‘ROUNDING THE GLOBE’: Critical analysis of the Boston Globe education coverage
‘The Cartel’ Cometh
Today, the Sunday Globe gave a barrel of ink over to a new film, “The Cartel,” which will open soon in Boston. Filmmaker Bob Bowdon takes aim at teacher unions-a favorite Globe villain-and holds them responsible for what he considers the greatest crisis we face: the sabotaging of the American educational system and the future of our country and kids. Administrators also come in for a drubbing. (The movie focuses mainly on teachers, unions, and students in three New Jersey cities). Brian McQuarrie wrote the article, which is really a pre-screening interview with Bowdon. Neither he nor I have seen the film as yet.
http://www.boston.com/ae/movie…
A man named Jim Horn has already posted an interesting response to the film. It can be found at SchoolMatters, so I won’t repeat the excellent points he made. I urge you to read his piece.
http://www.schoolsmatter.info/…
I would like to make some comments and offer a few basic facts about unions in general and teachers unions in particular.
General:
1) Anyone who forgets why unions were very organized should review the history of American industrialization. Check out Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle” for starters.
2) From the get-go, employers were offended by the very notion that workers should have anything to say about their working conditions, whether pay, hours, benefits, or safety. Just hours before writing this sentence, I watched President Obama eulogize 29 West Virginia miners who were killed in an unsafe mine. I am reminded of Faulkner’s great quote: “The Past is never dead. It’s not even past.”
3) Many sacrifices were made and lives lost to organize unions. During the New Deal, the right to organize was finally recognized under the Wagner Act. Still, employers fought unions tooth and nail. The high water mark of unionization came in the 1950s when about 35% of the workforce was unionized. I write as someone who parents and grandparents were able to live in dignity because of unions.
4) In the 1920’s, some industries ran away to the “right-to-work” South to escape unions. In a few cases, unions caught up with them. But with the globalization of the economy beginning in the 1970s, American capitalism began to oursource. Many of the victories won by unions were lost along with jobs and whole industries, as the global race-to-the-bottom began. Our great patriotic entrepreneurs went where the unions weren’t and hired desperately poor people worked for a pittance. Remember those sweatshops that you read about as part of our dark past? Suddenly they were back. Now the present appeared in past tense.
5) Presently only 12% of the workforce is unionized. American society has grown ever more unequal. The war against unions and our right of free association continues and has intensified.
6) The “cartel” we most need to be worried about is currently being investigated: Wall St. Others can be found in the media and banking for starters. Their money and power are used to help frame how we see the world-which includes how we see unions.
Teachers Unions:
1) Before teachers started unionizing in the 50s and 60s, they were taken advantage of. Their lot was low pay, large classes, and total job insecurity. These are the conditions that explain the rise of teachers unions.
2) I haven’t seen the “The Cartel” nor have I heard a response from the Jersey unions. I don’t discount the possibility of corruption and selfishness. After all, I see it every day in our largest corporations, government, banks, brokerage companies, and, yes, charter school companies. All I can say is that I worked as union teacher. I was proud of our contract, which was absolutely consistent with the best traditions of progressive education. As for tenure, I ask you readers: do you think financially hard-pressed school districts might be tempted to lay off expensive veteran teachers in favor of cheaper rookies? I think so.
3) By the way, here’s a fact that the Globe has steadfastly ignored and that Mr. Bowdon might not know: there are hundreds of different teacher union contracts, not one malevolent master contract in the various states. I belonged to MTA, but I am still waiting for the Globe to detail its beef with the BTU contract. When will the Globe get off its butt, investigate, and stop make generalizations about teacher unions. And please, Globe, while you are at it, how about substantiating the generalizations you do make.
4) For all the badmouthing of teacher unions, did you know that only about 40% of teachers are unionized? Do non-union charters fare better academically? Not in general. How about the non-union public schools? Globe get busy ad tell us what you find. The union teachers in Massachusetts seem to have created the most high achieving schools in the country, according to the Globe’s own mishugana standards. And that was true even before MCAS.
5) State law requires that teachers in Massachusetts be evaluated. Unfortunately, many administrators either don’t have the inclination to do this or haven’t been trained to do so. Quite a few weren’t very successful teachers themselves. Perhaps the “reformers” realize this and have therefore debased the very meaning of education in order to replace genuine evaluation with a simple numbers game. Enter the bean counters. Exit the master teachers.
6) Who is responsible for the deep inequalities in our society, for the fact that our people live in different worlds in the same country? Who is to blame for the dis-investment in our inner cities? Teacher unions?
Someone is laughing all the way to the bank. It isn’t teachers.
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Just some musings before I have the opportunity to see the film and listen to one of Mr. Bowdon’s interviewees tell us that this “Cartel” poses a greater danger to the country than terrorism.
What next?
The NY Times review shows a capacity for skepticism that is wanting in the Globe review of this loose-cannon-ish “documentary.” E.g.,
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p>No surprise that Mr. Bowden’s solutions to the problem of public education’s “abject failure” are vouchers and charter schools.
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p>And for a really big and REFRESHING contrast to this propaganda, listen to or read the transcript of Ira Glass’s fascinating This American Life piece on how Steve Poizner, a millionaire businessman turned short-term public school teacher turned memoirist, got an East San Jose public school completely wrong, part of a show titled “True Urban Legends.”
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p>As Ira puts it:
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I found the transcript here.
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p>In summary, it’s about an upper-class…millionaire, really…dropping in on a school with all of his classist biases and seeing what he wants to see in public schools. In an unfamiliar environment, this politician decides things must be as he expects them to be — even when neighbors, students, teachers, and the data all contradict him. These mistaken assumptions are then dressed up as truth and politically leveraged to attack the idea of public education.
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p>In other words, pretty much what Deval Patrick has been doing for the last few years.
…and how do we work with Patrick on this?
Although the recent news that the Mass DOE is considering some rational targets for standardized testing is a sign that the data may be starting to be taken into account…
…including a bit on where the money comes from…
Can you explain what you mean about the value of teacher seniority “exclusive of other factors”? (See top of page)
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p>At my public school, our union supported a contract that abolished using seniority to determine layoffs among teachers with professional status, EXCEPT where the more senior teacher was as good or better than the less senior teacher. Put another way, seniority remained, if all other factors remained (at least) equal.
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p>But the assessment of teacher performance was based on classroom observations, not who happened to be teaching what kids, in what track, and therefore what MCAS scores they happened to earn.
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p>Of course union contracts do prevent school systems from simply laying off more expensive senior teachers so they can hire cheaper inexperienced teachers. Who in their right mind would become a teacher without this kind of protection?
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p>Bill
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p>Actually, I find this pretty offensive. It suggests that teachers only become teachers because of the seniority system rather than the real reason for most, which is to teach the next generation of Americans. You mention yourself in your post that only 40% of teachers are unionized (I’m trusting you with that number), so clearly there are plenty of teachers willing to become teachers without that level of protection. I don’t think 60% of Massachusetts teachers are not in their “right minds.”
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p>I can’t speak for Bob, but I think it’s pretty obvious what teacher seniority “exclusive of other factors” means. It means that hiring, firing, and pay decisions are based 100% on longevity of service. Indeed, that’s how it works in most public schools.
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p>Maybe this is good, and maybe it isn’t, but it can hardly be defended simply with references to Sinclair’s The Jungle. Teachers are not industrial workers; they are professionals, many with graduate degrees. This certainly does not mean that there doesn’t need to be employment protections, but it does mean that we’re talking about a much different situation than the generalized defense of industrial unions you make in your first several paragraphs.
I am so weary of people being offended. This is a word that that used to be reserved for those targeted with epithets…like those who might be called a union hack. Let’s just try to have a discussion…agree/disagree, without being offended. Let’s also make sure first that we understand each other.
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p>You are writing to someone who spent three decades as a teacher and for whom teaching was a calling. I think my former colleagues would agree. So implying that I am a union hack is laughable. If you would like my curriculum vitae and references, I will be happy to send them along.
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p>No I didn’t mean that people should become teachers because of seniority/tenure. Of course not. I meant that without reasonable job protection, it might be hard to make that career choice. You are 40 years old with a child and new one on the way, and with a record of solid performance in the classroom, and your school district decides to hire a college graduate to save money? Come on. Moreover, as an educator, I dealt with controversial ideas all the time in my classroom. That tends to happen when one’s understanding of education goes beyond test prep and filling in bubbles. Tenure protected me, thank goodness, the same way it protects professors in universities. This is not a consideration with all employees in all field of endeavor.
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p>As for the 60% pf teachers not in unions (according the Bureau of Labor Statistics), I hope they became teachers for the right reasons as well. It may be that where they live there have no choice. I am sure they wish they had reasonable protections. Perhaps the presence of union contracts elsewhere have afforded them some of these protections anyway.
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p>You write as follows: “I can’t speak for Bob, but I think it’s pretty obvious what teacher seniority “exclusive of other factors” means. It means that hiring, firing, and pay decisions are based 100% on longevity of service. Indeed, that’s how it works in most public schools.”
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p>I honestly didn’t know what Bob meant. It wasn’t obvious to me, which is why I asked.
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p>Now I described my union contract to try to show that there is a principled way to apply (or not apply, as the case may be) seniority to layoff decisions. The contract also provides for the firing of tenured teachers when they receive poor ratings for more than 2 rating periods (as I recall), and if remediation is unsuccessful. I do not want incompetent teachers in the classroom and very much believe in rigorous evaluation.
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p>Yes, I know teachers are not meatpackers. My point is simply that every worker, I believe, should have access to reasonable job protection. If the factory or school closes that is one thing. But no one should be fired with out cause or even despite their excellent performance.
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p>Finally, how would you propose to organize pay scales, if not according to years of service? Would you use MCAS scores? AP classes? My school once had merit pay (in the 1970s), well actually, bonuses that could raise you to a new pay step. It proved very divisive and arbitrary and we did away with it.
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p>I wanted a decent salary, but I didn’t go beyond the minimum in hopes of getting a bonus. And if that is the only thing will motivate a particular teacher, you hired the wrong person.
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p>Bill
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the point. In the “real” world, no one has the protection of a union, so workers are lean, mean working machines. There’s no inefficiency, no slackers. With the right incentives, the incentives prevented by unions, there’s no telling how far we can go!
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p>Seriously though, let’s reverse the question, upgrade the terms of debate, and ask,
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p>”Can anyone point me to a place where a non-anecdotal, non-ideological case is made for the value of teacher seniority exclusive of any other factors?”