Report Release: Teachers Union Presidents Speak on Change

Washington, D.C.—A new Education Sector survey of local teachers union presidents reveals that the leaders of the thousands of local teachers union affiliates who hold the greatest sway over the educational lives of public school teachers and students are focused on far more than the traditional union priorities of wages, hours, working conditions, and due process for their members.

As schools nationwide struggle to recruit the high-quality teachers needed to meet the demands of the No Child Left Behind Act, proposals to reform teacher hiring and compensation are being hotly debated in state capitols and the halls of Congress. Teachers unions, not surprisingly, are at the center of these debates. At the state and national level, the National Education Association (NEA) and American Federation of Teachers (AFT), the two largest unions, have long exerted tremendous influence over education policy.

But it is the presidents of the thousands of local NEA and AFT affiliates who are most influential in the daily lives of public school teachers and students. They represent teachers in contract negotiations, defining local policies and practices ranging from class size and length of the school day to textbook selection and teacher evaluation. Yet we know very little about these local leaders. And we seldom hear their voices in debates about the role that their organizations do and should play in public education and school reform.

In a new Education Sector report, the presidents of 30 local unions in six states speak candidly about their views on issues ranging from reforming teacher pay to coping with the No Child Left Behind Act, new competition from charter schools, and the challenges of leading multiple generations of teachers who don't always see eye to eye.

Harvard Graduate School of Education Professor Susan Moore Johnson and a team of researchers conducted intensive interviews with these presidents for Education Sector. They found that the presidents were not merely focused on the traditional union priorities of wages, hours, working conditions, and due process for their members. "You've got to have more than that," said one president.

These leaders, the Education Sector study reveals, are also focused on such priorities as nontraditional pay structures, professional support for teachers, and more collaborative approaches to collective bargaining.

Read "Leading the Local: Teachers Union Presidents Speak on Change, Challenges."

The Joyce Foundation provided funding for this report. The findings and conclusions are those of the authors alone and do not necessarily represent the opinions of the foundation.

Education Sector is an independent education policy think tank devoted to developing innovative solutions to the nation’s most pressing educational problems. We are nonprofit and nonpartisan, both a dependable source of sound thinking on policy and an honest broker of evidence in key education debates throughout the United States.

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