KIPP/Union Update

The New York Times reported Friday that the environment at a KIPP school whose teachers recently voted to unionize has gotten tense, with administrators "making veiled threats" and meeting with students alone--a meeting at which the students "had been encouraged to talk about 'negative feelings and interactions' with [teachers]." This coming after the school's founding principal told those organizing teachers that he was "disappointed" and "not pleased."

Read the article here.

Personal opinion? While I unabashedly support teachers unions, I could put aside those thoughts and just reflect... Perhaps, instead of introducing further tension into the school, the administrators at this school could think about the environment at their school and why these teachers felt it was necessary to organize. If these administrators are so opposed to running a unionized school, how could they let their school culture get to a point where the teachers feel that organizing is their best bet to improve their working environment and their students education? What mistakes did they (the administrators) make?

In none of the press that I have seen on this issue have I seen the administrators publicly taking responsibility for this creating environment. Yet the whole notion of charter schools means that they had that responsibility. This situation is being monitored by many in the educational world and is an important precursor in education reform, in terms of union/charter partnerships or creating sustainable climates in charters (or in a number of other reforms). Yet what observers are seeing is administrators (like executives in other sectors of the American economy) blaming others for their problems. This from an organization that encourages personal responsibility.

Labels: charter, KIPP, union

KIPP Teachers Organize

"Teachers at 2 Charter Schools Plan to Join Union, Despite Notion of Incompatibility"

The New York Times reported earlier this week that teachers at a KIPP school in Brooklyn have joined the UFT (the United Federation of Teachers, New York City's teacher union). Read the article here.

It seems that teachers at this school feel that their working conditions (which at KIPP schools in general are typically recognized as strenuous, to put it mildly) make teaching there unsustainable, leading to high teacher turnover and ultimately negatively impacting students' education. In addition, teachers want to make sure they can express their views on educational matters without fear of losing their jobs (see Leo Casey's post on Edwize for that one).

KIPP is a darling of a certain faction of the education reform community, so this displeases many...Some believe that "A union contract is actually at odds with a charter school” (Jeanne Allen, executive director of the Center for Education Reform, a Washington group that supports charter schools). For the record, AFT (the American Federation of Teachers, UFT's parent organization) and its affiliates do not, and have organized teachers at charter schools in other regions of the country, as well as opening and running charter schools of their own
(check out this AFT press release or this EdWeek Teacher Beat post for just a bit more information).

Regardless of whether one believes that charter schools and teachers unions are incompatible, my favorite response to the development is Alexander Russo's: "I guess this is what happens when your teachers get past the starry-eyed hero worship stage, or when your network of schools gets beyond a certain size."

So some feel this is inevitable...I wonder about the collective impact of this type of individual charter school teacher organization on the future of the charter school movement, and on the future of education reform in general.

1.22.09 Update: I also enjoyed Ezra Klein's posting

Labels: charter, KIPP, union

Major Policy Speech

In her first major policy speech since her election as AFT president, Randi Weingarten spoke at the National Press Club yesterday, outlining both provocative and proven approaches to improve public education. She also expressed her desire to seek common ground on various contentious issues often thought to be off-limits for teachers unions.

Check out a summary of what she said (it links to a pdf of the speech itself).

Labels: policy, union