The Education Research Alliance of New Orleans just released a study of why some charter teachers in the nation’s only all-charter district want to join a union. Their reasons sound very much like the reasons that teachers in public schools want a union. No one told them that the Waltons, charter lobbyists, and other supporters of the charter movement don’t like unions. Immediately after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the teachers’ union was eliminated, and all the teachers were fired. Getting rid of the union and removing teacher voice was part of the plan.
NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA – The Education Research Alliance for New Orleans has released a study on teacher unions in charter schools in New Orleans and Detroit. Drawing on detailed interviews with 21 teachers, the report offers insight what motivates teachers in charter schools to form a union and what barriers may stand in their way.
This report gives readers the rare opportunity to hear teachers’ perspectives on the process of organizing in charter schools. All the teachers interviewed came from schools where there was an attempt, successful or unsuccessful, to form a union.
“Understanding the role of unions is particularly important now, when schools are both facing the COVID pandemic and in a time when there are calls to address racism in our institutions,” said Huriya Jabbar, lead author of the report. “Schools need to listen to teachers and develop a shared understanding about the best way forward in these difficult times. In some schools, unions play a big role in those conversations.”
Researchers Huriya Jabbar (University of Texas at Austin), Jesse Chanin (Tulane University), Jamie Haynes (University of Texas at Austin), and Sara Slaughter (Tulane University) uncovered the following insights about union organizing in charter schools:
The most common motivation for organizing was improving teacher retention and job security. Lack of pay transparency and equity (e.g. men and women being paid unequally), unsustainable workloads, teacher burnout, and arbitrary firings were also major underlying concerns.
Teachers also often brought up the desire to advocate for their students, hoping to ensure that school policies were culturally responsive and that vulnerable students were supported.
Teachers who were in favor of unionization efforts reported shock at the severity of school administrators’ responses. Many alleged that administrators fired teachers who attempted to unionize or accused them of destroying the school “family.”
High teacher turnover and fear of being fired were major challenges that stymied attempts at union organizing.
There were notable differences between Detroit, where many charters are for-profit, and New Orleans, where they are all non-profit. Detroit teachers saw low salary as a major issue and complained that they were lacking basic resources like textbooks. Teachers in New Orleans did not emphasize salary levels as a major issue but were concerned about pay transparency.
“As more charter schools open in the U.S., it is becoming increasingly important to understand the needs and motivations of teachers who choose to work in these schools,” said co-author Sara Slaughter, Associate Director at the Education Research Alliance for New Orleans.
Read the study here.
Teachers who were in favor of unionization efforts reported shock at the severity of school administrators’ responses. Many alleged that administrators fired teachers who attempted to unionize or accused them of destroying the school “family.”
x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
TRANSLATION:
school “family” = the educational workplace eequivalent of a backstreet garment sweatshop where the bosses pay and treat its workers like utter sh@%, with those same workers fired and replaced frequently at the bosses’ whim — all of this because those non-unionized workers have zero rights and power — perpetuating an employment environment which the bosses will fight tooth and nail against any change in this sweatshop situation.
Does Tulane’s ERA (John Arnold funding) have a photo array of 40 people -“Leadership and Staff”- that includes a lone black person (a female grad student)?
A white, male Catholic, in the photo array, who has been described as an advocate for Catholic schools- shouldn’t that be identified in the papers he creates and disseminates?
Now that New Orleans closed its last remaining public school, isn’t the statement, “teachers who CHOOSE to work in charter schools”, disingenuous? Isn’t it also worth questioning when this type paper ignores the recent SCOTUS decision in Biel v. St.James Catholic school?
“…isn’t the statement, “teachers who CHOOSE to work in charter schools”, disingenuous?” A sadly growing issue
American labor is littered with the bodies of those that have stood up for their right to bargain collectively and fight for fair wages, benefits and pensions. It is pitiful that charter school teachers have to reinvent the wheel in labor negotiations. With union membership at a little over 10% in this country, there is much work to do. We currently have one of the lowest union membership rates in the industrialized world. Forty years of neo-liberalism and globalization have decimated membership in labor unions.
The concept that an employer is a “family” member is pure capitalist claptrap based on the paternalistic notion that the company is looking out for employees’ interests. It is a lie! Companies are interested in profit, and those interests will always be the priority. Join and union to work for better working conditions, rights, salary and benefits. Unions helped build the middle class in this country, and the middle class is losing ground each year.https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/theminewars-labor-wars-us/
Jack Welsh at GE, made the corporate view clear in public statements. Workers are factors of production that don’t warrant treatment as people with human emotions.
My conservative brother was the head of human resources for Mannington Mills, a family owned flooring company in New Jersey for many years. It was a non-union company that my brother insisted treated workers well. He was very critical of labor unions and claimed he “couldn’t see the point of them.” That is often the prevailing view in management.
Retired teacher- A couple of years ago, Marc Andreesen made the false claim that India was better off under colonialism. The richest 0.1% choose to propagandize that masters treat slaves well. The fact that a large number of working people can’t afford to pay federal taxes can be understood as, slaves by definition don’t pay taxes. The Current American masters are even unwilling to pay for healthcare and education for those who toil for the bread they eat.
“Scholars” at public universities who take money to distort research so that it favors the view of the donor class are lacking in conscience. It’s a shame that the provosts and deans of public schools of education don’t make researchers feel the right kind of John Lewis’ uncomfortable.
It was a dark day for America when “Personnel Departments” became Human Resources”. Employees should force a change back to the prior term.
“Outsourcing” is another example of business’ attempt to use language that masks inhumanity.
Any of the 4 paper authors ever been a K-12 public classroom teacher?
Billionaire funded education policy centers at universities, staffed by Vassar grads, who are expert in English and creative writing. Expected.
Good question, Linda.
ERA’s funding influences everything it produces. Usually interesting to read but seldom balanced.
$10 million from Betsy DeVos.
Looking into ERA’s funding, it looks like it is funded through the Tulane Murphy Institute–that’s what they say on website. (Am I somehow missing DeVos money? Or other funding? If so, please let me know!). The Murphy Institute is funded by a special fund… Tulane Murphy Foundation https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/237113317. It was founded through Murphy Oil family money. One of the constants on the board is Catherine Pierson (and Murphy Oil heir). Her brother Claiborne Deming was head of Murphy Oil and formed the partnership with Walmart for all of the gas stations. Catherine Pierson’s son Hunter Pierson III is a TFA alum who now works for Goldman Sachs.
After the Education Research Alliance published a study asserting tremendous gains in the NOLA district, Betsy DeVos announced that she was awarding ERA $10 million to make it the national center for study of school choice.
A Biden presidency would change the NLRB and result in more unionized charters