By Charlie Barone, Policy Director
It’s sad but in no way surprising that the leaders of both national teachers unions threw fits at their recent conventions over what they claim are efforts to bust unions and privatize public education.
What if – instead of attacking those who want kids to have a way out of chronically failing schools and who seek to ensure every child has an effective teacher – NEA President Lily Eskelsen-García had said:
“[T]he National Education Association has been a traditional, somewhat narrowly focused union. Today, however, it is clear to me, and to a critical mass of teachers across America, that while this narrow, traditional agenda remains important, it is utterly inadequate to the needs of the future.
The fact is, that while the vast majority of teachers are capable and dedicated professionals, who put children’s interests first, there are indeed some bad teachers in America’s schools. And it is our job as a union to improve those teachers or, that failing, to get them out of the classroom.
The fact is, that while NEA does not control curriculum, set funding levels, or hire and fire, we cannot go on denying responsibility for school quality.
The fact is that while some aim only to dismantle public education, many others care deeply about our schools, and we have been too quick to dismiss their criticisms and their ideas for change.”
More than likely, she would have gotten some serious backlash from some of her most vocal members. Because that’s pretty much what incoming NEA President Bob Chase got when, early in his term in 1997, he uttered those very same words.
Chase responded to his critics with what we believe would be very good advice for incoming NEA President Lily Eskelsen-García:
“[A]ccording to polls, critics, friends, the media, as well as our own members, NEA does not possess anything approaching a strong and credible voice in the education reform debate. That reality for NEA is not only alarming, but also dangerous for public education. Without a strong, credible voice in this arena, NEA cannot continue to protect public education; if we cannot protect public education, we cannot protect our members and their jobs.”
Politically, this is pretty much where things stand today. If anything, unions have an even worse credibility problem than they had in 1997 – the year most of the incoming class of high school seniors was born. While there are some whose education reform agenda is secondary to an overall belief that private is better than public or that unions are a scourge to society that needs to be eradicated, those of us who are pushing the types of policies to which Chase alluded to improve schools and raise the bar for what is considered great teaching came to where we are today honestly. We set out with the primary goal of wanting to improve public education and encountered resistance from what, for many of us, were unexpected places.
We are at odds with teachers unions not because we are out to undermine labor or privatize education but because we can’t countenance the policies that derive from the same narrow mindset that Chase decried. And, like Chase, we believe that sweeping problems under the rug and allowing powerful adult interests to stand as an obstacle to reform is only going to more greatly empower those who want to undermine public education.
Hiring respected Democratic party advisors and activists to rail against good-faith efforts to change education – whether those good-faith efforts come from advocates, policymakers, or elected officials – and paint them all as part of some secret and perverse agenda is not going to help teachers unions. It’s not going to help kids. And it’s not going to help the Democratic Party.
The tensions between what it takes to build a great public education system and the narrower trade union-type agenda that Chase wanted to fundmentally realign are not going away. To paraphrase Robert Frost, the only way out is through. We need to face the challenges in front of us together and head-on. The alternative is another generation of debate that fails to address the real policy and, yes, political challenges and that gets us no closer than we are today to providing a high-quality education for every student.