Teachers at the Chicago Math and Science Academy notified school leaders last week that they are joining the AFT-affiliate Chicago Alliance of Charter Teachers and Staff.?? Curbing teacher turnover was touted as the primary driver for unionizing. ???Having a union will help us better recruit and, importantly, retain qualified and experienced teachers,??? said Rhonda Rae Hartwell, a middle school language arts teacher.
The school is part of the Concept Schools family, which also operates 16 schools serving 4,000 students in the Buckeye State.?? We featured one of them, Horizon Science Academy???Cleveland Middle School, in our recent report Needles in a Haystack: Lessons from high-performing, high-need urban schools.
ProgressOhio, a liberal political and advocacy organization, reported that ACTS is interested in ???talking to??? teachers at Concept's Ohio schools as well.?? Great ??? perhaps they'll learn a thing or two.
This isn't to say a unionized urban school by definition can't be successful (or that all non-union schools are).?? Our Needles report also featured six unionized district schools, including one in Cleveland.?? But in all of those schools ??? in varying ways and to different degrees ??? the schools succeeded in spite of the barriers presented by their teachers union contracts, not because of them.
In the unionized schools we studied, teachers clearly regard their collective bargaining agreement as the floor of their responsibilities, not the ceiling.?? They ignore the limitations set forth in their contracts when it comes to promoting the ongoing success of their students ??? whether by staying late to complete a planning meeting or parent conference, giving up planning periods to tutor students or cover another teacher's class, or participating in staff meetings and professional development opportunities that extend beyond the time limits outlined in their contracts.
If the teachers at Chicago Math and Science Academy can keep up the practices that make their school successful after joining ACTS, that's wonderful.?? But I have my doubts.
And if similar efforts to unionize charters ??? which started precisely to avoid the regulations and requirements imposed by union contracts ??? do make their way from Chicago to the Buckeye State, I think this remark from the founder of one of Ohio's top charters (in response to previous union interest in his school) sums up the issue perfectly:
The overriding question is how will having a teachers union improve on our ability to educate all of our children and make sure they're ready to graduate from college? We respect that they represent the interests of teachers; we represent the interests of students.
-Emmy Partin
