As the Walton Family Foundation, ALEC, and Betsy DeVos would agree, the point of charter schools is to eliminate teachers’ unions.
The article says that 89% of charters are non-union, by design. (I think the percentage is even higher, possibly 95%.)
But in Los Angeles, three charters in the city’s largest charter chain are starting the process to unionize.
This is a very small drop in a lake of charters.
Is it good or bad? It is good that teachers are seeking to have a voice in their workplace. It is good that they can join together to improve working conditions. It is good that they are defeating the billionaires who want to bust unions and privatize public schools.
But…when charter teachers join the NEA and AFT, will those two unions no longer oppose the charter openings? Will they stand back as the Waltons, Koch’s, and DeVos spend hundreds of millions every year to open more non-union schools?
A paradox. I hope to hear what you think.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
If NEA and AFT’s national leadership is not fighting, tooth and nail, the plague of autocratic, abusive, for-profit, greedy corporate charter schools, the unions must change and only the members that vote can do that.
The more members there are that pay dues, the more voters there are.
Labor unions are democratic organizations where the workers/members do have a voice and vote … if they use it.
Corporations, by definition, are not democratic and are often ruled over by one or a few wealthy, powerful overlords who are no different than the Robber Barons of 19th century America. Modern Day Robber Barons are ruthless and if they could get away with it, they would have the union organizers beaten and then murdered if they did not learn their lesson … just like the original Robber Barons did.
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You get at the heart of the dilemma, Diane: all workers should be able to join a union and enjoy its advantages, but by unionizing charter school teachers (often/always with contracts far inferior to the ones in place with public school districts), the unions risk normalizing them, depending on them as a source of dues, while allowing them to metastasize and further weaken the public schools.
My personal feeling is that if the unions are going to attempt to unionize charter school teachers, it’s with the explicit understanding that the intention is to 1) improve their wages, hours and working conditions, and 2) work toward bringing those schools – only those which don’t cherry-pick, counsel out or engage in racist social engineering/behavior modification – into the public school system, while allowing them to retain their pedagogical autonomy.
So we’re talking about, what, ten percent of charter schools, or less? The rest, and especially the Success Academies, Kipps, Uncommon Schools and their racist, colonizing ilk, need a stake driven through their hearts once and for all.
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If NEA and AFT take these non unionized “teachers”, there should be conditions. The biggest condition is that any TFA teacher needs to go back to school and receive the education and certification that ALL teachers must have to be allowed to teach. As long as they are paying dues and receiving education, they should be afforded the luxury of benefits from the union.
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If the Janus decision goes against unions, they are unlikely to set conditions for new members.
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Agreed, Lisa M.
The small minority of TFA recruits who intend to stay in the classroom should most certainly have to meet the same licensing requirements as public school teachers. Nor should any school be allowed to hire anyone from the recently-created and bogus “alternative” licensing programs, such as Relay.
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I think the union/charter debate will turn out like all other ed reform debates- the minute “choice” comes into the picture public schools drop to the bottom of the priority list and will be ignored and neglected even more than they are now.
Ed reformers in Ohio have spent more time lobbying for vouchers than they have on anything benefiting public school students, and this is a state where 90% of families attend public schools. Our kids and our schools are the dead-last priority. Always.
I don’t think people know how this plays out when one elects ed reformers. They don’t realize their entire public education debate will be hijacked by a laser-like focus on “choice” to the exclusion of the vast majority of students and families.
When Illinois finally decided to put some work into funding their public schools the entire process was hijacked by voucher lobbyists. Public schools were an afterthought- a vehicle to attach voucher funding, a chip to be played. No one was working on behalf of public schools. They were treated as the unfashionable default that would always be there for the masses.
Ohio’s entire new ranking scheme was driven by the needs and wants of charter schools. Every public school in the state will be governed by a rating scheme that came from the California Charter Schools association and was designed to put charters in a favorable light. Public schools weren’t even considered. That’s the level of capture we’ve seen, where 90% of families have no representation at the statehouse.
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First, the “funding” being “finally” put into ILL-Annoy education was a political sham: other programs were slashed in order to make “new” money available to the schools (esp. money dedicated for sp.ed.~all put into the general funds). We are one of a few states that still has a flat tax; there has been talk,talk,talk (esp. from people running for office) about instituting a progressive tax (even if passed in the Senate, it will be held up & failed in the House, because the Speaker doesn’t want it). Thus, ILL-Annoy has a revenue problem. Second, the organization Advance ILL-Annoy (pro-charter school, privatization people–look back in this blog & find Laura Chapman’s excellent report on CAN: Advance ILL-Annoy is listed as one of its members) has been pushing the school funding bill for at least the past 3 years, if not more. PLUS–although ILL-Annoy Stand on Children kept its name out of the “Fix the Formula” push, as it was called, they contributed a GREAT deal of $$$ to the Senate sponsor & to other legislators. Therefore, a # of us knew where this was going, & this lead to HB (or SB) 1974, which was passed & allows “tax scholarships” (euphemism for school vouchers, as contributions to non-public schools are counted as tax credits, thus keeping tax monies from the public schools.
Things are a lot more complicated in ILL-Annoy than it might appear to readers in other states.
Plus, we have all the goodies here: Vallas, Arne & I hear Gates is a comin’.
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I think this points to a larger problem. The national teacher unions have no long term strategy to protect the teaching profession and public education from this assault by the billionaire boys club. (BTW, Diane, I liked when you used this term more often. It captures the imagination & gives a vivid image of the faces behind reform.).
The national unions have been unsuccessful at undoing a single law or regulation that has chipped away at the foundation of public education for 20 years. It’s really disgusting to watch how lawmakers hold the leadership & teachers in general in contempt. We object. They do it anyhow. We present evidence.They ignore it.
The national unions are caught now putting out fires that will keep popping up because the structure of reform is embedded in every state & federal agency.
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I can’t believe there’s yet another “charter schools week” in ed reform.
How many are there? How many weeks have the lawmakers we pay dedicated to cheering on the schools they prefer, and utterly ignoring ( or actively denigrating) the schools they don’t prefer?
Utter and complete capture. You can’t pay these people to offer something of value to public schools. We know because we ARE paying them and they refuse to do any work on behalf of public school students.
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Nice one !
I thought about this the other day.
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There are other options, no? The UFT in NYC and the CWA represents teachers (both AFL-CIO affiliates); SEIU and AFSCME represent teachers too, while the UAW is organizing graduate students. These are not nearly in the same numbers as AFT and NEA, but do represent an alternative.
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There’s NOTHING to wonder about here.
OF COURSE the AFT and NEA will want to take on charter school teachers as members.
Both unions, as well as UFT and NYSUT are in business for themselves, and they depend on those dues to pay their big executive salaries and to ensure that their executives will continue to listen to the presidents, who compromise with reformy and dance with the devil just to be “left alone” so that the salaries and huge perks/double pension (one from the teacher’s retirement system and one from the union, the latter is paid for with union dues!).
The more members, the better the big corporate union machinery can steam roller forth in the specious hopes of avoiding the wrecking balls of reform.
In this model, these “unions” have become a mere branch of reformy government, reformy privatizes and reformy management, all to keep the rank and file at bay.
As Lloyd said, the only way to change the union is to have voting members reinvent their unions. It’s a double whammy to have to fight both the overclass and the institutions that are designed to protect you against the overclass, but instead, have long identified with them.
Double whammy . . .
But as many are discovering, don’t look for the Democrats or the unions to protect labor. Instead, look to become the Democratic party and become the union, and in your pro-activeness, you will change the DNA of both organizations and start to achieve a healthy society, one that can purge itself of viruses like Randi Weingarten for starters.
Any union that takes on charter school teachers is condoning, aiding, and abetting the charter school movement and privatization of public education.
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Meant to write:
” . . . . their executives will continue to listen to the presidents, who compromise with reformy parties and dance with the devil just to be “left alone” so that the salaries and huge perks/double pensions (one from the teacher’s retirement system and one from the union, the latter paid for with union dues!) will continue on with no interruptions.”
My English gets challenged . . . .
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Agreed that the unions support charters in the interest of collecting more dues. Recall Weingarten’s phrase “school reform with us, not without us”! Weingarten was ranked #1 on Institutional Investor magazine’s 40 most “influential players in US pensions” in 2013, according to Axios. The union has involved itself in myriad enterprises, including credit cards and insurance peddled to the membership. They are corporate entitles which are devoted, as they said to the Supreme Court in Janus testimony to “labor peace” saying the agency fees were necessary otherwise there could be more West Virginia’s. Such organizations, like the old AFL, cannot be reformed, but must be replaced with new organizations controlled and led by the rank and file which unite teachers both nationally and internationally. Instead of begging state legislatures and supporting millionaire Democrats, they should demand the full-funding of education through socialist policies … We now have 3 billionaires own more wealth than the bottom 50% of the US. Such social inequality is incompatible with decent education for all, must less social rights to affordable healthcare and retirement. Read the WSWS.org!
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Any union that takes on charter school teachers is condoning, aiding, and abetting the charter school movement and privatization of public education.
I am inclined to agree. Charter school teachers should form their own unions to address the working conditions that charter operators and authorizers are imposing on them.
I also agree with Lloyd and Norwegian filmmaker that if AFT and NEA need to reinvent themselves as clear defenders of teachers instead of being mired in “reformy management.”
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The Alliance teachers tried to make a go of unionization on their own for about two years, where they faced a multi-million-dollar union-suppression onslaught, an onslaught funded by out-of-state, and some in-state billionaires out to privatize education.
It was then, and not until then, that they asked UTLA for help. When this story first broke, the Alliance teacher leaders were portrayed as the leading players, and quoted for stories.
Though those teachers — fighting impossible odds and dark, deep-pocketed forces — always have been and still are those leading players, the corporate media, for the last three years, has been carrying out its marching orders to falsely portray UTLA as the bad guy interloper and originator of the unionization campaign, with any pro-union Alliance teachers being portrayed as naive, passive vessels of UTLA’s evil attempts to mesmerize, hypnotize, and then lead those poor, weak-minded charter school teachers astray.
It’s patent nonsense.
Until last week, it was only UTLA people who were quoted on the story. Finally, teacher leaders are being quoted again.
For an idea of how absurd this aspect of the Alliance unionization truly is, here’s a post from the COMMENTS section on Mercedes Schneider’s blog:
x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
The 74’s ROMY DRUCKER:
“School leaders should listen to and share information with staff.
“*‘Encourage healthy communication between school management and teachers,’“ urges Frank Baxter, [a prominent philanthropist of Los Angeles-based Alliance College-Ready Public Schools and founding board chair.]
” “‘Keep close to and listen to your staff.’“ ”
x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
Apparently, Baxter & Co. didn’t listen enough, as the following dramatic sequence of events shows.
Here’s a good pair of dueling articles about the attempted unionization of the Alliance charter schools — best read one after the other.
The first piece: (from last week)
a couple of quisling Alliance teachers, Daisy Jauregui and Cynthia Hacha, speaking the words given to them by their Alliance charter chain masters, attempt to …
“Declare victory and withdraw from the field.”
(They’re sort of like Saddam Hussein’s Information Minister during the 2003 invasion … as you’ll soon see.)
http://laschoolreport.com/commentary-the-la-teachers-union-has-been-trying-to-organize-our-charter-school-for-3-years-its-enough-were-not-interested/
In effect, they say, “We Alliance teachers don’t want a union. We think that UTLA folks a bunch of creepy outsider stalkers who are just annoying us, so UTLA, please accept defeat and stay away from us.
“We love our management, and they’re treating us just fine. We just LOVE being ‘fully controlled.’ “Any teachers saying otherwise are just liars.“
“That’s the opinion of the overwhelming majority of our teachers, so just leave us the-f— alone!“
Daisy and Cynthia make no mention that, during the last three years, the Alliance bosses raised and used $3 million in dark money (from Walmart Walton Family, Netflix Reed Hastings, the California Charter Schools Association, and elsewhere) which was then used to engage in the most vicious union-suppression imaginable — hiring the same group that Walmart uses to kill budding organizing efforts — against the teachers trying to unionize and that they had a further $2 million in pro-bono legal work in support of efforts to suppress unionization. (It’s also the same group that runs The 74.)
(Wow. they spent $3 million (!!!) to stop unionization. Think about what could have been done with that money. It could have gone to the classroom, or to … yes … teacher salaries. Divide that $3,000,000 by 700 teachers, and you could give them a $4285.71 bonus — a one-time bonus, sure, but perhaps the Alliance teachers, knowing that Alliance leaders blew that money on efforts to crush budding unionization, were consequently or further influenced to give unionization a second thought, and eventually support efforts to organize a union … as we’ll soon see.)
Also, the two quisling teachers, as with their well-paid counterparts in the corporate media, are trying to portray this as a UTLA-originated effort, when in fact, the Alliance teachers began organizing for two full years before asking UTLA to get involved, and that was after and only because of some of the most vicious and underhanded tactics being employed against the pro-union Alliance teachers by the Alliance management.
So I guess that’s the end of it. No teachers unions at the Alliance charter chain.
The fat lady has sung.
Ehhh … not so fast.
The second piece:
The very next day after the above article was posted on The 74 and its local L.A. affiliate L.A. SCHOOL REPORT, the Alliance teachers who have been attempting to organize a union — the ones who were supposedly wallowing in their hopeless failure, according to the above op-ed — put out a press release stating the COMPLETE AND EXACT OPPOSITE of the above op-ed.
http://www.latimes.com/local/education/la-me-edu-alliance-schools-unionize-20180502-story.html#new_tab
Indeed, they’ve organized 3 of the Alliance schools, with “a clear majority” of the 100 or so teachers at those schools submitting cards authorizing a union. That’s 1/7th (100 out of 700) of the total Alliance teachers.
They further claim that “the rest of” Alliance schools and teachers will soon follow.
Weird, wild stuff.
(I bet those two quislings, Daisy Jauregui and Cynthia Hacha, sure feel kinda stupid right now.
It’s just a guess, but I’m guessing Daisy Jauregui and Cynthia Hacha are probably not going to be getting a lot of love in the teachers’ lounge — particularly as those substantial union-enabled improvements to Alliance teachers’ working conditions, salary, benefits, etc. — and the accompanying benefits to students — take hold … improvements that Daisy and Cynthia tried to block through their craven collaboration with Alliance administrators. I wouldn’t want to be in their shoes in the years to come.)
Here’s another good article on this:
For a visual, here’s a picture of Alliance’s Cynthia Hacha:
https://www.google.com/search?q=%22Daisy+Jauregui%22+%22Cynthia+Hacha%22&tbm=isch&source=iu&ictx=1&fir=SFmCatvBCa8ZXM%253A%252Cf5yX8m7grvkpdM%252C_&usg=__Wl251EjZ-uvDD3rm5oGlrfi82nI%3D&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi-uPGXhfHaAhUCqFQKHdofCDIQ9QEINjAC#imgrc=SFmCatvBCa8ZXM:
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Oh and here’s the link to the story on Mercedes blog:
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