A few days ago, a little-known group called the Center for Union Facts published a full-page ad in the New York Times blaming Randi Weingarten, the AFT, and teachers’ unions en bloc for the mediocre performance of the United States on PISA. The “center” says that the unions oppose merit pay, and that’s why the scores of 15-year-olds are not at the top of the world.
This ad is patently absurd.
Leave aside for the moment the fact that our scores on PISA are not declining; leave aside the fact that scores on international tests do not predict the future of the economy (we were last on the first international test in the mid1960s); leave aside that the AFT did approve some form of merit pay in contracts in Baltimore and New Haven; leave aside the fact that merit pay has been tried again and again for nearly a century and has never made a difference. Albert Shanker once said to a proponent of merit pay: “Let me get this right: Students will work harder if you offer their teachers a bonus? That makes no sense.” Leave aside the voluminous research showing that financial incentives and test-based accountability don’t make a difference, whether the bonuses are offered to students or teachers.
What matters here is that this alleged “center” has no knowledge or expertise about education, and is a “center” of union busting propaganda.
I know this for a fact. Several years ago, as I was transitioning from my role in conservative think tanks to my current role as a critic of high-stakes testing and privatization, I was invited to participate in a conference of the Philanthropy Roundtable at the elegant Rainbow Room high atop Rockefeller Center in New York City. The Philanthropy Roundtable was created by conservative and rightwing foundations as a counter to what they perceived as leftwing bias at the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Carnegie Corporation (where are they now?)
I was asked to be a judge on a panel to select the best reform idea for the next decade. I was going to be the Simon Cowell, the tough critic who scowled at bad or half-baked proposals. The room was full of foundation leaders–maybe 150 of the big donors.
One of the proposals was offered by Richard Berman of the Center for Union Facts. He said that his exciting new idea was to attack and demonize the teachers’ unions. He showed pictures of the billboards he had erected across major highways in New Jersey, blaming the unions for high costs and bad test scores. Needless to say, he was very proud of the work he had done.
The audience seemed to love his presentation.
When it came my turn to question him, I asked him these questions: can you explain why the states that are unionized have the highest scores on the federal tests? Did you know that New Jersey is one of the nation’s highest performing states? Can you name a high-performing state that is not unionized?
Berman seemed stunned, momentarily speechless. Then he said, “I am not an education researcher. I am in public relations.”
Case closed.
But as you can see, his “big idea” has gotten the funding to go national.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Demographics almost entirely explain the difference in performance–as judged by the tests everyone here seems to hate until the results support an ideological point–between unionized and “right to work” states. I know you know that, even if the Center for Union Facts doesn’t.
Well,Tim, that is entirely the point. If unions are the major problem, there should be a clear correlation between union and non-union states in which the union states fare more poorly than the non-union states. But the unions are not the major problem and any influence the unions might have (for better or worse) is dwarfed by the much larger issue of the demographics you mention.
Having said that, there is a golden opportunity for Mercedes Schneider or some other researcher of her caliber to locate states with similar demographics and use them to control for the most influential factors to tease out what effect, if any, unionization has on educational outcomes.
I really do wish we could expose the salaries of CEOs and what they’re making undeservedly, sitting on billions in cash, paying no taxes, offshoring jobs and profits, destroying the middle class, buying up education. They blame the unions and teachers, but not the administrators and CEO’s. There’s such a patter to privatize our education system and everything else. Until people wake up and see what’s being done to them, there’s no hope. The stock markets aren’t going up on profits; the big nultinationals love when job numbers are terrible because they can continue to have a fed that keeps interest rates for them near zero. Then they can take that money and loan to people and small companies at outrageous sums while paying nothing for the money they get from the fed. We had good job numbers (whatever that means) and the stock market collapsed this week. The Koch Brothers, Pete Peterson, Arnie Duncan, Bill Gates, Rahm Emanuel, Bloomberg, and so many others want to profit off of schools by not only putting unaccountable charter schools in place, but selling them their “educational” programs.
For some reason any union sins shows that all unions are bad, but no business sin ever taints the business community as a whole.
Diane – You are preaching to the choir here on your blog. Did you write a letter editor to NYT with this same message? Say freedom of speech in ads is a right, but…..(and tell the truth)..
Well said, Dr. Ravitch! Extremely well said!
Union membership in both the public and non-public sectors has declined precipitously over the past thirty years. In 2012, it was 11.3 percent, down from 20.1 percent three decades before. The 11.3 percent figure represents a 97-year low. Unions have been hit hard by right-to-work laws and laws taking away from public-sector union workers (teachers) the right to strike. Unions in this country are now like elderly cats that have been declawed and have lost all their teeth. They are emaciated shadows of their former selves. And yet, if you listen to extremists on the right, you would think that they were Blake’s invincible Tyger. And, of course, both the AFT and the NEA have become major instruments for the implementation of the most significant of the corporate deform initiatives–the engine that runs the whole thing–the new national standards. Given all this, it’s amusing to hear these extremists on the right continue to scream about how the biggest problem we face is the power of those unions.
To be fair to AFT and NEA, one can argue that the only decent thing coming out of the Common Core State Standards [sic] is that there are some programs around the country in which teachers are getting together to design, together, CCSS lessons, and many of those lessons are quite thoughtful. And it’s that kind of thing that NEA has been, largely, doing to implement the CCSS, though I believe that this well-intended work serves the long-term goal of the corporate deformers to turn formerly autonomous teachers into scripted robo-teachers. Who, in the long term, will own the lessons produced by the LDC? It won’t be the teachers. In effect, the NEA, which is leading such an effort, is helping corporate deformers enlist people to create what will turn out to be curricula owned by private, for-profit corporations in which those teachers will have no equity stake.
It would be a wonderful thing, of course, if we had national programs that got teachers together to plan curricula and pedagogical strategies for use by their colleagues and if we implemented bottom-up reform that provided teachers with the time and resources to do Japanese-style Lesson Study. But that sort of work in the service of the CCSS and of organizations that own the curricula being produced and that plan to become for-profit entities, is simply conscription of teachers to eliminate all tiny, remaining vestiges of teacher autonomy in the near future.
cx: to eliminate, in the future, all tiny, remaining vestiges of teacher autonomy
Thanks for you thoughtful comment. You said:
“To be fair to AFT and NEA, one can argue that the only decent thing coming out of the Common Core State Standards [sic] is that there are some programs around the country in which teachers are getting together to design, together, CCSS lessons, and many of those lessons are quite thoughtful. And it’s that kind of thing that NEA has been, largely, doing to implement the CCSS, though I believe that this well-intended work serves the long-term goal of the corporate deformers to turn formerly autonomous teachers into scripted robo-teachers.”
No doubt people feel similarly who get together in community storm shelters during hurricanes–getting to catch up neighbors we have not had time to visit in awhile. I doubt that such visits are much consolation, however, when everyone emerges to see that the storm has blown the town away.
I used to be skeptical of unions, not because of the reasons that are used today, but because of first-hand exposure to the abuses that some unions employ. I remember when, as a child, my dad worked at Union Carbide. He wasn’t in the union, but he was a department head for “process safety and salvage”. He didn’t have a high opinion of union demands. So I grew up in that environment. Even so, as I became a teacher, it became more apparent that there needed to be a balance of power between unions and management.
The fact is, neither “side” should have the “upper hand”. As a teacher, there have been many circumstances where it has been pointed out that “Teachers aren’t professionals because they are in a union.” As a teacher, I have had qualms about what union membership means. As I continued in the profession, I realized that teachers would be walked all over by the administration if there weren’t limits to the administrations “rights”. So, I became a reluctant “believer in unionism.”
I have seen abuses. That is what needs to be addressed. I have seen the good that can come from unions behaving in a professional manner. In politics as well as in eduation, the incorrect people seem to have laid claim to the “definitions and facts” that have become the bumper stickers for our discussions. He who controls the language has the upper hand.
When we allow corporations to define a profession in their terms, and when their terms are attractive to the needs of people who perceive themselves as victims of bad education, bad luck, bad economy, etc., then corporations are in a position to deflect the blame onto a very vulnerable portion of “government services” – educators, as well as policemen and firefighters.
Any time educators “speak up” we are suspect of being whiny and lazy. In our district, which has been quite successful in spite of low per pupil expenditures and a fairly large group of low income students, we have achieved the “A” rating on state report cards, previously “Excellent, with distinction,” for several years. YET, our administrators can be cutting, hateful, uncooperative, and insulting. It is never ending. Giving 100% is certainly not enough. In fact, any demands made in negotiations are seen as “whining” and we are told “do you jobs and be quiet”. Needless to say, this does not create good morale or pleasant working conditions. However, we’ve never let the kids “see us” in our pain. If it weren’t for the kids, most of us wouldn’t even consider the job. But, isn’t that what it is SUPPOSED to be about?
Things that strike me as peculiar about this “tech driven” education that seems to drool from the minds of the Gates-like drones are … what do computers do for the child with the speech impediment? Who decides which programs to feed to the children? How can “one size fits all” mean anything purposeful if the inputs aren’t the same? Exactly what do these reformers WANT from children? Do they honestly believe that all students can learn the same thing at the same time?
Another topic that I haven’t seen addressed is: In education, longitudinal studies need to be in place to see if the changes WORK. Well, guess what, it takes longer in education. We can’t keep changing mid-stream every 5 years, never following through with the hypothetical “cures” for all that ails the system/process.
Differentiated instruction is a good idea, but implementing it takes a long, long time. There are various internet based learning programs, but our district kept exploring them and changing our minds every year! How do we have a clue as to whether something can or will work? We don’t. Not really. We just grasp at anything that grant money can provide. We experiment. We burn out.
Perhaps we need to slow down a little and get some perspective as to what really makes sense and to put our “changes” into application before jumping on yet another “idea” from a non-eductor. Sure, everyone can contribute, but not every idea has merit. Money talks, though,, and there-in lies the problem.
Deb,
Your post is so eloquent and true. If we continue to try new programs every year, we won’t have to make the companies selling the (often the same company selling the best/newest…) “ideas” accountable. We should stop throwing money around like drunken sailors. We continue to grasp at straws trying to find an easy way to educate all children. That’s where teaching is an art. All children do not learn the same way and at the same time. We nave GOT to get rid of the “production of widgets” mentality the business community has mandated education to use.
I have always enjoyed “break though moments” …usually when a kid starts to believe in herself/himself…makes friends the first time…has the guts to overcome shyness…comes back a few years later saying that I changed the track of their lives, etc.where will all of that go once we incentivise with technology and nothing else?
When it comes to unions these days, there seems to be four pernicious lines of thought going on:
1) When businesses are having troubles, unions are blamed, with corporate media going along with that message. The reality is usually one of three things: a) free trade agreements making the cost of using overseas labor much less expensive (until they organize, of course); b) poor management at said companies (e.g., some auto makers, pre-bailout); c) management taking harmful actions against their employees (e.g., raiding their pensions) that makes labor have no choice but to strike.
2) Unions are said by some to be anachronistic. They “used to be needed, but not any longer”. Of course, this is nonsense. Unions are only anachronistic if businesses/organizations with employees are anachronistic. If a labor force at a particular company collectively believes they can get a better deal by organizing, that idea is just as reasonable in the year 2013 as it was in 1963.
3) Some extreme forces are even making the case that unions should be eliminated, because somehow the economy will perform better, or that labor should only receive what management of companies decide they should get, as that is somehow the “right way of doing business”. These eliminationists don’t care about freedom of assembly or the inherent right of freely organized labor in a free market. They also don’t care that an impoverished labor force has meager purchasing power and therefore cannot support a robust economy (see Henry Ford).
4) Some say it’s unfair for employees to have to pay dues to an already organized union at a company they freely became an employee of, knowing in advance its labor force was organized — that they have a “right to work”. This is in reality a right to welch, which effectively strips unions of their power to maintain an organization. And then all employers need to do to remove union power from their premises is to hire employees who don’t want to pay union dues, or convince existing employees to stop paying them. This is basically destroying rights more than it is giving them.
It seems to me that the drive for so-called efficiency has driven many people out of work. The goal of efficiency should be to provide what is needed in a more efficient manner, but to WHOSE benefit? The worker has little real incentive to be more efficient if it is necessary for them to be on “turbo-drive” for 8 hours per day to produce what used to take 16 hours. If corporations weren’t so focued on increasing profits every quarter, more people could be employed and peole could earn their same salaries while working 5-6 hour days, achieving fulltime work status.
For years, workers have complained about teachers getting to work a “6.5 hour day” … not giving a thought to the fact that the day is often 10-14 hours long with weekends and summers taken up as non-paid obligations to the job. And, now we have this “efficiency mumbo jumbo” implanted into the school system. It doesn’t really work well for employees in corporate America, creating a revolving door of burned out, abused, neglected employees and a few rich people on top ..so we decide to thrust this bad idea onto education. Except it doesn’t work at all. You can’t “efficiently deliver a lesson” to a multitude of varied students and expect to get the results. Lesson taught does NOT guarantee lesson leaned. Putting x into the formula and increasing machine speed may produce products, but students are not products. Teaching them is not a formulaic experience.
Unions are needed to strike a balance and insert common sense. If neither is achieved, then their purpose is diminished.
Bravo Diane!
Richard Burman is a lobbyist. He has worked for tobacco companies and the liquor industry. He would denounce breathing in the New York Times if someone paid his fee to do it. Maybe if he wasn’t paid to believe in whatever he claims to believe, he could have an Op-Ed instead of buying people’s attention.
Diane, I find what you shared horrifying.
So sad that this is not about education and not about our kids. It’s about decisions made in a back room vilifying the very people who make the system work.
Destroying the unions will destroy education as we know it. They not only represent the teachers, they also represent the students.
As I implied in another post – at this rate, the one room school house (in our own homes) is starting to look like a pretty good alternative.
This is why over 1 million people in Ohio signed a petition to stop Senate Bill 5. We stopped it, but our “governor” Kasich shoved much of it through in his budget. We are still hurting. He is noted as one of the worst governors in America. He was part of the Lehman Brothers fiasco that created this terrible economy and financial collapse. He’s a “my way or the highway” kind of guy. Schools, police, fire departments, local and city governments are hurt by his ways. He is a union buster. He advocates against passing local school levies and sends his kids to private school.
This posting is an example of why this blog is so important.
REIGN OF ERROR is a book. This blog is a living book, able on a daily basis to add and expand on all issues in the ed debates and available to the entire world via the world wide web.
For anyone who still doesn’t understand why folks like Michelle Rhee and David Coleman and Ben Austin keep fleeing from engaging in civil and open discussions with the owner of this blog, look what happened when she asked Richard Berman of the CUF to answer some extremely simple questions. [Quote from above posting follows:]
“Berman seemed stunned, momentarily speechless. Then he said, ‘I am not an education researcher. I am in public relations.’”
That was as good as admitting that he peddled lies he couldn’t defend—but that he was good at selling snake oil! *Remember: his presentation pleased his audience!*
Why would the self-styled “education reformers” want to be put on the spot like that—to put on public display their studied ignorance and moral emptiness?
Many thanks for this posting. Another classic of the democratic tradition.
😎
A great source for Berman’s scams:
http://bermanexposed.org/
*resource*
Source, resource, what’s the difference besides (or is that ‘sides) an r and an e?
At what point in history has eliminating worker’s rights led to better conditions for workers?
Apparently, this public relations propaganda is excellent at convincing the public–and this includes the union members themselves–that unions are a problem in education. This is a very important post, yet how many union members actually take the time to research and understand the impact of the reform movement on their collective bargaining rights? There is so little interest in attending union meetings in my building, it’s tragic. People are over-worked, paying more into their pensions and health benefits, and either oblivious to how this happened or certain that the union allowed it. I am tired of the apathy and misinformed attitudes within the ranks. The message is lost on so many as they put the blame on the very organization that’s working for them. Healthy skepticism is one thing, but ignorance and apathy is unacceptable.
I’m proud that the Buffalo Teachers Federation (BTF) is a strong union whose members are willing to go rogue. There has been a constant battle between the union and the district, and also between the union and King. The bad aspect of this standoff is that King tries to retaliate with hurtful tactics, but that’s his MO anyway.
The BTF, along with some parents, recently peacefully picketed Board of Regents member Robert Bennett’s house on Day of Action in protest to the implementation of CCSS. Although slammed by the Buffalo News for picketing a private citizen, BTF President Phil Rumore said that Bennett was fair game since he represents the Regents which supports the Common Core in NYS. There was also picketing outside the recent King forum, which Bennett attended, because attendance for the event was preselected as were the allowed questions.
Is it possible to do a funding drive in order to print our own full page age? I know a lot of teachers would donate. Can we fight fire with fire?
This is off topic and I apologize but I wondered if you-all had seen this. It’s the Texas Observer on an Ipad debacle in Texas. Follow the link in the piece to the analysis of the program. The district ended up paying a consultant to determine just how badly the tech consultants they hired ripped off the district.
Behind the whole debacle is….a Broad-trained “reform” superintendent! He’s down the road with a generous buy-out, but the mess he left lives on!
It’s pretty amazing:
http://www.texasobserver.org/run-school-ipad-program/
California isn’t the only state that is using school infrastructure bonds to finance IPads.
Chaira, this reminds me of the adage – “The difference between a man and a boy is the price of his toys”. Here was a new toy that superintendent had to have. What happened to a sample group to develop the program? And, of course, the kids were going to break through the firewall. That was a given. Finally, there are plastic protectors which will keep the iPads from breaking – they cost about fifty dollars, but they are a cheap insurance policy compared to the replacement cost. My three year old grandson has one on his tablet and I want one for mine. Idiots – they jump first, ask questions later.