Teachers and unions in transformation

Changes in teachers’ roles and in teachers’ work necessarily affect their organizations, notably the NEA and the AFT. For its first 100 years, the NEA, founded as a professional association, supported its members in their roles as solo practitioners in their individual classrooms. Beginning in the 1960s, the AFT emerged as a labor union focused on collective bargaining with management; the NEA quickly followed suit, and the two unions competed to organize America’s teachers in a framework that posited teachers as individual laborers. The views of teachers as either solo practitioners or individual laborers have clearly outlived any utility they may have had. In the 21st century, teachers want to be professionals with influence over and accountability for their practice. Meanwhile, labor unions and collective bargaining, in general, and the teachers’ organizations as labor unions are in decline. What is the proper organization of teachers for the 21st century, and how can their organization (s) support 21st-century teachers and teaching?

Consider some developments that are challenging the established order of teaching, teachers, and their organizations. Each alone may seem to be a minor change, relatively easily incorporated into the existing order. Taken together, they signal the beginning of a possible transformation of teaching, teachers, and their organizations. 

This innovation in teacher evaluation, designed and operated jointly by teachers and administrators, by labor and management, addresses the problem of extremely low-performing teachers. First, assistance is provided to low-performing teachers; if that assistance fails to help the teacher improve, then the teacher is dismissed, and the decision is final and uncontested. While PAR is not widely or sufficiently employed, it nonetheless establishes the principle that some teachers can judge their peers and that the line between ‘labor’ and ‘management’ can be breached, a dramatic departure from past understandings and practices.