CURMUDGUCATION: Who Is Served by the Unions?

CURMUDGUCATION: Who Is Served by the Unions?:

Who Is Served by the Unions?

We're going to have this argument again because folks are pissed about the early endorsement of Hillary Clinton by the AFT. But there's another issue quietly simmering on the union back burner that is far more significant in dealing with the question of which interests, exactly, are served by the big teachers unions.

Who am I?

This whole topic is so fraught and land-miney that I feel the need to place myself on the union spectrum before leaping in. If you don't particularly care, you can skip ahead to the next subheading.

I don't have a lot of patience for the dopes at groups like Free To Teach who are sure that the union is holding them back from being rich and wildly successful as teachers. If you think you would get a better deal for yourself without a union, you really don't understand the situation. I have been a local union president during contract negotiations and a strike, and I know how invaluable the assistance and expertise of the state union can be. Regardless of how confused they get at times, the union still provides some powerful protection for teachers who need it and deserve it. I have no patience for bashing unions as a way to bash teachers.

At the same time, I'm never going to go along with the union just because they think I should. Calls for unity that are actually calls to shut up and go along do not move me (except occasionally in the opposite direction). I am acutely aware that sometimes the interests of the union, the interests of local teachers, and the interests of public education do not always perfectly align.

It's that misalignment that brings up the topic of discussion at hand.

The Noisy Political Issue

Political endorsements are the most visible of national leadership activities, and as witnessed by the CURMUDGUCATION: Who Is Served by the Unions?:

Campbell Brown's PR Site Launches

Well, the 74 is here, and it's not exactly loaded with surprises.

Campbell Brown has launched her new site devoted to bringing the Power of Journalism to bear on pushing her particular view of What Is Needed in Education. Here's what we can find there this morning.

Brown herself has an opinion piece entitled "Advocacy, Journalism, and Why Not Every Story Has Two Sides."

Through our reporting we will advocate for a public school system that truly serves the 74 million children in this country and prioritizes their needs. Without question, The Seventy Four has an agenda – children first. We will fiercely challenge those forces within the education establishment who impede innovation in our schools and who protect and defend inequality and institutional failure.

Yes, this site is For The Children. Also, they will fight for Equity and Quality, and against the Establishment. Brown continues to position herself rhetorically as a fighter for children against teachers and other educators. She is here to speak up for the voiceless.

Naïve as it sounds, I was taken with the idea that a journalist could be a voice for those who don’t have one

Interesting notion. Because one would think that a person running a website with a four million dollar budget could provide a platform to allow those people's voices to be heard. But no-- once again (and to be fair, reformsters don't have a monopoly on this) the plan is to speak for people-- not to let them speak for themselves.

The website has a Top Four feature that headlines the top four features of the day, and today the number one feature is a story about Scott Walker. It's actually a reading list, with links to nine articles about his childhood, the moral imperative of vouchers, his complicated relationship with Common Core, his war on tenure, Politifacts debunking of WI growth scores, his courting of home Campbell Brown's PR Site Launches