Why Unionizing Teachers In Charter Schools is a Bad Idea:

Why Unionizing Teachers In Charter Schools is a Bad Idea

SEPTEMBER 5, 2014 BY NANCY BAILEY 1 COMMENT

In California, the new NEA leader Lily Eskelsen García is working to gather charter school teachers to unionize. HERE. She appears savvy and smart and gave an uplifting, firery introductory speech to teachers upon her election. As a retired member of the NEA, I wish her well.

But she has thus far claimed, like AFT’s president Randi Weingarten, that Common Core had a bad “roll out,” raising the eyebrows of those of us who question the CCSS for what it is and where it came from. And now, again, like Weingarten, she is embracing charter school teachers and selling them on the union in California.

Why is that a mistake? Charter schools were originally supposed to be for public school teachers, principals and parents to run. Based on teacher/administrator Ray Budde’s early 1970’s thesis and the support by AFT president Albert Shanker, teachers were supposed to start charters as learning laboratories to show their professionalism. The AFT even came up with a list of rules for charters.

Charter schools were to:

• Be tuition-free, not-for-profit, and open and accessible to all students on an equal basis.
• Operate transparently by fully disclosing their finances, curriculum, student demographics and academic outcomes to parents and the public.
• Meet or exceed the same academic standards and assessment requirements that apply to other public schools.
• Hire well-qualified teachers.
• Work cooperatively with local school districts.
• Permit their employees to freely form unions.

I know. Don’t fall out of your chairs.

But the charter school concept was usurped by the business crowd after Chris Whittle’s failed attempt to push for-profit Edison Schools on the public.

Apparently Albert Shanker saw this coming before he died, and he knew exactly what kind of train had left the station. Now charters are a mix of a few good ones, a lot of bad ones, and many that are run unnecessarily like military schools for the poor. Too often Why Unionizing Teachers In Charter Schools is a Bad Idea: