Are the teachers’ unions monolithic?

By Liam Day
May 23rd, 2008

A recent article in Education Week discusses a report, “Waiting to Be Won Over: Teachers Speak on the Profession, Unions, and Reform”. The report is based on a survey of 1,000 randomly selected teachers conducted by the Farkas Duffett Research Group.

To say the least, the results are muddled. For example, though only 54% of the surveyed teachers believed that the teachers’ unions were “absolutely essential”, 74% believed that collective bargaining helped improve working conditions and salaries for teachers.

Teachers are clearly not a single monolith. Many teachers, particularly younger teachers, look at the unions with a jaundiced eye and I believe that those reformers who are unable to differentiate between teachers and teacher unions risk alienating a vital (maybe most vital) constituency in the political debate over reform – teachers.

And despite the survey’s mixed results, however, the article ends with a money quote from a union rep in Denver that is absolutely unequivocal.

“Reform is coming,” he said. “It’s like a bus—it’s coming right at us. You’re going to be on it or you’re going to be under it.”