Redefining the Role of Teachers and Their Unions in Reform Efforts

Abstract

Introduction

New energy around reforming the public school system provides an unprecedented opportunity for Pennsylvania and Philadelphia to embrace system-wide change. At the heart of these reforms is a focus on developing effective teachers, a result of the fact that the quality of classroom instruction is now understood as the most important influence on student growth (Marzano 2005, Sanders and Rivers 1996). These reforms call for new ways to measure effective teaching; propose plans to use this information in decisions related to compensation, career advancement and tenure; and articulate strategies for turning around the teaching force in our lowest-performing schools.

Some current reformers have cast teachers unions as the chief obstacle to these types of reforms. They argue that unions protect ineffective teachers from being dismissed, allow for evaluation systems that fail to differentiate teacher performance, and promote a salary schedule that rewards seniority rather than teaching excellence. To exacerbate matters, critics point to the fact that with a base of over three million members, teachers unions have used their political power to thwart flexibility and stifle innovation.

It’s no secret that existing systems rate virtually all teachers good or great and fail to recognize excellence or address poor performance. In Pennsylvania, for example, teachers are granted tenure after three years on the job if they receive a satisfactory evaluation, which the overwhelming majority do, and very few are ever fired for inadequate performance. In Philadelphia, despite efforts to improve the teacher evaluation system, only 25 teachers were rated unsatisfactory in the 2009–2010 school year (Mezzacappa 2011). A significant body of research has now demonstrated that these practices make it challenging for districts to develop a high-quality teaching force (Weisberg et al. 2009). However, there’s little evidence that vilifying teachers unions will help solve the problem. To the contrary, whether or not districts can successfully sustain reform initiatives of this type has historically been shown to depend in large measure on teacher buy-in, particularly from the unions (Hannaway and Rotherham 2008).

If current reform efforts are to be effective over the long term, they must be done  with teachers and not to them. This will mean changing the way unions represent teachers and the way teachers unions and school districts conduct their business. Above all else, meaningful reform will require teachers and administrators to work as partners. This philosophy of “professional unionism” should lay the foundation for any comprehensive reform effort. In a professional model, unions collaborate with school districts to ensure that teachers play an active role in the implementation of new initiatives.