The Cleveland school district is working out the details of a proposed “transformation plan” to improve several of the city’s lower performing schools. One part of the plan is to allow “Breakthrough Schools,” an umbrella organization of four area charter schools, to take over management of the troubled public schools.
The problem is that the Cleveland Teachers Union (AFT) is insisting that the schools continue to be staffed with union teachers.
It’s called destruction through infiltration. The unions long ago gave up the idea of trying to kill the charter movement by preventing the alternative schools from opening. Now they want to force them out of business by forcing the union model on them.
“If they operate in the Cleveland schools, working with the Cleveland kids, they ought to be our members,” union President David Quolke told the Cleveland Plain Dealer. “We represent teachers in the Cleveland schools.”
Perry White, executive director of one of the Breakthrough charter schools, does not agree.
“The overriding question is how will having a teachers union improve on our ability to educate all of our children and make sure they’re ready to graduate from college?” White said. “We respect that they represent the interests of teachers. We represent the interests of students.”
We believe White summed up the situation perfectly.
One of the main reason charter schools exist is because traditional public schools, with their union teachers, have failed to get the job done. Many experts believe that forcing charters to employ union teachers will destroy their very nature, and weigh them down with the kind of workplace rules and expenses that traditional plague public schools.
Eugene Sanders, chief executive director of the Cleveland school district, said he will allow the charter school managers and the teachers to decide if the union should organize the buildings. We believe Sanders is making a mistake by leaving the door open to the teachers unions.
If Sanders wants the folks from Breakthrough Schools to fix a few of the traditional schools, he should allow them to run the schools the way they see fit. The new managers should not be bogged down by the presence of a union that disapproves of charter schools in the first place.
Sanders should tell the union to stand aside and allow the charters to try it their way, to see if the students respond positively. The kids of Cleveland deserve this chance, whether the unions like it or not.
[...] expansion of charter schools across the U.S. and trace the major factors in this important …Cleveland plan could be ruined by union presence AFTexposedThe unions long ago gave up the idea of trying to kill the charter movement by preventing the [...]