The Teacher as Union Member and Professional Educator: The Continuing Challenge of Bread and Butter and Professionalism

ABSTRACT

Teachers are central to education;they stand at the crossroads of education. It is chiefly through their efforts that the goals of education are achieved or thwarted. Susan Moore Johnson, Harvard Graduate School Professor of Education, sagely wrote just over 30 years ago, "Who Teaches Matters” (Teachers at work Achieving success in our schools. Basic Books, New York, 1990, p. xii). Eric Hanushek concurs writing, "First, teachers are very important;no other measured aspect of schools is nearly as important in determining student achievement” (The economic value of higher teacher quality. National Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research, Calder The Urban Institute, Washington, DC, 2010, p. 3). The COVID-19 pandemic with its shutdown of many schools brought to the forefront the importance of teachers interacting with their students in classroom settings. Try as the teachers may, their virtual presence was a questionable substitute for the personal dynamics created by teachers with their students. Teachers consider themselves to be professionals, providing a fundamental service, and seek to present themselves to the public as professionals. Juxtaposed to the critical importance of the teacher is the fact that public school teachers are part of a heavily unionized workforce. For some, there is a challenge between being a professional educator and being a member of a union. Dana Goldstein, in The Teacher Wars A History of America's Most Embattled Profession, asked, "Could unionized teachers fight for their own interests as workers for the educational interests of the city's children? Or were those two priorities at odds?" (The teacher wars a history of America's most embattled profession. Doubleday, New York, 2014, p. 74). Essentially, is unionization organized in a way that supports the professionalism of teachers? DeMitchell and Cobb, in their study of unions and teacher professionalism, ask, "[Are] teacher unionism and collective bargaining compatible with teacher perceptions of professionalism?" (West's Educ Law Reporter 2121-20, 2006, p. 19). This chapter explores the challenges of unions and teachers in developing and sustaining the union, which balances the traditional and legitimate responsibility that unions owe to the educators they represent while supporting the professional responsibility of the teachers to act in the best interests of their students. The discussion will begin with an exploration of professionalism - what does it mean to be a professional. Next, the rise of teacher unionization and the divergent paths of the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers in relation to professionalism and unionization will be discussed. The organizing principle of the emerging state collective bargaining laws formats public sector laws consistent with the industrial union model of private sector unionization and the impact of industrial unionism on teachers and teaching. The chapter concludes with a review of DeMitchell and Cobb's research on the tangled fit of being both a union member and a professional educator. © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022.