Steven Brill Does a 180: Teachers and Unions Can Save Our Schools

This guest post is by Kristoffer Kohl, a former classroom teacher who recently joined the Center for Teaching Quality as a policy associate working toward the vision of TEACHING 2030. He previously worked with a team of accomplished teachers from across the country to produce “Transforming School Conditions: Building Bridges to the Education System that Students and Teachers Deserve.”

The clamor for education reform continues on the pages of the Wall Street Journal, but not in the manner you might think. Rather than calling for vouchers, charter schools, and an end to collective bargaining, guest columnist Steven Brill suggests that the solution for saving our schools will be found in the skill and leadership of so-called ordinary teachers and the unions who represent them.

In an essay that appeared in Saturday’s print edition, Brill, author of Class Warfare: Inside the Fight to Fix America's Schools, dispels some of the myths that have informed faulty proposals for fixing public education. With 50 million students in 95,000 public schools, we cannot charter-school our way to meaningful reform, nor can we rely on the unsustainable model of super-teachers working endless hours at a tireless pace. In a profession numbering over three million, it is the “rank and file” that must be mobilized for actual reform to take root. Brill nods to the profound role that organized labor will play in the process by adding, “The unions are the organizational link that will enable school improvement to expand beyond the ability of extraordinary people to work extraordinary hours.”

I could not agree more. Teaching is the nation’s largest college-educated occupation, and we need millions of teachers to work together over time in their communities (and in and out of cyberspace) to serve students and families well. As Gary Sykes and Dick Elmore suggested decades ago, it is time to build a school system in which ordinary people can do the extraordinary work of education.

As a Teach for America alum who taught in Las Vegas for almost five years, I can attest to the need to focus on the working conditions that allow teachers to teach effectively.

As the Center for Teaching Quality continues to evolve, we are working with teachers to rethink what it means to “organize” as a profession. We encourage unions to set aside their past rules and tools (which won them much-needed concessions from reluctant administrators) to become professional guilds. Transformed in this way, unions could enforce teaching standards among the ranks and broker the kind of teacherpreneurial efforts needed for 21^st-century schools.

In the post-industrial age, teachers need professional organizations that defend not only their rights but their profession’s commitment to high standards, the interests of children, and a public education system that protects American democracy and spreads the expertise of its most effective practitioners.

Imagine if teachers were to earn differentiated membership into their unions based on the quality of their teaching. Imagine union leaders selected for their classroom expertise as well as their leadership skills and organizational prowess. How might such a leadership structure dramatically alter the voice that unions have in the reform debate?

As recent survey results from the Gallup/PDK Poll on public education demonstrate, the American public trusts teachers and believes they should have the flexibility to teach in the ways they think best without being tied to a prescribed curriculum. Likewise, we should trust the perspective of teachers and demand a meaningful role for them when big decisions are being made about education in this country. Too often, education policy is crafted by those who have never taught in a classroom. With the nation’s best teachers informing policy decisions, legislative mandates would be driven by the realities and challenges of our schools.

Our New Millennium Initiative teachers in Colorado (part of a larger network that includes communities in Washington, Illinois, Florida, and California) are promoting a series of innovative solutions related to implementation of the state’s teacher evaluation legislation, SB 191, also known as the Ensuring Quality Instruction Through Educator Effectiveness Act.  In his new book, Brill describes the Colorado law as landmark legislation. However, SB 191 and similar laws will fail unless we use new technologies and organizational structures that equip expert teachers to implement high quality teaching evaluation systems.

It is reassuring to hear that Steven Brill has opened up the conversation a bit more for teachers to lead the way.

Comments

[Gamal Sherif]

Thanks for the snapshot, Chris. This past summer the National Education Association accepted new guidelines for teacher evaluation and accountability: http://www.nea.org/home/proposed-policy-on-evaluation-and-accountability.html.

One of the nice things about this is that the teachers and their union are being proactive so that reform is done "...with them, not to them."

Teachers Union Reform Network (TURN) has some guidelines of their own that could influence how we perceive teacher evaluation.

For example, I think TURN's emphasis on the integration of industrial, professional and social justice models can help us better situate the NEA statement on teacher evaluation and accountability (i.e. the Statement).:

* Industrial: The Statement is on pretty firm ground here.

* Professional: I wonder if there needs to be a more explicit statement about individual teachers creating their own professional development goals (in collaboration with other stakeholders). The Statement refers extensively to local or state affiliates as decision-makers, but I think TURN can be an advocate for building explicit structures that elevate teachers' voices.

* Social justice: The Statement emphasizes "teaching as a cornerstone of society," yet there is no explicit commitment to democracy. In Section 1.a., there is mention of professional standards, yet "differentiated instruction" is as far as these standards go in maximizing a teachers' (and students'?) social capital through personal liberty AND social equality. I also wonder what role students and families can have in providing formal or informal data on teacher effectiveness.

Gamal

[Kathie Marshall]

Good piece! And congratulations on your new position.

[Ernie Rambo]

Kris,it's promising to see that there's hope for the role of unions in education. I strongly agree with your statement that professional organizations are responsible for maintaining and developing the "profession's commitment to high standards." I don't know if today's teacher prep programs include some direction in a teacher's responsibility to continue to learn, but I feel that it is one of the responsibilities of the NEA, AFT, and AAE to promote personal professional development within their ranks.

How many teachers would be more motivated to do their best every day if they were part of "a public education system that...spreads the expertise of its most effective practitioners?" I see dual messages sent out to teachers every day: "Thanks for all that you do" countered with, "This is how you will teach your students this year." Many of our teachers are willing to share their expertise with colleagues, both in the classroom and with those outside of education, but the confusing message of how we're appreciated for our labors but don't know enough to sit at the tables where policies are made can be overwhelming on some days. If we had a union such as you described above, I believe that more of the "experts" in education would recognize our place in policy making.

[EdKohl]

Gamal,

Thanks for your feedback! If you read Brill's article (and likely to a greater extent in his book), he's leaning towards a social justice frame of unionism.

Lifting phrases straight from TURN's literature on frames of progressive unionism, Brill maintains that change can only be institutionalized and sustained by organizing the rank and file and the community.

Given the political environment, I think the best position for the NEA is within that professional frame emphasizing the quality of instruction and expanded leadership opportunities for teachers.

Do you think it is feasible for them to go further at this juncture?

Your point about the input of students and families on measures of teacher effectiveness is a salient one.
TURN's third frame would disregard seniority when it protects teachers that are not contributing to student achievement, but we haven't settled on what that even means, especially for the 60% of teachers in untested subjects. Perhaps Assessment 2.0 establishes more stable footing, but it might be a bridge too far for NEA right now.

Like yourself, I would also like to see TURN develop some explicit processes for elevating teacher voices. Your position at ED (congratulations!) is a leap in the right direction.

How can we get unions to broker these types of opportunities for other teacher leaders?

[EdKohl]

Ernie,

I think the tables are beginning to turn in the favor of teachers. This week's PDK/Gallup poll results make it clear that "Thanks for all you do/this is how you will teach" is not a view supported by the American public. Teachers continue to be the most trusted stakeholders in education. As they continue to organize themselves and spread their expertise through virtual channels and communities, the public's confidence in their leadership skills will be manifested in higher-profile policy roles.

My hope is that the grassroots leadership of teachers will be the catalyst that galvanizes unions and invigorates their members. Imagine what the instructional expertise of a million teachers would look like. Transformative.

Thanks for the feedback!

[Mike]

I am sick and tired of hearing UNIONS. The education department of the School System does not need UNIONS. There is a teacher in NEW York that molested a child and is receiving full pay and reports to a office where is does not have to work. He should be fired and put into jail but the teachers UNION got him off and he can not get fired. That is not right and I feel UNIONs are out dated and over powering. Teachers do not worry about getting fired they have the UNION to back them up.

[EdKohl]

Mike,

Thank you for sharing your thoughts.

You certainly are not alone in thinking that the unions have overplayed their hand in recent years. But given their organization and history in education, they continue to serve a valuable leadership role that many policymakers and classroom educators respect.

They can be a powerful force for progress.

[Steve Owens]

Kris,
Great article - I found it really refreshing to see reform voices that are starting to get it that unions have a role in reform, that transforming unions into 21st century organizations is better than destroying them.

That said, you wrote:
"TURN's third frame would disregard seniority when it protects teachers that are not contributing to student achievement...."

As a TURN activist, I use the Three Frames to inform my work in union leadership. I interpret social justice unionism considerably differently.

The third frame to my mind speaks to unions using collective bargaining and political activism to mitigate the effect of social injustice, so that students can better access their education. This has a multiplier effect on our educational investment.

Let me give two examples: Outgoing NEA Executive Director John Wilson, in his speech at RA, advocated using expanded scope bargaining to promote equity for disadvantaged students.

More pointedly, NEA Today just published an article on the collaborative efforts of the Dayton local. There, with the administrator's approval, teachers used the grievance process to acquire textbooks for special needs students.

I interpret CEC's Three Frames as a framework or lens for people engaged in actual union leadership that helps us make decisions differently. While I'm delighted to see folks talking about this document, I'm uncomfortable seeing an important technical tool subject to possible misinterpretation by people not deeply engaged in the work.

It's sort of the same discomfort I have watching non-educators make policy.

Please don't interpret this criticism as detracting in any way from the excellence of your article, which highlights a prominent reform voice encouraging the labor-management collaboration I actively promote.