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I bet you never thought you would see the words collective bargaining and charter schools in the same headline, but a new study came out this week from the Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE) located at the University of Washington. The study is titled, "Are Charter School Unions Worth the Bargain?" Mitch Price, legal analyst for CRPE, is the author with a forward from Robin J. Lake. It is worth the read. The study looked at collective bargaining agreements from 10 charter schools. Yes, there is collective bargaining at some charter schools. The study indicated that as of 2009-10, 604 of the 4,315 charter schools have collective bargaining. That is about 12% of all charter schools. The National Education Association represents 76% of those schools, and the American Federation of Teachers represents 11%. The remaining 13% are shared through merger of the two unions.

Three years after Barack Obama's election signaled a seeming resurgence for America's unions, the landscape looks very different. Republican governors in Wisconsin, Indiana, and Ohio have limited the reach of collective bargaining for public employees. The moves, especially in Wisconsin, set off a national furor that has all but obscured the underlying debate as it relates to schooling: Should public-employee collective bargaining be reined in or expanded in education? Is the public interest served by public-sector collective bargaining? If so, how and in what ways? Arguing in this forum for more expansive collective bargaining for teachers is Richard D. Kahlenberg, senior fellow at The Century Foundation and author of Tough Liberal: Albert Shanker and the Battles over Schools, Unions, Race and Democracy. Responding that public-employee collective bargaining is destructive to schooling and needs to be reined in is Jay P. Greene, chair of the Department of Education Reform at the University of Arkansas and author of Education Myths.

Some people must have been startled by President Obama's decision to draw a line in the sand on collective bargaining in his jobs speech to the Congress last week. Specifically, the President said: "I reject the idea that we have to strip away collective bargaining rights to compete in a global economy." Given the current anti-union tenor of many prominent Republicans, started by Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, it seems pretty clear that worker rights is shaping up to be a hot-button issue in the 2012 campaign. Collective bargaining rights as presidential campaign plank? It wasn't that long ago that anything to do with unions was considered to be an historic anachronism - hardly worth a major Republican presidential candidate's trouble to bash. Times have changed.

Admittedly, defending teachers' collective bargaining rights is a challenge when the vast majority of private sector workers are currently not union members. I do not claim to know what is best for non-union laborers in their own lines of work. However, I unapologetically believe that protecting teacher union rights is vital to the long-term future of quality public education.

Michelle Rhee spent nearly $1M in ad buys to defeat  due process and collective bargaining rights for teachers in Michigan. Rhee's group outspent all other Michigan lobbyists in 2011.  She teamed up with ultra-right wing legislators, Gov. Rick Snyder, and  her billionaire funders,  launching a Madison Avenue-style advertising campaign that bought her results

Michigan sometimes gets short shrift in school reform news, what with all of the publicity given this year to Wisconsin - where some Democratic legislators left the state to avoid a vote on Gov. Scott Walker's efforts to restrict collective bargaining rights of teachers - and to Ohio, where Gov. John Kasich just saw voters repeal his effort to curb collective bargaining for public sector workers. But it shouldn't. Michigan's legislature this year has been considered a host of Republican-sponsored bills that public school advocates see as attacks on schools and teachers.

"NASHVILLE -- The state Senate voted 18-14 Monday night to end 33 years of collective bargaining by teachers in Tennessee."

The State of Michigan is currently considering a bill that would limit collective bargaining rights among teachers. Under the proposal, paying dues would be optional. This legislation, like other so-called "right to work" laws, represents an attempt to defund and create divisions within labor unions, which severely weakens teachers' ability to bargain fair contracts, as well as the capacity of their unions to advocate on behalf of of public schools and workers in general.

Detroit teachers could go out on strike this fall as the result of a new contract imposed on the union Sunday by Detroit Public Schools Emergency Manager Roy Roberts. Although contracts are usually negotiated between DPS and the Detroit Federation of Teachers (DFT), the emergency manager law, Public Act 4, allows Roberts to bypass the collective bargaining process, unilaterally determining the terms of employment for DPS teachers. The union's previous contract expired at the end of June. Roberts is waiting for DFT to inform its membership before he makes details of the new contract public.

"While several states have recently limited the ability for teacher unions to collectively bargain for their members, teachers will continue to flex their political muscle in a way scholars of policymaking have overlooked: through their pocketbooks, says a Baylor University political scientist."

Increased spending and decreased student performance have been attributed in part to teachers' unions and to the collective bargaining agreements (CBAs) they negotiate with school boards. However, only recently have researchers begun to examine impacts of specific aspects of CBAs on student and district outcomes. This article uses a unique measure of contract restrictiveness generated through the use of a partial independence item response model to examine the relationships between CBA strength and district spending on multiple areas and district-level student performance in California. I find that districts with more restrictive contracts have higher spending overall, but that this spending appears not to be driven by greater compensation for teachers but by greater expenditures on administrators' compensation and instruction-related spending. Although districts with stronger CBAs spend more overall and on these categories, they spend less on books and supplies and on school board-related expenditures. In addition, I find that contract restrictiveness is associated with lower average student performance, although not with decreased achievement growth.

Efforts by state legislators to curtail collective bargaining or destroy public-sector unions, abolish tenure, and decrease funding for education are spreading throughout the country. The scapegoating and vilification of unions and teachers, however, are not new. The current attacks have historical parallels, when cries of "Communist subversion" were used in New York City to silence dissenting voices in academia and to weaken faculty and teacher unionism.

Earlier this week it was reported that the Michigan Legislature had gone "berserk." Today, they continued their "berserk" assault on workers in Michigan by pushing forward with a series of bills that strip workers of basic protections. On a close 55-53 vote today, the MI House passed HB 4929 which prohibits the deduction of union dues by public school employers. The bill was fast-tracked through the House after being introduced Tuesday. I don't know about you, but I'm glad they took the time to think through legislation that will impair the ability of teachers to collectively bargain and protect their rights and the conditions of their classrooms. Tell me how this improves education?  Tell me how this creates jobs?  Tell me how this "puts more money in my pocket?"

"Okay, you've won! Tenure has been abolished. There are no limits on charters, and vouchers are available to all takers. Collective bargaining is a thing of the past. The dreaded fire-breathing dragon union now resembles a salamander. Governors, state legislatures, mayors and editorial boards, who've claimed that they can turn around the dismally depressing performance levels in our urban inner cities -- if only these vestiges of the past were abolished -- have had their way. But some questions remain, because as Colin Powell once said when referring to post-war Iraq, the "Pottery Barn Rule" now applies. That is, "you break it, you own it." So it might be useful if we ask the victors some questions about the new education landscape now that the "War on Entrenched Teachers & Unions" has been brought to a successful conclusion."

What has happened in the past two years? Let's see: Race to the Top promoted the idea that teachers should be evaluated by the test scores of their students; "Waiting for 'Superman'" portrayed teachers as the singular cause of low student test scores; many states, including Wisconsin, Florida, Louisiana, Michigan, Indiana, and Ohio have passed anti-teacher legislation, reducing or eliminating teachers' rights to due process and their right to bargain collectively; the Obama administration insists that schools can be "turned around" by firing some or all of the staff. These events have combined to produce a rising tide of public hostility to educators, as well as the unfounded beliefs that schools alone can end poverty and can produce 100 percent proficiency and 100 percent graduation rates if only "failing schools" are closed, "bad" educators are dismissed, and "effective" teachers get bonuses. Is it any wonder that teachers and principals are demoralized?

While Governor Malloy's proposal to ban collective bargaining at Commissioner's Network schools is appalling and inappropriate, the notion of turning a public district school over to a charter school company should be rejected because, despite what Mr. Green claims, Connecticut's charter schools DO NOT have a proven track record when it comes to serving the broader community. Charter schools may be a "successful" model for a sub-set of parents, who want their children to attend a certain type of program, and local legislators have every right to support those parents, but district schools must take every child who walks through the door; the facts make it extraordinarily clear that charter schools do not do that.

If you're an educator, a parent, a student or anyone who cares about public education, you should know that ALEC, the radical conservative lobbying group, is eyeing your throat. The American Legislative Exchange Council has been drawing drams of lifeblood from the public school system for decades, but now that it has disbanded its controversial Public Safety and Elections Task Force (read "More Guns and Fewer Democratic Voters Committee") it is expected to redouble its efforts to decrease local control of schools by parents and elected school boards, privatize public school jobs, funnel public dollars to private entities, and limit or destroy the collective bargaining rights educators rely on to advocate for students.

Teachers can expected unannounced observations to factor into their annual ratings under the terms of the evaluations agreement that Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced today. The unannounced observations are one of several ways that the State Education Department and state teachers union, NYSUT, agreed to flesh out the state's 2010 evaluation law, seen as so open-ended as to stymie implementation. The agreement, which Cuomo is set to turn into law through the state budget amendment process, resolves some major points of contention while continuing to leave many elements of districts' evaluation system subject to local collective bargaining. Districts and their unions have until the end of 2012 to turn the framework into a local evaluation system, or risk losing state aid.

"The world's largest private-sector employer and the country's most prominent conservative entertainment company have teamed up to sponsor a fundraiser called "Teachers Rock." Backed by Walmart and Anschutz Film Group, the August 14 event will feature live performances from musicians like Josh Groban and appearances from actresses like Viola Davis; it will be broadcast August 17 as a CBS special with messages from actresses like Meryl Streep. And it will promote the upcoming feature film Won't Back Down, Anschutz's entry in the "education reform" wars. Won't Back Down is reportedly a highly sympathetic fictional portrayal of "parent trigger" laws, a major flashpoint in debates over education and collective bargaining. Under such laws, the submission of signatures from a majority of parents in a school triggers a "turnaround option," which can mean the replacement of a unionized school with a non-union charter. Such laws have been passed in several states, but due to court challenges, the "trigger" process has never been fully implemented."

"Chicago teachers are fighting not just for fair pay and decent health care but for a host of things that will improve education for Chicago kids-smaller classes, needed books and teaching materials, comfortable and well-maintained schools. But they're running into a buzz saw of well-organized, well-funded opposition from the massive anti-teacher, pro-corporate education policy world. Teachers don't have the money or the media platform that Wall Street billions and Mayor Rahm Emanuel will get you, which is why they need our help and support. What we're seeing in Chicago is the fallout from Jonah Edelman's hedge fund backed campaign to elect Illinois state legislators who supported an anti-collective bargaining, testing based education proposal giving Edelman the "clear political capability to potentially jam this proposal down [the teachers unions'] throats," political capability he used as leverage to jam an only slightly less awful proposal down their throats. It's a political deal that explicitly targeted Chicago teachers, while trying to make it impossible that they would strike by requiring a 75 percent vote of all teachers, not just those voting, for a strike to be legal. But more than 90 percent of Chicago teachers voted to strike. It's not just Jonah Edelman, though. Rahm Emanuel worked with a tea party group to promote Chicago charter schools and denigrate traditional public school teachers and their unions."