The original vision was first proposed by the president of the American Federation of Teachers, Albert Shanker, in 1988. He gave a speech in Washington, D.C., envisioning this new type of school. It would be independent, smaller, still part of the public school system, still unionized, but certain union regulations would be relaxed so that the school could try and test out new educational practices, and do more experimental things with the hopes that, if something proved effective, they could apply the practices to regular public schools.
A couple of months after the speech, they came up with the name “charter schools” because explorers received charters to explore new land and resources, so that’s how the name stuck. The first charter school was founded in 1992 in Minnesota, and that was unionized. Bear in mind there’s always been debates from the very beginning about the roles unions would play in these schools, but I think it is very much an interesting lost history, since this whole idea was premised with the notion that charter schools would be unionized necessarily.
If teachers didn’t have the job security, or an elevated voice that unions help to provide, then teachers wouldn’t feel comfortable enough in their classrooms to actively take risks and/or try out new things with their students. The fear of losing one’s job can prevent one from trying out new things, so that’s why the original idea of charter schools being unionized was so important.
Why is it that we’re at a point now where the idea of a pro-union charter seems oxymoronic — much less that the original vision had unions playing an integral role? What happened between then and now?
A powerful narrative that has developed over the past decade and a half says that the reason we have these great disparities in our education system — huge, growing gaps between the rich and poor; etc. — is in large part because of bad teachers in the classrooms and the teachers unions fighting to keep bad teachers in the classrooms. So both liberals and conservatives have seen charter schools as a way in which they can either weaken the power of teachers unions, or just bypass teachers unions altogether.
And is that basically what charter teachers who are trying to unionize have been told when they’ve spoken with management?
They don’t say it that explicitly. What they say is, in euphemistic terms, “We want to continue to provide the high-quality education, we want to provide what’s best for students, we want to ensure that only high-quality people will be in the classroom,” etc. In the case of L.A., in this large charter school that’s currently unionizing, the school Alliance is trying to point out bad things that United Teachers of Los Angeles has done in the past, so as to discredit the union.
But different schools use different tactics. Most often, from what I’ve seen, the schools will claim things like “We have a very unique culture that we’ve built up here, you’re a part of it, let’s not complicate it with a union that could mess up the special thing we’ve built together.” Or schools might claim that they don’t want tension between labor and management–that they want to be partners, with the underlying fear being that unions are going to mess that up.
Speaking of changing relationships, one of the most interesting parts of your report, I thought, concerned the way unions have changed their stance vis-à-vis charters. It sounds like there’s been a real adjustment.
There’s definitely been a significant shift for the unions. There was a time, especially in the early 2000s, when there was just a blanket aversion to charter schools because there was this feeling that these schools were trying to weaken the power of teachers unions, and that they were not interested in helping to collaborate in any meaningful way. This is really starting to shift, and it’s true that this shift hasn’t really been reflected in the way the popular media frames the education reform conversations.
Today, I think the unions take an approach that they understand charter schools are not going away, that some charter schools are actually good, but there remains a great lack of oversight and regulation over the bad charter schools. It’s funny, because charter school advocates will claim that traditional public schools are bludgeoned with regulations, and meanwhile, unions sort of watch as charter schools have insufficient levels of oversight. So right now they’re trying to raise awareness for the completely unregulated schools, or for the schools whose regulations are totally insufficient, while trying to push for laws that ensure more transparency and accountability.
Let’s say, hypothetically, that the charter-union movement starts picking up steam. Is there any chance that Wall Street, which has been a massive supporter of charters, will abandon it because of their views on unions?
Yes, I think that’s definitely a possibility. That’s something that various union people said to me. Jesse Sharky, from the Chicago Teacher’s Union, said that right, there’s a lot of businesspeople and entrepreneurs who are very interested in the charter school sector, and if that sector became more heavily unionized, it’s not so clear that suddenly it would be such an interesting or intriguing investment for them to make.
Hopefully that’s not the case, but it’s definitely fair to wonder how the political support will fare, especially since many political backers like charter systems because they’re union-free. So it’s not exactly clear how, if at all, they’re going to change their support if a greater proportion of charter schools unionize.
"For all these years, we could not think of having a reserve like other countries have due to the impending sanctions. But now we can think of working to build a reserve of nuclear fuel.