Teachers’ Unions and Achievement Gaps

I put a heck of a lot of work into my final paper for my class on the achievement gap that exists between students of varying ethnicities and social classes. I read multiple academic journals regarding the effect of unions on education and student achievement data. I sifted through editorials from multiple popular press outlets. I read several reports, and a few union reports. After all this, I must admit that I was a bit surprised to find that teachers’ unions, on average (according to 4 or 5 researchers), agree that unions have had a positive effect on achievement for average students. Not so surprisingly, they standardize educational practices and increase school resources. They also have a significant role in shaping educational policy. All of this contributes to an equally negative effect for students at the margins, which would be those affected by achievement gaps.

When union interests conflict with the best interest of students, students lose. Of course, union literature (and I would argue rhetoric) goes far to divert curious observers who might wonder whether or not unions, by definition, are good for students. It is unfortunate and sad that teachers’ unions in general demonstrate intransigence, and when necessary, distortion and manipulation.

Often times they stand in the way of programs that are demonstrably beneficial to students because such programs challenge highly valued institutional practices like seniority or differentiated pay. I continue to witness manipulation and misrepresentation in my own professional environment. I am highly discouraged and irritated at the manner in which a union is willing to jump to conclusions, encourage group thinking, or repeat phrases or slogans ad infinitum as a substitute for debate or–forgive me the educational cliche of the day–”critical thinking.”

Anyway, here’s the report. It could stand for a bit of revision. In particular, at one point I put the word “radical” in quotes, and it comes across as if I’m suggesting that the radical change referred to is not really radical at all. Actually, I quoted it because it was lifted from a larger quote, and I didn’t want to burden the reader with a parenthetical citation every time I used the term in the context used by the author. I can see that not doing so has caused worse confusion.

achievement gaps and teachers’ unions

Teachers Unions and Achievement Gaps

 

For a research piece in my class (“The Achievement Gap”), I’ve decided to investigate the the ways teachers’ unions contribute to and ameliorate the achievement gap between advantaged/disadvantaged students. I’ll work on definining those two groups later.

The literature I’ve encountered so far breaks down into a few categories:

1. The popular press for the most part has been coming down hard on unions. Consider the following:
   • “Poor kids learn. Unions are not pleased.”
   • “courting irrelevance”
   • “Will Teachers’ Unions Learn?”
   • “Is this truly for the children?
   • “The Union war on charter schools”
2. The peer reviewed research suggests unions have a small positive effect on average student achievement, a standardizing effect on education, an effect of increasing expenditures, and perhaps most troublingly, a negative effect on minority/economically disadvantaged students.
3. Union literature indicates a poignant awareness of the political relevancy of this issue, and it has therefore adopted a variety of remedies for the problem, most of which seem to be consistent with goals already in existence (increase teacher training, teacher quality, cultural awareness, high academic expectations, etc.) Charter schools, they argue, don’t increase achievement, and should be viewed with skepticism. In addition, targeting them for unionization is job one.

I know there are no citations here, which is sort of garbage. I admit. Maybe later I’ll post my paper. It should have at least 20 sources. I’m learning a lot about this problem, what might work, and what reformers and unions think will work.

One non-surprise is that everyone’s doing it for the kids. Reminds me of a quote I have in my pink “From the Heart” journal:

(They) say they’re doing it for you, but they’re really doing it to you.

 

Achievement Gap

In tonight’s class on the achievement gap, we discussed a study (“Are Achievement Gaps Closing and Is Achievement Rising for All?”) from the Center on Education Policy that found the achievement gap between white, black, and hispanic students has narrowed in the years since NCLB has been implemented. Sure, the implication is that NCLB has been a positive force (and you definitely don’t hear that every day), but the scope and depth of the study was enough to give most of the class pause. 

There were definitely some awkward pauses and interesting critiques. Overall the class vibe seemed fairly balanced.

I thought this piece was helpful in gagging a lot of the rhetorical flair regarding how NCLB is “ruining education” and “forcing us to teach kids how to be good bubble fillers.” NCLB probably isn’t the educational apocolypse. It sucks in a lot of ways. But it might be helping more than it’s hurting.