Charter School Advocates Repulsed by Empowered Teachers
Workers produce all the wealth of society. Unions have been around for generations and exist to protect the rights of workers.
Currently, 90%—93% of privately operated non-profit and for-profit charter schools across the country have no teacher unions, whereas about 90% of public school teachers are unionized.
One of the claims to fame of deregulated charter schools is that they are union-free, which means that all teachers and other employees are treated much like voiceless workers in the corporate world—as “at-will” employees, which means that they can be fired at any time for nearly any reason; there is no due process. Charter school advocates nonchalantly present this as a good thing.
But due to persistently inferior working conditions in charter schools compared to public schools, teachers in many charter schools across the country have strived to establish, and in many cases have succeeded in establishing, a union to protect their rights and the rights of their students. In more than 90% of these situations, charter school owners-operators have reacted very negatively. Using multiple tactics and strategies, charter school owners-operators have usually gone out of their way to undermine efforts by teachers to unionize. Intimidation, threats, and bullying have frequently been used by charter school owners-operators against employees striving to defend their collective interests. The title of a 2016 Slate article says it all: How charter schools bust unions: By intimidating teachers. By scaring parents. And sometimes by calling the cops.1
Teachers organized into a union with a collective bargaining agreement that recognizes their needs as teachers is to charter schools what the crucifix is to Dracula. In some cases charter school owners-operators have closed a charter CONTINUE READING: Charter School Advocates Repulsed by Empowered Teachers | Dissident Voice