REFORM: Union Overkill In Charter Schools?

"Calling in the union [at KIPP AMP] is like calling in the National Guard...when children throw sand in the sand box."

Unpublished letter to the editor by Harvard education professor Kay Merseth
Full text below.

It’s about Communication, Not Freedom.

The recent ‘dust-up’ at the KIPP AMP Charter School (Charter Schools Weigh Freedom Against the Protection of a Union, April 21) is more about failed communication between teachers and administrators than it is about bread and butter union issues like workers’ rights, working hours, or rates of pay.

Hard working, dedicated teachers don’t need bureaucratic unions to improve communication with administrators. Indeed, involving the union with their pages and pages of lengthy, often incomprehensible contracts that have little to say about educating children obfuscates rather than clarifies the work of teachers.

Teachers and administrators should focus on the important work of educating children and act like adults, not squabbling siblings. Engaging the union in charters will only serve to distract teachers. Calling in the union is like calling in the National Guard to solve a dispute when children throw sand in the sand box.

Katherine K. Merseth
Senior Lecturer Harvard Graduate School of Education
And author of Inside Successful Urban Charter Schools (Harvard Ed Press, 2009)