An exchange of letters in the latest issue of The Atlantic offers an interesting take on the impact of teachers’ unions for education reform. Follow the link to read the comments from Randi Weingarten of the American Federation of Teachers and Michael Mulgrew of the New York-based United Federation of Teachers.
Former New York City schools chancellor Joel Klein responded to those comments:
Randi Weingarten and Michael Mulgrew ignore the fact that unions protect the interests of their members, often at the expense of children. For example, as I write this, the union is suing New York City to prevent 7,000 overwhelmingly minority children from attending charter schools they chose. Why? Because the charters aren’t unionized, and the union fears the competition. This year, 64,000 NYC families applied for 13,000 charter seats.
Weingarten and Mulgrew opposed many of the NYC reforms, so they predictably downplay the achievements. The City made big—not “modest”—gains in math and reading, going up a total of 29 points on the naep tests in those subjects, while the nation went up 16 points and the rest of New York state was flat. Even Diane Ravitch, a relentless critic of NYC, has acknowledged that the City made “significant progress” on the naeps.
Moreover, research by James Kemple at NYU, taking into account the state’s “recalibration of the scores” that Mulgrew refers to, found “compelling evidence of strong positive effects on student outcomes from the constellation of [NYC] reforms.” As The New York Times editorialized, “Critics used [the recalibration] to dismiss all the city’s reforms as meaningless. But fair-minded people can see that the city has indeed improved student performance.” Only a few years ago Weingarten said, “The work you see in [NYC], as compared to around the country, is really terrific.”
Readers of this forum will recall previous discussion of the impact of teachers‘ unions on efforts to improve schools.
