In 2014, about 49% of teachers, or about 2.5 million, were covered
by unions, down from 50% in 2013 and 53% just a decade ago, according to
the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics. In 1984, teachers union
coverage was 64%. A teacher in a unionized school district can get some
benefits without joining the union. [...]The shift away from unions is happening as three trends collide:
Baby Boomer teachers, who have higher union membership rates, are
retiring. School districts, rising from the recession, are picking up
the pace of hiring. And a greater percentage of students now attend
independently run but publicly financed charter schools, which
overwhelmingly hire non-unionized teachers.
In a few cities, such as Detroit and New Orleans, charter school enrollment accounts for the majority of public school students.
Considering
that student performance is higher in states with unionized teachers
and that teachers unions are one of the key forces pushing back against
standardized testing's takeover of the school day, this is bad news. And
it's no accident, as you clearly see when you look not just at Detroit
and New Orleans, but at Chicago and Philadelphia, where politicians have
pushed charter schools while closing down traditional public schools
and laying off teachers en masse.
The end game is highly privatized education with teachers who do
not have the due process protections they need to speak out against
abuses without losing their jobs. The recession sped up this process by
allowing the corporate education policy movement to apply the shock
doctrine, taking advantage of economic crisis to accelerate the
reshaping of American education.
But you know what they say: Don't mourn, organize.
No comments:
Post a Comment