Today’s speech by Randi Weingarten of the AFT exemplifies what’s wrong with teachers unions and their control over America’s education system. Randi made news today by announcing that she’d be willing to incorporate student test data in teacher evaluations-but she also listed a litany of other things (including “portfolios”) that should be included.

I’m not impressed.

I simply don’t see why the concept of putting student learning first is so challenging for Ms. Weingarten. Her attempts to pacify those who want to see bad teachers removed from the classroom and off of the public payroll lack specifics. What will she do to remove the stranglehold that her union has over principals across America when it comes to terminating the employment of people who cannot teach - so that we can rightly elevate and compensate those teachers who can? What I see is an ‘our way or no way’ approach by the AFT that neither benefits children to the fullest nor serves the best interests of her members.

Finally, any speech on “reform” by Ms. Weingarten is specious, given that her union claims to want the “best” schools for children. This can’t be true, or else she and her allies would be fighting for school choice programs, not standing in the schoolhouse doors blocking the exits for low-income children.

Randi Weingarten fails to impress once again.

Folks have been fawning over Randi Weingarten’s seeming embrace of education reform since her National Press Club speech in November, and Dana Goldstein has a must-read profile of the AFT/UFT president in the latest American Prospect.

Weingarten’s media makeover has served her well, leading many to do as Goldstein has and give her credit for talking the talk.

But that’s not the whole story.

For reformers, the real definition of reform - which we helped give life to in 1993 - is much more cut and dry than what is expounded here. Quite simply:

- The status quo embraces the existing system, and while members of the status quo will often advocate for policy or program changes, none of what they endorse will fundamentally change the balance of power between producer and consumer.

- Conversely, real reformers seek to fundamentally replace what is known as the school system with a system of schools that is accountable to those in power at each school, as well as to the parents, in whose hands the ultimate fate of their children depends.

By this definition, Randi Weingarten doesn’t even approach the notion of a reformer. On the continuum between status quo and reform, she has barely passed go.

That’s what the union wants KIPP to be - Nice. In the opinion of the American Federation of Teachers, “nice” means giving them what they want, regardless of whether it’s good for kids. Through its NYC affiliate, the AFT has launched a campaign to pressure the leadership of KIPP AMP Academy’s Brooklyn campus to accept the union as the leader of its teachers. KIPP hasn’t moved to recognize the union, so its leaders are striking back.

Be Nice, they say in a new PR campaign. It’s a clever turn of phrase on the motto of the Knowledge is Power Program, the nationwide network that has re-educated thousands of children nationwide who had been failed miserably by conventional public schools. But they are missing something. “Work Hard” is how the motto begins. “Work Hard, Be Nice.” The two phrases go together. Deliberately. That’s what the teachers who now want a break signed up to do - Work Hard. We wonder -is it nice to take a job in a school that you know requires long hours and arduous work, and then go behind the backs of your leadership and fellow teachers and ask a militant national union to come in and rob children of the first opportunity they’ve ever had to learn?

As in most of the charter schools that came before and since KIPP, success comes precisely because of their independence from onerous contracts and the flexibility afforded by the charter to be able to design programs without top down interference. KIPP sets an ambitious path for staff and students – 7:30 to 5:30 every weekday, Saturday work and summer requirements. That’s one key reason their students perform exceptionally well, despite their disadvantages, the same disadvantages that other public schools blame for their own students’ failure.

“Work Hard”? Those teachers who wanted the union have complained to the newspapers that they are working long hours, and that their complaints go unaddressed. They’ve convinced colleagues to seek unionization, but must have forgotten that they chose to work at KIPP. They weren’t assigned there, as happens to so many union teachers in the conventional system. They got on board voluntarily. They could pick from thousands of NY schools that have traditional days/rules/requirements and unions. But they didn’t. They chose KIPP, and so maybe they should choose to leave KIPP, rather than seek to make KIPP like too many other public schools that do everything the same, and fail as a result.

In charter schools that succeed, the adults are focused not on themselves, but on what they can do better – constantly - to meet their performance goals. Unlike the status quo they left, the adults have agreed that student achievement is the reason for schools. That alone should be the driving concern for all complaints. It’s what has made most teachers love being in charters. But they are not for everyone. Clearly.

The teachers unions have been attempting to get their foot in the door in any state where collective bargaining is optional. It’s important to recall that not one charter bill in any state had the support of the unions when it was passed, unless it included their requirements for unionization. A few deals have been struck to ward off their opposition over time, like the rule in New York that says any school that starts with over 250 students is automatically part of the union. Most charters therefore, start with fewer, on purpose. The response by the union is to scatter loyal unionists in charters – to whip up discontent and cause suspicion where there may have been none. Honest people can begin to believe the worst about someone unless they remind themselves about the best.

And so they seek to cajole and convince others that KIPP doesn’t respect its teachers, and launch a campaign to encourage all charter teachers to write KIPP and encourage them to “Be Nice”. How about the kids? Is it nice to change the environment in which students are learning by creating dissension among teachers?   Where is the “Work Hard” part? That seems to be the part that some of the teachers at KIPP didn’t like, and that resulted in their demand for uniformity and protection through a union contract. Is that nice? Nope. That’s called selfish.

As the founder of the union running the Be Nice campaign once said, ”When school children start paying union dues, that’s when I’ll start representing the interests of school children.” That’s the reality everyone needs to understand. This is about dues, not kids. And that’s the part that’s not nice.

Knowledge is power, KIPP’s moniker, might need to be more aptly applied to the parent company’s involvement and understanding of local school issues. The knowledge of what was afoot in two more of their NYC schools to convince teachers there to unionize may have helped them avert the rising mediocrity that will no doubt color this otherwise No Excuses school model. One wonders what campaign was hatched to convince so many KIPPsters that a regulatory environment would be preferable to the freedom they now enjoy.

Union leaders in NYC blogging yesterday provide some clues:

In a letter delivered to co-principals Jeff Li and Melissa Perry this morning, the teachers said that they had decided to unionize in order to secure teacher voice and respect for the work of teachers in their school. We want “to ensure that the [KIPP] motto of ‘team and family’ is realized in the form of mutual respect and validation for the work that is done [by teachers] each day,” they wrote.

The letter stressed that the decision to organize was directly connected to the teachers’ commitment to their students. “[A] strong and committed staff,” the teachers wrote, “is the first step to student achievement.” Unionization, the teachers believe, will help create the conditions for recruiting and retaining such a staff.

“We organized to make sure teachers had a voice, and could speak their minds on educational matters without fearing for their job,” says KIPP AMP teacher Luisa Bonifacio.

“For us,” KIPP AMP teacher Emily Fernandez explains, “unionization is ultimately all about student achievement, and the ability of teachers to best serve students at this crucial middle school time in their education.”

Mutual respect and validation?

Unionization is all about student achievement?

This isn’t the way typical charter teachers talk. In fact, it’s the way union teachers who take jobs in charters talk to their potential prey.

More “Unionization = Student Achievement?”

Newsweek’s Jonathan Alter was ahead of the reform curve in media coverage back when it was not a popular thing to do. He’s been an avid fan of great models that provide at least some power to parents, and lots of freedom from bureaucracy. He understands the problems with unions. He even uses the language I put forth four years ago when talking about what was once called “traditional” public education and instead describes it as “conventional,” which is more to the point.

Alter’s column this week puts some heft behind the selection of Denver, CO superintendent Michael Bennet to be Ed Secretary. Could we really have another Bennett in that office? We could have a lot of fun with comparisons, but for now, we’re struck by the uncritical gaze that the otherwise keen Alter has given to both Bennet – and his interviewee of the week - Bill Gates.

Both in Alter’s estimation are reformers. He says Gates told him he believes in merit pay – and yet I’m not fully aware of any policy groups that strongly push for performance based pay changes in law which Gates is throwing money behind. The Gates Foundation is financially and morally supportive of the work of Michelle Rhee and Joel Klein and clearly Michael Bennet. But what superintendents can do is limited unless their state legislatures make it easier for them to free teachers from contract rules that limit pay and operational structures. Put in layman’s terms, it is state law that often dictates what supers do – state laws that teachers’ unions fiercely lobby for and against. We’re all for in-system reform – but one shouldn’t expect every super to be as heroic – or crazy – as reformers like Rhee, et al to make change. There simply aren’t enough of them out there.

More “Not So Fast (Part 2)”