School reform: a call for teachers unions to join

School reform: a call for teachers unions to join

The teachers unions aren't the biggest or the only problem facing our schools, but for many years now, they have been the most consistent, most powerful defenders of the unacceptable status quo.

What happens when interest groups such as teachers unions obstruct reforms which are clearly set out for a common good?

Antonio Villaraigosa, mayor of the City of Los Angeles criticizes teachers unions for impeding school reform to go forward. In fact, he claims that when there was a proposal to alter the seniority-based layoff system which only enhanced inequality, the interest group fought back, then when there was an idea to turn around failing schools by bring in outside school operators which had proven records of success, the unions fought back. Finally, now that they are trying to put into practice a way to measure teacher effectiveness in order to reward the best teachers and to replace the ineffective who are not encouraging children to learn, the unions keep fighting back.

All these measures have the common goal to raise the education level in the country. It is necessary that it be increased because these children are tomorrow’s future. If our education system is failing them how are they going to enter college or find a job that will assure them quality of life? Moreover, if the U.S keeps staying behind while other countries keep investing in education we can start saying goodbye to the number one spot in superpowers race. Nevertheless, teachers unions don’t care about this. Don’t get me wrong: they do care about the kids. However, at the end of the day when they come home to their families, how are they going to bring dinner to the table if they got fired because of some ‘test’ that labeled them as ‘ineffective’?

In a democracy it is important that everyone has the opportunity to speak up in order to assure freedom of speech. But, what happens when an interest group speaks up against a common good? To quote Madison, since it is impossible to remove the causes of factions* we should control its effects. Thus, a way to do this would be, instead of confronting each other, to think of policies in a consensual way. In other words, school reform should be thought in order to assure a ‘win-win’ situation and not a ‘winner-loser’ one.

*faction: Madison defines it as a ‘number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or a minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adversed to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community’.