CURMUDGUCATION: Indian Hill And How To Bust A Union

CURMUDGUCATION: Indian Hill And How To Bust A Union

Indian Hill And How To Bust A Union

If you are a teacher in Pennsylvania, you have probably heard from the folks at Free To Teach (I'm sure there are at least two of them) about how much better your life could be without a union. Their most recent letter includes an example of a district where teachers are happily existing without any connection to the state or national unions.

Free To Teach has been around for a while. It's an operation of the right-wing Commonwealth Foundation which is in turn connected to the State Policy Network, and it's all tied to ALEC and Koch funding. It's the same old gang of people who would like to see unions go away-- particularly those damned teachers unions that provide so much support for the Democratic Party. If you want more details, I've gathered them here.

This time, FTT director Keith Williams wants to tell us about a district he visited-- Indian Hill Exempted School District just outside Cincinnati. It's one of the highest achieving school districts in the country, and they dropped out of the national and state unions five years ago.

They have some facilities, too.

That process apparently involved the help of John Concannon, a lawyer who served as the district lawyer for Cincinnati schools for years. You can read his relatively unthreatening FAQ about the process here; it includes all of the usual reassurances that the teachers don't really need the sorts of protections that the unions offer.

But upon closer examination, Indian Hill Exempted Village School District is a good example of how you really bust a union. Let me tell you a story.

For years, folks from the national union tried to unionize one of our local grocery stores. It never,  CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: Indian Hill And How To Bust A Union