Teachers' unions, education reform, and the irresistible force paradox
Author: Lindsay Whorton
Publisher:
Published: 2014
Total Pages: 0
ISBN-13:
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Teachers' Unions, Education Reform, and the Irresistable Force Paradox
Author: Lindsay Whorton
Publisher:
Published: 2014
Total Pages: 492
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOKTeachers' Unions and Education Reform in Comparative Contexts
Author: Lindsay Whorton
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2017-09-19
Total Pages: 294
ISBN-13: 1317507789
DOWNLOAD EBOOKTeachers’ unions have long been controversial and divisive organizations, but criticism and distrust of them may be at an all-time high. This volume considers the prevailing assumption that unions successfully block change in education because they are primarily motivated to protect members’ interests. It challenges the conceptualization of teacher union motivation and provides a more nuanced account of unions’ interests, power and impact. Through a series of international cases from the United States, Finland and the Canton of Zürich, this volume examines the hot-button issue of performance-related pay reform and compensation. It argues that a better understanding of the union-management relationship may be the key to securing more meaningful change and reform. It will be of use to scholars, policy-makers, union leaders, teachers and citizens who are interested in the possibilities for the union-management relationship, rather than the limitations.
The Worm in the Apple
Author: Peter Brimelow
Publisher: Harper Collins
Published: 2004-01-20
Total Pages: 322
ISBN-13: 0060096624
DOWNLOAD EBOOKIt is no coincidence that the thirty-year decline in U.S. K–12 education and the simultaneous surge in education spending began at the same time the modern teacher unions were created. Today, the National Education Association has nearly three million members. Its agenda is not to provide better teaching in schools; it is to provide more money and benefits for teachers -- and, above all, for itself. In this devastating critique, Peter Brimelow exposes the teacher unions for what they are: a political and economic monopoly that is choking the education system. It is time, Brimelow convincingly argues, to bust the Teacher Trust.
The War Against Hope
Author: Rod Paige
Publisher: HarperChristian + ORM
Published: 2009-02-16
Total Pages: 240
ISBN-13: 1418551880
DOWNLOAD EBOOKA former US Secretary of Education addresses the crisis in public schooling and the role teachers’ unions have played in its decline. Something is terribly wrong with America’s public-school system. For decades, we have seen test scores slide or stagnate—today, fewer than twenty percent of our nation’s twelfth graders are proficient in math, and our students rank near the bottom in science and math among the industrialized nations of the world—and achievement gaps persist or widen. So who’s responsible for the ongoing failure of our education system? In The War Against Hope, former Secretary of Education Rod Paige pulls no punches in his critical analysis of America’s crisis in the classroom. Without question, the greatest impediment to meaningful school reform is the enormous, self-aggrandizing power wielded by the teachers’ unions. In this vital, well-documented book, Paige takes an unflinching look at the power-hungry union leaders who have consistently placed their ambitions ahead of the needs of the teachers and the students whom they claim to serve. He also traces the history of the National Education Association (NEA) from its humble beginnings as an advocate of education excellence to its early radicalization by left-wing ideology. The War Against Hope is a disturbing account of the corruption, greed, and skewed values that have assaulted our schools, betrayed our teachers, and forsaken our children for far too long.
Walkout!
Author: Diana D'Amico Pawlewicz
Publisher: IAP
Published: 2022-08-01
Total Pages: 266
ISBN-13: 164802601X
DOWNLOAD EBOOKTeacher unions and their members have long stood as polarizing figures in a vast educational landscape. As in the Western films of the 1920s, policymakers, education reformers, and onlookers often assign union leaders and the teachers they represent either the white hats of heroes or the black hats of villains. Politicized efforts to reductively classify teacher unions as beneficial or dangerous have only served to obscure the extent to which labor militancy and teacher activism have become part and parcel of the American public school system and the primary mechanisms by which teachers’ voices are heard – and heeded – in the policy arena. Teacher unions have grown in tandem with and in response to the expansion of the school bureaucracy and the acceleration of accountability reforms, and teachers’ calls for recognition and reform are inseparable from broader movements for social change. Far more than either good or bad, teacher unions are the inevitable outgrowth of American public education as it stands today. This book offers an interdisciplinary exploration of the state of modern teacher unions, the complex spaces they operate in, and the connections between militancy, activism, and school reform. Breaking free from the white hat/black hat dyad that has for so long colored the lenses we use to understand unions, the chapters of this book engage a set of fundamental questions: Where did the modern moment of militancy come from, and in what ways is it a continuation or a departure from the approaches of previous organized teachers?; What is at stake in modern expressions of militancy for teachers, communities, and schools?; Beyond the flashpoint of the walkout, what is the effect of teacher activism?
The Teacher Unions
Author: Myron Lieberman
Publisher:
Published: 2000
Total Pages: 0
ISBN-13: 9781893554214
DOWNLOAD EBOOKIn this startling expose, Lieberman shows how the teachers' unions raise and spend vast sums to maintain their power over education and to push a narrow political agenda. Even dues-paying teachers will be angered to learn how their unions stifle dissent, sabotage meaningful reform, and hold parents hostage to bureaucracy. This is a sober critique of the arrogance of the educational establishment. In asking the fundamental questions that politicians of all parties avoid, it is essential reading for anyone concerned with the declining state of America's public schools.
Conflicting Missions?
Author: Tom Loveless
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Published: 2011-04-01
Total Pages: 338
ISBN-13: 0815708017
DOWNLOAD EBOOKAsk people whether teachers unions are good or bad for education and you are likely to receive a wide variety of opinions. A 1998 Gallup Poll asked whether teachers unions helped, hurt, or made no difference in the quality of education in U.S. public schools. Twenty-seven percent responded that unions helped, 26 percent that they hurt, and 37 percent that they made no difference (10 percent of those surveyed said they did not know). Although teachers unions were first organized in the nineteenth century, and collective bargaining has been a fact of life in most communities since the 1960s, the body of literature evaluating the impact of teachers unions on American education is surprisingly small. Conflicting Missions? helps close the knowledge gap by providing a clear, balanced analysis of the role of teachers unions in education reform.The volume emerges from a 1998 conference organized by the Program on Education Policy and Governance at Harvard University. The contributors represent a broad array of disciplinary backgrounds and methodological approaches, including some of the unions' harshest critics and most loyal supporters. In examining the relationship of teachers unions and educational reform, the authors approach the subject from several directions. They ask whether unions affect educational productivity, most notably in terms of student achievement. They analyze how teachers unions function as professional organizations concerned with the occupation of teaching, as institutional actors defending interests within a bureaucratic system of education, and as political actors wielding influence on legislation and elections. Reflecting a variety of perspectives and opinions, Conflicting Missions? offers a balanced analysis of a controversial topic. It is a useful starting point for readers who want to discover the complexity of teachers unions and their influence—both positive and negative—on the national effort to improve America's schools.
The Teacher Unions
Author: Myron Lieberman
Publisher:
Published: 1997
Total Pages: 328
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOKEveryone wants to reform public education in America. But few realize that the principal obstruction to all reform is a pair of powerful and well-entrenched organizations: the National Education Association (NEA) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT).
Understanding the Teacher Union Contract
Author: Myron Lieberman
Publisher: Transaction Publishers
Published:
Total Pages: 244
ISBN-13: 9781412840644
DOWNLOAD EBOOKUnionization of teachers has led to fundamental changes in the management of education and in relations between teachers and school districts. Understanding the Teacher Union Contract explores the implications of this collective-bargaining revolution in education. Through detailed examination Lieberman shows how the kinds of provisions typically found in teacher union contracts affect the educational workplace and education reform, and how they might be revised to the benefit of students, parents, and the public. Lieberman begins with the respective roles of school district management and teacher unions. Unlike managers in the private sector, school district officials are part of a government agency that is legally responsible for operating public schools in the public interest. They must balance the interests of employees with the needs of students, taxpayers, and parents, as well as with district educational goals. Teacher unions' primary objectives are to enhance employee welfare and to promote the union as an effective organization. Unions must balance the differing needs of various groups within their membership -- for example, by resolving tensions between older teachers who want improved retirement benefits and younger teachers who might prefer more rapid salary increases. Lieberman shows how competing union and management goals play out in collective bargaining and are embodied in teacher union contracts. He argues that by developing an understanding of teacher unions, their role, and their needs, district officials and school board members can bargain more effectively and develop a productive ongoing relationship with unions. This highly readable book will be of interestnot only to school administrators and board members but also to teacher representatives, parents, taxpayers, and members of the media who report on education.
