Rachel A, Cohen, American Prospect - A growing number of [union organizing efforts are] taking place at charter schools around the country, where most teachers work with no job security on year-to-year contracts. For teachers, unions, and charter school advocates, the moment is fraught with challenges. Traditional unions are grappling with how they can both organize charter teachers and still work politically to curb charter expansion. Charter school backers and funders are trying to figure out how to hold an anti-union line, while continuing to market charters as vehicles for social justice.
Though 68 percent of K-12 public school teachers are unionized, just 7 percent of charter school teachers are, according to a 2012 study from the Center for Education Reform. (And of those, half are unionized only because state law stipulates that they follow their district’s collective bargaining agreement.) However, the momentum both to open new charter schools and to organize charter staff is growing fast.
1 comment:
I'm pro-union, but not in charter schools. They exist because of a need that public schools do not, nor does it appear they will again, meet. Part of the reason is government intervention and union intervention. Allow the unions and government and they may as well close. Any charter school that doesn't pay staff and faculty well deserves to close. Teachers shouldn't need a union at a charter school; the charter school should be paying better than the public to get the best. Unionize and you'll get the rest.
Post a Comment