the difficulty of their studies and how much they challenge their students to excel. It will encourage them to compete and improve on their skills as a teacher and give more to their students.
Unions should fight for smaller classes and better materials for the teachers to give their students all the material they need to compete.

@MyNewtBoobsI totally agree it is just one part of the problem, and a rather small one at that. But it is the part that’s on topic to this question, and it’s also one part of the problem that has a ready fix. Parts like bad neighborhoods are much more difficult to resolve.

I am generally anti-union, but sometimes they are certainly necessary. The problem with unions, and government, and corporations is as they get bigger and more powerful they seek to maintain power, and tend to lose integrity.

I think tenure is horrible.

I think teachers too often are far removed from the rest of the world, or at least jobs in America, and how it works. True some states have horrible pay, but generally teachers are not paid that badly, and get good benefits.

I don’t think anyone really thinks all teachers suck. Most tea hers want to teach. But the standards to becime a teacer are not that tough. I heard on one show someone say, “years ago really smart women became teachers. They could have been lawyers, doctors, CEO’s, but back then women could not have those jobs. Now those brilliant women in our society are lawyers and doctors and not teachers. I am sure there are still some very smart teachers, but I think the averages have probably gone down.

One interesting point I heard on a tv show discussing education was that the states that are unionized tend to have better scores for their public schools, better success rates among students, than nonunionized.

So, let me contribute this, and do with it what you will:
At my school, it takes 10 years to get tenured. After that, instead of being on a 1-year contract, you’re on a 5-year contract. They can still be fired before that 5 years is up if their performance doesn’t meet a certain level. The professors have been forced to agree to so many no-raises that they currently make $1.72 an hour (if you calculate it up, adding in grading time, etc – they’re actually on salary), which is less than they would make being a high school teacher in the area.

It’s a Catch-22. If teachers were truly treated as professionals by the communities they work in, there would be no need for unions. But in many communities, teaching is viewed as a job with lots of vacation time, and that devalues the profession of teaching. Many women go into teaching because you’re home when your children are home, and they articulate that fact. For people, particularly other women who work outside the home, there is a perception that teaching is somehow a part-time job. They are oblivious to the fact that the job often starts at 7:00 am and requires working at night to grade papers, prepare lessons, etc. The requirements put on teachers in terms of what they’re responsible for has continued to increase, as has class size.

Because teacher salaries are paid by tax dollars, there’s also a sense of “you’re working for me” in many communities. Individuals ignore how hard it is to teach a group of children, deal with their parents, many of whom expect the teacher to work with their child as if they were a private tutor, expect the teacher to help their child overcome the baggage the child comes to school with, and manage a lack of resources needed for instruction, all the while satisfying district and state performance metrics.

Teachers’ unions can be helpful in the US society if the union is used to protect the employees from unfair labor practices by the employer (state.) However, a teachers’ union also has the duty to use the power they wield for the benefit of society as the effects of its power is so wide ranging in society. I would expect any union to use their power wisely; however, I am more concerned with those who can and do effect most (if not all) of society versus business based. If a union bleeds a for profit business dry, the employees will lose their jobs so the business unions have a little bit of a check and balance system built in. This is the not the case with teachers as public education is protected so even if the DOE is running in the red, it will continue.

If tenure meant something different than what it currently does, I would have no problem with it. I do not like the idea of a person’s job being tied solely to time in employment with little input based upon performance. “It’s not entirely clear why tenure is viewed as virtually sacrosanct, but there are certainly indicators…. It is extremely difficult and costly to fire a teacher. In 2008, USA Today wrote that it cost $250,000 to fire one teacher in New York.3 In Springfield, Illinois, the cost is only slightly lower—$219,000.4 And in some cases, the costs are much higher. In 2005, The Hidden Costs of Tenure, based on an Illinois newspaper investigation, found that cost is a tremendous barrier to removing poorly performing teachers.”

If tenure were a step system where the teacher earned certain privileges the longer they worked it would probably work as an incentive for teachers to perform well. Things like the teacher getting to choose the grade they want to teach or what school they want to teach in or getting to pick their classroom. I am listing these off the top of my head to indicate I am not talking about benefits such as retirement or health insurance.

Having worked in a school but not as a teacher, I saw several teachers whom administration could not fire due to tenure. The teachers were not performing well and the students were suffering. Extra assistance in the classroom had to be brought in in the form of educational assistants (EA) incurring extra expense for the school. Normally, in that school, the EAs would go to different classrooms at different times to assist teachers, but their time became tied to that one (or two) teacher(s) instead. No parent wanted their child in those classrooms, but, of course, the classrooms had to be filled anyway. This was somewhat unbalanced as those parents who were well-informed and tuned into their child’s education knew what classroom to request their child not be placed in so the classes filled up with students whose parents were less involved which compounded the problem.

Elementary school is probably the worst place to have a poorly performing teacher tenured into their job. They are responsible for teaching the foundational information necessary for future education. Also, one teacher is usually responsible for all core subjects so it is likely the students can/will suffer in all core subjects instead of just one or two as in higher education.

Sorry, for the extended answer, but I do want to make clear I do not think a child’s education rests solely on the teacher. Parents/guardians should most certainly be involved in teaching and learning. I have not watched the documentary mentioned, but now I intend to.

@MyNewtBoobs You are talking college level, I assumed the question was primary and secondary level. I think the two are very different.

This isn’t a forum on tenure or charters; it’s a forum on teacher unions. Unions simply provide protection for the working conditions of union members. The union represents the union members when negotiating contracts with the local school board (who are elected to represent the district). The union gives it’s members a unified voice during these negotiations. Teacher unions also work to negotiate salary schedules (increased pay for increased teacher education), pay, and hours/days worked. If the school district has a complaint with/about a teacher, the union will represent the teacher.

I have a friend (teacher) who was falsely accused of hitting a child. The union represented her and paid for her court costs. The charges were proven fraudulent, and she kept her job. Without the union she would not have been able to pay to defend herself and would have had to quit teaching. There are hundreds (if not thousands) of cases like this each year.

@GladysMensch If teachers’ unions did ‘simply provide protection for working conditions of union members’, there would be no question that teachers’ unions are helpful to US society. They also provide collective bargaining power which is great. However, there is also bad mixed in with the good, and one of the things which some of us who have posted feel has gotten corrupted from its good intent is tenure. Teachers’ unions are not nationally handled so a teachers’ union in NH could have complete integrity and do everything for the benefit of both the teacher and the student while a teachers’ union in AZ could use their power for the benefit of the teachers while hurting the students. (I chose random states and have no direct or indirect knowledge about either state’s unions.)

The example you stated was a good example of how a union can be and is beneficial to teachers. I am glad she was provided a lawyer and the charges were proved fraudulent. I am sure you are correct there are many cases where teachers are falsely accused and it is wonderful the teachers’ union is there to assist with the legal aspects.

@optimisticpessimist I agree with you whole-heartedly on the tenure issue. I’m a teacher (tech college), and my wife’s an elementary librarian (previously an elementary teacher). So, I know a lot of teachers. I don’t think I know one teacher who believes that tenure is a good idea, especially at the sub-collegiate level. And most teachers I know are frustrated with the difficulty of firing bad teachers. A bad teacher makes more work for the good ones, and creates a negative image for the school/district/profession.

However, we don’t blame the union for this; we blame the administrators for their lack of oversight during a teacher’s probationary period (3–5 years around here). It’s extremely easy to fire a teacher during their probationary period. Regardless, most administrators, hell, most principals don’t spend more than a few hours a year actually observing a teachers classroom. If administrators did their jobs, or were given more resources to do their jobs, then most bad teachers would be weeded out before the end of their probation.

I think teachers are individuals and have every right to belong to whatever they want to belong to and pay their monies to support whatever cause they want to support. I think I’m an individual too. When I’m paying for something as important as my child’s education or the education of a collective group, I should also have a say.

@GladysMensch Tenure is determined by the state and several states have a tenure of one year. I highly doubt the administrators or citizens pushed for such a short tenure period.

Some really great and thoughtful discussions here regarding tenure. I think what’s happening with tenure is something that happens with almost everything; use and abuse. And when something which was meant to be for the good is being abused, i think it’s time for us to sit down and rethink a strategy to stop the abuse. And if there’s pretty much nothing that we can do to make it work out, then maybe it’s time to sunset it. So if the abuse of such a great reward continues then maybe tenure will soon become a thing of the past.