Unions serve their members' interests. But union members are also community members, and their interests go well beyond increasing pay and benefits. A local union president has found that his members are best served by participating in a community-wide coalition. Providing eyeglasses to needy students, promoting healthy eating, and increasing…

While the teacher shortage is a national crisis, the manifestations of the shortage are felt most acutely at the local district level. The diversity of these micro-contexts often leads to disparities in the ways local school systems are served by large-scale initiatives. District leaders provide an important lens for understanding the localized…

The original vision of a charter school called for heavy doses of professional teacher contribution throughout all aspects of curriculum and administration. Unfortunately, that is not how charter schools have evolved. Until now. The Minnesota Guild of Public Charter Schools is the first union-sponsored entity created for the sole purpose of…

This November, California voters must decide two policy questions of great concern to public-sector unions. One is a tax hike to stave off further cuts to state spending (there are two versions on the ballot with a chance of passing). The other is a "paycheck protection" measure that would ban the practice of unions' deducting money from…

The teacher empowerment process emphasizes professional development and participation (i.e., increasing professional status, skills, knowledge and providing the opportunity to participate in decision-making); however, whether these efforts eventually lead to the realization of teacher power remains a critical concern, especially considering that…

Performance-based compensation systems have been under discussion for years and are now a required component of any state plan for Race to the Top funds. This article describes a system of performance-based compensation that has been in place at a K-12 school for the past four years. The system was developed by a team of teachers, union members,…

The expansion of charter schools--publicly funded, yet in direct competition with traditional public schools--has emerged as a favored response to poor performance in the education sector. While a large and growing literature has sought to estimate the impact of these schools on student achievement, comparatively little is known about demand for…

In this article, the author has equated the principal's relationship with the president of the teachers' union as a dance where each wants to lead and yet there is, as in most relationships, a mutual dependency that makes each person realize that there is a time when one leads and a time when one follows. The author presents the details of when…

Scholars have long argued that civic organizations play a vital role in developing members' civic capacity. Yet few empirical studies examine how and the extent to which civic skills transfer across distinct and separate civic contexts. Focusing on Latino immigrant members of a Los Angeles janitors' labor union, this article fills a void by…

Why are America's public schools falling so short of the mark in educating the nation's children? Why are they organized in ineffective ways that fly in the face of common sense, to the point that it is virtually impossible to get even the worst teachers out of the classroom? And why, after more than a quarter century of costly education reform,…

The largest political campaign spender in America is not a megacorporation, such as Wal-Mart, Microsoft, or ExxonMobil. It isn't an industry association, like the American Bankers Association or the National Association of Realtors. It's not even a labor federation, like the AFL-CIO. If one combines the campaign spending of all those entities it…

School systems sometimes make promises they have no intention of keeping. Other times, they can deliver a world of opportunities to the neediest children. They may or may not want to listen to parents or even teachers, but school systems always attend to the demands of the most powerful individuals and institutions in their communities. For the…

Across the United States, policymakers are increasingly adopting education policies that give families the power to choose their children's schools. Nonetheless, the idea of providing school vouchers to allow children to attend private schools remains controversial. For instance, congressional leaders and the Obama Administration have tried to end…

Every day, 14 retired teachers and other school employees arrive at the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers' headquarters and go to work for Hillary Rodham Clinton. The retirees--working with volunteers and union staff members from as far away as Alaska--are working to inform teachers' union members why the American Federation of Teachers (AFT)…

Paying teachers varying amounts on the basis of how well their students perform is an idea that has been winning increasing support, both in the United States and abroad, and many school systems have adopted some version of it. Proponents claim that linking teacher pay to student performance is a powerful way to encourage talented and highly…