[Editor's note: This "What Matters Most" column appeared in the New York Times on Sunday, April 5.]
John Adams famously said that “facts are stubborn things.” But that doesn’t stop some people from trying to twist, ignore or pick and choose facts to suit their purposes.
As the president of a teachers’ union, I see facts fall victim to fiction with alarming frequency. I’ve learned that there are stubborn falsehoods, too, like the tired canard that unions care more for adults than children. Assertions like these lend nothing positive to the discussion about public education in this country, and they certainly won’t improve our schools. They provide fodder for pundits who observe a teacher’s world from a blurry distance, without any regard to the day to day reality.
No entity, including teachers’ unions, is perfect. That’s a stubborn fact. But I would challenge anyone who thinks that teachers’ unions exist to block reform and defend the status quo to rethink that assumption. I’ve used this space to describe a number of reforms and innovations our teachers, through their local union, the United Federation of Teachers, and our national union, the American Federation of Teachers, have proudly led. Today, I’d like to highlight a few examples from around the country.
The Chicago Teacher Advancement Program is an effort of the teachers’ union and other district partners to attract highly qualified teachers to the schools that need them most, and keep them there. Teachers assume additional responsibilities with extra pay and support, and are eligible for bonuses based on classroom observations and students’ academic growth schoolwide. Students in the majority of TAP schools have demonstrated strong gains.
The peer mentoring and evaluation plan adopted almost 30 years ago by Toledo’s teachers’ union and board of education has increased teacher effectiveness there and been replicated in a number of other school districts. Highly successful teachers assist and evaluate new teachers as well as struggling veteran teachers referred to the program. Decades of data from Toledo show that, while peer coaching helps improve teacher quality and retention, peer evaluators make far more referrals for dismissal than administrators did prior to the program’s adoption.
The teachers’ union and superintendent in the ABC Unified School District, southeast of Los Angeles, have collaborated on a number of reforms that have produced significant benefits for students. Their collaborative approach to improving student literacy skills in a cluster of schools with high numbers of special education and English languagelearning students has resulted in double-digit gains in test scores.
We’ve all had teachers throughout our lifetimes. Those teachers are real to us — through the knowledge they imparted, the techniques and personality they brought to their craft, and the dedication they demonstrated. It offends me on behalf of my members that real teachers belong to unions to ensure they have a voice in their profession and are stereotyped and disparaged for it without regard for actual facts.
What offends me on behalf of the students we serve is that the same critics who are so quick to criticize teachers’ unions seem to have much less interest in joining us on behalf of actual reforms. They’ve mostly sat on the sidelines when teachers’ unions have called for common, rigorous standards to help more children reach higher levels of achievement. They’ve been silent as we’ve pushed for high-quality early education programs for atrisk children. And, when we have called for a laser-like focus on turning around low-performing schools, they’ve held out sticks, never carrots.
Even though we know the power of collaboration and even though people of goodwill, from President Obama on down, have said that we all have a responsibility to strengthen our schools, some people have been more interested in making teachers and teachers’ unions pariahs, not partners. Enough. America’s teachers, and the unions that represent them, simply ask that, when it comes to who we are and what we stand for, that facts — not fiction — be the basis for judgment.
