Government Union Review
Education

Covers the diminishment of academic freedom in this country. Russell Kirk believes that compulsory unionization of professors and teachers, imposed "collective bargaining." diminished both corporate freedom and individual freedom within the Academy.

Presents a thorough and thought-provoking analysis of Pennsylvania's experience with teacher bargaining under that state's public sector bargaining law, Act 195. The report was first published in PSBA Bulletin by the Pennsylvania School Boards Association and scrutinizes some pertinent provisions of the bargaining law, such as limited right to strike for public employees, their effects, implementation and costs. We reprinted this report to give readers outside the state of Pennsylvania the opportunity to compare that system with other states', and to provide information on one state's bargaining related experience that might prove to be of value in grasping some of the problems involved. One area of research in the field of public sector bargaining which has been seriously neglected and is in need of extensive and conclusive research, is the cost aspect of bargaining and the development of a clear and useful method for computing such costs. This is the approach J. Curtis Rose has taken in his report on Pennsylvania's 10-year comprehensive cost of public sector bargaining.

According to the labor relations industry, the standard measurement for the success of any labor relations framework is the degree of resulting "labor relations harmony" and "labor peace." In public employment, however, another consideration is gaining equal, if not greater importance in the face of growing tax revolts and budget constraints on public officials. The cost aspect of the collective bargaining process is in dire need of accurate and reliable assessment techniques if forecast and fiscal planning are to be of any practical value. Local government fiscal insolvency, after all, has occurred often enough to deserve serious attention to its various causes and methods of avoidance. The Costs of Collective Bargaining in the Modesto City School Districts: A Case Study, is limited to the costs of the bargaining process itself and does not include results of bargaining, such as salary increases and fringe benefits.

Russell Kirk presents a further aspect of academic freedom to school personnel administrators, namely that of the freedom to learn. Although the speech was made prior to the November elections, we feel it still has a worthwhile message regarding teacher union political activity.

Dr. Charles Baird offers personal experience with the spreading of unionization in higher education.

Rafferty addresses all primary and secondary school teachers with regard to the proprietary of a learned profession using the right to stirke, boycott and collective bargaining to get higher pay and better working conditions.

Of the few studies so far conducted, this is perhaps the most exhaustive and reliable one, using standardized tests, comparable sample bases, strike and non-strike situations over an extended time period.

Jan Henkel and Norman Wood explore the role of state legislatures in higher education collective bargaining - a factor present in many states but much ignored.

Discusses the reason for Kentucky School Boards Association's opposition to collective bargaining legislation for teachers. Dr. Scott maintains that the KSBA has consistently opposed bargaining for school employees because: the public is opposed to it, it is expensive, it diminishes local control of education, and, in the final analysis, it is detrimental to the educaitonal process.

The theory of corporate-state form of government, an historical examination of its development in the private sector labor movement, its spillover to public employment and an outlook for future possibilities in governmental labor relations is the subject of Edwin Vieira's essay.

Discusses the general legal aspects of reduction-in-force (RIFs) which have emerged from case law, especially RIFs due to financial, enrollment and program reasons.

A study of the impact of school teacher strikes on certain grade levels in Pennsylvania Public Schools.

Based on a survey of Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin school board members to determine whether their perceived ability to perform legislatively prescribed duties is impacted by the type of collective bargaining legislation enacted within their state.

According to the results of the study, state laws governing collective bargaining significantly influence the perceived ability of school board members to carry out legislatively prescribed duties. Board members from states with mandatory bargaining felt a greater impact on their ability to govern than individuals representing boards from a non-mandatory state.

Pat E. Crisci describes her experience in bringing participative management to a school district and offers further advice to those school systems in deep labor relations trouble. This rather detailed analysis of the quality circles concept will hopefully open the door to parties entangled in collective bargaining with recurring hostilities, as is, unfortunately, so often the case.

Myron Lieberman, a professional negotiator in the education field, postulates that no worthwhile merit pay system can ever be implemented where there is collective bargaining. "Some of us may doubt whether the long range interest of teachers are best served by public sector bargaining, but it will take the educational equivalent of Japanese automobiles to convince the teachers themselves of this fact," he says. The Japanese equivalent in education, of course, are private schools.

Education reform is unlikely, if not impossible, because of collective bargaining, participants at a symposium, "The Impact of Teacher Unions on Education," were told in Washington. The two day symposium was conducted January 12-13, 1984, by the Public Service Research Foundation (PSRF) and attracted 50 school superintendents, school negotiators, faculty union representatives, education faculty members, Congressional staff members and officials from the U.S. Department of Education. This edition of the Review takes a look at when collective bargaining first came to education, the impact of collective bargaining, and finishes with an evaluation of the impact.

Dr. Baird looks at the process of educational decline and proposes a free market system with tax vouchers for parents who choose to enroll their children in private schools as the best means of remedying the situation. It is the author's opinion that the lion's share of the responsibility for the deteriorating quality must rest with the teacher unions, which he further perceives as being the major impediments to reform, particularly the National Education Association (NEA).

Dr. Hunter, a linguistics professor, points out the historic affinity of the NEA's early leadership to espouse the dialectical doctrines of collectivism and how language has translated into the political direction of its present leadership.

Dr. Lieberman looks beyond the veneer of acadame at a system of campus goverance which he finds "even more inimical to the public interest than public sector bargaining." Whereas critics of teacher unions operating on the elementary and secondary levels charge that such organizations contradict the notions of objectivity and impartiality, few carry the perception to the manicured quads of higher education where educational policies and departmental personnel decisions are relinquished to professors who are not held strictly accountable for their performances.

Besides discussing the rationale and shortcomings of faculty self-government, Dr. Lieberman offers insights as to why professors, and often their unions, at public universities obstruct rather than advance the cause of educational reform. He highlights the absurdities associated with the notion of "peer review" and concludes with a look at the tyrannical elements inherent to a system of goverance in which its leaders can only attain the pinnacle of their mangerial careers if they are "consensus ratifiers, not leaders."

Compares the differing financial burdens of school districts that foot the entire bill for their teachers' health benefits with those that require their educators to share a portion of those costs. Based on the results of this eye opening study, the authors recommend that, "as school disctricts approach the bargaining table under a collective bargaining statute, they consider seeking a degree of cost-shifting in their negotiated agreements."

From the national and international implications of privatization as public policy, we turn to the more parochial aspects of teacher negotiations in the United States. In Collective Bargaining and Multiple Control Gains in Education, Dr. Pat E. Crisci and Mr. Joseph M. Giancola examine the willingness of teacher unions to accept contractual concessions that cede them varying degrees of control over management from school boards that cannot afford to offer salary advances.By analyzing the master agreements from 411 Ohio school districts for six contractual items identified as control gains, the authors discerned that such concessions existed to a significant degree in the pacts. That enabled them to isolate four areas in which school management functions are impaired when managerial controls are bartered away and to offer some pragmatic advice on how school boards can reduce such losses.

In "From the Oracles of the Temple of Janus: 'Chicago Teachers Union V. Hudson," Dr. Edwin Vieira, Jr., who represented the nonunion teachers before the Court, discusses the Justices' "situational ethics" pertaining to this decision. Did Hudson represent a victory for nonunion workers' constitutional rights to freedom of association or was the verdict rendered with such obtuse reasoning as to deny that victory? Had the Justices objected to the workers' deprivation of rights or merely the manner in which they had been deprived?

Hudson, in Vieira's estimation, denotes a degree of both. On the one hand, it provided nonunion workers with a victory by forcing unions to account for the money they extract in dues and to return that portion spent on political activities. The ruling has already generated a number of suits with a court in Michigan ordering a triumverate of teacher unions to rebate ninety percent of their fees. Alternatively, from the principle of rule of law, the Hudson Court did not aver that nonunion workers' rights were violated because they were forced to pay fair share fees prior to an assessment of the appropriate deduction.

Dr. Fritz Hess sees in the recent deregulation of a number of industries a potential panacea for local education. The major problem school administrators have had to contend with is a diminishment of their authority, as teacher unions and their political supporters have agitated for regionally centralized or even nationalized control over education. The author contends that deregulation of local schools, along with the assumption of greater managerial control, could produce more effective education and he presents a model of how this could be realized, which excludes unions from the paradigm.

Between February 1985 and July 1986, Great Britain experienced its most widespread, acrimonious and traumatic teachers' dispute. For American readers, Dr. Arthur Shenfield, sets the stage on which this labor conflict was enacted, introduces its dramatis personae, outlines the scenes of its unfolding and discusses the agreement which brought about its denouement.

Dr. Pat Crisci, et al, while not advocating the continued unionization of the teaching profession, do reccomend an amelioration of the tension between labor and management, even if in some instances it necessitates dealing with union representatives. The authors suggest that, regardless of the nature of proposed reforms, before any can be enacted an atmoshpere of collegiality within the profession must be created. They promulgate a new employer-employee relationship that integrates both the need of school administrators to coordinate policy and of teachers to exercise individual initiative. Ultimately they hope that this will lead to mutual goal setting and a win/win approach to decision-making that both sides can live with.

Dr. Charles W. Baird contends that the best way to reform public education is to break up its monopoly. A free market economist, he would like to see the market for educational services opened up and a tax credit or voucher plan instituted that would make it financially feasible for parents to enroll their children in private schools. He suggests that one of the major stumbling blocks to the Forum's approach to reform is that, in essence, it prepares to turn over the public education system to the teachers and hence their unions. He would prefer a competitive sytem of private schools guided by the entrepreneurial discovery process geared towards providing cost-effective, reasoned education.

The authors criticize the forum for its collusion with the unions in an endeavor to disrupt the crucial balance between teachers and management that has historically allowed for a democractic supervision of schools.

If there is one area where the potential for privatization has failed to explore, it is in the field of public education. Even though school districts may contract out for support services, they rarely consider doing the same for teaching staffs. Dr. Myron Lieberman offers a pragmatic and frank discussion in this overlooked option. Topics addressed include: the cost /benefit of such an approach, the dangerous time bomb of unfunded pension costs, overcoming union opposition to contracting out and the role of management in the process. It is must reading for school administrators and contains material that will appear in his upcoming book on privatizing the nation's public schools.

Investigates the pay-for-performance concept as it has been applied to the teaching profession. Following a discussion of the controversy surrounding the concept and union backed alternatives, Dr. Gene Geisert takes a look at the nation's most comprehensive merit pay plan in Farifax County, Virginia.

The Fairfax plan was instituted less than two years ago and its historic endeavors have attracted the attention of Ronald Reagan. Being in its infancy, information about the plan and its effectiveness is still scarce. However, in preparing for his article, Dr. Geisert was able to interview Fairfax County School Superintendent Dr. Robert Spillane, creator of this merit pay plan, and provide Review readers with an inside look at its progress.

Concessionary Bargaining in Education
Crisci and Shaddow, Pat E. and Michael C. - Fall 1988; Volume 9, Number 4

In Concessionary Bargaining in Education, Drs. Crisci and Shaddow examine the extent to which Ohio school districts have bargained away managerial authority and how some have sought to regain control. Their's is the first researched-based study of management rights concessionary bargaining in the public school system.

Discusses the need for a national non-bargaining teacher organization, how one could be established and what ough to be its philosphical orientation.

In September 1987 some 29,000 teachers belonging to the Chicago Teachers Union went on strike for the ninth time since 1970. Frustration over this recurring pattern of strikes and the dismal academic performance of the district's students prompted the Illinois legislature to pass an education reform bill, which took effect on July 1, 1989. In this article, Dr. Myron Lieberman offered his precursory assessment of the plan to decentralize Chicago schools and predicted that it would only end in failure.

Explains the idea that, like other professionals, teachers could work for themselves, discusses the policy and political issues raised by the concept and addresses the issue of teacher unions. Dr. Kolderie believes that private practice teaching has major potential for the effort to improve America's educational system and the professional status of teachers.

Dr. Myron Lieberman was the first professional educator to propose the idea of a federal fund to the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards for the development of a certification program for elementary and secondary school teachers. In this article, he analyzes legislative efforts to enact the $25 million appropriation from Congress to implement the idea.

A great deal of stress related research has been done to determine the types of stressors which most often affect teachers and school administrators. Involvement of teachers in the decision-making process has been seen as very stressful to administrators, but such participation is considered by teachers to be a major goal in their quest for professionalism.

According to the results of "Stress and Anxiety of Administrators as Related to Collective Bargaining and Participative Management," by Dr. Pat Crisci, et al., distinct differences exist in the attitudes of superintendents and principals toward teacher involvement in making educational policy decisions in Ohio public schools. For example, principals tended to favor collective bargaining as a legitimate means for teachers to settle economic and professional issues with management more than they supported participative management, while superintendents favored teacher involvement through participative management activities. These and other conclusions make this study informative reading.

A continuing concern of A.erican school districts is the inability to acquire the funds needed to increase school construction. The latest strategy for tackling this problem has been the introduction of new year-round school plans. The variety of plans, where they have been introduced, the practical concerns that must be addressed to assure their success and the teacher unions' reaction to the concept are discussed by Dr. Gene Geisert in "Teacher Union Involvement in Year-Round Schooling."

An area of abiding concern is the quality of education that America's children receive and how to improve it. Perhaps one of the most direct means of achieving some degree of improvement, is to establish a program for evaluating the abilities of classroom teachers. One method for appraising the performance of educators, while it may come under the guise of various names, is that of peer review. It is that method that is examined by the authors of this article.

The authors offer a comparison between the ongoing British Columbian experience with unionization to that transpiring in the United States.

A study by the Pennsylvania Economy League evaluating the salary differential between public school teachers and local private sector compensation, prior to the 1991-92 bargaining session. The study found that, rather than being underpaid, teachers in York County are receiving higher pay for less time worked than other private sector professionals including: accountants, chemists, engineers, nurses and social workers.

Dr. Lieberman postulates that the main reason that reformers fail to enact their proposals, like union tuition tax credits, over union opposition, is directly related to strategic deficiencies. What reformers suffer from is a pervasive lack of knowledge and insight about the dynamics of unions and the intricacies of their operations, including thier leadership and finances.

Over the last two decades, the American public school has been forced to witness a continuing deterioration in the quality of the nation's public school system. Despite a 33 percent increase in per pupil expenditure between 1981 and 1991, despite the promulgation of numerous reform packages, there has been no improvement in student performance. What, precisely, has been the nature of those theoretical or imposed reforms, and what school districts must do in the future to reverse the trend, is addressed by researchers at Kent State University in this article.

Wisconsin enacted the first collective bargaining law for teachers in 1962. In the Spring of 1992, Louisiana legislators voted down union backed legislation that would have extended bargaining for state teachers. There are some analysts who contend that the decline in the quality of American public school education can be blamed on teacher bargaining laws. Dr. Myron Lieberman offers his Reflections on the Rationales for Teacher Bargaining from the perspective of an educator who has been intimately involved with the issue since its inception thirty years ago.

Dr. Gene Geisert observes that the latest research illustrates the need for effective leadership in the schools by revealing the abject failure of teacher and parent empowerment experiments, a reality largely ignored by the press. It is the principals, given more power to run their schools and be held accountable for thier results, that are the real key to school reform.

When the Pennsylvania legislature passed Act 195 in 1970, giving teachers and other public employees collective bargaining privileges and the right to strike, David Kirkpatrick was serving as the president of the Pennsylvania State Education Association. In years prior to the enactment of the Public Employees Bargaining Act, he had been a teacher/unionist and a supporter of the legislation. He had knowledge and experience of the history of his profession and of the obstacles that teachers had to overcome to win public respect for their profession. Collective bargaining, at the time, seemed the best means for realizing that end.

But that was nearly twenty-five years ago. Today, the pendulum has swung so far in the other direction that teacher unions now represent perhaps the greatest impediment to education reform. The intellectual journey that led Dr. Kirkpatrick from the one perspective on the significance of the act, to its antithesis is reflected in his article Teacher Unions and Collective Bargaining in Retrospect.

It has become apparent to him that what is needed to improve America's public schools is greater democracy, by giving the populace the decision of sending their children to private schools. That would result in a number of advantages that would ultimately "transform what teachers do from a job to a profession.

The importance of school officials retaining control over the decision making process is echoed in Dr. Grover Baldwin in "Structural Educational Reform and Management Perogatives." His emphasis is on the specific areas of site based management - like control over classroom standards, evaluation criteria, certification, merit pay and the power of principals - where unions have tried to wrest away officials' authority.

The author discerns hope in the fact that in each of these areas a number of legislatures, school boards and their administrators have begun to use the current reform movement to attempt to reassert their authority. What is even more hopeful is that a number of state courts have upheld their endeavors.

Controlling Teacher Militancy - Full text available
Dunn, Randy. Volume 17, Number 1

Tremendous emphasis has been given to teacher empowerment in the educational reform movement. A general assumption within this trend is that teacher empowerment will reduce teacher militancy. But is this so? While the conventional wisdom suggests that greater teacher autonomy, authority, and participation in decision-making should lessen militancy across all issues, such may not be the case. Following the introduction, I will seek to explore this paradox. First I will briefly review research identifying the determinants of teacher militancy. Then I'll analyze approaches to empowerment currently seen in schools in relationship to what the research has said regarding the causes of teacher militancy. Finally, I will offer some conclusions about the potential for continued militant behavior among teachers within an empowered environment, and will recommend further research in this area.

Dr. Myron Lieberman argues that it is now feasible to end the unions' policy domination within a few years and without having to resort to repeal of state bargaining statutes. This could be accomplished by reducing union revenues, eliminating taxpayer subsidies of teacher unions and empowering rank-and-file union members.

Presents a discussion of an administrative model for reforming America's educational system. The Total Quality Management model promotes a collaberative dialogue between school administrators and classroom teachers that improve education for the system's most important clients, its students.

In reality, the teacher unions bring in about $1 billion in revenue each year which they use to promote their own political agendas. The full effect of their financial influence on elections and legislation is difficult to assess primarily because their state and local affiliates are not required to give complete disclosure of their funds under the federal Labor-Relations Reporting and Disclosure Act. And it is that money that school reformers run up against when they propose improvements to American public schools which threaten to curb the power of teacher unions.

Peer Coaching: Empowering Teachers while Accomplishing Management Goals
March, Judith K.; Peters, Karen H.; and Adler, Heidi. Volume 15, Number 2

The authors describe a coaching project developed at Kent State University, and the success of its six year operation in a large urban district. They provide a rationale for the project, an overview of related literature, and a description of the project that includes the actual outcome data.

In this edition of the Government Union Review, we are very pleased to present a very thorough examination of the legislative and legal environment in which unionism in public education operates.

This topic is of great importance to future developments in public education because this environment has a substantial impact on the development and growth of independent teacher organizations. These independent teacher organizations are being established and are prospering in many areas of the country. They are reaching out to the teachers who reject the adversarial and confrontational industrial style unionism model followed by the National Education Association and American Federation of Teachers.

The growth of independent teacher organizations as alternatives to teacher unions has been building for quite some time. Only in the last several years, however, have these organizations become large enough to pose a threat to union hegemony in public education.

We hope that this edition will be of assistance to public policy makers as they examine the environment of not just unionism in public education, but other questions about public employer-employee relations which have such a profound impact on the quality of public education.

In addition, we hope that this information will be of value to public school teachers questioning the role of unions in their employment relations who, in seeking alternatives, need a better understanding of the legal environment in which they are operating.

This article is taken from Dr. Lieberman's recent book, Teachers Evaluating Teachers: Peer Review and the New Unionism. Herein, he reveals the self-interest of teacher unions in controlling peer evauation in public education.

Dr. Lieberman applies his highly regarded insights into teacher unionism to document how unions use the collective bargaining process to implement peer review programs, further stripping principals and administrations of their authority to hire or fire teachers. Once they become the subject of collective union agreements, the unions control the peer review process and exercise more control over the economic and employment destinies of teachers.

The most widely publicized peer review program is in the Toledo, Ohio, public school district. A review of its largest union contract shows the high level of control the union exercises over public schools. Yet, the National Education Association and local teacher unions get away with their agendas because they are not viewed as unions.

As long as unions control peer review, it will be of little benefit to the students--and could be harmful to their education.

The author reveals the absolute control and negative impact of many teacher unions on public education. He documents the tyranny of these unions over teachers, administrators, school boards, the entire education process, and any attempt to change or reform public education. Further, he shows how these unions silence teachers and violate their constitutional rights without impunity. Sadly, he observes, the teacher unions themselves know very little about education or how best to run a public school.

Mr. Vieira is a constitutional attorney and expert on unionism and collective bargaining in the public sector. He tells the chilling but true story of how the U.S. Supreme Court made a series of arbitrary decisions that undermined our Constitution, violated First-Amend rights, and gave public-secotr unions a stranglehold over teachers, school board members and public schools.

Have you ever wondered why most public schools keep getting worse, even though we keep investing more money in them to make them better? In 1960, America was proud of her teachers and students, who led the world in many disciplines. Today, after a 450 percent increase in spending, our public school system is a national embarrassment that is failing our young people.

If parents, teachers and administrators all want children to receive a good education, who is spoiling the pot for everyone? Who is controlling teachers, school administrators and even curriculum content? Who is manipulating parents and public officials.

The author believes teachers' unions are the main culprit, maintaining at all costs a choke hold on public schools and teachers, many public officials, and the education process itself. They consistently oppose reforms--such as charter schools and vouchers that would be beneficial, and give more freedom, to parents, students, teachers and administrators--unless the union can somehow maintain control.

Dr. Moore exposes the real agenda of teachers' unions through their own published agenda, tactics, use of funds, and political power over public officials. In essence, she proves that teacher unions are not for education, but for control. It is time for America to open its eyes and see what teachers' unions have done to our children and education system. Dr. Moore's article will help you understand how this tragedy has occurred and continues to be propagated.

Mr. Kirkpatrick pulls some illuminating observations from Freeland's report, namely, that governments in most other nations have never granted exclusive representation rights; that "good faith" bargaining is rare; and that school boards fall into many union pitfalls in the collective bargaining process, without realizing what it will cost them, what they have given away, or the impact upon teachers, administrators, students, parents, the public and the education process. Kirkpatrick then lists nine of Freeland's proposals for improving education that would benefit students and teachers, and respect parents and school administrators--none of which are possible without changing state laws and curtailing the power of unions.

Dr. Peterson summarizes much of what is wrong with the status quo in public education, showing that the AFT and NEA are detrimental to teachers, administrators, school boards, school safety and students. When the unions win, everyone else loses.

Have you ever wondered why parents stopped getting involved in public education; or how school administrators lost most of their ability to influence education; or when and how the teacher unions gained such a stronghold on all facets of education; or how the National PTA lost its leadership position in education and the NEA took its place; or how parents got excluded and the real educational needs of students were ignored? This article is Chapter Five of Charlene Haar's new book, The Politics of the PTA (Transaction Publishers, 2002). In this important new book she traces the last 100 years in public education and exposes the events and agendas that reshaped public education into what it is today. Information about obtaining the book is available on the Education Policy Institure's web site (www.educationpolicy.org).