Simon does not mention the on the ground grassroots organizing caucuses like CORE and MORE - and not to mention real reformers taking control of unions by overturning the old guard like Chicago, LA, Milwaukee-- bringing the unions to the communities to join with them and engage in real struggle.
On the surface the UFT does some of that --- but it is always based on their pre-decided agenda -- not what is coming from the community - the very thing that has turned people against unions -- no community roots. There are some real struggle going on in communities and the UFT is so often hands off unless they think it is a slam dunk they can benefit from PR wise.
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The fall of teachers unions
By: Stephanie Simon
June 13, 2014 05:05 AM EDT
As
the two big national teachers unions prepare for their conventions this
summer, they are struggling to navigate one of the most tumultuous
moments in their history.
Long
among the most powerful forces in American politics, the unions are
contending with falling revenue and declining membership, damaging court
cases, the defection
of once-loyal Democratic allies — and a multimillion-dollar public
relations campaign portraying them as greedy and selfish.
They
took a big hit Tuesday when a California judge struck down five laws
they had championed to protect teachers’ jobs. The Supreme Court could
deliver more bad news
as early as next week, in a case that could knock a huge hole in union
budgets. On top of all that, several well-funded advocacy groups out to
curb union influence are launching new efforts to mobilize parents to
the cause.
Responding
to all these challenges has proved difficult, analysts say, because
both the National Education Association and the American Federation of
Teachers are divided
internally. There’s a faction urging conciliation and compromise.
Another faction pushes confrontation. There’s even a militant splinter
group, the Badass Teachers Association.
Leaders
of both the NEA and AFT have sought to rally the public to their side
by talking up their vision for improving public education: More arts
classes and fewer standardized
tests, more equitable funding and fewer school closures. Those are
popular stances. But union leaders can’t spend all their time promoting
them: They must also represent their members. And that’s meant publicly
defending laws that strike even many liberals
as wrong-headed, such as requiring districts to lay off their most
junior teachers first, regardless of how effective they are in the
classroom.
The
result: an unprecedented erosion of both political and public support
for unions. And no clear path for labor leaders to win it back.
“People
increasingly view teachers unions as a problem, or the problem,” said
David Menefee-Libey, a politics professor at Pomona College who studies
education politics.
That’s a striking shift, he said, because “for decades the unions were
viewed as the most likely to contribute to the improvement of public
education.”
Winter Hall, the mother of a 7-year-old in a Los Angeles public school, echoed that sentiment.
“Whenever
there are teachers unions, it always comes off like the unions serve
themselves — like it’s not about the education of the children,” she
said.
Eager
to push back, Hall helped organize a “parent union” at her daughter’s
school, with help from the nonprofit Parent Revolution, which has
received millions in funding
from some of the nation’s richest philanthropies to organize moms and
dads into a counterweight to teachers unions. She said it wasn’t a hard
sell.
“I know tons of parents that are frustrated,” Hall said.
‘SHAMEFUL’ POLICIES?
Teachers
unions still have too much money and too many members to be counted
out. Collectively, they represent 3.8 million workers and retirees. They
bring in more than
$2 billion a year.
Yet
the share of Americans who see teachers unions as a negative influence
on public schools shot up to 43 percent last year, up from 31 percent in
2009, according to
national polling conducted by Harvard’s Program on Education Policy and
Governance and the journal Education Next. By contrast, 32 percent see
unions as a positive force, up from 28 percent in 2009, the poll found.
Labor’s
fading clout was evident earlier this month in the California primary,
when unions representing teachers and other public-sector workers spent
nearly $5 million
to boost state Superintendent Tom Torlakson to a second term — but
failed to bring in enough votes for him to win outright.
Instead,
Torlakson will have to fight for his seat in a runoff against a fellow
Democrat, former charter school executive Marshall Tuck, who has bucked
the teachers unions
on many issues — and who has been endorsed by every major newspaper in
California. In backing Tuck, most of the editorial boards specifically
cited the urgent need to curb union influence.
Another
sign of the shifting sands: the ruling this week in Vergara v.
California striking down laws governing the hiring and firing of
teachers. In a withering opinion,
Judge Rolf M. Treu essentially blamed the unions for depriving minority
children, in particular, of a quality education by shielding
incompetent teachers from dismissal.
The
unions argue that the laws in question simply guarantee teachers due
process. They plan to appeal. But the judge’s rhetoric clearly hit a
nerve. Education Secretary
Arne Duncan hailed the ruling. So did Rep. George Miller, a leading
Democratic voice on education policy in Congress. He called the union
policies “indefensible.” A New York Times editorial went further,
referring to the laws the unions had defended as “shameful,”
“anachronistic” and straight-up “stupidity.”
Even
Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.), a veteran classroom teacher who has
strongly backed unions in the past, said he was “open to reviewing and
adjusting tenure laws,” though
he called the ruling “disappointing.”
Ben
Austin, a veteran Democratic operative who served in the Clinton White
House, said the ruling was bound to make liberals uneasy about sticking
by unions.
“It
will be very difficult for Democrats to make the case that they are on
the side of civil rights and social justice if they are defending
unconstitutional laws that
objectively harm poor kids and children of color,” said Austin, who
serves on the board of Students Matter, the organization that brought
the lawsuit.
Union
leaders may be even more anxious about the upcoming Supreme Court case,
Harris v. Quinn. Several of the conservative justices hinted during
opening arguments that
they might use the case to overturn a four-decades-old precedent that
requires workers to pay dues if they benefit from a union’s
collective-bargaining work, even if they don’t officially join the
union. That could slice away a big chunk of union revenue.
Already,
the National Education Association has lost 230,000 members, or 7
percent of its membership, in the past few years and is projecting a
further decline this year.
The American Federation of Teachers, meanwhile, has seen revenue slip.
NEA President Dennis Van Roekel acknowledges that these are difficult times.
But
he says he’s also confident that unions will not only survive, but
thrive, because they give voice to teachers — and through teachers, to
students.
Union foes, he said, “just want to silence that voice.”
A HUNT FOR ALLIES
In
many capital cities, the headquarters for the teachers union occupies
prime real estate within a block or two of the statehouse.
That’s just one indication of the unions’ historic clout.
In
states such as California and New Jersey, teachers unions have often
been the biggest campaign spenders. Democrats counted themselves lucky
to have their support, not
only because of the financial resources but because the unions
commanded armies of foot soldiers available for door-to-door canvassing,
phone banks and other campaign grunt work all summer long.
The unions, in turn, could count on Democrats to have their backs.
No more.
In
2007, a handful of wealthy donors teamed up under the umbrella
Democrats for Education Reform. Their explicit goal: to finance the
campaigns of Democrats willing to
break with the teachers unions by supporting policies such as expanding
charter schools, weakening tenure and holding teachers accountable for
raising student test scores.
It
worked. Big names like former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa,
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter and New
Jersey Sen. Cory Booker
have sided with DFER. So have scores of state legislators and local
school board members.
The
self-styled reformers quickly developed a narrative that let them claim
the moral high ground in public debates. Teachers unions, they said,
were out to protect their
own members first and foremost. They didn’t have kids’ best interests
at heart.
Unions
have responded, with outrage, that teachers pour their hearts and souls
into helping students and know better than any millionaire campaign
donor what schools need.
“There’s not a tension between student interest and teacher interest,”
said Jim Finberg, an attorney for the California Teachers Association.
“In fact, they are aligned.”
But
reform groups have put so much money into their efforts — and won the
backing of so many high-profile Democrats, up to and including President
Barack Obama — that
their rhetoric has largely prevailed, said Menefee-Libey, the Pomona
College professor. “They have the brand identity as the people most
interested in improving public education,” he said.
Unions
continue to fight back, and have notched some notable victories in
local elections — such as the recent mayoral race in Newark, N.J. — by
portraying reformers as
corporate tools intent on dismantling or privatizing public education.
AFT President Randi Weingarten has drawn support from other unions, too,
with an old-fashioned activist campaign to “Reclaim the Promise” of
public education by staging rallies across the
nation.
In the meantime, though, the reformers are moving on to new strategies.
David
Welch, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, spent millions to press the
Vergara lawsuit in California. He and his allies are now preparing to
bring similar cases in other
states; they’re scouting a half-dozen potential locations, from New
York to Oregon. A New Jersey state senator this week invited the legal
team to get to work in his state as soon as possible.
DFER,
meanwhile, is planning to launch its first major public outreach
campaign next week. It’s aimed at persuading ordinary voters — not just
the hedge-fund and dot-com
millionaires it has so successfully courted — to support local and
national candidates who will take on the unions.
Meanwhile,
a conservative organization, the Center for Union Facts ran a full-page
ad this week in USA Today asking, “How can you stop teachers unions
from treating kids
like garbage?” Its answer, over a photo of a child stuffed head-first
into a trash can: “Sue.”
Add
it all up and the unions “have got to feel like they’re on their heels a
little bit,” said James Ryan, dean of the Harvard Graduate School of
Education. “For sure.”
‘BADASS’ REBELS ROIL THE RANKS
Union
leaders have responded to the mounting political pressure with
flexibility. They’ve supported some reform proposals they once recoiled
from, including rating teachers
in part by how far they raise students’ standardized test scores.
And
they have swallowed their frustration and put their political muscle
behind powerful Democrats who come down firmly in the reform camp,
starting with Obama.
But
that impulse to accommodate has sparked a furious backlash from some
rank-and-file members who long for their unions to stick to their
principles and fight the good
fight, whatever the political consequences.
The
leaders “completely ignore us — and it’s supposed to be our union,”
said Bill Morrison, a high school history teacher in Connecticut.
The
roiling anger has led some affiliates to elect firebrand leaders
determined to bring a more militant spirit to teachers unions. It’s
launched insurgent groups like
the Badass Teachers Association, which has a strong presence on social
media.
And
it’s illuminated the many fault lines within the teachers unions. There
are schisms over the importance of tenure and the wisdom of fighting to
preserve traditional
pensions. There’s a deep divide, too, over the Common Core academic
standards.
Yet
another source of strife: The American Federation of Teachers has
pursued growth in recent years by absorbing workers who have nothing to
do with education.
The
AFT now represents a huge contingent of nurses, along with public
defenders, dental hygienists, police officers and even lifeguards —
sparking resentment among some
teachers who fear their voice is diluted and their priorities ignored.
Those fault lines, analysts say, weaken the voice of teachers unions.
“There
are tensions … [that] make it difficult and hazardous for national
union leaders to say ‘This is what we stand for’ in one breath,” said
Charles Taylor Kerchner,
a research professor at Claremont Graduate University who has written
extensively about teacher unions.
Van
Roekel, the NEA president, said dissent is inevitable. “When there are 3
million members, we’re rarely going to have 100 percent unanimity,” he
said. But he said he
believes “the vast majority” of union members back the strategies the
leadership has laid out.
What’s
more, Van Roekel said he senses an “organic groundswell” of support for
the union’s vision of the future of public education and believes
parents will rally behind
their teachers, no matter how the legal cases go or how much money
rolls in to support opposition candidates.
“I’ve
actually been saying to people, and they kind of look at me strange …
that I’m more optimistic than ever,” Van Roekel said. “We’re not going
away. I can guarantee
it.”
Polls do show that parents have strong trust in teachers. But support for labor unions in general has fallen.
And
some analysts, even those sympathetic to organized labor, say the
teachers unions risk alienating the public with their constant
complaints about the conspiracy of
wealthy forces arrayed against them and their defense of job
protections like those found unconstitutional this week in California.
“It’s entirely possible,” Kerchner said, “that unions can turn public education into a bad brand.”
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