tag:theconversation.com,2011:/uk/topics/teacher-unions-9900/articlesTeacher unions – The Conversation2024-02-01T22:06:59Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2203632024-02-01T22:06:59Z2024-02-01T22:06:59ZQuébec’s teacher strike offers lessons on the urgent need to support public education<iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/quebecs-teacher-strike-offers-lessons-on-the-urgent-need-to-support-public-education" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>The doors of <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/10184999/concerns-mounting-over-childrens-welfare-as-quebec-teachers-strike-drags-on/">around 800</a> Québec public schools were closed due to the strike action of <a href="https://www.lafae.qc.ca/public/file/communique-entente-principe-28dec2023.pdf">the Fédération autonome de l’enseignement</a> (FAE) from Nov. 23 through Jan. 8. </p>
<p>During this strike period, <a href="https://ici.radio-canada.ca/rci/en/news/2037932/common-front-and-quebec-reach-tentative-agreement-over-pay-for-public-sector-workers">368,000 students</a> missed 22 days of school while teachers also lost the same number of <a href="https://theconversation.com/curious-kids-do-teachers-get-paid-when-they-go-on-strike-130158">days in pay</a>.</p>
<p>Additionally, teachers in unions represented by the <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/common-front-voting-begins-1.7083702">Common Front</a> were on strike for 11 days. </p>
<p>The strikes impacted public school teachers, students and parents across Québec at multiple levels including primary, secondary and adult education. </p>
<p>The consequences both in the short- and long-term are potentially devastating. The strike offers lessons about the urgent need to support teachers and address issues in public education. </p>
<p>Failing to do so will continue to negatively affect teacher morale, burnout and attrition. It will also risk further corroding the critical role of public schooling in supporting our communities. </p>
<h2>Understanding demands, uplifting teacher voices</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.lafae.qc.ca/negociation-nationale">demands</a> of the FAE were extended beyond pay, including better recognition (including improved pension plans and parental rights), better family-work-life balance, better class composition, a reduction in the workload, new provisions regarding grievances and arbitration, better treatment of teachers with precarious status and a healthy workplace. </p>
<p>These demands cover finances, classroom practices and teacher well-being.</p>
<p>Given the current social and educational climate, including <a href="https://theconversation.com/end-of-topsy-turvy-school-year-5-education-issues-exposed-by-the-covid-19-pandemic-161145">post-pandemic educational challenges</a>, supporting teachers and policy changes is of the utmost importance. </p>
<p>Mitigating current challenges by accepting teacher demands is crucial because healthy and well-supported teachers are paramount for <a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.689628">successful student learning</a>. </p>
<p>The role of teacher well-being is particularly critical due to the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/02607476.2020.1797439">continuing impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic</a> in Canada.</p>
<h2>Must change systemic problems</h2>
<p>The lack of resources and support that teachers receive can lead to several consequences, ranging from increased stress and exhaustion to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/13621688231151787">burnout</a>.</p>
<p>While teachers are proven to be <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2006.06.006">resilient</a> in the face of these challenges, the concept of resilience itself is a <a href="https://www.toronto.com/opinion/don-t-call-me-resilient----it-covers-up-systemic-racism/article_e79cedf4-c81e-5999-bff6-fee793feacbb.html">contested one</a>. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/listen-to-dont-call-me-resilient-our-podcast-about-race-149692">Listen to 'Don't Call Me Resilient': Our podcast about race</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Teachers should not need to be resilient because of policies and practices that do not provide a healthy, positive working environment. </p>
<p>Asking teachers to endure sub-optimal working conditions shifts the burden of addressing structural and systemic issues away from governmental responsibility for public education reforms. </p>
<p>It also places an undue strain on the relationships between teachers, students and parents, whose interests should be aligned. There is a <a href="https://doi.org/10.53841/bpsecp.2012.29.4.8">clear relationship</a> between student and teacher well-being. When the well-being of teachers is prioritized, <a href="http://www.iier.org.au/iier29/turner2.pdf">students’ work and learning flourishes</a> in schools.</p>
<h2>Serious attrition rates</h2>
<p>The prolonged strike and the unwillingness of the government to address union demands in a timely manner may have further reduced teacher morale. It may also exacerbate the already high <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/14623943.2014.900009">teacher attrition</a> rates in Québec. </p>
<p>In fact, it points to the lack of concern for teachers who cite <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13540602.2012.696044">psychological and interpersonal reasons</a> for leaving their roles. </p>
<p>Through policy and practice, teachers need to be valued as essential workers in education. Priority needs to be placed on not just bringing new professionals to the field, but keeping them. </p>
<h2>Consequences for students, families</h2>
<p>The prolonged strike will not just impact teacher morale: students will also bear the long-term consequences. </p>
<p>Students will have experienced learning loss, the stalling of academic gains, and social and psychological disruptions. </p>
<p>Although the Québec government has allocated <a href="https://montreal.ctvnews.ca/quebec-announces-300-million-catch-up-plan-for-students-after-weeks-of-strike-1.6717307">$300 million</a> on a catch-up plan designed to help students who have fallen behind with free tutoring and summer camps for high schoolers who are at risk of dropping out, the reverberations of the strike will last for years to come. </p>
<p>Studies have demonstrated that strike actions impact <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-06050-9">educational achievements</a> and even <a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/703134#_i37">employment and labour market earnings</a>. </p>
<p>Parents and families, especially mothers, will be <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jdeveco.2021.102679">impacted financially</a>.</p>
<h2>Uneven effects</h2>
<p>We must also consider larger connections between this educational labour issue and class struggles because the impacts of the strikes are certainly uneven. Hundreds of thousands of students in the public system will be racing to catch up on missed time while students in private schools <a href="https://montreal.citynews.ca/2024/01/07/quebec-teachers-hopeful-after-strikes/">did not miss</a> a day. </p>
<p>These students will compete on the same ministerial examinations and for places at <a href="https://www.cegepsquebec.ca/en/cegeps/presentation/what-is-a-cegep/">CEGEPs — colleges in Québec offering the first level of post-secondary education — which</a> have become increasingly competitive. </p>
<p>During the strike, parents and caregivers were forced to manage child care alongside their own daily responsibilities, and many did not have the financial means for private tutoring or other ways to supplement learning loss. </p>
<p>Teachers from various backgrounds and economic statuses were also unpaid during this time; an unexpected loss of income can drastically influence one’s livelihood.</p>
<h2>Deeper reflection needed</h2>
<p>The strike is indicative of deeply entrenched problems in Québec’s public schools and <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatoon/sask-teachers-federation-announces-full-day-rotating-strikes-1.7097861">reverberates with</a> <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/10105600/ontario-elementary-teachers-reach-contract-deal/">problems seen across</a> the country.</p>
<p>Now that these strike actions are over, an opening is created for deeper reflection and work on transforming education and restoring the teaching profession to one that is highly valued and respected. </p>
<p>The success of students, the education system and the future of our communities depend on the learning that children receive in schools today.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/220363/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>R. Nanre Nafziger receives funding from Spencer Foundation, Russell Sage Foundation and McGill University.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Safeera Jaffer does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The success of students, the education system and the future of our communities depend on the learning that children receive in schools today.Safeera Jaffer, Research Assistant, Department of Integrated Studies in Education, McGill UniversityR. Nanre Nafziger, Assistant Professor, African/Black Studies in Education, McGill UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1782862022-03-11T13:18:57Z2022-03-11T13:18:57ZWhy most teachers who say they plan to leave the profession probably won’t do so anytime soon<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/450496/original/file-20220307-83891-gxvux3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C106%2C7930%2C5163&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Teachers across the U.S. have been under stress throughout the pandemic.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/nicole-brown-a-second-grade-teacher-starts-class-at-carter-news-photo/1237956733">Jon Cherry/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Every spring, school and district leaders ask teachers about their plans to return to teaching in the fall. They need to know how many teachers to begin recruiting for the next school year.</p>
<p>These career conversations are currently taking place under the unprecedented circumstances brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. Stories from across the country show high levels of <a href="https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/opinion-stress-hypervigilance-and-decision-fatigue-teaching-during-omicron/2022/01">teacher stress</a> and <a href="https://www.cnet.com/health/parenting/the-great-resignation-hasnt-hit-school-teachers-yet-heres-why-it-still-might/">burnout</a> from repeated and long-term disruptions to school routines.</p>
<p>School leaders are worried about whether they’ll <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brown-center-chalkboard/2022/02/18/how-are-staffing-shortages-affecting-schools-during-the-pandemic/">have enough teachers to keep classrooms staffed</a>. In a January 2022 poll of members of the country’s largest teacher union, the National Education Association, <a href="https://www.nea.org/about-nea/media-center/press-releases/nea-survey-massive-staff-shortages-schools-leading-educator">55% of educators</a> said the pandemic has made them more likely to leave the teaching profession earlier than they had planned. That’s nearly double the proportion of teachers who <a href="https://www.nea.org/sites/default/files/2022-02/NEA%20Member%20COVID-19%20Survey%20Summary.pdf#page=2">said that in July 2020</a>.</p>
<p>Among Black and Hispanic teachers, the percentages of teachers saying they have accelerated their plans to leave teaching were even greater – 62% and 59%, respectively.</p>
<p>Despite these signals of increased turnover, the past two years have not experienced <a href="https://www.chalkbeat.org/2022/3/9/22967759/teacher-turnover-retention-pandemic-data">mass departures from the teaching profession</a>.</p>
<p>In the past, teachers who were looking to leave didn’t depart immediately, so there’s some hope that the current crop of burned-out teachers won’t either. Our <a href="https://doi.org/10.26300/3aq0-pv52">recent working paper</a> explains why. We looked at national data from over 100,000 public school teachers from 2004 to 2012. Of the teachers who said they would leave the profession “as soon as possible,” 34% had left the field by the following school year, and 66% were still teaching. By contrast, of the teachers who said they planned to remain in teaching as long as possible, just 5% left the profession, and 95% kept teaching the following year. </p>
<h2>Leaving isn’t immediate</h2>
<p>Teachers’ feelings about departure can change throughout the year. The 2021-2022 school year helps to illustrate this ebb and flow in teachers’ career plans.</p>
<p>The high rates of <a href="https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Education/2022/0126/What-happens-to-US-education-if-there-s-no-one-to-teach">teacher absences</a> during the surge of the omicron variant added additional responsibilities on an already strained teacher workforce. <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/teachers-burnout-staffing-shortage-pandemic-quitting-schools-education-2022-2">A teacher in Memphis who eventually quit</a> said she was assigned nearly 200 additional students beyond her normal teaching load when a colleague quit midyear. <a href="https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/for-anxious-teachers-omicron-feels-like-walking-into-a-trap/2022/01">An elementary school teacher in Brooklyn worried</a> that too many teachers were working in schools without adequate ventilation systems or rules to reduce the spread of the coronavirus.</p>
<p>A beginning teacher in Colorado reflected in <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/teacher-shortages-leaving-school-education/">one report</a>: “I also might want to just do it for one more year, just to kind of be more stable financially. If you asked me if I’ll be in the classroom in two years, or three years, I say those odds are even lower.”</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/450500/original/file-20220307-133446-1epioku.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="An adult approaches a young person in a school classroom" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/450500/original/file-20220307-133446-1epioku.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/450500/original/file-20220307-133446-1epioku.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/450500/original/file-20220307-133446-1epioku.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/450500/original/file-20220307-133446-1epioku.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/450500/original/file-20220307-133446-1epioku.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/450500/original/file-20220307-133446-1epioku.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/450500/original/file-20220307-133446-1epioku.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Many teachers are evaluating how long they plan to stay in the profession.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/VirusOutbreakMasksReaction/9e3e6314e70341f3897080cee13954cc/photo">AP Photo/David Goldman</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As omicron wanes, teachers’ urgent feelings to leave may ease.</p>
<p>Changing personal circumstances may also influence teachers’ decision to leave. Many teachers depend on employer-provided health insurance and would want to find a job with comparable benefits. <a href="https://www.chalkbeat.org/2021/4/6/22368846/teacher-turnover-quitting-pandemic-data-economy">A veteran Florida teacher who considered quitting</a> explains: “I need my health insurance, especially as I’m recovering from COVID. And I need the paycheck.”</p>
<p>Some teachers are keeping their jobs while they figure out their next steps. For example, one <a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/02/teachers-are-getting-ready-to-quit-due-to-the-pandemic.html">North Carolina teacher</a> says she is thinking about going back to school for a new degree outside of education.</p>
<h2>Likelihood of departure</h2>
<p>Based on our research, we think it unlikely that most teachers who say they plan to leave teaching as soon as possible will actually leave this school year.</p>
<p>However, if even one-third of teachers who say they’re leaving the profession do so, that would be significantly more than the <a href="https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/slc">8% of teachers who leave in an average year</a>.</p>
<p>Teachers are clearly sounding the alarm about stress, burnout, dissatisfaction with school and district leadership, and other working conditions – even if they do stay in their jobs.</p>
<p>[<em>Over 150,000 readers rely on The Conversation’s newsletters to understand the world.</em> <a href="https://memberservices.theconversation.com/newsletters/?source=inline-150ksignup">Sign up today</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/178286/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Despite signals of increased turnover, the past two years have not experienced mass departures from the teaching profession.Christopher Redding, Assistant Professor of Educational Leadership, University of FloridaAllison Gilmour, Assistant Professor of Education, Temple UniversityElizabeth Bettini, Assistant Professor of Special Education, Boston UniversityTuan D. Nguyen, Assistant Professor of Education, Kansas State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1714572022-01-10T13:39:02Z2022-01-10T13:39:02ZWatch for these conflicts over education in 2022<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/439216/original/file-20220103-37443-15i668j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=10%2C21%2C3631%2C2402&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Louisiana residents object to mask mandates at a state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education meeting in August 2021.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/VirusOutbreakLouisiana/63969424eeb445a0bd0a8c217e038a34/photo">AP Photo/Melinda Deslatte</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>At school board meetings across the country in 2021, parents engaged in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/14/us/loudoun-county-school-board-va.html">physical altercations</a>, <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/back-to-school-live-updates/2021/08/30/1032417970/school-board-members-hostile-meetings-mask-mandates-politicized">shouted at</a> school board members and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/16/podcasts/the-daily/school-boards-mask-mandates-crt-bucks-county.html">threatened them as well</a>.</p>
<p>These disagreements entered state politics, too, such as the 2021 <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/12/us/politics/virginia-governor-republicans-schools.html?referringSource=articleShare">Virginia governor’s race</a>, which was largely shaped by conflicts over the <a href="https://www.baconsrebellion.com/wp/yes-virginia-there-is-critical-race-theory-in-our-schools/">how issues of race and racism are taught in the K-12 curriculum</a>, and <a href="https://www.virginiamercury.com/2021/10/29/in-2020-the-legislature-passed-a-transgender-students-rights-law-it-largely-hasnt-been-enforced/">transgender student rights</a>. </p>
<p>Our September 2021 article in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/08959048211042567">Educational Policy</a> explains that the short-term conflicts that generate media attention – such as about <a href="https://www.edweek.org/leadership/schools-face-fears-of-critical-race-theory-as-they-scale-up-social-emotional-learning/2021/12">critical race theory</a> across the nation – are part of long-standing ideological debates about education. These conflicts are about issues such as who deserves academic opportunity, what the parameters of public education are and whether schools and universities ought to promote a positive image of the U.S. or explore its shortcomings. </p>
<p>As <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=nezgztgAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">researchers</a> who <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=OomuRokAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">study conflicts in education</a>, we see clashes like these continuing into 2022.</p>
<h2>1. Virtual education</h2>
<p>In 2022, expect conflicts over virtual school offerings to intensify, especially as the omicron variant surges and as some states push toward <a href="https://edsource.org/2021/california-school-vaccine-mandate-coming-soon-but-questions-remain/662985">vaccine mandates</a> for all students. At stake is whether parents should have control over how public funds are spent on educating their children, and the potential effects of diverting those funds away from traditional public schools. </p>
<p>In fall 2021, U.S. school leaders largely <a href="https://www.edweek.org/leadership/most-schools-are-teaching-in-person-this-school-year-latest-fed-data-say/2021/12">shifted their services back to in-person instruction</a> <a href="https://theconversation.com/school-year-off-to-a-rocky-start-4-ways-parents-can-help-kids-get-back-on-track-167609">after shutdowns and remote instruction</a> dominated the initial response to the coronavirus pandemic. </p>
<p>However, demand for home-schooling and virtual schooling <a href="https://www.edworkingpapers.com/sites/default/files/ai21-463.pdf">has risen</a>, as some parents discover that these forms of education offer greater flexibility in scheduling, control over curriculum and safety from the coronavirus. In Washington state, for example, enrollments in publicly funded virtual schools operated by for-profit companies have increased dramatically, such as Washington Virtual Academies, which <a href="https://www.seattletimes.com/education-lab/washingtons-for-profit-online-schools-attract-nearly-6000-more-students-this-school-year/">expanded enrollments by an estimated 85%</a> between the 2019-2020 and 2020-2021 school years. Similar <a href="https://www.edweek.org/leadership/covid-19-fuels-big-enrollment-increases-in-virtual-schools/2020/09">trends happened</a> in school districts across the country.</p>
<p>Enrollment data for the 2021-2022 school year are still emerging, but some school choice <a href="https://www.hks.harvard.edu/centers/taubman/programs-research/pepg/events/school-choice">experts</a> have argued that parental demand for virtual education is here to stay. However, in another research project, one of us found that students who switch to online schools <a href="https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X20909814">experience substantial learning losses</a> in reading and math during each of the three years after switching. That evidence has forced policymakers to consider <a href="https://www.wfyi.org/news/articles/state-committee-recommends-big-shift-for-virtual-charter-school-rules">greater regulation</a> of online schools, even as more parents consider taking their children out of traditional public schools and putting them in virtual ones.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/439217/original/file-20220103-117041-1ln4m7a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Students sit at computers, separated by clear plastic barriers" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/439217/original/file-20220103-117041-1ln4m7a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/439217/original/file-20220103-117041-1ln4m7a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439217/original/file-20220103-117041-1ln4m7a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439217/original/file-20220103-117041-1ln4m7a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439217/original/file-20220103-117041-1ln4m7a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439217/original/file-20220103-117041-1ln4m7a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439217/original/file-20220103-117041-1ln4m7a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Schools’ decisions to provide in-person or virtual education sparked concern and conflict in 2021.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/VirusOutbreak-SchoolDropouts/4fa2bc85087940e9b78914cac886b780/photo">AP Photo/Charlie Riedel</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>2. Affirmative action</h2>
<p>Affirmative action and similar policies in college admissions have always generated controversy, and 2022 will likely be no different. This year, a case that began in 2014 will reach the U.S. Supreme Court. That case, <a href="https://docs.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/massachusetts/madce/1:2014cv14176/165519/386">Students for Fair Admissions vs. Harvard University</a>, alleges that Harvard’s race-conscious admissions policies discriminate against Asian applicants. </p>
<p>The case has worked its way through the court system with a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/19/us/affirmative-action-lawsuits.html">national roster of affluent plaintiffs</a>. This group has filed multiple unsuccessful lawsuits across the U.S., including an October 2021 loss in a similar case over admissions at the <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/university-north-carolina-defeats-challenge-race-based-admissions-policies-2021-10-19/">University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill</a>.</p>
<p>Similar lawsuits have also sprung up in <a href="https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/Lowell-High-lottery-admission-likely-to-remain-16705599.php">San Francisco</a> and <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/09/26/metro/secrecy-around-exam-school-admission-data-prompts-lawsuit/">Boston</a> over school districts’ efforts to make access to academically selective public schools more representative of student populations. These suits reflect broader ideological tensions over who deserves a well-funded, elite education and the government’s responsibility to protect that access.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/439219/original/file-20220103-25-k4qe4b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A student works at a desk while a teacher sits in the background" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/439219/original/file-20220103-25-k4qe4b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/439219/original/file-20220103-25-k4qe4b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439219/original/file-20220103-25-k4qe4b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439219/original/file-20220103-25-k4qe4b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439219/original/file-20220103-25-k4qe4b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439219/original/file-20220103-25-k4qe4b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439219/original/file-20220103-25-k4qe4b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Teachers unions wielded significant power over how schools responded to the coronavirus pandemic.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/first-grade-student-alexis-tenorio-works-on-an-english-news-photo/1232327829">Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>3. Teachers unions</h2>
<p>In 2022, look to teachers unions to continue to assert themselves in the face of ongoing efforts by <a href="https://californiaglobe.com/articles/ca-parents-seek-to-abolish-the-california-teachers-association/">parent</a> and <a href="https://teacherfreedom.org">advocacy groups</a> to limit their power.</p>
<p>Over the past year teachers unions effectively negotiated the implementation of health safeguards against the spread of COVID-19
in <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/teachers-union-approves-deal-chicago-schools-return-class-n1257247">Chicago</a>, <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/news/de-blasio-agrees-to-delay-school-reopening-to-avoid-teacher-strike/">New York City</a> and <a href="https://www.dailynews.com/2021/09/22/lausd-strikes-deal-with-teachers-union-to-provide-quarantine-instruction/">Los Angeles</a>. These unions secured protective measures such as virtual instruction, priority vaccine access for teachers, medical and personal leave related to COVID-19, explicit metrics to determine when schools would close, district-provided personal protective equipment for teachers and classroom air filtration systems. </p>
<p>While the pandemic dominates union activity at present, and <a href="https://www.edworkingpapers.com/ai20-304">many unions have not negotiated significant concessions</a>, these wins signal unions’ strategic and legal capacity to negotiate around issues such as compensation and working conditions. Given <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-59687947">current shortages of qualified teachers</a>, unions’ negotiation power may intensify. </p>
<h2>4. Gifted programs</h2>
<p>In 2022, gifted education may become a national debate. So far it has been prominent in New York City, but that may spread.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/15/nyregion/eric-adams-gifted-talented-nyc-schools.html">Mayor Eric Adams</a> said he intends to keep gifted programs in place. Gifted programs offer accelerated learning opportunities for students who score at the top of their class on standardized tests. Critics, such as the <a href="https://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/1c478c_f14e1d13df45444c883bbf6590129bd7.pdf">School Diversity Advisory Group commissioned by former Mayor Bill de Blasio</a>, argue that gifted programs segregate students by race, since research has shown that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/2332858415622175">students of color are underrepresented</a> in these programs. </p>
<p>In California, policymakers have <a href="https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-05-20/california-controversial-math-overhaul-focuses-on-equity">unveiled a plan</a> to address this issue by grouping students of different mathematical ability in the same classrooms until their junior year. Only then will students be able to select advanced math courses, such as calculus or statistics. </p>
<p>This move may revive the 1980s’ so-called “<a href="https://www.brookings.edu/book/the-tracking-wars/">tracking wars</a>,” an intense debate over whether students should be offered different levels of curriculum based on their test scores. As other states and districts <a href="https://apnews.com/article/science-new-york-education-new-york-city-race-and-ethnicity-0f3d92179ff20b45c4747d3c84a026a2">consider overhauling their own gifted programs</a>, these short-term conflicts will likely add energy to the existing national fight concerning what role the education system should play in addressing inequality in the United States. </p>
<p>In all of these conflicts, be prepared in 2022 for policy advocates to use both conventional and unconventional strategies to advance their efforts. Further, expect those advocates to include politically and economically powerful actors as well as those who rarely have a voice in policy conversations. </p>
<p>In our research, which spanned the years 2010 to 2020, we saw conventional conflict actions such as <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/02/19/695856032/w-va-teachers-go-on-strike-over-state-education-bill">teacher strikes</a>, <a href="https://denver.cbslocal.com/2015/02/19/months-after-protests-jeffco-board-scraps-ap-us-history-curriculum-review/">community protests</a> and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/louisiana-gov-bobby-jindal-sues-obama-over-common-core-state-standards/2014/08/27/34d98102-2dfb-11e4-bb9b-997ae96fad33_story.html">lawsuits</a>. However, we also saw the successful use of less common efforts to challenge local, state and federal education policy, such as <a href="https://greensboro.com/news/local_news/deutsche-bank-cancels-job-expansion-in-cary-due-to-hb2/article_fea19dc6-e2c6-575d-adb9-d4a435d2863f.html">canceled business investments</a>, <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2017/11/the-surprising-revolt-at-reed/544682/">classroom sit-ins</a>, <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/jonathan-butler-how-grad-students-hunger-strike-toppled-university-president-n460161">a student hunger strike</a>, <a href="https://co.chalkbeat.org/2015/11/3/21093016/jeffco-school-board-members-who-pushed-controversial-changes-ousted-in-recall">school board recall votes</a>, <a href="https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/nation-world/national/article163339228.html">teacher panhandling</a>, <a href="https://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20180628/OPINION/180629917/stuyvesant-s-valedictorian-find-a-way-to-diversify-my-school">pointed valedictorian speeches</a> and even <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/11/08/455216375/missouri-football-players-strike-to-demand-ouster-of-university-president">college football players’ threat to walk out on scheduled revenue-generating games</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/171457/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joseph J. Ferrare has received funding from the National Science Foundation, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Spencer Foundation, and U.S. Department of Education's Institute of Education Sciences. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kate Phillippo has received funding from the Spencer Foundation and the U.S. Department of Education.</span></em></p>Short-term disputes are really symptoms of deeper divisions in the US over who deserves academic opportunity, and how to present the nation’s history.Joseph J. Ferrare, Assistant Professor of Education Policy and Data Visualization, University of Washington, BothellKate Phillippo, Professor of Social Work and Education, Loyola University ChicagoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1745172022-01-07T13:29:51Z2022-01-07T13:29:51ZSchool closure debates put teachers unions front and center<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/439748/original/file-20220106-21-y2pwb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=4%2C4%2C2991%2C1989&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Schools in Chicago have suffered days of disruption.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/sign-on-the-fence-outside-of-lowell-elementary-school-asks-news-photo/1362924321?adppopup=true">Scott Olson/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Classes in Chicago were <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/breaking/ct-chicago-public-schools-covid-teachers-union-20220106-7fttwx7zbzb2hfvsaefg2nxn7m-story.html">canceled for a third day</a> on Jan. 7, 2022, amid a bitter standoff between the teachers union and public school leaders over in-person instruction during a spike in COVID-19 infections.</em></p>
<p><em>The dispute echoes those that <a href="https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/new-york-city-teachers-union-threatens-strike-over-school-reopenings/2020/08">occurred earlier in the pandemic</a> when some of the nation’s biggest school districts battled unions over school reopening plans and safety precautions in classrooms.</em></p>
<p><em>The Conversation asked Katharine Strunk, a <a href="https://education.msu.edu/people/strunk-katharine-o/">professor of education policy at Michigan State University</a>, to help explain the union’s concerns about in-person lessons and what power teachers unions have to force a district to go remote.</em></p>
<h2>1. Why do some teachers unions want to go remote?</h2>
<p>Teachers unions, such as the Chicago Teachers Union, are saying that given the spike in COVID-19 infections, schools represent an <a href="https://www.ctulocal1.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Resolution-re-Remote-Work-Action.pdf">unsafe work environment for their members</a> and the students they teach. The omicron variant is <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2021/12/31/1067702355/omicron-is-spreading-like-wildfire-scientists-are-trying-to-figure-out-why">very contagious</a> and although symptoms <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/who-sees-more-evidence-that-omicron-affects-upper-respiratory-tract-2022-01-04/">appear to be milder</a> than earlier variants, the sheer number of people getting infected will lead to <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/13/health/omicron-variant-mild-alarming/index.html">more illnesses, deaths and stress</a> on on the health care system.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.politico.com/states/florida/story/2022/01/04/thousands-of-teachers-students-absent-as-omicron-ravages-florida-1403882">Across</a> <a href="https://ktla.com/news/california/schools-across-california-fight-to-stay-open-amid-omicron-surge/">the U.S.</a>, districts have been hit by staff shortages during the omicron wave as <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/us/boston-teachers-call-sick-omicron-surge">more teachers call out sick</a>, and that has led to disruption of classes. </p>
<p>The experience of teachers during the pandemic has shown that teaching a hybrid model, in which some students attend class in person while others learn remotely, <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/agenda/2021/12/29/teachers-districts-hybrid-education-526214">makes their job far harder</a>. It is, for example, much harder to teach some students to read in person while also helping students who are having difficulties learning via Zoom. It also increases the workload, <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/agenda/2021/12/29/teachers-districts-hybrid-education-526214">teachers have reported</a>, because they are expected to prepare in-person instruction and then record the lesson and include web-friendly resources for a second set of home-bound students. </p>
<p>Having <a href="https://www.local10.com/news/local/2022/01/03/covid-surge-has-hundreds-of-south-florida-teachers-calling-out-sick/">so many</a> <a href="https://nypost.com/2022/01/03/students-return-from-break-to-find-teachers-out-over-covid/">teachers out sick</a> puts added pressure on the public school system. On top of that, districts are having problems finding substitute teachers. For instance, in an October 2021 survey, <a href="https://www.edweek.org/leadership/how-bad-are-school-staffing-shortages-what-we-learned-by-asking-administrators/2021/10">3 out of 4 school leaders said</a> there were not enough substitute teachers to cover absences.</p>
<p>In Chicago, the union is saying that the district’s current COVID-19 testing policy does <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/01/05/1070700649/chicagos-mayor-has-called-off-school-as-teachers-demand-more-covid-19-testing">not make schools safe enough</a>. The union wants initial testing before students return to classrooms and <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/01/05/1070700649/chicagos-mayor-has-called-off-school-as-teachers-demand-more-covid-19-testing">more regular testing for all students</a>. Unions are asking for clear guidance on when classes should be in-person or remote.</p>
<h2>2. What are the arguments for in-person lessons now?</h2>
<p>Those in favor of in-person learning generally accept that there is a trade-off. There are risks associated with in-person instruction during a pandemic. You can’t go into a school building and hang COVID-19 on coat rack and then forget about it. It will spread.</p>
<p>But research shows that spread in schools and to the larger community from schools has been pretty low. In early 2021, my colleagues and I <a href="https://epicedpolicy.org/does-in-person-schooling-contribute-to-the-spread-of-covid-19/">published a study</a> looking at how in-person instruction affected COVID-19 case rates in Michigan and Washington state. We concluded that hybrid or fully in-person instruction was not significantly contributing to the spread of the virus in areas with low or modest case rates, although it was spreading in areas that already had high amounts of COVID-19 in the community.</p>
<p>But most of the research available is pre-omicron. We simply don’t have good data yet from the latest variant’s wave. The data were also gathered before vaccinations were widely available, and about <a href="https://www.chicago.gov/city/en/sites/covid19-vaccine/home/vaccination-data-at-a-glance.html">75% of all adult Chicagoans</a> and <a href="https://www.cps.edu/services-and-supports/covid-19-resources/covid-19-readiness-data/">91% of Chicago Public School teachers</a> are now fully vaccinated. It is unclear what would happen now in schools – if students and teachers would get COVID-19 and how dangerous it would be.</p>
<p>And there are major costs to going remote. Not least, the academic impact on children. I have seen this in my research in <a href="https://epicedpolicy.org/michigans-2020-21-benchmark-assessments/">Michigan</a>: Students had less opportunity to learn when they were remote. This is especially true when it comes to traditionally disadvantaged students, such as those with disabilities or students from lower-income communities.</p>
<p>There is also <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6945a3.htm?s_cid=mm6945a3_w">evidence of a mental health impact</a> on students when schools go remote. Kids need structure, the support of peers and teachers, as well as the support structure that school provides, such as breakfasts and lunches and a safe environment to learn.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, parents need to work – and that can be hard when kids are at home, especially for low-income families that may have less-than-ideal learning spaces and inadequate access to the internet.</p>
<p>This leads to an economic impact, and not just for parents. Researchers from the University of Washington, Harvard University and the nonprofit NWEA <a href="https://www.the74million.org/article/analysis-pandemic-learning-loss-could-cost-u-s-students-2-trillion-in-lifetime-earnings-what-states-schools-can-do-to-avert-this-crisis/">recently estimated</a> that interrupted learning during the pandemic equates to a US$2 trillion hit on earnings over their lifetime for American students. This won’t just affect parents and kids – the larger economy will suffer, as well.</p>
<h2>3. How much power do teachers unions have over a district’s pandemic plan?</h2>
<p>The vast majority of states leave decisions on whether to have in-person or remote learning to individual school districts. This gives teachers unions quite a bit of power.</p>
<p>Unions bargain with districts at a local level. And in places like New York City and Chicago, unions have a lot of sway – you can’t run a school without teachers, so the threat of a strike or a sick-out carries a lot of weight.</p>
<p>My colleagues from Michigan State University and I <a href="https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X211048840">published a study in September 2021</a> showing that initial school reopening plans during the pandemic were tied to local politics. Republican-leaning districts tended to favor reopening and in-person learning more than Democratic-leaning ones. When you control for this partisanship, union strength – as measured by the strength of their negotiated collective bargaining agreements – was also found to be a major factor. Districts with stronger unions were more likely to go remote.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, pandemic plans introduced by school districts often broke with collective bargaining agreements – leading to renegotiations with unions that led to changes in pay, non-teaching duties and teacher workload. Research released in January 2021 found that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1162/edfp_a_00326">a quarter of urban school districts</a> had to return to the bargaining table with their teachers unions as a result of districts’ pandemic plans.</p>
<p>[<em>Get the best of The Conversation, every weekend.</em> <a href="https://memberservices.theconversation.com/newsletters/?nl=weekly&source=inline-weeklybest">Sign up for our weekly newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/174517/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Katharine O. Strunk does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A dispute between the Chicago Teachers Union and the school district over in-person learning has resulted in classes being canceled. An education policy expert explains what is at stake.Katharine O. Strunk, Professor of Education Policy and Economics, Michigan State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1476202020-10-27T14:09:02Z2020-10-27T14:09:02ZHow teachers’ union activism helped shift the U.S. election debate on education<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365111/original/file-20201022-23-155av65.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C104%2C5334%2C3011&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Teacher activism in the U.S. has helped pushed the Democratic party towards renewed investment in public education. Children listen as former president Barack Obama campaigns for Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, Oct. 21, 2020, in Philadelphia. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/ Matt Slocum)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the fight for the U.S. presidency, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has positioned protecting students, educators and getting schools open safely with smaller classes amid the COVID-19 pandemic as “<a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?475377-1/joe-biden-remarks-reopening-schools-covid-19">a national emergency</a>.” On Sept. 2, he praised educators for their “grit,” and recognized their concerns for students.</p>
<p>Biden’s praise reflects his kindergarten to Grade 12 education plan, which calls on the federal government to “<a href="https://joebiden.com/education/">provide educators the support and respect they need and deserve” to and “start investing in our children at birth</a>.” </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/xG4q4mrFaME?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">U.S. Democratic Presidential nominee Joe Biden’s education plan.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In both tone and content, Biden’s plan <a href="https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-08-18/trump-biden-education-policy-election">represents an evolution in the focus of American education policy</a> and a departure from recent commitments of Democratic and Republican parties emphasizing school accountability through testing and expanding publicly funded, privately operated charter schools. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/charter-schools-what-you-need-to-know-about-their-anticipated-growth-in-alberta-141434">Charter schools: What you need to know about their anticipated growth in Alberta</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>In Canada, the challenges of reopening schools during COVID-19 have prompted suggestions that it’s time to think <a href="https://nationalpost.com/opinion/chris-selley-school-choice-is-a-better-way-than-the-public-school-pandemic-panic">about “school choice”</a> through charter schools or <a href="https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/agar-its-time-to-talk-about-school-choice-in-canada">through school voucher</a> programs. Voucher programs provide parents with government grants, normally taken out of the general public school budget, that they can use for tuition at a private school. </p>
<p><a href="https://behindthenumbers.ca/2014/06/04/public-education-reform-lessons-from-the-united-states-on-what-not-to-do/">As I have argued</a>, Canadians should not ignore American experiences of expanding such kinds of schooling. </p>
<h2>Heavier federal role</h2>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365356/original/file-20201025-20-1udahd0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365356/original/file-20201025-20-1udahd0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=637&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365356/original/file-20201025-20-1udahd0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=637&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365356/original/file-20201025-20-1udahd0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=637&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365356/original/file-20201025-20-1udahd0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=801&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365356/original/file-20201025-20-1udahd0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=801&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365356/original/file-20201025-20-1udahd0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=801&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos speaks at the Phoenix International Academy, a charter school, in Phoenix, Oct. 15, 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Matt York)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the U.S., states are primarily responsible for education policy. But the federal secretary of education establishes <a href="https://www.ed.gov/">policies on federal financial aid for education and distributes and monitors related funds, as well as collecting data, disseminating research</a> and ensuring <a href="https://www.waldenu.edu/online-doctoral-programs/doctor-of-education/resource/five-things-you-didnt-know-about-the-role-of-us-secretary-of-education#:%7E:text=The%20Secretary%20of%20Education%20Is,Department%20of%20Education%20in%201980">schools from pre-kindergarten to post-graduate institutions “comply with federal … laws governing funding and discrimination</a>.” The federal government began to play a role in kindergarten to Grade 12 education with the passage of the <a href="https://socialwelfare.library.vcu.edu/programs/education/elementary-and-secondary-education-act-of-1965/">Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) of 1965</a>. </p>
<p>The act provided federal funding to states to support school districts with concentrations of poor students. The ESEA has to be reauthorized every five years, and subsequent presidents have expanded its scope through changes: for instance, to provide resources for educating students with disabilities or to address perceived challenges like gaps in student achievement.</p>
<p>In the late 1980s, concerns over student achievement led to the <a href="https://www.basicbooks.com/titles/diane-ravitch/the-death-and-life-of-the-great-american-school-system/9780465097999/">emergence of an education reform movement</a>. This movement emphasized standardized testing to hold schools accountable when students didn’t make adequate academic progress and the expansion of school choice through publicly funded, privately operated charter schools. </p>
<h2>Fractures in U.S. ‘education reform’</h2>
<p>Support for education reform was bipartisan in the U.S. Beginning in 1988, presidents used reauthorizations of the ESEA to emphasize greater accountability. Presidents <a href="https://www2.ed.gov/nclb/overview/intro/execsumm.html">George W. Bush</a> and <a href="https://www2.ed.gov/programs/racetothetop/index.html">Barack Obama</a> went farthest to <a href="https://www.edweek.org/ew/section/multimedia/the-nations-main-k-12-law-a-timeline.html">mandate testing and support charter schools</a>. </p>
<p>Since the late ‘80s, presidents have been careful not to explicitly attack the teaching profession. But some state and local politicians (particularly Republicans) were quick to place the blame for so-called failing schools on <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2015/08/christie-teachers-union-deserves-punch-in-the-face-120913">teachers’ unions</a>. Some media then followed suit, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2018/10/03/three-time-covers-show-how-american-attitudes-about-teachers-have-changed">focusing coverage</a> on “<a href="http://content.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,20081208,00.html">bad teachers</a>.” This dismissal of professional educators’ expertise, combined with cuts to education budgets, <a href="https://www.hmhbooks.com/shop/books/the-prize/9780544810907">created openings for philanthropists to influence policy</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="People carrying placards." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365373/original/file-20201025-16-12p69tr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365373/original/file-20201025-16-12p69tr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=365&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365373/original/file-20201025-16-12p69tr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=365&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365373/original/file-20201025-16-12p69tr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=365&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365373/original/file-20201025-16-12p69tr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365373/original/file-20201025-16-12p69tr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365373/original/file-20201025-16-12p69tr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Teachers, parents and students line up to protest for higher school funding and teacher pay in April 2018 in Phoenix before a teacher strike.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the 2020 Democratic presidential primaries, Biden and other candidates distanced themselves from education reform priorities and called for renewed investment in public education after decades of austerity. </p>
<p>My research into their platforms shows explicit support for <a href="https://berniesanders.com/issues/reinvest-in-public-education/">raising teachers’ salaries</a>, <a href="https://elizabethwarren.com/plans/public-education">collective bargaining</a> and <a href="https://issues.juliancastro.com/people-first-education/">equitable educational opportunities for all students</a>. </p>
<p>Biden and many Democratic candidates have close personal connections to public education: Jill Biden, for example, has a <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/19/jill-biden-plans-to-return-to-her-day-job-even-if-she-becomes-first-lady.html">doctorate in education and teaches at a community college</a>. But the shift among Democrats is also a response to the rise of education activism in the U.S. over the past decade, led by a more militant teachers’ union movement. It’s had some success refocusing public attention on what students and teachers need to succeed.</p>
<h2>A decade of education activism</h2>
<p>The Chicago Teachers’ Union’s (CTU) three-week strike in 2012 was a watershed moment. The CTU developed a bargaining platform, “<a href="https://news.wttw.com/sites/default/files/Chicago%20Teachers%20Union%20report_0.pdf">The Schools Chicago’s Students Deserve</a>,” focused on student needs for a well-rounded curriculum, support services and fully funded schools. </p>
<p>To generate support for the platform and a possible strike, <a href="https://labornotes.org/store/jump-start-your-union">CTU leadership organized members and built relationships with parents, neighbourhood organizations and faith groups</a>. Other <a href="https://doi.org/10.3726/978-1-4539-1564-6">teachers’ unions adopted CTU’s method of focusing demands on how schools ought to care for the whole student</a>.</p>
<p>After the CTU strike, <a href="https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/618-more-than-a-score">the movement against high-stakes standardized testing</a> gained momentum. Critics drew attention to instructional time lost to testing, how testing narrowed the academic curriculum and problems using test scores to evaluate teachers and schools.</p>
<h2>Moratorium on expanding charter schools</h2>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365354/original/file-20201025-13-9v2xid.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man in a suit at a microphone." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365354/original/file-20201025-13-9v2xid.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365354/original/file-20201025-13-9v2xid.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=564&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365354/original/file-20201025-13-9v2xid.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=564&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365354/original/file-20201025-13-9v2xid.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=564&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365354/original/file-20201025-13-9v2xid.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=709&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365354/original/file-20201025-13-9v2xid.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=709&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365354/original/file-20201025-13-9v2xid.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=709&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) called for a moratorium on expanding charter schools in 2016. Derrick Johnson, NAACP president, at a Boston news conference, Dec. 12, 2019.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Steven Senne)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 2016, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) called for <a href="https://www.naacp.org/latest/statement-regarding-naacps-resolution-moratorium-charter-schools/">a moratorium on the expansion of charter schools</a> until they were subject to the same regulations as traditional public schools. Despite criticism for this stance voiced by some <a href="https://educationpost.org/everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-naacps-stance-on-charter-schools/">education advocates in Black communities</a>, the <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/education-news/articles/2017-07-27/naacp-again-calls-for-moratorium-on-charter-schools">NAACP renewed this call in 2017</a>.</p>
<p>Teachers’ activism reached a high point in 2018, when over <a href="https://jacobinmag.com/2020/10/red-for-ed-movement-teachers-unions-covid-19">375,000 educators took part in work stoppages</a>. Teachers went on strike in <a href="https://beltpublishing.com/products/55-strong-inside-the-west-virginia-teachers-strike">West Virginia</a>, <a href="https://www.versobooks.com/books/2955-red-state-revolt">Oklahoma, Kentucky, Arizona</a>, Colorado and North Carolina. </p>
<p>With broad public support, they demanded restoring funding to reverse declining wages and student resources and cuts to curriculum. When United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) went on strike in 2019 for “<a href="https://www.utla.net/sites/default/files/UTLA_SLASDFINAL.pdf">The Schools L.A. Children Deserve</a>,” a major concern was the impact of charter schools on funding for traditional public school schools. </p>
<p>Among UTLA’s supporters were Senators Kamala Harris, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/berniesanders/posts/i-stand-in-solidarity-with-utla-teachers-in-los-angeles-who-went-on-strike-today/2093366217385038/">Bernie Sanders</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1084852094794907650">Elizabeth Warren</a> — all eventual contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1084862005767557120"}"></div></p>
<h2>Why Canadians should care</h2>
<p>Expanding charter schools and school vouchers, along with pressuring schools to accelerate standardized testing haven’t been a silver bullet for fixing problems in American public schools. </p>
<p>Rather, they contributed to the rise of a robust movement of educators, teachers’ unions and community and political allies who support a well-resourced public school system that both meets the needs of diverse students and values educators as professionals. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/school-funding-is-needed-for-student-well-being-not-only-coronavirus-safety-rules-140818">School funding is needed for student well-being, not only coronavirus safety rules</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Canada has a long history of teachers’ union activism. Teachers in <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/1534959/b-c-teachers-strike-the-timeline/">British Columbia</a>, <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/teachers-work-to-rule-job-action-contract-dispute-union-nstu-1.3870651">Nova Scotia</a> and <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/6420752/ontario-4-teachers-unions-job-action/">Ontario</a> have engaged in job actions since 2014. </p>
<p>As COVID-19 pressures provinces to re-think schooling, and as teachers’ unions continue to underscore the <a href="https://www.nationalobserver.com/2020/08/31/news/ontario-teachers-unions-file-health-and-safety-complaint">perils of underfunding for both teacher and student health</a> and wellness, we should watch to see if the activism of Canadian educators and allies becomes even more dynamic.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/147620/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rachel K. Brickner has received funding from the Harrison-McCain Foundation. She has been a member of Educators for Social Justice-Nova Scotia and is currently the Chair of Democrats Abroad-Atlantic Provinces. </span></em></p>The push to expand charter schools in the U.S. contributed to a robust movement of teachers’ unions and allies demanding a well-resourced public school system.Rachel K. Brickner, Professor of Politics, Acadia UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1254662019-10-18T11:22:29Z2019-10-18T11:22:29ZThe Chicago teachers’ strike isn’t just about kids – it’s about union power too<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/297568/original/file-20191017-98648-1d02q0l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Chicago's teachers are on strike for the first time since 2012.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Chicago-Schools-Strike/8370c6493d614f0ab916e55ac439e8a4/2/0">AP Photo/Martha Irvine</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Classes in Chicago’s public schools were canceled starting Oct. 17 as more than 25,000 teachers in the nation’s <a href="https://www.census.gov/library/visualizations/2019/comm/largest-school-districts.html">third-largest school district</a> went on strike in what they’re calling a fight for “<a href="https://abc7chicago.com/education/live-thousands-of-striking-cps-teachers-hit-picket-lines-across-city-/5625169/">justice and equity</a>” for their students.</p>
<p>The strike, the city’s first in <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2012/09/19/us/illinois-chicago-teachers-strike/index.html">seven years</a>, marks what has been a tumultuous year for labor negotiations in urban school districts around the country. Thirty thousand Los Angeles school teachers went on a <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/22/us/los-angeles-teachers-strike-day-6/index.html">six-day strike</a> in January. The next month, approximately 2,600 teachers walked out of the classroom for <a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/2/14/18224848/denver-teachers-strike-over-deal">three days in Denver</a>, and 3,000 teachers picketed for <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/3/4/18249872/oakland-teachers-strike-pay-raise">a week in Oakland</a>.</p>
<p>Many of the demands the unions are making almost certainly would benefit students. But beneath the rallying cries, these unions are facing a new reality that suggests they are also fighting for something else.</p>
<p>In 2018, the <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/2017/16-1466">Supreme Court ruled in Janus v. AFSCME</a> that workers are free to choose whether to join a union. Since then, we’d argue, teacher strikes have been as much a fight for the soul of the union as they are for the soul of public education. What the teachers’ unions want and need is membership. </p>
<p>The deals that teachers’ unions negotiate with school districts matter more than ever for maintaining their membership and political power in the post-Janus world. As education policy scholars who have studied <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=JAZULk0AAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">teachers’ unions</a> and <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=NDkwqOQAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">teacher collective bargaining</a> for more than a decade, we have read thousands of agreements like the ones negotiated in <a href="https://www.utla.net/news/tentative-agreement-2019">Los Angeles</a>, <a href="https://denverteachers.org/we-fight-we-win/">Denver</a> and <a href="https://oaklandea.org/updates/oea-reaches-tentative-agreement-with-ousd/">Oakland</a> in early 2019 and will soon be forged in Chicago.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/261756/original/file-20190302-110107-uuz5mx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/261756/original/file-20190302-110107-uuz5mx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/261756/original/file-20190302-110107-uuz5mx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261756/original/file-20190302-110107-uuz5mx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261756/original/file-20190302-110107-uuz5mx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261756/original/file-20190302-110107-uuz5mx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261756/original/file-20190302-110107-uuz5mx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261756/original/file-20190302-110107-uuz5mx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Parents and students joined striking Los Angeles Unified District teachers in front of Evelyn Thurman Gratts Elementary School in Los Angeles in January 2019.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Los-Angeles-Teachers-Strike/0184d7cb63254905a8a32ac0094aa005/36/0">Richard Vogel</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Negotiating for numbers</h2>
<p>What does negotiating for membership look like?</p>
<p>The agreements that unions are securing establish teacher salaries, restrictions on the length of the workday, performance evaluation procedures and other important working conditions. But they also set staffing levels for teachers, librarians, nurses and counselors. In short, teachers are bargaining to increase staffing – and in particular, staff who can also join the union. If they can increase staffing, they can increase membership and ensure their future. </p>
<p>With a 16% raise on the table, the Chicago Teachers’ Union <a href="https://chicago.suntimes.com/2019/10/16/20918124/chicago-teachers-union-strike-cps-public-schools-house-delegates">is asking</a> for a contract that guarantees smaller class sizes. With fewer students in each classroom, the school system will need to employ more teachers. In addition, the union aims to increase the number of nonteaching staff employed, such as nurses, librarians, social workers and counselors. All of these new hires will be potential union members.</p>
<p>Consider the <a href="https://www.utla.net/news/tentative-agreement-2019">three-year deal</a> that the teachers’ union secured in Los Angeles in January. Along with a 6% salary increase, the deal included numerous staffing guarantees that equate to more membership for the Los Angeles teachers’ union: 300 nurses, 82 librarians and 77 counselors. Because the contract reduced class size by four students in grades 4 through 12 over the duration of the contract, it requires the school district to add new teachers.</p>
<p>The Oakland teachers’ union followed a similar playbook for their <a href="https://oaklandea.org/updates/oea-reaches-tentative-agreement-with-ousd/">four-year deal</a> in February. The union secured an 11% raise over the next four years and a modest reduction in class size by the 2021-22 school year. Additionally, the new contract lowers the counselor-to-student ratio, establishes new caseload limits for school psychologists and speech and language pathologists and increases staffing levels at schools with 50 or more students who are new to the country.</p>
<p>All of those provisions require the district to add more educators. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/297544/original/file-20191017-98666-19ssbqu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/297544/original/file-20191017-98666-19ssbqu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/297544/original/file-20191017-98666-19ssbqu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/297544/original/file-20191017-98666-19ssbqu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/297544/original/file-20191017-98666-19ssbqu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/297544/original/file-20191017-98666-19ssbqu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/297544/original/file-20191017-98666-19ssbqu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/297544/original/file-20191017-98666-19ssbqu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Teachers, students and supporters rallied in front of City Hall in Oakland, California, in February 2019.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Oakland-Teachers-Strike/99b9ba96c9fc4ec9bfd16e13c8bc4beb/6/0">AP Photo/Jeff Chiu</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Organizing charter school teachers</h2>
<p>Not only are teachers’ unions fighting for increased staffing levels, they are using contract negotiations to limit the transfer of teachers to <a href="https://www.educationdive.com/news/as-teacher-protests-escalate-non-union-educators-express-mixed-feelings/554282/">nonunion schools</a> that pose a threat to their membership levels.</p>
<p>The unions in Los Angeles and Oakland took a hard stance on charter schools in their negotiations. In Los Angeles, the teachers’ union <a href="https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/UTLA-talks-Charter-School-LAUSD-Strike-approaching-503401771.html">called for</a> an eight- to 10-month moratorium on new charter schools, something the local school board cannot provide. However, the Los Angeles Unified School District <a href="https://www.utla.net/news/school-board-approves-moratorium-charters">agreed to endorse</a> such a moratorium and lobby California’s governor to that end.</p>
<p>The Oakland teachers’ union secured a nearly identical commitment from the school district to lobby the state legislature for the same moratorium. A final <a href="https://www.cta.org/Issues-and-Action/Charter-Schools.aspx">union-backed bill</a>, which stopped short of a full stop on new charters but which imposed new restrictions, received <a href="https://edsource.org/2019/new-era-for-charter-schools-newsom-signs-bill-with-compromises-he-negotiated/618099">the California governor’s signature</a> in October. The Chicago teachers’ union secured <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/opinion/editorials/ct-chicago-charter-schools-teachers-union-edit-1026-20161025-story.html">a cap on charter school expansion</a> in their last contract negotiations in 2016. </p>
<p>Even while they attempt to limit charter growth, unions are seeking to <a href="https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2018/12/14/the-teachers-unions-have-a-charter-school.html">organize charter teachers</a>. The teachers at more than a quarter of Chicago’s 121 charter schools belong to the Chicago Teachers’ Union. A similar share of the 277 charter schools in Los Angeles are organized by its teachers’ union. Only two of Oakland’s 44 charters, however, are unionized.</p>
<p>The teachers at some of the charter schools in <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/breaking/ct-met-acero-strike-agreement-20181209-story.html">Chicago</a> and <a href="https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-edu-lausd-strike-accelerated-school-20190114-story.html">Los Angeles</a> went on strike in the past year, for the first in the nation’s history.</p>
<p>All in all, our rough calculations suggest that the <a href="https://achieve.lausd.net/site/default.aspx?PageType=3&DomainID=4&ModuleInstanceID=45663&ViewID=6446EE88-D30C-497E-9316-3F8874B3E108&RenderLoc=0&FlexDataID=73638&PageID=1">staffing provisions</a> in the Los Angeles contract could have added over 1,500 members to the the Los Angeles teachers’ union’s membership. This would equate to about a 5% increase in the union’s ranks of at least <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/01/13/684645947/los-angeles-teachers-are-moving-forward-with-a-strike">30,000 educators</a>. The Oakland teachers’ union could be getting a similar boost.</p>
<h2>Gaining members</h2>
<p>It’s too early to tell what will happen in Chicago, but a contract with robust staffing guarantees will likely add membership to the union ranks. </p>
<p>In a post-Janus world, unions are showcasing the viability of the picket line as a way to win contracts that bolster membership. Not only that, but because only union members can vote to authorize a strike, union leadership can leverage strike votes to petition – or pressure – nonunion members to join the movement.</p>
<p>The Los Angeles union reports <a href="https://www.utla.net/sites/default/files/UTLA_PUB_Sept18-low-rez.pdf">adding over 1,000 members</a> during its strike vote. The Denver union says it <a href="https://www.cpr.org/news/story/the-strength-behind-the-denver-teacher-strike-is-the-unions-swelling-membership">added 250</a> during its authorization vote. </p>
<p>So why are teachers’ unions striking with increased frequency? We believe that unions are fighting for their survival.</p>
<p><em>This is an updated version of an article originally published on <a href="https://theconversation.com/teacher-unions-say-theyre-fighting-for-students-and-schools-what-they-really-want-is-more-members-112735">March 4, 2019</a>.</em></p>
<p>[ <em><a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=expertise">Expertise in your inbox. Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter and get a digest of academic takes on today’s news, every day.</a></em> ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/125466/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>To fund her work on teachers' unions and CBAs, Katharine O. Strunk has received research funding from several philanthropic entities, including Arnold Ventures, the Spencer Foundation, the Walton foundation and an anonymous foundation. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bradley D. Marianno does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Teachers’ unions often say they go on strike to improve conditions for students. A closer look at recent walkouts suggests they are also fighting for something else: membership.Bradley D. Marianno, Assistant Professor of Educational Policy & Leadership, University of Nevada, Las VegasKatharine O. Strunk, Professor of Education Policy and Economics, Michigan State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1167722019-05-08T16:05:44Z2019-05-08T16:05:44ZUber drivers strike and the future of labor: 4 essential reads<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/273351/original/file-20190508-183103-144comx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Uber drivers protest outside of the New York Stock Exchange.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Uber-Lyft-Strike/fcbe91999aa140aeb2c5728bd56366db/2/0">AP Photo/Mark Lennihan</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Uber drivers across the globe <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/5/7/18528512/uber-driver-strike-gig-economy-labor-dilemma">logged out of their company’s app</a> for several hours on May 8 to protest its compensation policies. </p>
<p>Strikes occurred in at least eight U.S. cities including New York and San Francisco as well as places as far-flung as London and Melbourne. They were timed to precede Uber’s huge initial public offering.</p>
<p>Drivers are demanding better job security and higher wages. Their status as independent contractors often denies them some employee rights. And <a href="https://www.ridester.com/2018-survey/#introduction">studies show</a> many drivers earn less than $10 an hour after expenses. </p>
<p>The walkout raises questions about the future of worker mobilization in the age of the gig economy. Here are four stories from The Conversation archive that offer lessons for today’s worker activists.</p>
<h2>1. 1919 Seattle strike offers hope</h2>
<p>A century ago, 35,000 shipyard workers and 25,000 other union members – roughly a fifth of Seattle’s population – walked off their jobs to demand higher wages. </p>
<p>The Seattle General Strike of 1919 shut down a major U.S. city, inspired a rock opera, provoked fears Russian Bolsheviks were trying to overthrow American capitalism and, ultimately, was an abject failure in achieving its ends, wrote University of Oregon history professor Steven C. Beda. Yet the incident <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-seattle-general-strike-of-1919-should-inspire-a-new-generation-of-labor-activists-111238">offers “surprisingly hopeful” lessons</a> for today’s striking teachers, Uber drivers and others, he argued. </p>
<p>“It had proven to workers, both in Seattle and elsewhere, that there was power in unity, however fleeting,” Beda recalled. “For five days, workers had shut down the city and then run it themselves.</p>
<p>"For today’s workers tired of decades of wage stagnation and fleeting benefits in the gig economy, the Seattle General Strike offers an important lesson about the power of organized laborers: When united, workers can take on the most powerful foes,” he wrote.</p>
<h2>2. Google and the power of customers</h2>
<p>Late last year, thousands of Google employees staged a walkout to demand changes to the way their company handles sexual harassment complaints. The company pledged to overhaul its policies.</p>
<p>The grievances that motivated the protest, the first of its kind by well-paid and benefit-rich high-tech workers, were “emblematic of what’s prompting millions of American workers to feel they have lost their voice,” argued Thomas Kochan, a professor of management at MIT. </p>
<p>To find it again, <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-googles-employees-walked-out-and-what-it-could-mean-for-the-future-of-labor-106305">they should look to a similar walkout</a> by employees of Massachusetts-based Market Basket in 2014, which Kochan called the “most successful strike of the 21st century.” The employees won their battle because of strong customer support, a strategy Google workers should follow, he wrote. </p>
<p>“Although labor law won’t protect them, they might be able to use the hundreds of millions of Google’s customers – of its search engine, email program or mobile phone software – to pressure executives to negotiate in good faith,” he wrote. They “could not only end up changing their company’s policy on harassment, but become the vanguard that could help disrupt U.S. labor law in the process.”</p>
<h2>3. Teachers fighting for social justice</h2>
<p>Teachers in several cities in the U.S., including Oakland, California, also went on strike last year. </p>
<p>While low teacher pay was one of the motivations, <a href="https://theconversation.com/whats-behind-the-teacher-strikes-unions-focus-on-social-justice-not-just-salaries-111490">they were also protesting</a> the lack of funding for student resources. And in the process, they enlisted the help of student and community groups and focused on racial justice, explained Rebecca Tarlau, an assistant professor of education and of labor and employment relations at Pennsylvania State University.</p>
<p>“All these actions have transformed the Oakland Education Association – and many other teachers’ unions across the country – into leaders of a social movement that has the potential of redefining public education, the labor movement and American politics,” she wrote.</p>
<h2>4. Risks of inaction</h2>
<p>Despite some success, the power of unions to represent workers has plummeted in recent decades as their ranks have dwindled. </p>
<p>MIT’s Kochan, a frequent contributor to The Conversation on the future of labor, also wrote about <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-do-we-ensure-the-next-generation-of-workers-isnt-worse-off-than-the-last-52110">three key questions that need to be answered</a> by all American workers, from high-tech Googlers and gig economy drivers and “taskers” to underpaid teachers. But he also warned of risks. </p>
<p>“Unless talk leads to actions to change the course of the economy and labor market, the next generation of workers is destined to experience a lower standard of living than their parents – the opposite of the American Dream,” Kochan argued.</p>
<p><em>This story is a roundup of articles from The Conversation’s archives.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/116772/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
The Uber driver walkout raises questions about how workers can fight for better pay and benefits in the age of the gig economy – a topic frequently on the minds of Conversation scholars.Bryan Keogh, Managing EditorLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1114902019-02-21T13:41:18Z2019-02-21T13:41:18ZWhat’s behind the teacher strikes: Unions focus on social justice, not just salaries<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/260082/original/file-20190221-148513-1hkf0yu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Striking teachers are increasingly casting their struggle as being part of a broader struggle for social justice.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Oakland-Teachers-Strike/de2ede2732fb4a89860cf7a138c2fec3/43/0">David Zalubowski/AP</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>For the past few years I’ve been studying teacher unions and teachers strikes throughout the Americas. My research has taken me from the Mexican state of Oaxaca – where <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/29/world/americas/29mexico.html">teacher protests in 2006</a> led to both <a href="https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/06/mexico-teachers-union-cnte-snte-oaxaca-nieto-zapatistas-strike/">violent repression</a> and a <a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/manuel-garza-zepeda/popular-movement-of-oaxaca-ten-years-later">broad-based social movement</a> for direct democracy – to the streets of São Paulo, Brazil, to coal-mining towns in West Virginia.</p>
<p>I’ve learned that certain conditions prompt teacher unions to adopt new forms of activism and take up broader issues of social justice that go beyond how much teachers are paid.</p>
<p>Now is such a time in the United States. </p>
<h2>Factors driving the strikes</h2>
<p>The teacher strike that began Feb. 21 in Oakland, California, is just the latest example in a wave of teacher strikes that have swept the country over the past year.</p>
<p>In my view as a researcher who deals with <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&view_op=list_works&gmla=AJsN-F7kI--BtwRyFXzgHZAWXqIhkAiLEWabUoHfBuAQfS2oiGtdTz1KLKb8hn47N7CQGnT3G6arl6r0p2QzGdk_vL9a5VIhIg&user=UIbU8eEAAAAJ">issues of education and labor</a>, the current teacher strike wave in the United States is the result of three factors.</p>
<p>First is the acceleration of market-based education reforms, including the expansion of charter schools. </p>
<p>Second is networks of teacher activists organizing and transforming their unions to focus on broader social issues. </p>
<p>Third is the framing of teacher union action as part of the struggle for racial justice.</p>
<p>These factors have led teacher unions to <a href="http://www.reclaimourschools.org/">form alliances with community organizations</a>, <a href="https://www.schoolslastudentsdeserve.com/">enlist students</a> and <a href="https://www.utla.net/parents-community">parents</a> to join the activism, and <a href="http://time.com/5499164/la-teacher-strike-charter-schools/">speak out against</a> efforts to expand charter schools and privatization.</p>
<h2>Inspired by Occupy</h2>
<p>Let’s look at how these three factors played out in Oakland, starting several years ago.</p>
<p>As I learned through interviews, teacher activists in Oakland drew inspiration from the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/on-leadership/what-is-occupy-wall-street-the-history-of-leaderless-movements/2011/10/10/gIQAwkFjaL_story.html?utm_term=.4d0c5bf6322c">Occupy movement</a> in 2011. They helped occupy a local elementary school to <a href="https://www.mercurynews.com/2012/07/03/oakland-school-sit-in-raided-after-nearly-three-weeks/">protest its closing</a>, and eventually created a union caucus called Classroom Struggle with a couple dozen teachers to promote more social justice issues. Then, last spring, <a href="https://classroomstruggle.org/oea-elections/candidates/">these teacher activists</a> created a slate, in alliance with African-American teacher and organizer <a href="https://oaklandea.org/board/keith-brown/">Keith Brown</a>, and won the leadership of the Oakland Education Association. Since taking office on July 1, 2018, this new union leadership – inspired by the successful strikes in West Virgina, Arizona and Los Angeles – have been preparing for a strike.</p>
<p>The conditions that led to the Oakland strike are similar to those that led to strikes in other cities earlier this year, such as Los Angeles.</p>
<p>For instance, public education in Oakland has been <a href="https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Oakland-schools-face-harsh-cuts-as-another-budget-12346142.php">defunded</a> and the city, much like Los Angeles, is experiencing <a href="https://www.inthepublicinterest.org/report-the-cost-of-charter-schools-for-public-school-districts/">charter school expansion</a> that teachers say is taking money away from public schools. One recent report found that charter schools take <a href="https://www.inthepublicinterest.org/report-the-cost-of-charter-schools-for-public-school-districts/">US$57.3 million</a> a year from public schools in Oakland.</p>
<p>Teacher union actions in Oakland also mirror tactics and strategies that unions have used in other cities. For instance, Oakland teacher union leaders have enlisted the help of <a href="https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/Oakland-Unified-School-District-Officials-Advise-Educators-to-Not-Participate-in-Sickout-502299022.html">student</a> and <a href="https://californiaeducator.org/redforedoakland/">community groups</a> and focused on <a href="http://www.ktvu.com/news/oakland-teachers-announce-strike-over-pay-class-sizes-1">racial justice</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/260084/original/file-20190221-148513-3tylo8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/260084/original/file-20190221-148513-3tylo8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/260084/original/file-20190221-148513-3tylo8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260084/original/file-20190221-148513-3tylo8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260084/original/file-20190221-148513-3tylo8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260084/original/file-20190221-148513-3tylo8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=550&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260084/original/file-20190221-148513-3tylo8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=550&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260084/original/file-20190221-148513-3tylo8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=550&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Teacher unions are enlisting students to help support their strikes.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Denver-Teachers-Strike/d56fe2de08e64993935a25d325c0b05f/1/0">David Zalubowski/AP</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>All these actions have transformed the Oakland Education Association – and many other teachers’ unions across the country – into leaders of a social movement that has the potential of redefining public education, the labor movement and American politics. </p>
<p>Much of the media attention on teacher strikes has focused on the economic reasons for the strikes, such as <a href="https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2018/08/22/teachers-are-winning-public-support-for-pay.html">low teacher salaries</a>, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/01/us/west-virginia-teachers-strike.html">rising health care costs</a> and <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/03/us/oklahoma-teachers-textbooks-trnd/index.html">aging textbooks</a>. But there are important historical factors at play.</p>
<p>Historically, teachers’ unions have not led social, racial and economic justice movements. But there are some exceptions. Those exceptions include <a href="http://www.psupress.org/books/titles/0-271-01560-8.html">teacher unionists’ critique of authoritarianism</a> in Mexico in the 1980s and 1990s; teachers’ participation in the movement for a return to democracy in Brazil in the late 1970s; and, in the United States, the participation of many <a href="https://cup.columbia.edu/book/reds-at-the-blackboard/9780231152693">teacher union leaders in the civil rights activism</a> of the 1950s and 1960s.</p>
<p>However, it is also important to note that during the 1960s, many teachers in the United States also found themselves at odds with communities of color. Perhaps this is best exemplified by the <a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300109405/strike-changed-new-york">1968 Ocean Hill-Brownsville Strike</a>, when the United Federation of Teachers rallied against black community control of schools.</p>
<h2>New alliances</h2>
<p>Today’s teacher activists have bridged the divide between teacher unions and communities of color. For instance, between 2010 and 2012, teacher activists from Chicago’s Caucus of Rank and File Educators, or CORE, aligned with other community groups to organize against school closings in black and Hispanic neighborhoods. CORE also supported parents and students <a href="https://www.labornotes.org/2012/02/chicago-occupation-challenges-corporate-school-agenda">occupying an elementary school</a> to prevent its closure. Their rallying call – “<a href="https://news.wttw.com/sites/default/files/Chicago%20Teachers%20Union%20report_0.pdf">Schools that Chicago Students Deserve</a>” – included demands for reduced class size and other things related to classroom conditions.</p>
<p>In Los Angeles, activists embraced this social movement approach to union activism, fighting for the “<a href="https://www.utla.net/sites/default/files/UTLA_SLASDFINAL.pdf">Schools that LA Students Deserve</a>.” In 2014, the Los Angeles activists created a new caucus, <a href="https://www.labornotes.org/2014/01/la-teachers-run-bigger-vision">Union Power</a>, winning the elections and immediately hiring dozens of new organizers to help build towards a strike. They worked in alliance with <a href="http://reclaimourschoolsla.org/">dozens of community organizations</a>. </p>
<p>The Black Lives Matter movement fueled energy into a new student movement, called <a href="https://www.schoolslastudentsdeserve.com/">Students Deserve</a>, directly supported by the union leadership. The six-day LA strike in early 2019 represented, more than anything else, an explicit <a href="https://www.utla.net/campaigns-issues/issues/racial-justice">racial justice struggle</a>. The LA strike also called into question <a href="https://www.jacobinmag.com/2019/01/los-angeles-teachers-strike-antiracism-unions">claims</a> by the charter and <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Market-Movements-African-American-Involvement-in-School-Voucher-Reform/Pedroni/p/book/9780203941355">voucher</a> movements that school choice policies represent the best path to social mobility for children from poor communities of color.</p>
<p>Teacher unions are not always – and not often – the leaders of broader social justice movements. Now that’s changing due to a new generation of union activists who see their struggle as part of the fight for equitable resources for the communities in which they teach.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/111490/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rebecca Tarlau receives funding from the National Academy of Education/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellowship program.</span></em></p>The teacher strikes that have swept the US represent a new shift in teacher activism that has led teacher unions to align with broader social and racial justice movements, an education scholar says.Rebecca Tarlau, Assistant Professor of Education and of Labor and Employment Relations, Penn StateLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1118182019-02-15T11:50:33Z2019-02-15T11:50:33ZStriking teachers in Denver shut down performance bonuses – here’s how that will impact education<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/259137/original/file-20190214-1742-1ryp167.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Denver public school teachers went on strike on Feb. 11 and successfully eliminated a controversial bonus-based pay system.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Denver-Teachers-Strike/048c0a30236543789325880e59e73e20/11/0">David Zalubowski/AP</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Editor’s note: Denver teachers reached a tentative deal on Feb. 14 that ended a three-day strike.</em> </p>
<p><em>Besides raises of <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/14/us/denver-teachers-end-strike/index.html">7 to 11 percent</a>, one of the concessions they won was the end of performance-based pay, which they <a href="https://www.denverpost.com/2019/02/09/denver-teachers-dps-discord-procomp-bonus-system/">said was unreliable</a> and led to unacceptably low base pay.</em></p>
<p><em>Nathan Favero, an education policy expert at American University, answers three questions about the effectiveness of performance-based pay and how its elimination will impact education in Denver.</em></p>
<p><strong>How did performance affect teachers’ pay?</strong></p>
<p>While teachers’ base salaries were mostly determined by their education levels and teaching experience, in Denver public schools, teachers also got substantial bonuses based on a number of other factors, including performance.</p>
<p>The main performance-based bonus went to teachers in schools where students performed particularly well on standardized tests. If a school was designated as high-achieving, then all teachers in that school received the bonus that year. The size of bonuses for teachers working in recognized schools varied from year to year, but amounts have been as large as <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20161215134138/http://hr.dpsk12.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/2015-12-16-Joint-Letter-ProComp-Agreement.pdf">US$5,100 per teacher</a>.</p>
<p>Under early versions of the district’s bonus pay system, teachers were also recognized individually for good performance. However, these individual performance bonuses were largely <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20161215134138/http://hr.dpsk12.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/2015-12-16-Joint-Letter-ProComp-Agreement.pdf">done away with in 2015</a>. Teachers still received individual performance evaluations every year, but in most schools, these evaluations did not affect teacher pay, except when a teacher was found to be severely deficient. </p>
<p>Even after 2015, individual performance pay was still used in one set of schools. Every year, the district identified 30 “highest priority” schools. Teachers in these schools could receive <a href="http://thecommons.dpsk12.org/Page/1562">bonuses based on individual performance evaluations</a>. These evaluations rated teachers based on <a href="http://thecommons.dpsk12.org/Page/394">several data sources</a>, including students’ standardized test scores, surveys filled out by students, achievement of student learning goals set by the teacher and classroom observations conducted by school leaders or peers.</p>
<p><strong>How effective is pay-for-performance?</strong></p>
<p>Research teams based at the University of Colorado at Denver and the University of Colorado at Boulder have concluded that the pay-for-performance system had few effects on students. </p>
<p>One analysis found that performance incentives <a href="https://www.colorado.edu/cadre/2017/08/25/denver-procomp-evaluation-report-2010-2012">caused a tiny increase in math scores</a>, but even these small gains were offset by slight drops in reading and writing scores. Other analyses found <a href="http://www.the-evaluation-center.org/projects/prek-12/procomp">no evidence of any effect</a> on standardized test scores.</p>
<p>Despite lackluster results on standardized tests, Denver’s pay-for-performance system may have helped a bit when it comes to retaining teachers. One analysis estimates that the city <a href="http://www.the-evaluation-center.org/projects/prek-12/procomp">retained up to 160 teachers</a> per year who otherwise would have quit if it wasn’t for the performance pay system. Given the fact that the district had 3,700 teachers at the time of the study, this means about 4.3 percent of Denver’s teacher workforce was potentially retained because of the pay system. Another analysis indicates that the retained teachers were <a href="https://www.colorado.edu/cadre/2017/08/25/procomp-evaluation-report-teacher-retention-and-variability-bonus-pay-2001-02-through">better-than-average teachers</a>, which makes them particularly important to the district.</p>
<p>Across the nation, other school districts have had similar experiences with pay-for-performance. On average, teacher pay-for-performance systems seem to <a href="https://www.nber.org/papers/w20983">produce a small improvement</a> <a href="http://jhr.uwpress.org/content/early/2018/08/01/jhr.55.2.0216.7719R3.abstract">for students</a>, though <a href="https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB9596/index1.html">not always</a>.</p>
<p>The limited success of Denver’s performance pay system may be due in part to its complexity. Researchers found through surveys and interviews of teachers that many of them did not know exactly how bonuses could be earned or even had <a href="http://www.the-evaluation-center.org/projects/prek-12/procomp">wrong information</a>. Many teachers also felt that the <a href="https://www.colorado.edu/cadre/2017/08/25/denver-procomp-evaluation-report-2010-2012">bonus system was unfair</a> and that the individual performance evaluation could sometimes be manipulated by, for example, setting easily achievable goals to be assessed with an administrator at the end of the year.</p>
<p><strong>So what changes under the new contract?</strong></p>
<p>Under the <a href="https://denverteachers.org/wp-content/uploads/DPS-DCTA-Agreement.pdf">new labor deal</a>, almost all pay-for-performance is eliminated. Instead of paying bonuses to teachers in schools with impressive standardized test scores, $750 bonuses will be paid to teachers in up to 10 schools selected by a committee for excellence in areas such as health education, counseling services and community engagement. The agreement specifically states that these awards cannot be based on teacher performance evaluation data or school report cards that contain standardized test scores.</p>
<p>The deal also eliminates bonuses tied to individual performance evaluations for teachers in high-priority schools. Extra pay for teachers in hard-to-staff schools will continue. However, all teachers working in these schools will receive the same bonus, regardless of their performance evaluation.</p>
<p>Teachers have asked for a pay system that is more predictable. The revised pay system should give them more certainty at the beginning of the year about how much they can expect to make. Students and administrators will have to hope that the district can continue to retain high-quality teachers despite the elimination of performance bonuses that may have helped persuade some of these teachers to stay in the district in the past.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/111818/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nathan Favero does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Through a three-day strike, Denver teachers got rid of a bonus-based pay system that they say was unfair. An education policy expert explains what the end of bonus-based pay means for Denver schools.Nathan Favero, Assistant Professor of Public Administration & Policy, American University School of Public AffairsLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1101492019-01-29T11:43:40Z2019-01-29T11:43:40ZCommunity schools score key victory in LA teachers strike<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/256107/original/file-20190129-108351-1s9mi5r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Parents accompany their children to school on the first day back after a teachers' strike in Los Angeles.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Richard Vogel</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>One of the <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/la-high-school-teacher-poses-for-union-poster-and-becomes-the-face-of-a-movement/ar-BBSmILI">most enduring images</a> of the 2019 <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/22/us/la-teacher-strike-deal.html">Los Angeles teachers strike</a> will be of Roxana Dueñas.</p>
<p>Dueñas teaches history at Roosevelt High School in East Los Angeles. It was her image that was used on a <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/la-high-school-teacher-poses-for-union-poster-and-becomes-the-face-of-a-movement/ar-BBSmILI">strike poster</a> that served as teachers’ call to arms: “Community Schools Build Democracy!”</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/255077/original/file-20190123-100292-tpnfvz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/255077/original/file-20190123-100292-tpnfvz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255077/original/file-20190123-100292-tpnfvz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255077/original/file-20190123-100292-tpnfvz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255077/original/file-20190123-100292-tpnfvz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=942&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255077/original/file-20190123-100292-tpnfvz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=942&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255077/original/file-20190123-100292-tpnfvz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=942&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A poster from the recent Los Angeles teachers strike.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the end, this was a cry that did not go unheeded. The historic strike produced <a href="https://www.utla.net/sites/default/files/UTLA-LAUSD%202019-2022%20Tentative%20AgreementFINALV4012219.pdf">a tentative agreement</a> to transform 30 LA schools in high need areas into community schools, investing US$400,000 in each one over two years. </p>
<p>But just what are “community schools”? And how did they figure into the Los Angeles teachers strike?</p>
<p>I come at this subject from a unique vantage point. For the past decade, my colleagues and I at the University of California, Los Angeles have <a href="http://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/ucla-lausd-sign-agreement-for-horace-mann-ucla-community-school">joined forces</a> with the district, teachers union and the community to establish the <a href="https://uclacs.org/">Robert F. Kennedy UCLA Community School</a> in Koreatown and the <a href="https://manncs.gseis.ucla.edu/">Mann UCLA Community School</a> in South LA. This collaboration is part of a <a href="https://www.nettercenter.upenn.edu/what-we-do/national-and-global-outreach/university-assisted-community-schools-network">larger national effort</a> to establish community schools in partnership with universities. This is tied deeply to the democratic traditions of collective problem-solving and equal educational opportunity.</p>
<p>Not everyone agrees that community schools are the best solution to the problems that beset education. For instance, some critics claim that they are “<a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/the-uncomfortable-reality-of-community-schools/">racially and economically segregated</a>.” And some research has found that they achieve “<a href="https://www.chalkbeat.org/posts/us/2017/05/12/community-schools-are-expanding-but-are-they-working-new-study-shows-mixed-results/">mixed results</a>.” Overall, however, the evidence is promising. A thorough <a href="https://learningpolicyinstitute.org/sites/default/files/product-files/Community_Schools_Effective_REPORT.pdf">research review</a> found that well-designed community schools are effective in meeting the educational needs of low-achieving students in high-poverty schools.</p>
<h2>Control issues</h2>
<p>At its core, the strike, which concluded on Jan. 22, was about who should control public education. The teachers’ union advocated putting control in the hands of local communities in order to curb the influence of pro-charter school education philanthropists. This was in part a reaction to an initiative by <a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/eli-broad/#242b7e2c155d">Eli Broad</a> and others who <a href="http://documents.latimes.com/great-public-schools-now-initiative/">proposed</a> a plan to improve the Los Angeles Unified School District by attracting “edupreneurs” to launch 260 new charter schools that would capture 50 percent of the district’s “market share” by 2023. So far, charters are halfway to that goal, enrolling 25 percent of the district’s 621,414 students.</p>
<p>When Broad framed the future of public education in corporate terms – not democratic terms – it prompted widespread <a href="https://www.latimes.com/local/education/la-me-charter-teachers-20151008-story.html">backlash</a>.</p>
<p>Former school board president <a href="http://laschoolreport.com/broad-charter-plan-comes-heavy-attack-lausd-board-meeting/">Jackie Goldberg declared</a>, “This is war!” Local foundation leaders <a href="http://www.weingartfnd.org/files/Open-letter-11-17-15.pdf">cautioned</a> that intended reforms “often fall short if they are done to communities rather than with communities.” </p>
<p>Working with communities to improve schooling – and thereby democracy – is a central premise of the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/10/opinion/community-school-new-york.html">growing community schools movement</a>. A century-old idea <a href="https://www.aft.org/sites/default/files/periodicals/enduringappeal.pdf">that originated with social reformers Jane Addams and John Dewey</a>, <a href="http://www.communityschools.org/">community schools</a> are neighborhood hubs that bring together families, educators, government agencies and community groups and organizations to provide all the opportunities and services young people need to thrive. The movement has experienced a renaissance of sorts, tied to the broader “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2017/11/07/why-its-time-for-mayors-to-take-the-lead-to-improve-public-schools/?utm_term=.3e67cf70588b">new localism</a>.”</p>
<p>The Coalition for Community Schools <a href="https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/education-k-12/reports/2018/08/22/454977/building-community-schools-systems/">estimates</a> that there are more than 5,000 community schools nationwide. The organization <a href="http://www.communityschools.org/aboutschools/faqs.aspx#FAQ12">reports</a> that most existing community schools are public schools but that any school can be a community school, including charter, magnet and parochial schools. <a href="https://learningpolicyinstitute.org/sites/default/files/product-files/Community_Schools_Effective_BRIEF.pdf">Evidence</a> is mounting that community schools are particularly effective at addressing the many barriers to learning experienced by children living in poverty. </p>
<p>For example, <a href="https://www.oaklandinternational.org/">Oakland International School</a> is a community school focused on the challenges facing its newcomer students. As a result, the school partners with 21 agencies to provide health and legal services, mentoring for students in eight languages, social workers and other supports. <a href="https://learningpolicyinstitute.org/sites/default/files/product-files/Community_Schools_Effective_REPORT.pdf">As a result</a>, the college enrollment rate reached 68 percent by 2014, outperforming the state average for English learners.</p>
<h2>Support for community schools</h2>
<p>When LA teachers negotiated for more nurses and counselors, they were pushing for a pillar of the community schools movement – providing health and social services. Cities such as New York have embraced <a href="https://sites.google.com/mynycschool.org/newyorkcitycommunityschools/">community schools wholeheartedly</a>, supporting 247 community schools in 2018. <a href="https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR2100.html">Early results</a> are promising, including higher attendance and graduation rates. In June 2017, LA Unified passed a <a href="http://laschoolboard.org/sites/default/files/06-13-17RegBdRes098CommunitySchoolsFinal6-14-17.pdf">resolution</a> to create a Community Schools Implementation Team charged with developing a rollout plan for an unspecified number of community schools. Three months later, the union released <a href="https://achieve.lausd.net/cms/lib/CA01000043/Centricity/domain/368/2014-2017%20lausd-utla%20proposals/UTLA%20Bargaining%20Proposal%20Support%20Our%20Schools%209-15-17.pdf">a bargaining proposal</a> to the district requesting $10 million to support 20 high-need schools in becoming community schools. The agreement reached 16 months later through the strike increased the proposal to $12 million and 30 schools. Details of the implementation plan are forthcoming. </p>
<p>The funding problem is <a href="http://www.communityschools.org/assets/1/AssetManager/finance-paper.pdf">complex</a>. It involves attracting and coordinating a diverse set of public and private investments. For example, school-based health clinics may rely on federal Medicaid funding, while afterschool college tutoring may be privately funded. Ensuring private funds are used to strengthen the public system is a longstanding challenge. </p>
<p>LeBron James recently invested <a href="https://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2018/08/whos_paying_for_lebron_james_n_1.html">an initial $2 million</a> to open a community school in Akron. He <a href="http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/24194051/lebron-james-discusses-opening-public-school-akron-move-los-angeles-lakers-nba">told ESPN</a>, “It’s not a charter school, it’s not a private school, it’s a real-life school in my hometown.” Widely lauded, this investment may be signaling an <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/connecticut/articles/2018-10-22/billionaire-makes-major-investment-in-public-schools">increased willingness</a> to invest private dollars within neighborhood public schools given the controversy surrounding charter schools that surfaced in the strike.</p>
<p>Local Los Angeles philanthropists Melanie and Richard Lundquist are <a href="https://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-lopez-lundquist-donation-20180118-story.html">investing $85 million</a> over 20 years in <a href="https://partnershipla.org/our-schools/">18 historically underserved schools</a>, including Roosevelt High School where Roxanna teaches. This adds about $650 per student per year. Though impressive, it makes only a dent in the amount needed to adequately fund public education. </p>
<p>To put that into perspective, Policy Analysis for California Education <a href="https://gettingdowntofacts.com/sites/default/files/2018-09/GDTFII%20Summary%20Report.pdf">estimates</a> that it would take a 38 percent increase in the current $12,204 spent per pupil to meet the goals set by the State Board of Education. That’s an estimated $4,686 more per student – which explains why the teachers were fighting for increased public school funding. </p>
<p>The striking teachers were also fighting to correct the imbalance of resources across charter and non-charter schools. One teacher who writes <a href="https://www.schooldatanerd.com/2019/01/15/why-i-strike/">a popular blog explained</a> that he was striking because competing with charters wasn’t a fair game given their lower class sizes. A teacher from a charter school reflected on how the strike has made her consider how <a href="https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-vaca-teacher-strike-20190123-story.html">charter school expansion is harming the city</a>.</p>
<p>While there are many excellent charter schools in Los Angeles Unified, as a group they serve fewer students living in poverty <a href="https://dq.cde.ca.gov/dataquest/dqcensus/EnrCharterSub.aspx?cds=1964733&agglevel=district&year=2017-18">72 percent in charters versus 86 percent in non-charter schools</a>. When families compete for seats in an educational marketplace, often the students facing the most challenges are <a href="https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/unitela/pages/4852/attachments/original/1532384985/Competition_Based_Reform_3_-_6.11.18_Welner_et_al..pdf?1532384985">left behind</a> because they are too expensive or considered disruptive. </p>
<p>The Mann UCLA Community School opened in 2017, building on the foundation of the historic Horace Mann Middle School. In 2000, Mann enrolled 1,737 students. By 2016, <a href="https://communityschooling.gseis.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Community-Schooling-Research-Brief-Winter-2018.pdf">enrollment had plummeted</a> to 330 students. Meanwhile, 37 charter schools had opened within a 2.5-mile radius of the school.</p>
<p>The students still enrolled at Mann are promising, resilient young people, but they face more challenges than those who left for charter schools. For example, <a href="https://dq.cde.ca.gov/dataquest/dqcensus/EnrCharterSub.aspx?cds=19647330135681&agglevel=school&year=2017-18">29 percent of the students at Mann</a> are enrolled in special education, versus <a href="https://dq.cde.ca.gov/dataquest/dqcensus/EnrCharterSub.aspx?cds=1964733&agglevel=district&year=2017-18">11 percent in charters</a>. New community school resources like summer programs, a college center and Saturday school are slowly attracting local families back to their neighborhood school. By September 2018, 444 students were enrolled and the percentage of students with 96 percent or higher attendance had improved 9 percent, from 59 percent to 68 percent, according to Los Angeles Unified School District data. This is still below the district average but a promising sign of improvement.</p>
<p>As more families choose the <a href="https://manncs.gseis.ucla.edu/">Mann UCLA Community School</a>, they are not just exercising the individual freedom Americans so deeply value. They are joining a community. As John Dewey put it in 1927, “Democracy must begin at home, and its home is the neighborly community.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/110149/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Karen Hunter Quartz works for the University of California and is the Director of the UCLA Center for Community Schooling. </span></em></p>The Los Angeles teachers strike wasn’t just about teachers – it was also about community schools, according to an education scholar who serves as director of the UCLA Center for Community Schooling.Karen Hunter Quartz, Researcher, University of California, Los AngelesLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/990672018-06-28T10:40:25Z2018-06-28T10:40:25ZNevada’s unions show how organized labor can flourish even after an adverse Supreme Court ruling<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/225247/original/file-20180628-112628-co3lba.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Nevada unions have been successful in part because of their political engagement.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Isaac Brekken</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>American labor unions <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2018/02/26/public-sector-unions-brace-for-damaging-blow-from-supreme-court/gVMaUs9Gu6RcprdPtQLekI/story.html">have long been bracing</a> for a “post-Janus” future in which collecting dues would be harder than ever. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/janus-v-american-federation-state-county-municipal-employees-council-31/">Janus case</a> has been moving through the courts for two years and addresses the question of whether a public employee can be forced to pay dues to a union that represents him or her. </p>
<p>On June 27, the Supreme Court <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/27/us/politics/supreme-court-unions-organized-labor.html">said</a> no, which means the much-feared poorer future is now upon organized labor. While some pundits argue that this <a href="https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/the-state-worker/article201986374.html">may “cripple”</a> certain unions across the country, <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=Q0iWni4AAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">my research</a> in Nevada suggests it doesn’t have to be that way.</p>
<p>Nevada unions have been operating under this very constraint for 65 years and yet have managed to thrive. As such, I believe they offer three important lessons for labor unions in other states as they grapple with an indisputably bleak legal environment. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/225246/original/file-20180628-112623-nowt9z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/225246/original/file-20180628-112623-nowt9z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225246/original/file-20180628-112623-nowt9z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225246/original/file-20180628-112623-nowt9z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225246/original/file-20180628-112623-nowt9z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225246/original/file-20180628-112623-nowt9z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225246/original/file-20180628-112623-nowt9z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Supporters of Illinois government employee Mark Janus cheer as he walks to thank them outside.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Janus and right to work</h2>
<p>The Supreme Court ruled in Janus v. State, County and Municipal Employees that employees who receive the benefits of union representation are not required to pay any fees for those services because that would be “compelled speech” in <a href="https://theconversation.com/janus-decision-extends-first-amendment-right-of-silence-99066">violation</a> of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. </p>
<p>Governments in every state are now constitutionally prevented from entering into agreements with their workers requiring the employees to pay for union expenses, such as collective bargaining and handling grievances. This creates the risk that more and more employees will become “free riders,” getting the benefits of union representation but bearing none of the costs. </p>
<p>Janus is the latest success of the <a href="http://www.nrtw.org/right-to-work-frequently-asked-questions/">right-to-work movement</a>, which has <a href="http://wuwm.com/post/history-right-work-legislation-its-impact-unions#stream/0">been involved in litigation</a>, legislation and public advocacy against what it calls “forced unionism” since the first federal collective bargaining laws were enacted in the 1930s.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/collective_bargaining">Those laws</a> were modeled on the principle that larger units of workers have greater bargaining power than smaller, segmented ones. In addition, the idea was that employees should be required to pay for union representation to maintain collective strength. And that the union in return would owe those who disagreed with it a duty of fair treatment.</p>
<p>In 1947, <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/29/164">federal law</a> was changed to allow states to adopt so called right-to-work laws, which, like the Janus ruling, forbid compulsory payment of union dues by workers who are covered under a collective bargaining agreement. Currently, 28 states have right-to-work laws.</p>
<p>Nevada, the state where I live, adopted its right-to-work law in <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Nevada_Right-to-Work_Law,_Question_1_(1952)">1952</a>. </p>
<p><iframe id="Le3ex" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/Le3ex/1/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<h2>The Nevada paradox</h2>
<p>While union membership has <a href="https://ler.illinois.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/RTW-in-the-Midwest-2010-2016.pdf">declined</a> in many states with right-to-work laws, Nevada is among a few where the labor movement has remained fairly robust. Its union membership rate of 12.7 percent in 2017 was the <a href="https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2018/new-york-again-had-highest-union-membership-rate-south-carolina-the-lowest-in-2017.htm">second-highest</a> among right-to-work states.</p>
<p>That’s one reason Nevada’s unions offer important lessons for the rest of the labor movement on how to succeed in today’s more legally adverse environment. </p>
<p>My <a href="http://scholars.law.unlv.edu/facpub/1101/">research</a> has focused on private sector labor like the Culinary Workers and Bartenders Unions in Las Vegas, which are separate entities but bargain as one. Known as “the Culinary,” together they are the largest union in Nevada, representing nearly 57,000 workers in Southern Nevada and some properties in the Reno area.</p>
<p>Although the Las Vegas hospitality industry is unique in its scale and need for trained workers, the Culinary has thrived for more than 80 years by balancing on three poles: an immigrant-focused organizing ethic, political engagement and delivering services to members both in the workplace and in the community.</p>
<p>Many of the strategies employed to successfully organize the Culinary workers, then, will be key to the survival and success of organized labor across the country in the post-Janus world.</p>
<h2>Shoe-leather organizing</h2>
<p>Most unions around the country are familiar with the kind of shoe-leather organizing that the Culinary has utilized over its lifetime, such as house visits, worker-to-worker contact and, increasingly, social media strategies. This has led to a nearly 90 percent unionization <a href="http://www.culinaryunion226.org/news/clips/unions-brace-for-supreme-court-janus-decision">rate</a> on the famous Las Vegas Strip. </p>
<p>But the Culinary stands out for the success of its efforts, which has included working hard to recruit immigrants and women. For example, it <a href="http://www.culinaryunion226.org/union/history">proudly calls</a> itself Nevada’s largest immigrant organization, with members from 173 countries, more than half of them Latino. </p>
<p>In addition, about 55 percent of its members are women, which is higher than the <a href="https://iwpr.org/issue/democracy-and-society/women-in-unions/">national average</a> of about 46 percent. </p>
<p>In a right-to-work world, this kind of contact and engagement with workers – especially those who have not traditionally courted by unions – are essential for the survival of the labor movement. </p>
<h2>Political engagement</h2>
<p>The political engagement of the union has enhanced its importance among the state’s politicians because it supports their candidacies through get-out-the vote campaigns, election monitoring and social media outreach. </p>
<p>The Culinary’s <a href="https://twitter.com/Culinary226/status/1006715698352218114">endorsement</a> is coveted, and the get-out-the-vote campaigns they engage in have been successful in electing many of their preferred candidates and preventing the rise of some of the conservative candidates that have appeared in other states.</p>
<p>This political engagement can have an impact at the bargaining table, leading to community support for their recently successful efforts to organize new casinos outside of the Las Vegas Strip. This suggests that after Janus, public sector unions will have to get more political, rather than less.</p>
<h2>Delivering for the rank and file</h2>
<p>Finally, the success of two depend on and contribute to the third lesson: The Culinary is able to deliver the kinds of extra services and benefits for its members that ensure they keep paying their dues. </p>
<p>Others include efforts to help its many immigrant members, such as the <a href="http://www.culinaryunion226.org/affiliates/citizenship">Citizenship Project</a>, which has aided in the naturalization of nearly 20,000 Nevadans since its inception in 2001. Another member benefit is the Housing Partnership <a href="http://www.culinaryunion226.org/affiliates/housing-partnership">Program</a>, which the union won from employers to help workers buy their first homes. And the Culinary Training <a href="http://www.theculinaryacademy.org">Academy</a>, a nationally recognized joint labor management training program, showcases the union’s role in training the workforce to the benefit of workers and the hospitality industry. </p>
<p>These are all examples of labor-community partnerships that show the importance of unions not just to their own members but to others as well.</p>
<p>Unions across the country will struggle somewhat in the short term to do these kinds of projects due to their diminished resources, but these are the kinds of priorities that will build the labor movement over the long haul.</p>
<h2>The road forward</h2>
<p>Now that the Janus decision is almost certain to cut into how much money unions can collect from the workers they represent, their survival will depend on how well they can learn from places like Nevada and do more in these three areas. </p>
<p>An unfortunate side effect of the Supreme Court ruling, however, is that “labor peace” – a good working relationship between a union and management, one of the main goals of any union when it makes a contract with a company – will be more elusive than ever. Instead core members are likely to become more energized, as we’ve seen in mass demonstrations by teachers in Arizona, Oklahoma, West Virginia and Arizona – all right-to-work states, in fact. </p>
<p>Without a doubt, Janus marks a milestone in the history of labor unions in the U.S. But to its right-to-work supporters’ chagrin, it might not be the future they wanted.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/99067/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ruben J. Garcia does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>While the Supreme Court’s Janus ruling dealt a blow to organized labor, three lessons from Nevada’s unions suggest things aren’t as bleak as they appear.Ruben J. Garcia, Professor of Law, Co-Director of UNLV Workplace Law Program, University of Nevada, Las VegasLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/942772018-04-03T10:46:57Z2018-04-03T10:46:57Z5 things to know about the teacher strike in Oklahoma<p>Following the success of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/west-virginia-teachers-win-raise-but-nations-rural-teachers-are-still-underpaid-92884">West Virginia teachers strike</a> earlier this year that led to a 5 percent pay raise, teachers throughout the nation are rising to demand better conditions and better pay. The latest example is Oklahoma, where teachers went on strike on April 2. </p>
<p>Here are five things to know about the Oklahoma teacher strike:</p>
<h2>1. This strike goes beyond issues of pay.</h2>
<p>The Oklahoma teachers’ strike is not just about low salaries. It is a movement against a decade of failed economic policies and the defunding of public education. Oklahoma average teacher salaries are ranked <a href="http://www.nea.org/2017-rankings-and-estimates">49th out of 50 states and the District of Columbia</a> in average pay. Oklahoma teachers also <a href="http://newsok.com/article/5580331/oklahoma-teachers-continue-wait-for-pay-raise-a-decade-after-last-increase">have not seen a pay raise since 2008</a>.</p>
<p>Critics blame bleak economic conditions in the state on <a href="https://okpolicy.org/the-cost-of-tax-cuts-in-oklahoma/">reductions in state income taxes</a> for top earners. Oklahoma also offered tax breaks to oil companies to attract their business, but these corporate tax breaks diminished state revenue from 2008 through 2014. The tax breaks ultimately led to a <a href="http://time.com/money/4338825/oklahoma-oil-tax-breaks-school-budget-crisis/">24 percent reduction in per pupil funding</a> over the same time period.</p>
<p>Oklahoma has <a href="http://www.governing.com/topics/education/gov-oklahoma-states-education-funding.html">cut funding to public education by US$1 billion</a> in the last decade amid the oil industry’s economic downturn. These cuts have resulted in teachers working for <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/29/us/oklahoma-arizona-teachers/index.html">low pay with outdated textbooks in overcrowded classrooms</a>. <a href="http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/education/amid-teacher-shortage-four-day-school-districts-can-t-afford/article_cdd1b3f3-4303-574f-8352-54462e93a796.html">About 20 percent</a> of Oklahoma’s school districts have moved to a <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/02/us/oklahoma-kentucky-teachers/index.html">four-day week</a> to save costs.</p>
<h2>2. Oklahoma teachers are disappointed with their state legislature.</h2>
<p>The Oklahoma legislature passed a teacher pay raise of $6,100 on March 28, <a href="http://kfor.com/2018/04/02/what-you-need-to-know-about-the-oklahoma-teacher-walkout/">less than the $10,000 increase demanded</a> by the Oklahoma Education Association and Oklahoma Teachers United, a Facebook group negotiating in conjunction with the state teachers’ unions for better pay. While the governor signed the bill, teachers were unsatisfied, given the state Senate’s <a href="http://okcfox.com/news/local/senate-fails-to-pass-teacher-pay-raise-funding-measure-during-late-night-vote">failure</a> to pass a bill that would fund the pay raise. The failure to actually fund the pay raise that was approved by the legislature appears to have strengthened striking teachers’ resolve. </p>
<h2>3. Right-to-work legislation has unintended consequences.</h2>
<p>Oklahoma, like West Virginia, is a right-to-work state, meaning it is illegal to make union membership compulsory. The legislation has <a href="https://www.the74million.org/article/analysis-nea-membership-declined-in-27-states-and-one-where-it-grew-ny-is-anything-but-typical/">diminished</a> the number of dues-paying teachers’ union members. </p>
<p>It has also created two consequences relevant to the Oklahoma strike. </p>
<p>First, in right-to-work states, teachers lack codified procedures for grieving issues like low pay. Without these measures in place, the only recourse left is to strike. </p>
<p>Second, the diminished power of the unions has led to the rise of grassroots organization via social media platforms. Oklahoma Teachers United has almost 14,000 followers on its <a href="https://www.facebook.com/Oklahomateachersunited/">Facebook page</a>, allowing for fast communication to quickly organize rallies and walkouts. Further, the group <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2018/04/02/597358137/teachers-are-marching-ahead-of-their-unions-from-oklahoma-to-arizona">isn’t tied</a> to a specific union’s leadership, so it can affect negotiations without direction from union leaders. </p>
<h2>4. Oklahoma has a critical teacher shortage.</h2>
<p>As in West Virginia, Oklahoma is suffering from a teacher shortage that has reached crisis levels – with <a href="http://www.news9.com/story/37855452/teacher-shortage-deepens-in-oklahoma">over 500 vacancies as of August 1</a> and nearly 500 more positions eliminated. The state issued a <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/oklahoma/articles/2017-06-23/oklahoma-uses-emergency-certified-teachers-during-shortage">record number</a> of emergency certifications last year – about 1,200 – to plug a hole in the <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/3/29/17164284/oklahoma-teachers-strike">large number of vacancies created</a>, when a quarter of Oklahoma teachers left for positions in other states or simply quit the profession. The shortage is acutely felt in places like Edmond Public Schools, which currently has <a href="http://www.news9.com/story/37855452/teacher-shortage-deepens-in-oklahoma">more than two dozen positions</a> open in its middle and high schools. The shortage is so deep that one teacher <a href="http://ktul.com/news/local/oklahoma-teachers-planning-a-statewide-strike">dared lawmakers</a> to fire striking workers, arguing they would teach in Texas, which would essentially make the shortage worse. Like in West Virginia, the teacher shortage means there are no replacements for striking teachers.</p>
<h2>5. The Oklahoma strike is likely not the last.</h2>
<p>Oklahoma is not alone in its strike efforts. <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/oklahoma-kentucky-public-schools-close-thousands-teachers-strike-n861946">Kentucky schools closed</a> on April 2 in response to a <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/oklahoma-kentucky-public-schools-close-thousands-teachers-strike-n861946">statewide strike</a>. Arizona teachers are <a href="https://www.npr.org/2018/03/30/598386499/arizona-teachers-threatening-to-strike-if-they-dont-get-a-pay-raise">poised to strike</a> if the state legislature does not respond to their demands for pay increases. And there are rumblings of <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-teachers-strikes-are-becoming-a-nationwide-movement-1522584001">similar action in other states</a> as well, including North Carolina. Arizona teachers rallied at their state Capitol in March in response to multiple <a href="https://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/laurieroberts/2018/03/30/arizona-legislature-considering-yet-another-tax-cut-yes-again/471531002/">tax cut bills</a> that are appearing before the state legislature. The move suggests Arizona teachers will be the next to strike.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/94277/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Erin McHenry-Sorber works for West Virginia University as an assistant professor of higher education and senior scholar for the Center for the Future of Land-Grant Education. </span></em></p>The Oklahoma teachers strike is about more than just pay, but rather a longstanding pattern of decline in funding for the state’s public schools.Erin McHenry-Sorber, Assistant Professor of Higher Education, West Virginia UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/647752016-09-02T14:02:08Z2016-09-02T14:02:08ZIt’s time we reinvented labor for the 21st century<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/136360/original/image-20160901-1012-4yr28n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Strikes don't work as well as they used to.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Striking workers via www.shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>On Labor Day, politicians have traditionally paid lip service to the plight of the worker, whom the national holiday is meant to honor. With working-class struggles taking center stage in this year’s election, we will likely hear from them more than usual talking about the steps they will take to reduce income inequality or end three decades of wage stagnation. </p>
<p>Some of them will go one step further and voice support for unions and collective bargaining, both of which have declined at the same time wages have stagnated.</p>
<p>They do so for good reason. Not only have American workers <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/03/09/real-earnings-real-anger/?utm_term=.59fa5dbdcd3f">made it clear</a> they are fed up with being left behind as the economy prospers, there is a growing body of evidence that union decline is one of the key causes of wage stagnation and income inequality. </p>
<p>The solution, however, isn’t to bring back the unions of yesterday. We need to create stronger business-labor partnerships for tomorrow. </p>
<h2>Slide of union power</h2>
<p>As far back at the mid-1980s, <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=SK5opOtSfpMC">our research at MIT showed</a> that collective bargaining was no longer capable of using the threat of strikes or other forms of pressure to get businesses to match negotiated wage increases.</p>
<p>Previously, strike threats and the fear of getting organized led companies to match wages negotiated in key bargains. For example, in the late 1940s, General Motors and the United Auto Workers negotiated a wage formula linking wage hikes to increases in productivity and the cost of living. Unionized businesses had to follow suit or risk a strike. Even companies without unions had to do the same if they wanted to avoid their workers getting organized.</p>
<p>Recent research shows that the decline in union bargaining power observed in the 1980s has persisted and has now taken a big toll on union and nonunion workers alike. A <a href="http://www.epi.org/publication/union-decline-lowers-wages-of-nonunion-workers-the-overlooked-reason-why-wages-are-stuck-and-inequality-is-growing/">just-released report</a> from liberal-leaning think tank the Economic Policy Institute, for example, estimates that the <a href="http://www.bls.gov/news.release/union2.nr0.htm">decline in unions</a> – from 23 percent in 1979 to 11 percent in 2013 – and their collective bargaining power has caused men in the private sector to earn US$109 billion less every year and women to earn $24 billion less. </p>
<p>Other recent research shows that the decline in wages has now spread to the public sector. Teachers have been <a href="http://www.epi.org/publication/the-teacher-pay-gap-is-wider-than-ever-teachers-pay-continues-to-fall-further-behind-pay-of-comparable-workers/">especially hard hit</a>. In 1979, teachers earned just 2 percent less than comparable college graduates. In 2015, the earnings gap had widened to 17 percent. </p>
<h2>More than empty rhetoric?</h2>
<p>Research like this has convinced <a href="http://www.afscme.org/news/press-room/press-releases/2015/candidate-quotes-from-afscme-presidential-endorsement-meetings">more Democratic candidates</a> to call for rebuilding labor unions. </p>
<p>But is that possible or is it just empty rhetoric? </p>
<p>As I’ve <a href="http://theconversation.com/how-to-transform-workers-campaign-rage-into-better-jobs-and-wages-56790">argued before</a>, I believe it is empty for two reasons. First, since 1978 three major efforts to pass labor law reform to make it easier to form a union have been blocked in Congress. And there is no reason to believe this will change. </p>
<p>Second, even if unions started growing again, they would not be able to rely on their past sources of power to drive up wages. There is just too much domestic and international competition, and it is too easy to move capital and jobs to lower-wage countries. That makes it much harder to use strike or unionizing threats to get businesses to lift wages or match negotiated increases. </p>
<p>So what else can be done? In previous articles, I’ve made the case for a new labor policy that not only supports unions but also promotes labor management partnerships. <a href="http://theconversation.com/how-to-transform-workers-campaign-rage-into-better-jobs-and-wages-56790">I’ve also suggested</a> extending protection against employer retaliation to more workers, such as fast-food employees fighting for a $15 minimum wage or independent contractors like Uber or Lyft drivers. These changes would help reframe labor policy to fit the modern economy. </p>
<p>But labor policy can no longer stand alone. A more complete strategy is needed that integrates a revised labor policy with something known as a <a href="http://www.cows.org/building-the-high-road">“high road” economic strategy</a>.</p>
<p>At MIT, my colleagues and I teach this approach to our MBA students, in <a href="http://cdn.executive.mit.edu/00/000147a915d7fdabc7f93519980000/file/ton-webinarthe-good-jobs-strategy-v7pdf">executive education classes</a> and in our <a href="http://cdn.executive.mit.edu/00/000147a915d7fdabc7f93519980000/file/ton-webinarthe-good-jobs-strategy-v7pdf">public online courses</a>. We tell current and future business executives that they have a choice in how they compete in the marketplace: They can minimize labor costs and fight to keep unions out of their organizations or they can invest in their workers, drawing on their knowledge, skills and motivation to achieve high levels of productivity and customer service. And then reward those employees with their fair share of the profits they help produce. </p>
<p>Over the past two decades, <a href="http://cepr.net/publications/reports/high-performance-work-practices-and-sustainable-economic-growth">researchers have discovered</a> how companies employing this “high-road” approach – such as retailers like Costco or Market Basket, airlines like Southwest or health care providers like Kaiser Permanente – do just as well or even better on long-term financial returns, customer service and wages than “low-road” competitors, such as Walmart or Spirit Airlines. </p>
<h2>The task ahead</h2>
<p>How can we encourage more companies to move in this direction? </p>
<p>As educators, we have an important role to play, but our efforts need to be matched by a well-coordinated effort that cuts across the federal government and business to realize the benefits of a high-road policy. One example is repairing America’s decaying infrastructure through public-private partnerships, which some business and labor leaders have <a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/290262-rebuilding-americas-water-infrastructure-with-public-private-partnerships">already committed to</a>. </p>
<p>The same deal needs to be struck in implementing a new manufacturing policy. We are not likely to bring back many of the jobs lost to China and other lower-wage countries. The best way for government to help rebuild our manufacturing base is to support investments in <a href="https://www.manufacturing.gov/">next generation technologies</a>, such as light metals, photonics, robotics and wearable fibers that will generate energy and cool our bodies. But it’s also important to insist the businesses getting federal funding commit to making their products here and investing in their workforces. </p>
<p>So this Labor Day, I believe politicians need to go beyond the empty rhetoric of the past and commit to doing the hard work of recasting labor policy in ways it might be possible to enact. </p>
<p>And then they should follow up with the comprehensive and disciplined administrative actions needed to realize a high-road strategy that puts the economy on a course that will truly work for all.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/64775/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Thomas Kochan has done some volunteer work for the Hillary Clinton campaign. </span></em></p>The link between labor’s decline and stagnating worker pay has convinced some politicians that we need to rebuild unions. What we need are new labor policies for tomorrow’s workforce.Thomas Kochan, Professor of Management, MIT Sloan School of ManagementLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/421932015-05-22T08:45:22Z2015-05-22T08:45:22ZWhy French school curriculum and timetable reforms forced teachers onto the streets<p>French teachers went <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-32792564">on strike on May 19</a> to voice their disapproval of two major reforms that have been proposed by Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, the French education minister. The two reforms are very different: one centres on changes to the history and language curriculum and the other on schools’ autonomy to manage the organisation of teaching. Yet both have sparked criticisms from teachers, unions and French intellectuals.</p>
<p>Reforming secondary education has emerged as a <a href="http://www.gouvernement.fr/action/la-lutte-contre-les-inegalites-scolaires">recent priority</a> in France. The most recent results of the OECD’s <a href="http://www.oecd.org/pisa/">Programme for International Student Assessment</a> (PISA), which rank countries around the world based on tests of 15-year-olds and released last December, <a href="http://www.oecd.org/pisa/keyfindings/pisa-2012-results-overview.pdf">highlight increasing inequalities</a> in achievement between low and high achievers in France. More disturbing is the fact that, among OECD countries, France is one of the countries where a pupil’s social background is one of the strongest predictors of his or her subsequent achievement. </p>
<p>To solve these structural difficulties, in March 2015 Vallaud-Belkacem announced two reforms of lower secondary education, known in France as <em>collège</em>, which takes children from Grade 6 to 9, between 11 and 15-years-old (the numbers of grades descend in France as children progress through school: Grade 6 is called <em>sixieme</em> but Grade 7 is <em>cinquième</em> and Grade 8 is <em>quatrième</em>).</p>
<h2>Curriculum changes under scrutiny</h2>
<p>The first controversial reform proposed by the French ministry of education is a rewrite of the secondary school curriculum in most subjects that would come into force in September 2016. This project was presented by the <a href="http://www.education.gouv.fr/cid87938/projets-de-programmes-pour-l-ecole-elementaire-et-le-college.html"><em>Conseil supérieur des programmes</em></a>, which oversees the French curriculum, on April 13. </p>
<p>A wave of criticism followed, particularly regarding the history curriculum. The reform plans to distinguish between some of the compulsory parts of the curriculum and the content that would be freely chosen by teachers. <a href="http://www.lemonde.fr/education/article/2015/05/13/des-historiens-denoncent-lacunes-et-manque-de-coherence_4632869_1473685.html">Some historians</a> and right-wing intellectuals <a href="http://www.lefigaro.fr/vox/societe/2015/04/25/31003-20150425ARTFIG00143-pascal-bruckner-les-nouveaux-programmes-d-histoire-ou-l-effacement-de-la-france.php">strongly condemned</a> the fact that in Grade 7, the module “Islam: emergence, growth, society and cultures” would become compulsory, while the module on Christianity during the Middle Ages would be discretionary. </p>
<p>Though this fact is correct, most opponents to the reform omit to say that a compulsory module on the emergence of Christianity is taught in Grade 6, as is the module on the emergence of Judaism. Discussions on the first <a href="http://cache.media.education.gouv.fr/file/CSP/04/3/Programme_C4_adopte_412043.pdf">curriculum draft</a> are still ongoing, and teachers have until June 12 to give their opinion.</p>
<h2>More autonomy for headteachers</h2>
<p>Despite the strong debate generated by the curriculum reforms, it was not the main reason for teachers taking to the streets. The <a href="http://www.sudeducation.org/Greve-le-19-mai-contre-la-reforme.html">reason given</a> by the teachers’ unions for the strike referred to a broader reform affecting the organisation of <em>collèges</em>.</p>
<p>A key element of this part of the reform would consist of giving more autonomy to schools to allocate teaching time. From September 2016, 20% of teaching time would be managed locally by headteachers, who could decide how to allocate time between working in small groups, cross-subject teaching or individualised tutoring sessions. Unions have waved the flag at giving more power to headteachers to impose their decisions on teachers. At the moment, headteachers decide teachers’ timetables – what time each teacher teaches, and in which room – but they have no freedom to affect how the teaching hours are allocated between different activities, which is decided by the ministry of education. </p>
<p>The second key element of the reform is the creation of eight interdisciplinary teaching modules, in Grades 7 to 9. For three hours a week, these modules would aim to teach abstract notions in a more concrete way – for instance a module on sustainable development would cover physics, biology and technology. Such reforms echo those that are <a href="https://theconversation.com/finlands-school-reforms-wont-scrap-subjects-altogether-39328">ongoing in Finland</a> to give students more time for interdisciplinary learning.</p>
<p>But for teachers, most of who are highly attached to the subject they teach, introducing such modules would be synonymous with fewer hours of fundamental teaching. With students free to choose their own modules from Grade 7 onwards, unions have raised fears of a growing competition between teachers to attract students.</p>
<h2>Language changes under fire</h2>
<p>The most polemic part of these interdisciplinary modules is related to language education. Latin and Greek languages, judged as too elitist, would be replaced by an interdisciplinary module on the “language and cultures of antiquity” that students could complement with an optional language course.</p>
<p>Most importantly, the reform plans to significantly restrict the possibility of a student learning two languages from Grade 6. Under the current system, a minority of gifted pupils take advantage of this option, although the majority wait until Grade 8 to learn a second language. </p>
<p>Under the new proposals, students will take a second language in Grade 7 in an effort to reduce inequalities between pupils. Most criticisms have been expressed by <a href="http://www.lemonde.fr/education/article/2015/04/18/profs-et-politiques-contre-la-reforme-du-college_4618498_1473685.html">German teachers</a> fearing that further suppression of bilingual classes in Grade 6 would reduce the pool of students wishing to learn Goethe’s language. </p>
<p>The French education system has long had a reputation for being unreformable – mainly because teachers’ unions negotiate from a strong position to protect teachers’ interests. In 2014 for instance, unions <a href="http://www.lemonde.fr/ecole-primaire-et-secondaire/article/2013/10/31/rythmes-scolaires-des-syndicats-appellent-a-une-greve-nationale-le-14-novembre_3506576_1473688.html">managed to postpone a reform</a> aimed at spreading teaching hours more equally over the week in primary schools for a year. </p>
<p>In his defence of the current reforms, French prime minister Manuel Valls emphasised the reforms were aimed at <a href="http://www.francetvinfo.fr/societe/education/reforme-du-college/video-manuel-valls-defend-najat-vallaud-belkacem-et-la-reforme-du-college_899769.html">reducing inequality</a>. If students’ unions were powerful enough to balance the lobbying of teachers’ unions, students’ interest might be more considered in reforms.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/42193/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Camille Terrier is using datasets provided by the statistical department of the French Ministry of Education to undergo her research.</span></em></p>A chorus of teachers, unions and French intellectuals have criticised reforms in lower secondary school.Camille Terrier, Visiting PhD student, London School of Economics and Political ScienceLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/397082015-04-09T13:51:49Z2015-04-09T13:51:49ZManifesto Check: Plaid’s education reforms more run-of-the-mill than radical<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/77527/original/image-20150409-15265-1ix3smx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Plaid's education manifesto comes straight from the history books. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/s/school/search.html?page=2&thumb_size=mosaic&inline=143878204">from www.shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The stated aim of Plaid Cymru’s education policies is to reclaim Wales’ position as a “beacon of educational excellence”. This reflects concerns about the performance of Welsh education internationally, and in comparison to other nations in the UK, based on <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-25196974">recent PISA assessments</a>. </p>
<p>Plaid Cymru does not seek to follow the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/ofsted-confirms-radical-reforms-to-education-inspection">recent radical reforms in England</a>. Instead, the party conveys a clear set of values and a desire to maintain a distinctly Welsh approach, rooted in a vision of a Welsh progressive community. Plaid Cymru’s actual policies, however, are often short on detail, and do not radically depart from the current system and policies in Wales.</p>
<h2>Consensual and collaborative</h2>
<p>Plaid Cymru rejects England’s <a href="https://www.gov.uk/types-of-school/free-schools">free schools policy</a>, and instead wants to maintain a greater role for local authorities. The party’s manifesto explicitly mentions cooperation with teachers’ unions, building on the consensual model of educational policy development that exists in Wales, compared to the more <a href="https://theconversation.com/are-the-tables-turning-in-michael-goves-war-on-teacher-unions-25417">confrontational stance taken in England</a>.</p>
<p>One of Plaid’s central proposals is for a new national curriculum. The party suggests some changes, not least a greater emphasis on ecological issues such as climate change, Welsh history and culture and languages. But these suggestions don’t depart substantively from the current <a href="http://learning.wales.gov.uk/docs/learningwales/publications/130424-developing-the-curriculum-cymreig-en.pdf">Curriculum Cymreig</a>. </p>
<p>There is also an emphasis on advanced information and communications technology and coding skills, which appears similar to <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/year-of-code-and-500000-fund-to-inspire-future-tech-experts-launched">recent reforms in England</a>. In the light of economic and technological developments, this seems a sensible proposal. But, as <a href="http://www.v3.co.uk/v3-uk/news/2252198/ofsted-warns-of-skills-shortage-among-computing-teachers">the English example has shown</a>, policymakers will need to ensure there is a sufficient number of teachers able to deliver such a programme.</p>
<p>Another key pledge is to provide an additional year of schooling for three to four-year-olds by qualified educational staff. This is particularly important in light of <a href="https://www.ioe.ac.uk/RB_Final_Report_3-7.pdf">recent findings</a> about how better quality provision in early years can improve outcomes over the long-term. But again, the proposal is rather vague, with no information about funding. This is true of a number of other costly commitments in the document, including more support for pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds, and a programme to replace unsuitable school buildings.</p>
<h2>Incremental, not radical</h2>
<p>The incremental nature of the manifesto is evident in the proposed relationship with schools. Essentially, the approach is similar to the “earned autonomy” principle, which has formed the basis of many accountability systems across the world, and was introduced in England in the <a href="http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2002/32/contents">2002 Education Act</a>. </p>
<p>This means that high performing schools will be given a more light-touch accountability regime, with fewer inspections for schools reaching required standards. Those that don’t are subject to possible spot-check inspections – an approach that <a href="https://theconversation.com/no-notice-school-inspections-take-teachers-out-of-class-and-into-paperwork-31880">carries some risk</a> of engendering too strong a focus on inspections, rather than improvement.</p>
<p>Plaid take credit for the introduction of the <a href="http://llyw.cymru/topics/educationandskills/publications/guidance/school-effectiveness-grant-2013-2015/?lang=en">Pupil Deprivation Grant</a> (PDG), so it’s not surprising that the party restates its support for this programme and promises to help more schools implement effective support strategies. The PDG is a measure which means schools receive an additional £1,050 for each pupil eligible for free school meals, and £1,150 for each child looked after by the local authority. These sums are to be earmarked specifically for supporting these pupils. As such, it is very similar to England’s <a href="https://www.gov.uk/pupil-premium-information-for-schools-and-alternative-provision-settings">Pupil Premium</a>. </p>
<p>A distinguishing policy proposal, which again points to the progressive nature of the manifesto, is a complete ban on hitting children through the abolition of the “<a href="http://www.bab.org.uk/downloads/Smacking_Leaflet.pdf">reasonable punishment</a>” defence</p>
<h2>When in Wales…</h2>
<p>Of course, the “Party of Wales” includes an emphasis on the promotion and protection of Welsh language and culture in its manifesto. Plaid aim to do this by ensuring that the existing requirement for local authorities to <a href="http://gov.wales/topics/educationandskills/publications/guidance/welshstrategicplan/?lang=en">develop strategic plans </a> to meet the growing demand for Welsh medium education are implemented effectively. Plaid Cymru emphasises the need for students to develop a positive understanding of the history of Wales and local communities through the curriculum. In addition, there is a call for further devolution of powers, to allow the Welsh Assembly to set teachers’ pay and conditions.</p>
<p>Plaid Cymru’s education manifesto is essentially a relatively standard set of centre-left policies, with the added element of protection and promotion of Welsh language and culture. It builds incrementally on current policies in Wales, and will not upset the apple cart. But, by the same turn, it’s unlikely to meet the ambitious aim stated at the beginning of the document.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/39708/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Daniel Muijs does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Plaid hits out at the “smacking defence” in otherwise typical education manifesto.Daniel Muijs, Director of Research and Deputy Head of Southampton Education School, University of SouthamptonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/398202015-04-07T16:08:01Z2015-04-07T16:08:01ZFirst job for the next education minister: avoid a teacher strike over school budgets<p>The next government may have a teachers’ strike on its hands within months if it fails to address what unions have called a schools funding crisis. The National Union of Teachers has <a href="https://news.tes.co.uk/b/news/2015/04/06/nut-backs-strike-ballot-over-school-funding-cuts.aspx">backed a motion</a> to ballot members over strike action if no progress is made through talks on the issue with the new government by the autumn statement.</p>
<p>The fate of the schools budget has become a line dividing the major political parties. However, <a href="http://election2015.ifs.org.uk/schools">analysis by the Institute of Fiscal studies</a>, based on analysis of political parties’ spending pledges, <a href="http://election2015.ifs.org.uk/article/school-spending-per-pupil-in-england-protected-to-date-cuts-of-7-or-more-possible-in-next-parliament">indicates estimated cuts of 7% or more are likely</a> within the next parliament.</p>
<p>The next government will face four key education challenges, all requiring money: a growing population set to place enormous pressure on school places; firm action to close the achievement gap between rich and poor; an evolving education system with few effective mechanisms for accountability; and last, but not least, protection of the amount of funding attached to each pupil in the state system.</p>
<h2>Spending and promises</h2>
<p><a href="http://www.ifs.org.uk/bns/bn121.pdf">Spending on education</a> as a proportion of GDP rose steadily in the period 1997-2009, reaching its highest point of 6.2% of GDP in the period 2009-10 during Gordon Brown’s New Labour government, according to the IFS. Since then it dropped back to 5.5% of GDP in 2013-14.</p>
<p>A recent report by the <a href="http://sticerd.lse.ac.uk/dps/case/spcc/wp13.pdf">Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion</a> looked back at education promises under the coalition government, examining to what extent they had remained true to their proposals in terms of both spending and results. </p>
<p>Their conclusion was that the coalition has kept its promises to protect school spending. On the plus side, total expenditure rose 1% from £46.1 billion in 2009-10 to £46.6 billion in 2013-14 (in real terms at 2009-10 prices). This allowed pupil-teacher and pupil-adult ratios to be maintained. On the negative side, capital spending fell by 57% on 2009-10. This effectively meant that the remainder was redirected away from projects to refurbish all schools, and used to repair those schools with the most dilapidated premises.</p>
<h2>Not a penny less?</h2>
<p>Although it is still early days, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-31431456">Labour</a> and the Liberal Democrats have committed to protecting the education budget for three to 19 year-olds, covering early years, schools and education for 16 to 19 year-olds.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.libdems.org.uk/liberal_democrats_to_protect_education_spending">Lib Dems have set out</a> their plan to extend the free early years entitlement to all two year-olds – rather than just for those children whose parents receive income support and other benefits – and to introduce a fair national funding formula to ensure areas that are currently underfunded get their fair share. </p>
<p>Labour intends to increase free childcare for three and four-year-olds from 15 to <a href="http://www.labour.org.uk/issues/detail/childcare">25 hours a week</a> and has announced plans to get independent schools to <a href="https://theconversation.com/labours-attack-on-tax-breaks-for-private-schools-is-timely-34677">work more in collaboration with the state sector</a> – although what this will offer in financial terms is far from clear.</p>
<p>Although the Conservatives have stated that <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/education/2015/feb/02/tories-will-protect-per-pupil-spending-says-cameron">school cash</a> per pupil would remain unchanged, David Cameron, speaking at <a href="http://www.kingsmeadschool.org/home/1087-prime-ministers-visit-to-kingsmead-school.html">Kingsmead school in Enfield</a> in February, admitted that in real terms, English schools face budget cuts. Some calculations have put the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/education/2015/feb/02/conservatives-cut-school-funding-david-cameron-education-budget">cost of this as high as 10%</a>.</p>
<p>In real terms, this means that schools would have to pay 5% more to fund rising teachers’ pension and national insurance contributions, according to the IFS. </p>
<p>This is worrying as pupil numbers are expected to grow by 7% between January 2016 and January 2020, while economy-wide inflation between 2015-16 and 2019-20 is currently forecast at 7.7%. Neither Labour nor the Conservatives have announced whether they would protect schools spending into 2016–17 and beyond. But the growth in pupil numbers alone will no doubt place significant pressure on the schools budget under any future government. </p>
<p>The fate of the pupil premium – extra money from outside the schools budget aimed at improving the life chances of disadvantaged children – is far from clear. The overall spend on pupil premium rose to £1.25 billion by the end of the coalition. This was a rise of 72% since the period 2011-12 and allowed for increases of 4.3% to the most deprived schools, while leaving those in the least deprived areas with real terms losses of 2.5%. </p>
<p>Although <a href="https://theconversation.com/fact-check-is-the-pupil-premium-narrowing-the-attainment-gap-39601">it is too soon to say</a> whether the fund is reducing the achievement gap for the disadvantaged, early indications are that some progress has been made. Only by retaining this funding in some form will it be possible to monitor not only how it is spent but more importantly what impact it has on pupil attainment.</p>
<h2>Costs of more school choice</h2>
<p>Plans to expand the academies programme are not without cost – and the coalition’s drive towards academies has cost more than anticipated. <a href="http://www.nao.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/010013-001-Academies-programme_with-correction-slip.pdf">The National Audit Office</a> reported in March 2013 that between 2010-12 the academies programme cost the DfE £1 billion more than planned and in 2012-13, mistakes in budget payments by the DfE to academies led to a further £174m overspend. </p>
<p>The free schools programme is <a href="http://www.nao.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/10314-001-Free-Schools-Book-Copy.pdf">also not without its financial issues</a>. The DfE seriously underestimated the total capital funding needed to establish them: it initially bid for £900m in the 2010 Spending Review for free schools’ premises, but was only able to earmark £450m following a particularly tough capital settlement. It subsequently increased this to £1.5 billion, just over 8% of its total capital budget, through additional funds from the Treasury and savings in other capital budgets. So at £6.6m per free school, the average unit cost of premises is more than double its original planning assumption. </p>
<p>Since 2011, the DfE used a number of different approaches in efforts to cut these costs but capital costs per school place still rose by 35% by the time the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/approved-free-school-application-forms-wave-3">third round of free schools</a> was announced in January 2015. This was due to schools in areas with high property prices and the inclusion of free schools with special and alternative provision that bring higher costs per place. The reduction of capital costs for any ongoing programme will be a major challenge, whoever takes power in May.</p>
<p>There will be no honeymoon period for the new government on education spending – particularly if the unions do vote to strike over the issue. Turning rhetoric into reality will be a tough call – public spending cuts show no sign of letting up and the combination of rising demand for school places, lack of accountability and cuts to education budgets in real terms will need careful consideration if we are to improve standards and equity in education within the next administration.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/39820/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
The next government may have a teachers’ strike on its hands within months if it fails to address what unions have called a schools funding crisis. The National Union of Teachers has backed a motion to…Jacqueline Baxter, Lecturer in Social Policy, The Open UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/396542015-04-05T07:46:54Z2015-04-05T07:46:54ZSpecial needs children asked to stay home when inspectors call<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/76780/original/image-20150401-31302-7x0w2w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Mainstreamed, but left out. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dubova/www.shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In a policy climate which <a href="https://www.gov.uk/school-attendance-absence/overview">threatens to fine parents</a> who keep their children out of school, it’s strange that some senior school leaders specifically ask some students to stay at home. And that others are asking neighbouring schools to take a small group of children for a short given period. The answers are to be found in a climate of inspection and testing in English schools which carries such high stakes that school leaders speak of “reputational risk” when children with special needs are included in their data and are present in their classrooms when the inspector calls.</p>
<p>Of all the findings from <a href="http://www.teachers.org.uk/node/23619">the fourth of our Cambridge reports</a> on the impact of government policies, all of which were commissioned by the National Union of Teachers, this is perhaps the most disturbing but also the most telling. It carries a powerful message as to what is valued and what has been systematically devalued in the pursuit of competitive education attainment targets.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.educ.cam.ac.uk/people/staff/galton/Costs_of_Inclusion_Final.pdf">move to reduce</a> the number of special schools, perhaps eventually to dispense with them altogether, predates this government. It was seen by many as a cost-cutting exercise, but was sometimes cloaked in rhetoric about including children within their peer group. </p>
<p>Our study, which revisited primary and secondary schools from <a href="https://www.educ.cam.ac.uk/people/staff/galton/Costs_of_Inclusion_Final.pdf">our previous reports</a> with the addition of recently established academies, was designed to explore the extent to which the lessons of the past decade had been learned. We wanted to find out to what extent schools are now more aware of the wide spectrum of abilities and disabilities and better prepared to educate all children. And whether children with special needs are now less liable to be excluded from school, consigned to the care of classroom assistants, or advised to find another school where they would be more “comfortable”. </p>
<h2>Children cast adrift</h2>
<p>The answers are not encouraging. Exclusion from school has become less of an option, due in large part to the increase in learning support staff to whom children with special needs may be “velcroed” (as one special need co-ordinator put it) on a virtually permanent basis. On the positive side, these support staff were much better informed and better trained than had been the case in our previous study. But this also proved to be a doubled-edge sword, allowing schools to replace qualified teachers with lesser qualified, or unqualified, staff. </p>
<p>We met and talked to children with complex learning needs who had previously been in special schools but were now, according to one teacher, “cast adrift” in a large secondary school – or in policyspeak, “mainstreamed”. While there are children for whom the mainstream is a better option than a special school, there are others for whom it is a form of benign abuse. Driven primarily by economic motives, the inclusion of children within a large secondary school proves, for some, to be a frightening and alienating experience.</p>
<h2>Uneven playing field</h2>
<p>We spent time in what we could call “good”, even exceptionally good schools that often teetered on the verge of an Ofsted rating of “special measures” or were even threatened with closure because they were caring and principled enough to take in the rejects from their neighbouring schools or academies. </p>
<p>One secondary school on the brink of closure for nearly a decade was told by a visiting inspector: “You have to work ten times harder” to compete on an uneven playing field. In this school with 70 languages spoken, a constant inflow of low-paid immigrant workers, many living in substandard housing and exploited by unscrupulous landlords, there were 30 different kinds of support and intervention programmes, and staff “burnout” as a consequence of long hours and high levels of stress.</p>
<p>In a London secondary school now surrounded by academies, policies of so-called “strategic rationing” had left this secondary school with young people whose parents, lone parent or carer, had neither the knowledge nor the cultural capital to opt for an academy. The once outstanding Ofsted assessment had been downgraded to a level three – “requires improvement”. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/76799/original/image-20150401-31305-4j5jj1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/76799/original/image-20150401-31305-4j5jj1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=904&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76799/original/image-20150401-31305-4j5jj1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=904&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76799/original/image-20150401-31305-4j5jj1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=904&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76799/original/image-20150401-31305-4j5jj1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1136&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76799/original/image-20150401-31305-4j5jj1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1136&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76799/original/image-20150401-31305-4j5jj1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1136&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Cherry picked.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Kappri/www.shutterstock.com</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We looked into “cherry picking” – anecdotal evidence that academies prefer to take on children with learning disabilities who had wealthier parents who were better able to support them. We asked how it was that local academies were able to discourage parents of children with special needs from applying. The response: “Because they can”. Academies, jealous of their reputation, would suggest “a more suitable option” for these children, a judgement difficult to dispute.</p>
<p>An acknowledgement we heard from one Ofsted inspector of the unevenness of the playing field was atypical. Our conclusion was that Ofsted’s reporting of the provision for special needs education has actually been inconsistent and often counter productive. We found that Ofsted inspections have failed to take sufficient account of the experiences of many children with special educational needs, and the ability of schools to collaborate and innovate in the interests of those children. </p>
<h2>Pressures of performance culture</h2>
<p>Our findings are echoed in <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-32075251">a recent report</a> by the Association of Teachers and Lecturers. It found close to nine out of ten staff saying that the need to provide support for children with mental health problems had increased significantly. At the same time, suitable provision was less and less easy to access, and cuts to services leaving pupils “dangerously at risk”. </p>
<p>Much is explained by what is described as the “performativity culture”, in which performance on tests trumps learning, effort or engagement, working systematically to the disadvantage of vulnerable and struggling children. Areas of school life in which they may succeed, and even enjoy learning, such as music, drama and visual art are progressively marginalised, viewed as detracting from the single-minded pursuit of those pervasive and generally ill-conceived targets.</p>
<p>In the midst of this political turmoil we found outstanding schools flying below the radar, led by conviction and principle, willing to go the extra mile, often to compensate for their less principled neighbours, guilty of that gravest of sins in the ideological repertoire – a focus on children’s needs.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/39654/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John MacBeath was commissioned to write the study on special needs education by the National Union of Teachers.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Maurice Galton was commissioned to write this study on special needs education by the National Union of Teachers.</span></em></p>A relentless focus on test results is alienating children with special needs.John MacBeath, Emeritus Professor, Faculty of Education, University of CambridgeMaurice Galton, Emeritus Professor, Faculty of Education, University of CambridgeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/352802014-12-15T18:13:09Z2014-12-15T18:13:09ZWhy teachers should be sceptical of a new College of Teaching<p>Barely one month after the current government was elected in 2010, the secretary of state for education Michael Gove <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/education/2010/jun/02/general-teaching-council-england-abolished">announced the abolition</a> of the General Teaching Council for England. Now, only a few months from the next election, his successor Nicky Morgan <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/383987/DfE_cons_overview_document_template_for_World_Class_Teachers_Consultation_voo3BR.pdf">has committed to establishing a College of Teaching</a>. </p>
<p>While not a like-for-like replacement, the similarities are sufficient enough to argue that this represents a significant policy volte-face. Ironically, for a move claimed to take the politics out of education, it highlights precisely why teachers feel so frustrated by the interventions of politicians. Not only does policy swing one way and another between governments, it does so within the lifetime of a government.</p>
<h2>Proposals on the table</h2>
<p>The proposed College of Teaching “needs to be independent of government and led by the profession if it is to be truly successful” <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/383987/DfE_cons_overview_document_template_for_World_Class_Teachers_Consultation_voo3BR.pdf">according to the government</a> ministers advocating its establishment. </p>
<p>The body will take responsibility for promoting professional standards, and in time could oversee their enforcement and the standards for teacher training. It will also promote teachers’ access to training and development. According to the proposals, this will <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/383987/DfE_cons_overview_document_template_for_World_Class_Teachers_Consultation_voo3BR.pdf">include a framework</a> of evidence-based professional development in which: “Evaluation of impact will be hard-wired into these professional development projects from the outset to build a clear evidence based around "what works”.’ A consultation on the proposals was launched on December 9 and runs until early February. </p>
<p>The principle of a College of Teaching is, according to the proposals, apparently: “almost universally agreed upon by experts”. But it is important to be sceptical. Especially when teachers appear unconvinced it will drive up standards – as a poll by the website Schools Improvement has highlighted.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"544182559467651072"}"></div></p>
<h2>A question of independence</h2>
<p>The reason for this scepticism is linked to how independent the college is likely to be in reality. Problems will arise if it has little more than a licensed independence in which professional autonomy will be contingent on the profession demonstrating “good behaviour”.</p>
<p>The desire to be seen to be independent and “free of political influence” is clearly viewed by those who wrote the proposals as central to securing teacher support. But they also make very clear that it will operate in a context where real political pressure is imposed by assessment bodies apparently “independent” of the political process. </p>
<p>The emphasis in the document on “world class teachers”, and the almost obligatory referencing of Singapore, South Korea, Shanghai and Finland, highlight the influence of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)‘s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) league tables. “PISA envy” is now driving policy at a national level in many countries. </p>
<p>In England, this is reinforced through the disproportionate influence of Ofsted, as the “independent” body with the power to decide what is “good” or not in education. It is these pressures that explain teachers’ principal grievance – the apparently <a href="https://news.tes.co.uk/b/news/2014/09/30/nine-out-of-10-teachers-consider-quitting-due-to-rising-workload-survey-reveals.aspx">relentless increase in their workload</a>. They also reflect the democratic deficit in the English state education system whereby key policy issues are determined by bodies outside of any transparent political process.</p>
<h2>More autonomy, or more control?</h2>
<p>With the drivers of markets, managerialism and high-stakes testing <a href="http://openjournals.library.usyd.edu.au/index.php/IEJ/article/view/7455">in place</a>, it becomes possible for government to step back, safe in the knowledge that a complex web of mechanisms – league tables, <a href="https://theconversation.com/teachers-remain-divided-on-performance-related-pay-27664">performance-related pay</a> and Ofsted – can be relied on to do the work. </p>
<p>The danger is that a College of Teaching simply becomes another element in this web of control that frames how teachers are expected to do their work. It provides the appearance of autonomy and independence, but in reality it serves to reinforce the culture of compliance that bedevils English state education. </p>
<p>This is because what will be valued will be what the College has decided is “what works”. Asking teachers to focus on what works, and privileging the research methods often associated with such questions, runs the risk of creating new orthodoxies. Through this, career advancement remains contingent on implementing what others have decided is “good”, or what constitutes “best practice”. Rather than liberating teachers from the dead hand of Ofsted’s “one best way” of teaching, the risk is that such approaches are subtly reproduced and then legitimated by apparently being “evidence-based”.</p>
<h2>Wider questions closed down</h2>
<p>The focus on “what works” deflects attention from a wider set of questions about “what matters?” or “what’s wrong?”. For example, teachers are encouraged to ask <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-improve-the-chances-of-poor-children-at-school-34787">what works to close achievement gaps</a> in their classroom. But they are not encouraged to ask wider questions on how to close these gaps when governments preside over ever-widening inequalities. </p>
<p>At the same time, the spaces in which these more critical questions might be posed are progressively closed down, illustrated by the <a href="https://theconversation.com/counting-the-costs-of-moving-teacher-training-out-of-universities-23157">undermining of educational research in university-based schools of education</a>. What research takes place will be increasingly focused on securing improvement in relation to a narrow range of outcomes. This will be reinforced through the influence of those able to fund and commission research. The result will be less about a <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-school-systems-need-to-be-more-like-the-tour-de-france-24604">self-improving school</a> system and more about a self-reproducing school system.</p>
<p>If teachers are confined to asking “what works?” while only the policy elites get to decide “what matters” then teachers remain shut out of the debates about the really big questions: what is education for and how should young people be helped to understand and engage with the world they are growing up in?</p>
<h2>A new professional voice?</h2>
<p>This is why teachers should welcome the government’s proposals with considerable caution. While superficially attractive, it is not at all clear that the proposed College of Teaching will give teachers the professional voice they have often been denied. </p>
<p>It could be argued that teachers already have a professional voice, through their unions, that is already independent, democratic and can claim to represent the overwhelming majority of the profession – criteria the new college is unlikely to be able to meet. It is governments that have chosen not to listen to that voice: Michael Gove <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/michael-gove-speech-to-teachers-and-headteachers-at-the-national-college-for-teaching-and-leadership">clearly presented the case for a College of Teaching as an alternative</a> to teacher unionism. </p>
<p>Perhaps now is the time for teachers to demand a much more ambitious prospectus for change than that currently on offer. This should be based on teachers having both autonomy and influence in relation to all the key elements of their work – learning and teaching conditions, professional development and the fundamental aspects of education policy. Professional agency in these three different domains are the real features of a high-status teaching profession. </p>
<p>This concept of a <a href="http://howardstevenson.org/2014/12/14/the-teachers-voice-teacher-unions-at-the-heart-of-a-new-democratic-professionalism/">new democratic professionalism</a> underpins a much more positive vision of what teaching can be like, but also a much more hopeful and optimistic vision of what education should be like.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/35280/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Howard Stevenson has received funding from the Economic and Social Research Council and currently undertakes research for International Baccalaureate Organisation. </span></em></p>Barely one month after the current government was elected in 2010, the secretary of state for education Michael Gove announced the abolition of the General Teaching Council for England. Now, only a few…Howard Stevenson, Director of Research and Professor of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies, School of Education, University of NottinghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/329742014-10-16T10:16:44Z2014-10-16T10:16:44ZConservatives’ crack team of superteachers will need the patience of Gandhi<p>As a theme for Hollywood filmmakers, the crack team of experts sent in where others dare to tread to rectify wrongdoing and uphold the rights of the downtrodden citizen, is well-worn. Think of the reboots we’ve had in recent years for The A Team and most recently The Equalizer. </p>
<p>Can you really parachute “super” teachers into a failing school and turn it around in double-quick time? The Conservatives seem to think so. The party’s latest education policy wheeze is a <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-29574125">National Teaching Service (NTS)</a>, a team of independently employed superteachers who can be deployed to any under-performing school in England. The NTS could be formed if the Conservatives win the next election. </p>
<p>Predictably there have been protests from the unions. Russell Hobby, general secretary of the National Association of Headteachers, says that the NTS <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-29574125">“may make good politics to some but it makes lousy school improvement”</a>. Support for the idea is thin on the ground, though the graduate teaching charity <a href="https://twitter.com/dandoj/status/521550906094276609">Teach First is enthusiastic.</a> As an organisation that has had its <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/jan/14/why-is-teach-first-scheme-so-controversial">fair share of criticism</a> for the way it selects and prepares its teachers, it knows about the issues such a scheme will face.</p>
<h2>Return of the superheads</h2>
<p>In education, what goes around seems, inevitably, to come around. In the late 1990s we had the advent of “superheads” who would fly into schools, capes fluttering in the wind, to transform standards with a single blow or close down the school to enable it to rise, phoenix-like from the ashes, as a new, sponsored academy. Those early Labour academies were very different from the ones we see today. </p>
<p>Of course, school improvement never really happens the way politicians envisage. A number of the Blair/Blunkett superheads failed or resigned and <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/684179.stm">the scheme was quietly dropped in 2000</a>. The idea of superheads has been <a href="https://theconversation.com/giving-super-powers-to-school-super-heads-is-not-a-panacea-27036">revived recently</a>, particularly in response to the governance issues following the Trojan Horse extremism scandal in Birmingham.</p>
<p>Policy “on the hoof” – which this appears to be – is the most dangerous form of policy. When it is linked to appeals for votes in a forthcoming election, the motives must surely be questionable. </p>
<p>Looking at some of the sparse detail released to date, it’s hard to see how the NTS will succeed. Who would want a teaching job where you could be sent at a moment’s notice anywhere in England, always to a “failing” school? How will these teachers be able, quickly, to understand the local situation of the schools they are sent to? Will they be able to get the staff, in particular the existing head, onside? Unless these teachers have the diplomatic skills of Ban Ki-Moon and the patience of Gandhi, they will find the going tough. </p>
<h2>Staff must be won over</h2>
<p>Teachers at all levels never set out to fail children – they are professionals. Having a stranger come in to “rescue” your children from what is perceived to be your poor performance is bound to encounter resistance. That’s not to say that professionals do not welcome support, but it needs to be effective support that is tailored to the needs of the school, pupils and staff. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/61864/original/g8k2ddn8-1413387336.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/61864/original/g8k2ddn8-1413387336.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61864/original/g8k2ddn8-1413387336.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61864/original/g8k2ddn8-1413387336.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61864/original/g8k2ddn8-1413387336.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61864/original/g8k2ddn8-1413387336.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61864/original/g8k2ddn8-1413387336.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Will everybody welcome the A Team of teachers?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Turning a school around cannot be achieved without the hard work and goodwill of the staff, the support of the parents and a commitment from the whole community, including the pupils. Local authorities should be the hub around which school improvement revolves. Sadly for the past 20 years, and even more so in the past four years, we have <a href="https://theconversation.com/failing-academy-chains-highlight-hole-at-heart-of-education-policy-23954">seen an erosion of the ability of local authorities</a> to support their schools, as more and more funding is diverted away from them into academy trusts and sponsors. Perversely, the local authorities are then derided for failing to provide support.</p>
<p>It is clear that one way or another the Conservatives want rid of local accountability for schools – preferring to place them in the hands of trusts and sponsors whilst feigning accountability through eight new <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/policies/increasing-the-number-of-academies-and-free-schools-to-create-a-better-and-more-diverse-school-system/supporting-pages/regional-schools-commissioners-rscs">regional school commissioners</a>. I have no doubt that all commissioners want schools to succeed, but my concern is over how much the voice of parents and teachers will be heard and acted upon. </p>
<h2>Will academies embrace the NTS?</h2>
<p>The NTS will also have to fit into the new landscape of academies. Questions remain over whether academy trusts and sponsors will welcome such a force with open arms. What if the NTS disagrees with the approach taken by the academy trust? Superheads have been drafted in to schools, <a href="http://www.barnsley-chronicle.co.uk/news/article/8022/super-head-leaves-over-student-behaviour-disagreement">only to then disagree with the school’s sponsor and leave</a>. Will the same fate befall the NTS? </p>
<p>There is <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/oct/15/education-secretary-row-mps-academy-schools-inspections">already a fight</a> between Ofsted head Michael Wilshaw, the Department for Education and the academy chains over whether or not the chains should be inspected. My fear is that the NTS will be seen as an imposed “punishment” for state schools and teachers branded as “failing”, resulting in the inevitable <a href="http://news.tes.co.uk/b/news/2014/04/07/nearly-600-primary-schools-forced-into-academy-status.aspx">“forced academy” solution</a>. </p>
<p>Academies are supposed to co-operate and collaborate within their trusts and with local schools. The marketisation and branding of schools is unlikely to embrace forced co-operation and support from outside the brand. This point was raised recently at the Education Select Committee’s inquiry into academies and free schools by <a href="http://www.parliamentlive.tv/Main/Player.aspx?meetingId=16037">Chris Keates, general secretary of the union NASUWT</a> who asked: “how often have we seen ASDA, Sainsburys and Marks and Spencer share their secrets of success with one another?” </p>
<h2>Not super everywhere</h2>
<p>A final issue for the proposed NTS is the assumption that a great teacher in one school will naturally be great in another. Great teachers come in all shapes and forms. The successful, academically gifted teacher of high-ability pupils in a selective, exclusive, fee-paying school may well be outstanding in that school. But place them in a school where pupils come from a deprived background, where the love for learning is distinctly absent from their home background, and the result may well be a teacher who at best requires improvement or who is unsatisfactory.</p>
<p>A hit squad of elite teachers sounds great to the public who naturally want a quick fix for any failing school, especially if they live in its catchment area and worry about their child’s future. What is important is not rhetoric or an imposed ideology, but a system of community support that values schools, teachers and children. A competitive marketplace is not the place where such an approach can easily succeed.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/32974/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>James Williams does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>As a theme for Hollywood filmmakers, the crack team of experts sent in where others dare to tread to rectify wrongdoing and uphold the rights of the downtrodden citizen, is well-worn. Think of the reboots…James Williams, Lecturer in Science Education, Sussex School of Education and Social Work, University of SussexLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/322362014-09-30T10:51:18Z2014-09-30T10:51:18ZTeaching to the T-E-S-T: phonics is working for most children<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/60317/original/d8q6mqgc-1412002933.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Spell it out. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-65325580/stock-photo-alphabet-soup.html?src=eVtzC4LeWoBGStT5yksREQ-1-2">Alphabet soup via Brian Mueller/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Teaching children to read with phonics has been a central plank of recent “Govian” education policy. A new <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/356941/SFR34_2014_text.pdf">set of statistics</a> shows that 74% of children in the first year of primary school now meet the expected level on a phonics screening check, rising to 88% in Year 2 – a marked improvement on two years ago. </p>
<p>But dig down behind the numbers and it’s clear that there are still big disparities in how children perform on phonics tests based on region, gender and whether they qualify for free school meals. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-14930193">Introduced in 2012</a>, the purpose of the phonics screening check is for teachers to check that young children in Years 1 and 2 can apply a system to “decode” the sounds of words, some of which are “nonsense words” and make no sense in the English language. </p>
<p>Initially controversial, with <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/education/2012/apr/08/teachers-union-criticises-phonics-tests">teacher unions arguing</a> that the new test told them nothing new about their pupils, the test was part of the government’s broader strategy to <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-testing-four-year-olds-as-they-start-school-is-a-bad-idea-24929">continue testing young children</a>. Based on a variation of phonics known as systematic synthetic phonics or SSP, the test is now part of a litany of testing and accountability now embedded in our school system.</p>
<p>The 2006 <a href="http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20100526143644/http:/standards.dcsf.gov.uk/phonics/report.pdf">Rose Review</a> into the teaching of reading saw phonics as one element to support early acquisition of reading skills. The review saw SSP as part of a broader strategy for beginner readers which should include: “a rich curriculum that fosters all four interdependent strands of language: speaking, listening, reading and writing”. </p>
<h2>Poverty and gender gaps</h2>
<p>Although the headline figures in the latest statistical release for the phonics test show a general overall improvement, as the graph below shows, it is the detail of how different groups perform that is worthy of greater focus.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/60316/original/wtyvssxn-1412001890.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/60316/original/wtyvssxn-1412001890.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/60316/original/wtyvssxn-1412001890.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/60316/original/wtyvssxn-1412001890.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/60316/original/wtyvssxn-1412001890.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/60316/original/wtyvssxn-1412001890.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/60316/original/wtyvssxn-1412001890.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/60316/original/wtyvssxn-1412001890.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The same statistics show that the gender gap is still wide and girls continue to outperform boys at this early stage. This is not new, nor is it restricted to phonics. Ongoing academic research has consistently highlighted the gap between girls’ and boys’ achievement across the education phases. However, the gap narrows as both groups get older.</p>
<p>Social deprivation – as measured by whether a child is eligible for free school meals – still has a significant impact on children’s early acquisition of language and their ability to read and decode words. Although narrowing by 1% between 2013 and 2014, the gap between those eligible for free school meals and other children is a staggering 16%. But when we take into account the same group of children’s performance a year later in Year 2, the gap narrows to ten percentage points. </p>
<p>The new Secretary of State for Education, Nicky Morgan, may wish to consider further policies on narrowing the gap in educational achievement, or persuade her cabinet colleagues to commit to eliminating social deprivation as a focus for new policies, or even a new government.</p>
<h2>Ethnic variations</h2>
<p>The picture is made more complicated when ethnicity is taken into account. Children from an Indian heritage scored the highest in the phonics test with “travellers” having the lowest score. Breaking this down even further, those children from Irish heritage had a slightly higher score (33%) than those from Gypsy/Roma backgrounds (28%). The gap between children of white backgrounds and black Caribbean backgrounds has narrowed completely with each group seeing a significant improvement to more than 70% passing the phonics test.</p>
<p>As one might expect, those children with special educational needs tend not to perform well using this type of assessment – less than 40% achieve the threshold measure compared to more than 80% of children with no identified special need. There may be a need to consult those experts who work with children with special educational needs as to what might be an appropriate way of measuring their early reading performance.</p>
<h2>Type and location of school</h2>
<p>The statistics also highlight the different performance across different type of schools. Converter academies and locally maintained schools outperform sponsored academies. The Department of Education’s release argues this is due to the historic legacies of sponsored academies – which tend to operate in challenging communities and with more children eligible for free school meals. But the information is not there to see if this really is the case since there are currently no comparisons made with similar schools.</p>
<p>And there’s a regional difference too – with some areas in London and urban areas in the north and north-west doing particularly well. Yet across the country, there is a gap of 18% between the Year 1 children who perform the best and those who don’t, falling to 13% for children in Year 2.</p>
<h2>Successful implementation</h2>
<p>What these statistics do show us is how good our excellent teachers have become at implementing central government policy and in using phonics alongside other strategies to develop fluent, reading-loving youngsters. </p>
<p>The new <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/335186/PRIMARY_national_curriculum_-_English_220714.pdf">National Curriculum for English</a> ensures that teachers focus on two aspects of reading: word reading and understanding. It places emphasis on reading for enjoyment and understanding, and sees phonics as a tool for children to “decode” words only. </p>
<p>It’s still up for debate whether teachers needed a phonics test to tell them about their children’s ability to read. But now that we have the statistics, perhaps Nicky Morgan may want to focus on how we can best support children who are consistently performing less well in these and other tests.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/32236/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Pat Black does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Teaching children to read with phonics has been a central plank of recent “Govian” education policy. A new set of statistics shows that 74% of children in the first year of primary school now meet the…Pat Black, Head of Initial Teacher Education, School of Education., Bath Spa UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/292362014-07-16T11:27:32Z2014-07-16T11:27:32ZWhy exit of Gove and Willetts is unlikely to change the direction of Tory education policy<p>David Cameron’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/voter-friendly-reshuffle-from-the-pr-prime-minister-is-more-spin-than-substance-29246">cabinet reshuffle</a> has been substantial. Nowhere more so than in education, where both the secretary of state for education, Michael Gove, and the minister responsible for universities and science, David Willetts, have been replaced. Two newcomers are now in charge of young people’s futures – Nicky Morgan has replaced Gove at the department for education and Greg Clark takes on the university portfolio. </p>
<p>Willetts’s removal could have been anticipated but <a href="https://theconversation.com/goves-revolution-leaves-behind-a-fast-food-education-system-29190">Gove’s demotion (for that is what it is) to chief whip</a> took many by surprise and arguably provided the biggest headline of the whole reshuffle. The changes are significant – not least because both ministers have been in post since the coalition government came to power in 2010. By modern ministerial standards, they have had considerable time to stamp their mark on their respective areas of the education system.</p>
<p>Both men exemplified the coalition government’s commitment to radically restructure education in ways that repudiate traditional public service and welfare state values. Instead, they sought to reconfigure schools and universities as “business-like” organisations operating in <a href="https://theconversation.com/its-hard-to-market-a-university-and-make-it-accessible-to-all-28686">market-driven environments</a>. As such they have illustrated one of the great paradoxes of the current government – that a coalition administration based on centre party support from the Liberal Democrats has presided over the most radical, and right wing, restructuring of welfare services since the welfare state emerged from post-war reconstruction. </p>
<h2>Academies – Gove’s biggest legacy</h2>
<p>Gove’s time in office has seen <a href="https://theconversation.com/goves-revolution-leaves-behind-a-fast-food-education-system-29190">change on an extraordinary scale</a>, with almost no aspect of the school system left untouched, including wide-reaching curriculum and assessment reforms. </p>
<p>But there can be little doubt that the most significant feature of the Gove era has been a relentless drive to <a href="https://theconversation.com/failing-academy-chains-highlight-hole-at-heart-of-education-policy-23954">wrest schools away from local authority control</a> and to establish a school system based on “state-funded independent” schools in the form of academies and free schools. This breaking up of the school system marks a significant staging post in the move towards a privatised, for-profit model of provision supported by public money, and topped up with private contributions. </p>
<p>For some time, it has looked as though Gove was intent on achieving a single-term revolution in which reform (in the form of academisation) was pressed so far, and so fast, that it would not be considered possible for a future government to reverse it. Only time will tell if he has been successful.</p>
<h2>Willetts cemented the market</h2>
<p>For universities, Willetts has proven to be a less controversial figure than his counterpart in the schools sector. But his term in office will be similarly characterised by the drive to turn public services into commercial organisations, and to accelerate the trend to a more aggressive market-based higher education system. </p>
<p>In their highly regarded 1999 book <a href="http://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Academic_Capitalism.html?id=A-7bFoyY8wcC">Academic Capitalism: Politics, Policies and the Entrepreneurial University</a> Sheila Slaughter and Larry Leslie argued that England’s universities represented the most developed examples of the commercially driven higher education institution. This process has accelerated many times over during the period of the current government. </p>
<p>The most important example of this was the introduction of up to £9,000 fees for students. But the changes must also be seen as part of a much wider <a href="https://theconversation.com/universities-more-concerned-with-student-numbers-than-government-grants-23102">re-casting of the relationship</a> between students and academics, with students encouraged to behave as demanding consumers in an exchange relationship.</p>
<h2>Feeding the economy</h2>
<p>The English education system, in schools, further education colleges and universities has never been so subservient to the needs of the wider economy than it is now. The global economy is becoming faster, greedier and more unequal – and it is increasingly the role of educational institutions to prepare their pupils and students to take their place in this world. </p>
<p>In order to prepare young people for the market then it has become increasingly important for education institutions to mimic the market. Students learn quickly that they must learn to sink or swim. As one of Gove’s aides once said: “If we don’t work like the Chinese, we will work for the Chinese.” </p>
<p>Such developments have never gone unchallenged, even though there is increasing evidence that a culture of fear in schools and universities is suppressing dissent and resistance. Student fees continue to attract controversy, opposition, and <a href="https://theconversation.com/universities-need-more-than-a-pledge-to-reduce-student-fees-25186">political attention</a> while both the school and university sectors have experienced industrial unrest in the last 12 months. There can be little doubt that <a href="https://theconversation.com/are-the-tables-turning-in-michael-goves-war-on-teacher-unions-25417">Gove’s deteriorating relationship</a> with teachers, including on-going strike action, was a significant contributory factor (amongst several others) in his departure.</p>
<h2>Much of the same?</h2>
<p>In their new roles, Nicky Morgan and Greg Clark are more than likely to seek to consolidate in the run up to next year’s general election with little dramatic, or controversial, change. Business as usual (in more ways than one) is the most likely scenario. As the new secretary of state for education, Morgan looks like an attempt to place a more media-friendly personality into a politically high-profile role, rather than face a general election campaign with Gove as the public face of the Tories’ schools policy.</p>
<p>But the change of personnel does offer the possibility of changes in direction. Both ministers might do well to start by building bridges with those who work in, and understand, the services they provide. Conservatives need to stop presenting educators as “enemies of promise”, and instead recognise the huge energy for change and development that can be generated when you work with people, and not against them.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/29236/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Howard Stevenson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>David Cameron’s cabinet reshuffle has been substantial. Nowhere more so than in education, where both the secretary of state for education, Michael Gove, and the minister responsible for universities and…Howard Stevenson, Director of Research and Professor of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies, School of Education, University of NottinghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/288762014-07-08T05:09:02Z2014-07-08T05:09:02ZThe seven excuses teachers give for not being able to teach<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/53195/original/w4ys9htp-1404742613.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/53195/original/w4ys9htp-1404742613.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=491&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/53195/original/w4ys9htp-1404742613.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=491&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/53195/original/w4ys9htp-1404742613.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=491&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/53195/original/w4ys9htp-1404742613.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=618&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/53195/original/w4ys9htp-1404742613.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=618&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/53195/original/w4ys9htp-1404742613.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=618&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">It’s Govephobia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-203078785/stock-photo-teacher-sits-in-classroom-setting-head-on-hands.html?src=kGlCnuJ2ojoVt-J0ZwnOMw-1-4">Teacher with head in hands - Jelena Aloskina/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As another <a href="http://www.teachers.org.uk/campaigns/protect-teachers">teachers’ strike</a> looms on July 10 it is worth setting out the reasons that teachers are unhappy with their profession. It’s not just because of conditions of service, pay, and pensions. Teaching has become a demoralised profession because teachers, teacher trainers, unions, policy wonks and politicians have forgotten what teaching is about. It is about the <a href="https://theconversation.com/on-the-subject-of-subjects-27035">teaching of clearly defined subjects</a> such as maths, English and chemistry, and the professional autonomy and the proper pay and conditions that follow from this. </p>
<p>If teachers are going to regain this autonomy they have to return to the teaching of their subjects, and not get distracted by passing fads and policy preoccupations. Often, these are used as ammunition by those who want to explain why teachers just can’t get on with their jobs. I’ve set out seven excuses below that are often used by teachers and those in the education sector for the reasons why teachers can’t do their jobs properly. Teachers need to reject them. </p>
<p><strong>1. We can’t teach because of <a href="http://www.suttontrust.com/news/news/40-of-children-miss-out-on-the-parenting-needed-to-succeed-in/">parents</a></strong></p>
<p>This is the idea that it’s no use trying to teach because parents aren’t capable of supporting teachers. The new low in contempt for parents is most clearly expressed by the head of Ofsted, Michael Wilshaw who suggested that “<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/jun/17/schools-fine-parents-ofsted-michael-wilshaw">bad parents</a>” who don’t support their children by reading to them or not coming to open days should be fined. Good teachers can teach irrespective of the parental, social or cultural background of their pupils. </p>
<p><strong>2. There is no evidence base about what works</strong></p>
<p>The teaching of subjects requires professional judgement and not academic research into what works or <a href="http://www.ebtn.org.uk/">networks of teachers</a> looking for “evidence”. If you know your subject you have all you need to know about the logical process of teaching. All the talk about making teaching an “evidence-based profession” undermines teachers, sending them the message: “You don’t know what you are doing.”</p>
<p><strong>3. Neuroscience determines what children learn</strong></p>
<p>Millions are being spent on research into the supposed classroom implications of <a href="http://news.tes.co.uk/b/news/2014/01/07/millions-for-neuroscience-research-in-uk-classrooms.aspx">neuroscience</a> and a major teaching union has asked for more <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/science/head-quarters/2014/may/16/atl-motion-neuroscience-teaching-education-brain-gym">information</a> about the applications of neuroscience to teaching. But it would be wiser to save money and time: we are not reducible to our brains and teaching is a social and cultural activity. </p>
<p>Neuroscience, or rather ignorance about neuroscience, provides three excuses not to teach. One is that because of our brains we cannot expect some children to achieve. A second is that we must wait for evidence from the research to show us what and how to teach. A third is that neuroscience might give us a shortcut to educational success by plugging the pupils into some device. Forget these excuses. Excellent teaching has gone on for thousands of years without neuroscience and teachers should continue in their professional tradition. </p>
<p><strong>4. Because of the bad behaviour of pupils</strong></p>
<p>This is the whine of every fearful new teacher; many never lose their fears and turn them into a two-stage theory of teaching. Pupils are so badly behaved that we have to “control” or “motivate” them before they can learn. The result is that other activities take a chronological priority over teaching subjects. </p>
<p>The result is never a swift movement forward but a well-intentioned but mistaken stranding of pupils at the “motivational” level. “Motivated” pupils want more and more “motivation” or edutainment. If teachers want to motivate pupils they should simply teach them. The obsession with “motivation” puts the educational cart before the horse. </p>
<p><strong>5. We can’t teach because of the children’s <a href="http://www.healthybrainforlife.com/articles/school-health-and-nutrition/feeding-the-brain-for-academic-success-how">diet</a></strong></p>
<p>Whether it’s hyperactive kids who have drunk too many sugary cans of cola or obese children who are too sluggish and sleepy to learn, poor diet is a <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2014/feb/25/do-children-really-get-sugar-rush-hyperactivity">lame excuse</a> for not teaching. Becoming over-involved in saving children from chips and pop wastes time and gives teachers an opportunity to blame the greedy pupils, the parents who feed junk food to kids, the retailers and the capitalist manufacturers who are making teaching impossible. When did it become the teachers’ job to police lunch boxes? </p>
<p><strong>6. Because new technology is making our role redundant</strong></p>
<p>The fear is that children can now get all the knowledge they need by using their iPhone. All we can do is assist them. This belief, promoted by the self-styled gurus of the new technologies who celebrate everything from simple apps to MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses), is a result of intellectual laziness that confuses information with knowledge and understanding. Only teachers can give their pupils or their students the knowledge and understanding of subjects and there are no technological replacements or shortcuts to teaching.</p>
<p><strong>7. We can’t teach because of … Michael Gove</strong></p>
<p>If you can’t teach because of the above or any other reason – blame the secretary of state for education. Govephobia seems to have infected the teaching profession. There are reasons to dislike many of his policies, but not all. Gove is right about one thing at least: education should be subject-based. This belief is not based on his own “elite” education experience. It is based on his understanding of what education means. Govephobia can be explained because of it. Gove’s very presence as education secretary is a constant reminder to teachers of their duty to teach.</p>
<p>It is not surprising that among the <a href="http://www.teachers.org.uk/files/strike-a5-6pp--9548-.pdf">reasons</a> the unions have set out for why they are striking on July 10, two of the calls to action are about Gove: “Labour, the Liberal Democrats and former advisers are all turning against Gove” and “Michael Gove is increasingly unpopular with parents and teachers”, say the National Union of Teachers.</p>
<p>These seven reasons not to teach are presented in a variety of forms – sometimes in a positive way. They can be used to encourage parents to be partners in learning, base teaching on “evidence”, learn from neuroscience, create “motivational teachers”, save children from future illness and enhance learning through new technologies. Govephobia is the one and most telling exception.</p>
<p>But even if these positive presentations makes them palatable, used as excuses for not teaching, they ultimately leave teachers without a role. That is the danger. Because the role of the teacher today is what it always was: to teach.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/28876/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
As another teachers’ strike looms on July 10 it is worth setting out the reasons that teachers are unhappy with their profession. It’s not just because of conditions of service, pay, and pensions. Teaching…Dennis Hayes, Professor of Education, University of DerbyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/259642014-05-02T05:08:06Z2014-05-02T05:08:06ZCompetition between teachers unions hinders fight against market-based reforms<p>The complex web of teacher trade unionism in the UK is about to become even more convoluted and competitive. One of the headteacher unions, the National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT), has <a href="http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/join-now/nahtedge/">announced its plans</a> to launch an “affiliate association” called NAHT Edge. It is seeking to recruit “middle leaders”, teachers with additional responsibilities in schools and who are “aspiring” or future leaders. </p>
<p>But this further split of the teacher union movement is in danger of further dividing a profession that desperately needs unity in the face of attacks on many fronts. </p>
<p>Multiple teacher unions in the UK already recruit different types of educational worker and organise in different educational sectors. This “multi-unionism” tends to be a global feature of teacher unionism, although it is hard to find any other national or local context where the picture is as complex as it is in Britain. </p>
<p>Despite all the moves towards union mergers at a general level, such as the emergence of <a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/8fe926e4-c301-11e2-9bcb-00144feab7de.html#axzz30Sm2anKi">super unions</a> exemplified by Unison and Unite, teachers have defied these trends. The situation is most complex in England and Wales rather than Scotland, where a single union, the Educational Institute of Scotland, represents a very large majority of the school sector workforce.</p>
<p>In England, there are six unions seeking to recruit teachers in schools alone, leaving aside the further and higher education sectors. Two of these unions, NAHT and the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) seek to recruit from school leaders, including headteachers and school business managers. The other four unions recruit primarily from amongst classroom teachers, although most also recruit school leaders. </p>
<p>Some unions, such as the National Union of Teachers (NUT) and National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers (NASUWT), recruit very largely amongst teaching staff (an increasingly difficult group to define as the government <a href="https://theconversation.com/would-you-admit-to-being-a-teacher-today-22413">de-regulates</a> the need for professional qualifications), while others, such as the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, also seek to organise support staff. </p>
<p>This competitive unionism in which different unions compete for largely the same potential members, is one of the defining features of teacher unionism in England. This contrasts with what is sometimes called adjacent unionism, in countries such as New Zealand, where different unions recruit different sections of the same workforce.</p>
<h2>Union turf wars?</h2>
<p>In this context, the creation of NAHT is a significant development. It represents the first time that one of the headteacher unions has sought to expand its membership base by extending membership to “classroom teachers”. As such it represents a direct attempt to compete for members with the main classroom teacher unions. </p>
<p>Some <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2612723/New-union-teachers-sick-strikes-Organisation-target-experienced-members-staff-uncomfortable-plans-escalate-action.html">have tried to suggest</a> that the new union deliberately seeks to appeal to those opposed to industrial action although <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/apr/24/headteachers-union-launches-offshoot-naht">NAHT General Secretary Russell Hobby</a> has denied this. </p>
<p>Ironically, it follows shortly after a recent <a href="http://www.teachers.org.uk/campaigns/unity">Professional Unity conference</a> in which several unions, including NAHT, pledged to work more closely together. Two of the main classroom unions (NUT and ATL) appear to be having serious discussions about the possibility of forming a single, united organisation, although the NASUWT continues to set itself against this.</p>
<p>Some, such as Chris Keates, general secretary of NASUWT, have defended the existence of multiple unions. In 2011, she argued in the Times Education Supplement, that: “Where there are big, dominant unions, and where there are no other players in the field, what you often find is they are not necessarily focused on their members’ interests.” This argument claims competition ensures unions “keep on their toes” – providing a good service and offering value for money. NAHT’s Edge initiative draws on a similar logic.</p>
<h2>A new business unionism?</h2>
<p>What is not clear is whether this language of business – “consumer choice”, “competition”, “market segmentation” – is an appropriate basis for effective trade unionism. Trade unions were formed to challenge the logic of the market, whereby competition between isolated labourers was experienced by workers as a constant downward pressure on pay and conditions. That is how workers learned the need to unite and organise.</p>
<p>Teacher union disunity cannot explain all the problems that teachers have faced in England in recent years. But there can be little doubt that one of the reasons behind the quick neoliberal restructuring of state education in England has been due, in part at least, to the inability of teachers to mobilise a collective and united response. </p>
<p>This drive towards privatisation, the introduction of <a href="https://theconversation.com/performance-related-pay-wont-motivate-teachers-25775">performance-related pay</a> and the dismantling of national pay has been experienced in England more sharply than almost anywhere else in the world (<a href="https://theconversation.com/billionaires-co-opt-minority-groups-into-campaign-for-education-reform-23663">the USA</a> and Chile excepted).</p>
<p>Given the above, it is hard to see how the emergence of increased competition, division and fragmentation within the teacher trade union movement is going to help teachers (and school leaders) <a href="https://theconversation.com/are-the-tables-turning-in-michael-goves-war-on-teacher-unions-25417">reclaim the initiative</a> in relation to the education policy agenda. </p>
<p>A divided profession has already resulted in schools looking increasingly like businesses, illustrated by Ailsa Gough, an academy principal in Nottingham who <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/mar/11/chris-husbands-institute-of-education-training-school-rejection">recently stated</a>: “We operate differently from a school. Our approach is based on a business rather than a school model.” </p>
<p>If teacher unions are to challenge the further commercialisation of public education they need to stop behaving like businesses themselves. Unions work best when they challenge the logic of markets, rather than replicate them.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/25964/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Howard Stevenson has received funding from ESRC for a project researching industrial relations in schools.</span></em></p>The complex web of teacher trade unionism in the UK is about to become even more convoluted and competitive. One of the headteacher unions, the National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT), has announced…Howard Stevenson, Director of Research and Professor of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies, School of Education, University of NottinghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/257752014-04-23T11:33:08Z2014-04-23T11:33:08ZPerformance-related pay won’t motivate teachers<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/46825/original/y23sr3q9-1398166206.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Govebusters vs teacher pay reforms. Who will win?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Rui Vieira/PA</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>This Easter Monday, members of the National Union of Teachers <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-27100733">voted in favour</a> of a motion for strike action this summer. The threat of industrial action reflects <a href="https://theconversation.com/are-the-tables-turning-in-michael-goves-war-on-teacher-unions-25417">an ever deepening rift</a> between teachers and Michael Gove, the secretary of state for education, against a backdrop of <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/what-is-it-about-michael-gove-that-makes-people-hate-him-so-much-7628063.html">unpopular reforms</a> and <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-26008962">name calling</a>. </p>
<p>Among the most ostracised of these reforms is the dismantling of traditional experience-to-salary structures – to be replaced with performance-related-pay. <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-advice-to-help-schools-set-performance-related-pay">Guidance</a> on the changes was introduced in September 2013, with the first pay rises based on performance starting in September 2014. In defence of his reform, Gove argues a link between performance and pay will “<a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/9799356/Michael-Gove-to-confirm-plans-for-performance-related-pay-in-schools.html">make teaching a more attractive career and a more rewarding job</a>.”</p>
<p>Yet Gove, perhaps because he is an avid free marketeer, misses the point. Teachers are not bankers or stockbrokers (or Times editors). They are not seduced by the carrot of ever-increasing financial gain. </p>
<p>Financial gain, on its own, is a self-centred motivator and serves no purpose beyond the temporary gratification that money confers. Teaching, on the other hand, is a mutually rewarding occupation that serves the ongoing interests of both teachers and their students. By imposing economic sanctions on this precious relationship, we corrode the very meaning of teaching itself.</p>
<h2>A bad idea</h2>
<p>To understand why this is the case, it is important to understand how humans are motivated. We engage in certain activities not only for their tangible outcomes, but also for their implicit satisfaction. Harry Harlow, a primitive psychologist, <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/xge/40/2/228/">demonstrated</a> this over half a century ago when he observed that the satisfaction monkeys derived from mastering a maze task was so strong that they would even forgo food to do so. </p>
<p>This is where neoliberal ideology and human motivation begin to conflict. Motivation is not a commodity to be traded for the highest price. It originates from within and necessarily antagonises with any outside influence. Just ask teachers why they teach, they will tell you that they value the benefits and personal satisfaction that the job confers – it isn’t all about the money.</p>
<p>This, intrinsic motivation, is particularly important for teachers. It’s the motivational force that <a href="http://intrinsicmotivation.net/SDT/documents/2005_IsenReeve_MO.pdf">sustains their enjoyment</a> in the face of external pressure and underpins their <a href="http://www.ww.selfdeterminationtheory.org/SDT/documents/2008_Grant_JAP_ProsocialMotivation.pdf">extra-curricular</a> support for students. More than this, though, intrinsic motivation gives teachers impetus to engage in energetic and creative thought processes that enhance the quality of their teaching provision. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/46826/original/p5qndhpr-1398166426.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/46826/original/p5qndhpr-1398166426.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/46826/original/p5qndhpr-1398166426.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/46826/original/p5qndhpr-1398166426.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/46826/original/p5qndhpr-1398166426.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/46826/original/p5qndhpr-1398166426.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/46826/original/p5qndhpr-1398166426.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">It won’t work on teachers.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">nist6dh</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Research from other professions shows us that teachers who teach from a place of personal satisfaction are likely to be <a href="http://www.ww.selfdeterminationtheory.org/SDT/documents/2007_OtisPelletier_JASP.pdf">healthier</a>, <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1559-1816.2002.tb02065.x/abstract">more satisfied, less inclined to burnout</a> and, importantly, <a href="http://m.selfdeterminationtheory.org/SDT/documents/2004_BaardDeciRyan.pdf">perform better</a> than those who do not. Why, then, would we want to discourage teachers from harnessing their own motivational resources? </p>
<p>This is the most pernicious of Gove’s criticisms. He assumes that when self-interest is propelled upon people it would act in the same way markets do – by motivating. Yet, inconveniently, contemporary research supports the seminal work of Harlow and suggests that this ideology is only correct when <a href="http://www.bos.frb.org/economic/wp/wp2005/wp0511.pdf">tasks require little cognition</a>, or <a href="http://www.oecd.org/pisa/50328990.pdf">are poorly paid in the first place</a>. </p>
<p>When tasks require more than a small degree of cognitive activation, and pay is perceived as equitable relative to living costs, rewards are in fact demotivating. In a <a href="http://www.rug.nl/gmw/psychology/research/onderzoek_summerschool/firststep/content/papers/4.4.pdf">synthesis</a> of 128 controlled experiments, consistent negative effects of rewards were reported on intrinsic motivation. These observations may not be intuitive to a society inculcated by economic discourse, but are in line with modern approaches to motivation which emphasise the salutogenic role of self-determination.</p>
<h2>Impacts on students</h2>
<p>And it isn’t only teachers that are harmed by performance-related pay. Children’s learning and development in school may also suffer.</p>
<p>It is well documented that when teachers feel pressured to produce certain outcomes the reaction is, typically, to pass along that pressure to their students in the form of control – to elicit short-term achievement. This may seem a somewhat controversial hypothesis, but it is supported by <a href="http://www.selfdeterminationtheory.org/SDT/documents/2002_PelletierLevesqueLegault_JESP.pdf">evidence</a>. </p>
<p>Worryingly, there is also evidence to suggest children’s learning is not helped by teaching practises that emphasise pressure to achieve. In an exemplary American <a href="http://selfdeterminationtheory.org/SDT/documents/1984_BenwareDeci.pdf">study</a>, researchers had college students study science material with either the aim of teaching it to somebody else or with the expectation of being tested on it. Results revealed that those who learnt the material to teach, relative to those who learnt to take a test, demonstrated higher creative thought and better conceptual learning. </p>
<p>Yet it isn’t only children’s learning strategies that are undermined by pressure – their tendency to engage in school work is also weakened. Researchers in Israel, for instance, <a href="http://selfdeterminationtheory.org/SDT/documents/2002_AssorKaplanRoth_BJEP.pdf">found</a> that pressuring behaviours by teachers made children less likely to persist with a task in the face of adversity. Hence, pressure is a double edged sword that instigates short-term effort at the expense of perseverance.</p>
<p>Now, here’s the rub: attempting to commoditise motivation treads a dangerous path. It replaces the high-quality intrinsic motivation that teachers bring to the classroom with poorer quality extrinsic motives that, as we have seen, create conflict and pressure. </p>
<p>In this way, performance related pay for otherwise intrinsically motivated occupations, such as teaching, is an unnecessary and counterproductive initiative. It gambles on the utility of self-interest for improving standards, in the face of mounting evidence to the contrary. This isn’t a liberal conspiracy, Mr Gove, its a simple case of the evidence disagreeing with your deep-set ideology.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/25775/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Thomas Curran does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>This Easter Monday, members of the National Union of Teachers voted in favour of a motion for strike action this summer. The threat of industrial action reflects an ever deepening rift between teachers…Thomas Curran, Research Fellow in Sport, Exercise and Well-Being, University of GloucestershireLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/256792014-04-21T05:20:51Z2014-04-21T05:20:51ZCyberbullying by parents and pupils takes toll on teachers<p>A new survey by the teachers union NASUWT has provided further evidence to confirm that teachers too, as well as pupils, can be targets of online bullying.</p>
<p>In the research, just more than a fifth of the 7,500 teachers surveyed had comments or information posted on social networking sites relating to their role as teachers. Almost two-thirds of those comments were written by pupils, and more than a quarter by parents. </p>
<p>The research reveals that almost half of the insulting comments from pupils related to their performance as a teacher. And the figure was higher still for comments from parents. </p>
<p>The vast majority of parents made their comments on Facebook, while pupils used a wider range of sites including Facebook, Ratemyteacher, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram and Snapchat. The survey also found that the majority of teachers did not report the incidents – in most cases because they didn’t think anything could be done or that they would not be taken seriously. </p>
<p>When the teachers did report bullying to their headteacher, 40% said no action was taken against the pupil responsible, while 55% said that no action was taken against the parent responsible.</p>
<h2>Lack of protection</h2>
<p>Despite the majority of schools having internet or social media policies, less than a third of these policies refer to the protection of staff from cyberbullying.</p>
<p>Cyberbullying is a relatively new manifestation of the age-old scourge of bullying. It has been <a href="http://icbtt.arizona.edu/sites/default/files/tokunaga,_r_cyberbullying.pdf">defined by Robert Tokunaga</a> as: “Any behavior performed through electronic or digital media by individuals or groups that repeatedly communicates hostile or aggressive messages intended to inflict harm or discomfort on others.” </p>
<p>Its recent rise in schools is undoubtedly linked to the proliferation of internet-enabled devices which children and young people can now access 24/7. In 2013, <a href="http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/binaries/research/media-literacy/october-2013/research07Oct2013.pdf">Ofcom reported</a> that 62% of 12-15-year-olds and 18% of 8-11-year-olds now owned a smartphone.</p>
<p>Over two-thirds of 12-15-year-olds had a social networking site profile, and the vast majority of them accessed their social networking sites every day, while one in five did so more than ten times per day. On average they spent spent 17 hours online each week.</p>
<p>The NASUWT research follows <a href="http://www.swgfl.org.uk/Staying-Safe/Files/Documents/Prof-Abuse-Full-Report">Andy Phippen’s 2011 survey</a> of 377 education professionals in which 35% of respondents claimed that either they, or a colleague, had been subject to some form of online abuse. Such abuse was most likely to be from pupils (72%) or parents (26%) or other staff (12%). </p>
<p>It is also confirmed in a <a href="http://www.stran.ac.uk/nont4docs/PurdyandMcGuckinCyberbullyingandtheLaw.pdf">recent cross-border study</a> I co-authored involving 143 schools in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, where one in six headteachers claimed that teachers had been victims of cyberbullying from pupils. Another 7% of headteachers claimed that teachers had been cyberbullied by parents in the past two months.</p>
<p>Several studies expose the threat of online bullying, <a href="http://www.cybersmile.org/resources/129/Virtual-Violence-IIBeatBullying.pdf">the impact of which can be serious</a> and long-lasting on children and young people. There has been much less research carried out to date on the impact of such online bullying on teachers, but Andy Phippen’s 2011 report does highlight feelings of intense frustration and isolation by teachers whose concerns have not been adequately addressed by school management.</p>
<p>Recent research studies have shown a <a href="http://www.deni.gov.uk/no_46_second_edition.pdf">rise in the incidence</a> of cyberbullying among pupils. But one leading researcher has urged caution, describing cyberbullying as an <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17405629.2012.682358#.U05gYVdZ1WU">“overrated phenomenon”</a> compared to more traditional forms of bullying. </p>
<p>While acknowledging that other forms of bullying remain more common, our research found that 74% of post-primary headteachers and 33% of primary headteachers agreed or strongly agreed that cyberbullying was a growing problem in their school. An overwhelming 92% of headteachers also wanted more guidance on tackling cyberbullying, with considerable confusion emerging around their legal responsibilities.</p>
<p>The rise of online social networking has revolutionised how we communicate in society as a whole. Therefore it is not surprising that recent research such as the NASUWT survey shows there has been a parallel shift in communication between the home and the school. </p>
<p>This development is generally incredibly positive and fruitful, with many schools increasingly using their websites, social networking sites, emails and texts to communicate more effectively than ever with parents. Unfortunately, the disinhibition associated with online communication has also led to abuses. </p>
<p>No incident of cyberbullying is defensible. Pupils, teachers and parents alike need more education, guidance and support as we all seek to embrace the vast potential of online communication in safety.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/25679/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Noel Purdy does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A new survey by the teachers union NASUWT has provided further evidence to confirm that teachers too, as well as pupils, can be targets of online bullying. In the research, just more than a fifth of the…Noel Purdy, Head of Education Studies, Stranmills University College, Queen's University BelfastLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.