By Tom
I was reading a story this year with my third graders. It focused on Cesar Chavez, about whom they knew absolutely nothing. In order to build some context, I drew a stick figure on the board. “This guy is a farm owner,” I said. “And these people are the workers,” I continued, pointing to a large group nearby. “What would happen if one of these workers suddenly asked for a raise, or maybe a weekend?”
“The farm owner would give it to him, because that’s fair,” Margarito said.
“No he wouldn’t,” replied Lucas, “he would probably get fired, because the farm owner wouldn’t want to lose the money.”
“Lucas is right,” I said, erasing the outspoken stick figure, “He would definitely get fired.”
“But what would happen if all of the workers asked for more money or more time off together?” I asked, redrawing the greedy, lazy worker.
“They’d all get fired!”
“But then who would work the farm?” I said, “You see, if everyone asked for the same thing together, there’s a much better chance the owner would give it to them. The owner can’t do all the work himself. He won’t listen to just one worker; it’s easier to fire him. That’s why we have labor unions, so workers can ask for something important together, and not get fired because of it. And that’s what this story is about. Fifty years ago, Cesar Chavez helped farm workers ask for fair working conditions together.”
My students understood the story, while gaining an appreciation for the Organized Labor Movement.
As you might have guessed, I’m staunchly and unapologetically pro-union. For good reason.
Nine years ago, in late 2002, I attended a conference in San Francisco, at which the keynote speaker was Reg Weaver, then president of the NEA. At that time, we had just begun a popular war against Al Qaida in Afghanistan, Bush was relatively well-liked and No Child Left Behind was a curious policy that no one completely understood or had even completely read.
Reg, however, lambasted the law, calling it the product of a deliberate conspiracy to undermine public support for education in general and the teachers’ unions in particular. He made it clear that there were people in America who want to destroy organized labor, especially the teachers’ unions, and that NCLB would become a major tool for them to do so, given the law’s ridiculously impossible mandates that have never, nor will ever, be met. The public will eventually hold us, the teachers, accountable for every school’s inevitable failure.
He then went on to predict what education would look like under NCLB: increased privatization; narrow, unfair accountability; less job security and ultimately; an attack on collective bargaining itself, the very foundation of organized labor.
He basically described the educational landscape of 2011, nine years ago.
I remember thinking at the time that this theory seemed a little unhinged. I’ve always been skeptical of people’s capacity to form functional conspiracies. Nor could I bring myself to believe that someone could actually wish harm to public education.
But now I’m starting to wonder if that fiery little dude had it right.
Nine years later, fully one-third of our schools are “failures,” due mostly to the fact that they’re located in high-poverty neighborhoods, and any progress made by the staff gets erased by the fact that NCLB’s bar keeps creeping up. In exchange for their hard work, teachers get blamed for the economic conditions surrounding their workplaces. If your school hasn’t failed yet, hang on; it soon will.
In the past nine years, the business community has had a growing influence on education. Billionaire edu-philanthropists set virtual policy by way of irresistible grants to schools and districts that incorporate their version of “rigor” and “data-driven accountability.” The public eats it up, believing that American capitalism has all the answers, despite the fact that American capitalism brought America to its financial knees two years ago; despite the fact that American capitalism, unlike American public education, has complete control over its raw materials; and despite the fact that American capitalism wouldn’t dare open a factory or even a store anywhere near the neighborhoods served by our neediest schools.
In the past nine years we’ve seen a dramatic rise in the number of charter schools. Which, while not inherently bad, are the educational equivalent of building more lifeboats as a proxy for sound naval architecture. Instead of treating the popularity of charters as the cry for help that it is, the current administration rewards those states that allow more of them, yet do nothing to address the conditions that spawn them.
Nine years ago, job security for teachers was a given, and if you got into trouble, you could be assured of fair and due process before getting fired. Now we have laws and potential laws that let districts use the RiF process to quickly get rid of teachers they don’t want.
For the last two years, we’ve had a Democratic administration in Washington D.C. that ran on ending NCLB, yet whose only real educational policy so far has been a series of high-profile grants to a handful of states, to build programs that end up costing more money than the grants bring in. To say nothing about the losing states that competed by instituting expensive reforms for which they can’t even begin to pay.
Last year we watched as an entire faculty was indiscriminately fired, most without so much as a single live observation in the previous year, due to the fact that their high-poverty school in Rhode Island had low test scores. Then we watched the L.A. Times publish every teacher’s “score,” based on their students’ test scores. And then when it turned out that the data was shoddy, they refused to retract their story.
And now we have a Republican governor in Wisconsin, with others in Ohio, New Jersey, Indiana and Florida, pushing laws through their State Houses that would effectively end collective bargaining for public employees, including teachers.
Maybe Reg was right. Maybe the folks who penned No Child Left Behind knew exactly what they were doing. They started us on the path of misusing data towards an impossible goal, until the public sees nothing but failing schools, worthless, whining teachers and students who are “Waiting for Superman.”
There is no question that there is a battle going on in this country. On one side are union-busting capitalists who have been waiting for this moment for years. Now their time is ripe; the public is starting to see state employees and their unions – especially the teachers’ unions – as the root of all deficits and an obstacle to all progress. On the other side are teachers and their unions who want nothing more than fair compensation, due process before they get fired, and to have some say in how they do their work.
Make no mistake; union-busters will stop at nothing to get their way. They accused Chavez and his followers of making ordinary Americans pay too much for their food. They called them “un-American communists.” Today’s union-busters accuse anyone in their way, including teachers, of “not caring for children;” using schools as mere places to collect a paycheck. If we really cared about the kids, they say, we would happily work for next to nothing, well into the night, never asking for such luxuries as health care, tenure or a pension.
Please. In how many professions do workers routinely donate two hours of their time daily for the benefit of their clients? In how many professions do workers buy their own office supplies? In how many professions do the workers pay for their own required professional development? In how many professions do the workers use their own money to buy jackets, backpacks, supplies and food for their clients? And by the way, it turns out that students in unionized states actually do better on standardized tests than those in “right to work” states. For what it’s worth.
Union-busters will also shamelessly use the current economic crises to their advantage. Public employees, thanks to their unions, hog the biggest slice of the pie. The only way out of debt is to compromise their unions, ending collective bargaining altogether. Wisconsin’s Governor Walker, poster child of the union-busters, is trying to do just that right now; except for the police and fire-fighter unions, who just happened to support his last campaign. He couldn’t be more disingenuous; his state is actually in far better shape than most, and any fiscal benefit derived from ending collective bargaining wouldn’t be realized for years, if ever. Meanwhile, his state’s teachers’ union has been more than willing to renegotiate the contract, if he would only listen.
It will be a battle, all right, and a tough one to call. It's starting in Wisconsin, but it won't end there. The union-busters definitely have the momentum. And the money. The unions have the numbers, although most of those people either don’t have the time to get involved, the understanding of what’s at stake, or the stomach to hurt their opposition’s feelings.
Yet I think we can do it. I’m cautiously optimistic. I believe it’s possible to stand up to our adversaries with pride and purpose, demand such things as fair compensation, a reasonable number of students, tenure, and the right to have a say in what gets taught. If I could, I'd be on the next flight to Madison. I'd grab the biggest sign I could find, and I'd yell myself hoarse. And then I'd be off to Indiana, Ohio, New Jersey and Florida. And then I'd be in DC this summer, helping my brothers and sisters challenge the federal administration to rewrite NCLB, or scrap it altogether, and focus instead on common-sense accountability and real improvements in our education system.
It won’t be easy, but it’s certainly possible. Or as Cesar used to say,
“Si, se puede.”
Nancy, the fact that people are angry, scared and not wanting to hear what I’m saying should be a clue that I’m trying to engage. It’s not helpful for you to tell me that my problem is that I’m not involved.
I think that the closest thing teachers have to the ABA or AMA is the National Board. Obviously, its voluntary nature makes it fundamentally different, but it has had an impact on teaching standards all the way down to the pre-service level.
And the NEA and AFT were instrumental in getting the National Board started.
I also think we should be careful in our envy for doctors and lawyers. They’ve got their own problems, and it’s hard to argue that the legal system or the healthcare system in this country are more functional than the educational system.
One more thing: Since graduating from the UW twenty-seven years ago, I’ve watched as virtually every one of my classmates buys houses, cars, boats, European vacations, etc., that I can only dream of. I never, EVER thought I’d see the day when the news media describe teachers’ salaries as “bloated,” and our pensions as “cushy.”
Things have certainly changed. And if it’s true that we’re now the lucky ones, well…its about time!
I like Mark’s idea as well. We hear so often about professional teachers who should be respected like doctors or lawyers. But the AMA and ABA is very different than the NEA or AFT. The AMA and ABA has rigorous standards for who gets in and for quality and ethics for who gets to stay and can go after membership and revoke their ability to practice. At this point in time, hardly any states really have the power to do this to a teacher and forget about the NEA or AFT even considering that path.
I don’t think the ABA or AMA model will work for teachers. Quite honestly I don’t think teachers want to be that “professional” and prefer more than a little “labor” in their union. But I do think that the national distaste that has grown toward the teacher unions (largely, I think, out of the economic crisis) would be considerably quelled if the teacher unions crept a little bit closer to the ABA/AMA model and a little bit further from the UAW.
I also think that the tactic to get rules typically bargained for in contract written into state law has created a LESS safe environment for teachers where people are more apt to believe that teachers are occupying privileged positions and where those rights are more susceptible to political pressure. Keep it in the contract.
The labor aspects of the union are of course important as well… but I feel like more could be done from the “professional” side. I see WEA and my building local doing some work in that regard, but I still think the union needs to help remove some of it’s own in order to reaffirm that we’re not just about pensions and benefits, we’re about providing the best teachers possible to every classroom–and removing those who don’t pass muster.
Really great post, Tom. I am one of those guilty of not being very involved in my union. It’s mostly because of having gone to some of the meetings before and hearing so many nit-picky complaints from members about their own personal situations, rather than ideas that affect students and the learning environment. You’re all right, though. We need more people to be in the discussion, and I’m feeling inspired to do so.
Mark, I like your idea about having unions play a role in remediating/removing ineffective teachers. Has that ever been done before in other unions? And I don’t mean strictly teacher unions. Have unions protecting, say… mechanics recommended the removal of a dues paying member because of ineffective work? I don’t think I want to see unions change from being “labor unions,” however, even though I like how “professional guild” sounds. I think this could work because you can make the argument that we’ve all entered a labor contract. I agree to teach and cause students to learn. A teacher who isn’t doing his/her job makes my job harder.
I’m also wondering whether collective bargaining is actually a right the state grants to unions. Because, I think it can be argued that it’s not. There are certain rights we have. We have the right to freedom of speech and to assemble. WE choose to collectively bargain our contracts with our employers. The administration also chooses to negotiate with our union. If collective bargaining is not something a state grants to unions, then it can’t be taken away. After listening to the 20 minute prank call, I noticed Walker is saying that tax payers are paying for union lobbyists, but that also seems wrong. It’s my money I pay to my union to lobby. Taxpayers aren’t giving anything to unions, right? Help me out… am I missing something?
I’d like to see the union aggressively engage in pursuing and remediating/removing ineffective teachers, rather than waiting for “that meeting where you need a union rep.” I’m a building rep, so I’ve served as rep in a handful meetings which were disciplinary in one way or another, but only one was directly related to the effectiveness of a teacher’s instruction.
I think that the UNION ought to be the ones identifying ineffective teachers and then spearheading the drive to (1) offer support/remediation and then (2) hold that teacher to an even higher standard than that teacher’s supervising administrator would. Maybe it ought to be the UNION which goes to the administrator and says “hey, you need to spend a little more time in Mrs. X’s room, we need to see whether she might be a candidate for a plan of improvement.”
When we shift the union’s responsibility from negotiating contracts or reactively ensuring due process per that contract, instead to functioning as a system for proactively ensuring that a quality teacher is in every classroom (including appropriately rewarding and removing those within our own ranks) then I think that the union will be seen less as a “labor union” and more as a “professional guild” as Tom has mentioned in some posts.
Too true. I’ve been to quite a few a few association conventions, both state and national, and as messy as it is, the feeling I always walk away with is “that was us.” We argued for days, but in the end we voted and are now moving forward to put policy into place.
I wish the outspoken among us were more involved in the union.
Thanks for opening a great discussion.
Just sent out a tweet, inviting people to come and read. Quoted you calling Reg Weaver a “fiery little dude.” Hope that’s a good hook.
Here’s what I don’t get about teachers who think that the “union mentality” dominates their building and ruins open discussion about critical issues: Why aren’t they taking leadership roles and expressing themselves? A union doesn’t exist separate from its membership. I made a lot of people in my union suspicious of my unorthodox beliefs, but I also showed up and spoke out–and was willing to work when it was crunch time. (And by unorthodox beliefs, I mean things like the possibility of pay for performance, or starting an in-district charter, to take advantage of looser charter regulations.)
If you’re not in the discussion, you can’t change anybody’s mind. Right?
@Pezz and Jason:
I think the biggest issue in the public’s mind in terms of “what’s wrong with unions” is this whole issue about tenure. In my district it isn’t called tenure, it’s called “a continuing contract.” It basically means that the district has to have a reason to terminate your employment, and they have to go through a certain process to do so. That’s it. I can’t see how anyone can label that as “a job for life.” I’ve seen plenty of teachers lose their jobs – for good reason – even though they have a continuing contract.
It’s a question of balance. Regrettably, not everyone operates in good faith, including administrators. I think there needs to be a check in the system to make sure administrators don’t simply fire those teachers who question how things should be done within a school.
Please remember that “tenure” is defined very differently in different areas of the country. In Washington it simply means “the right to due process,” not “a job for life” as some perceive.
This difference in terminology is not necessarily understood by the public, so the populace thinks it means the same thing everywhere.
Hi Tom,
On CF, I’d just say that the national reporting has been largely pro-union because of how extreme the final outcome appeared to be. A lot of what I’ve heard and seen suggests the blame is far more diffuse than that and I think if you do a little more research it’d be hard to say that the union representation consistently acted in a rational way which matched the interest of their teachers and the students.
On line-by-line contract negotiations– it’s an issue folks are wrestling with across RI right now where districts and school committees have largely struggled to have any talks because they don’t want to do line-by-line negotiating. In fact, a lot of the noise around union-district collaboration in Providence stems from the fact that they agreed for the first time not to do a line-by-line renegotiation.
On collective-bargaining: I think its a right of workers, I have some concerns about it applied in a public-sector context. Mostly, I think the backlash on unions comes from some weird self-hatred Americans have where they push for better treatment for the people they aspire to be and worse treatment for themselves and those worse off. I’m amazed that we don’t think it’s reprehensible that private-sector employees don’t have certain benefits as opposed to being angry public-sector workers have those rights.
Of course, I also don’t think that the definition most public-sector unions have of “due process” is remotely on the planet of rationality nor do I have a single reason to believe that tenure for K-12 teachers is a good thing. But I guess that just means my politics are hard to define.
A couple of things:
1. Here’s Diane Ravitch’s response to her critics following her piece on CNN last week, in which she describes the recent teacher-bashing:
http://www.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/02/22/ravitch.follow.up/index.html
2. In case anyone seriously doubts Governor Scott Walker’s true intentions, here’s a piece on NPR that should change your mind:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/2011/02/23/133996140/wisconsins-gov-walker-takes-prank-call-from-fake-koch-brother
$65,000 is about the top of the pay scale and divided by 180 days is about $360. Multiple that by three and it’s around $1080.
How can losing three days reduce our pay by $1000?
I know they’d be willing to compromise. The whole point of signing two-year collective bargaining agreements is to renegotiate the contract often, recognizing that financial pictures change frequently.
Yesterday in Olympia one of the legislatures I spoke with brought up the idea of shortening the school year by two or three days to free up money to lower class size.
The WEA people in my group were listening, even though it would reduce members’ pay by close to $1000.
Tom, I was impressed with the compromising the Wisconsin union was willing to do. I would be willing to compromise like that. do you think our union would? I don’t know. I fear, based on the current climate, that we’d have more of a Central Falls situation.
Oh, and Brian: Thanks for the song. Loved it! I’m actually not the firebrand, die-hard union-guy that I appear to be in this post. For me the union is something I always want to count on and for which I’ll happily pay my (rather expensive) dues. And from time to time, I put in some hours to make sure it works the way I want it to work. Like today, when the WEA sent me to ask a bunch of legislatures to reduce class size and keep the National Board stipend.
This is exactly the lively discussion I was trying to provoke. Sorry for getting back to it so late. I was actually down in Olympia all day, lobbying the legislature for smaller class sizes. (But that’s for another post.)
Jason and Kristin, you bring up a lot of great points, but let me focus on just four, so this doesn’t end up being another brand-new post.
1. Central Falls. Jason, I’ll have to concede that one. I forgot that the whole ugly debacle happened in your own backyard. Your version, however, does have a far steeper slant than anything else I’ve heard; but I’m sure there’s enough blame to go around. I will say this, though: when districts and unions bargain, unions tend to give a dim view to any extra, unpaid work. That’s been the case since Chavez’ day.
2. Which brings me to Bargaining. You wrote: “When the unions actively engage in pushing for contracts negotiations which move beyond line-by-line adversarial negotiating and instead lays out everyone’s concerns and constraints up front and allows both parties to rethink their relationship to the most mutually beneficial place, I’ll be jumping up and down. This is the kind of stuff that DOES happen and often it’s the unions who push to make it happen.” Start jumping. This accurately describes the way my local and my district get along. I don’t how many bargaining meetings you’ve sat through, but I’ve been to more than I care to remember, and the truth is, both parties have nearly the same interests and the final contract, from the students’ point of view, is better than what either side would wanted. That’s the beautiful thing about collective bargaining: it works!
3. Which brings me to my third point: the future of collective bargaining. Kristin and Jason, I’m not sure you grasp the importance of what’s going on in Wisconsin and elsewhere. When I wrote about “two sides” I didn’t mean two groups of teachers quarrelling in the staff room; I’m talking about teachers who want collective bargaining and people like Governor Walker and the Koch Brothers who want to completely eliminate it. Kristen, you should know that the Wisconsin teachers offered an 8% pay cut as long as they could retain collective bargaining. The governor rejected it. He wants to end collective bargaining, pure and simple, and he’s not alone.
4. Lunch. This is just a personal matter. I eat lunch in the cafeteria every day with my students, for two reasons: it gives me a chance to get to know them in a different, more balanced context, and it’s fun. But if my district told me to do it, I’d stop. And if my union told me not to, I’d keep doing it. People should do what they want to do during their lunch. Period.
One more thing, Jason; I’m just curious: what exactly is it you do in Rhode Island? I gather that you’re not a teacher, but are in administration? Research? Again, I’m just curious.
I can’t imagine working in your building, Kristen. Mine is nothing like yours. We can actually talk about anything we want.
Tom, you make me feel like singing a Woody Guthrie song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HldVI4InSr4
Jason, an excellent, thoughtful response. Thank you.
I am getting worn down by the black and white our side / the wrong side rhetoric.
There are people who won’t even talk to me about educational issues because they’ve decided I’m on the wrong side. Most of these people are very pro-union, and have drawn a line that their imagination can’t seem to cross.
The issues are complicated, so it’s easier to dig a trench and hold one’s position and refuse to give ground than it is to untangle them and work out a solution.
From what I’ve seen, a lot of the pro-union decisions are based on fear, on the fear that if you agree to spend one lunch a week with kids, you’ll soon be required to work every lunch. So they refuse, and when I try to talk to them about it they say things like, “Let’s just work together and not talk about that.” And they say things like, “You’re on the wrong side of this one, I’m afraid.”
Change is not easy. It wasn’t easy for Chavez and his workers. Things are changing now and it’s not easy for us. But they way things have been, with schools insisting that the model that worked in 1922 should still work today if families would just do their part, cannot continue.
Tom, you wrote “On the other side are teachers and their unions who want nothing more than fair compensation, due process before they get fired, and to have some say in how they do their work.” I’m sorry, but that’s part of that side, but not the whole side. I am part of that group that wants those things, but according to the rabid pro-union anti-charter teachers in my building, I’m on the wrong side.
One could also argue that “On the other side are teachers and their unions who expect pay raises despite a failure to show results, consider teaching a way of life owed to them by the state, and refuse to do things differently than they’ve always been done.”
If we in Washington want to avoid what’s happening in Wisconsin, then we need to do a better job of evolving as a union. Refusing to discuss, debate, or compromise isn’t going to work.
I agree with everything Jason said. I am also in the middle, but I am starting to find that those on the Charter / TFA / de-unionize side are more willing to discuss things. They are less likely to race away with conspiracy theories. They don’t make excuses. When I say, “I’m in favor of the union,” they accept that and don’t refuse to talk to me. They’re still in the invention phase, where all solutions are possible, and they’re busy looking for what might work. So many teachers I meet are in the “Tried that, it didn’t work” phase, or the “I can’t do ANYTHING if I have 32 kids” phase. They’re just staying in place until parents improve, class sizes reduce, and funding increases.
Wow, this is even more one-sided than you usually are.
For what it’s worth, and I say this as a Rhode Islander involved in education with intimate knowledge of the Central Falls situation, that situation is not nearly as straight-forward as “everyone is fired!”
First, the administration asked for 6 concessions from the union none of which would have lowered pay or benefits (although some of which would provide only modest gains while asking teachers to spend more time with their students). The union leadership, which has been very powerful since it has stayed relatively stable while many folks cycled through the administration, made the decision that they didn’t want a single change that required any additional time for their teachers unless they would be paid more than they receive for their current equivalent hourly rate. This was done either because they believed the administration would never choose another option or because they were tone deaf to the fact that the city they’re in was about to fall into receivership because there was no money. For whatever reason, without ever going to the teachers to discuss the proposal of the administration, when the administration said we can’t afford that rate the union said forget it.
The administration then called the union’s bluff and chose the “turnaround” model which replaces the school leadership and allows the new leadership to hire back no more than 50% of the staff. This model hardly leads to the “indiscriminant” firing of teachers. It leads to new leadership who have the capability of assessing and hiring back the teachers they feel are the people they want on their team to transform the culture of the school. Now, are some good teachers likely to loose their jobs? Yes. Is it the same thing as saying everyone is fired? Not quite. Is this a horrific thing? I’m not really sure, and I’m not really sure that people in other jobs are protected from this nor that due process would protect you from this. What we have in Central Falls is a school that has struggled to show any positive signs of life for years. They’ve tried just about every reform in the book at various points in the last 10-15 years including giving the teachers near 100% control over the school. Without making a single judgement about the quality of any individual in the building it’s been abundantly clear for years that the team at Central Falls was dysfunctional. Even if every individual in that building was a high quality teacher, together they were unable to come together and succeed. Why is it wrong to say that?
The thing that makes this situation unique is 1) You had particularly modest ideas for transformation that were refused (eat lunch with students 1 day a week, 30min longer school day, one week PD paid in the summer were the main components) and 2) There is no other school in the district which would allow leadership to shuffle the team in the building to get a better mix without firing teachers.
But CF should not serve as some pro-union (of which I am very) clarion call because what it really represents is a totally mindlessly ineffective “bargaining” process (from both sides of the table) in a small city with 0 wiggle-room with which to bargain. CF is a microcosm of all of the dysfunctions of urban schools, including ineffective leadership and ineffective union leaders.
Wisconsin is lunacy, but this post is so filled with conspiracy…
Why is it so bizarre to think that most people out there actually have the ability to realize this situation is more complex than pro- or anti-? Why can’t I be a staunch supporter of the right to organize and collectively bargain yet think charter schools are great and believe that $150 per day for PD in the summer is a ridiculous contract requirement? Why can’t I think it’s not ok for a position in a school to be a lifetime appointment, barring illegal activities, but think that every worker has a right to affordable healthcare? Why can’t I think that overly-cushy pensions are a drain on our systems and bad policy that should be attacked and slashed for any new employee while simultaneously realizing that states have pushed compensation deserved now back for years and years and failed to properly prepare, therefore engineering this “crisis” by not holding up to its end of the bargain?
A call for information about our schools and recognizing that there are outcomes that we want for our kids is not bad. Having/developing the tools to measure effectiveness of districts, schools, interventions, and teachers is not a bad thing. Calling for greater accountability for both administrators and individuals to do a good job in an arena that is plagued with the idea that teachers are all the same and all safe from scrutiny after three years on the job is a good thing. Wanting all workers, not just teachers, to make a decent wage for their hard work and have the safety to know they won’t die sick, broke, and hungry after a lifetime of service tot his world is a good thing.
The problem with most people in education who are “unabashedly pro-union” is that like unions they tend to treat all local affiliates, all contracts, all employees, and all employers a bit too equally for my tastes. When Randi Weingarten flies into a district because the local affiliate is creating deadlock over a term that is objectively unreasonable, unsustainable, and bad for kids and calls them out, I’ll be a huge AFT supporter. When the unions actively engage in pushing for contracts negotiations which move beyond line-by-line adversarial negotiating and instead lays out everyone’s concerns and constraints up front and allows both parties to rethink their relationship to the most mutually beneficial place, I’ll be jumping up and down. This is the kind of stuff that DOES happen and often it’s the unions who push to make it happen. But we’re stuck talking about the “unions” in one broad brush and the truth is some folks shouldn’t get that protection.