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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.

"The U.S. working class was slow to respond to the hard times it faced during and after the Great Recession of 2007-2009. Finally, however, in February, 2011, workers in Wisconsin began the famous uprising that electrified the country, revolting in large numbers against Governor Scott Walker's efforts to destroy the state's public employee labor unions.  A few months later, the Occupy Wall Street movement, which supported many working class efforts, spread from New York City to the rest of the nation and the world. Then, in September 2012, Chicago's public school teachers struck, in defiance of Mayor Rahm Emmanuel's attempt to destroy the teachers' union and put the city's schools firmly on the path of neoliberal austerity and privatization. These three rebellions shared the growing awareness that economic and political power in the United States are firmly in the hands of a tiny minority of fantastically wealthy individuals whose avarice knows no bounds. These titans of finance want to eviscerate working men and women, making them as insecure as possible and wholly dependent on the dog-eat-dog logic of the marketplace, while at the same time converting any and all aspects of life into opportunities for capital accumulation."

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.

Is Diane Ravitch a "paid union spokesperson," her famous change of heart inspired by fees from the teachers union? The accusation, levied by the philanthropist and hedge-fund manager Whitney Tilson recently, draws from a new book about the education reform movement by Steven Brill. But the suggestion that she was bought is simply not accurate, Ravitch told GothamSchools.

Recent data shows anti-union school "reformers" hoisted on their own petard. After insisting that test scores should be the chief measure of schools, a flurry of recent test results has refuted claims that non-union charter schools exceed unionized public ones.

I've wrestled a great deal with the question of organized labor, especially in the realm of public education. There's a strong contingent on the right and the left that believes that essentially all of the flaws in our public school system stem from a combination of government inefficiency and union recalcitrance. Some people in the reform movement believe that the only way to affect reform is to sidestep or abolish teachers unions.

In a transparent attempt to punish teachers for organizing union efforts, Michigan Republicans are pushing a bill through the legislature that would prohibit public employees from sending political messages through their work emails. The bill is an attempt to stifle any union-related communication between teachers and other public employees, imposing ridiculously harsh penalties for teachers who send "political" messages

With more than 700 school aides facing their last day at work on Friday barring a last-minute deal, the Bloomberg administration is blaming the school aides' powerful labor union, District Council 37, for not doing enough to prevent the layoffs. A new Web venture featuring news, data and conversation about schools in New York City. The administration's push to assign blame underlines its strained relationship with the union and its executive director, Lillian Roberts. She said she held Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg responsible for the layoffs, calling them "outrageous" and "totally unnecessary," and she has emphasized that they would disproportionately hit the city's lowest-paid workers and poorest school

A Bronx charter school has reached an agreement with the city's teachers union, signing a contract that would grant the teachers and staff at the school modest wage increases and expanded job protection, but unlike their counterparts in unionized city schools, no provision for tenure.

For the past couple of months, Steve Brill's new book has served to step up the eternally-beneath-the-surface hypothesis that teachers' unions are the primary obstacle to improving educational outcomes in the U.S. The general idea is that unions block "needed reforms," such as merit pay and other forms of test-based accountability for teachers, and that they "protect bad teachers" from being fired.

"This is a life-or-death time for the American Federation of Teachers. The July 12-14, 2014, convention reflected both positive movement, and continuing obstacles, for our union. As we take on the challenges we all face with the opening of schools, we AFT members will face both from our union. Much will depend on how successfully we get our union to respond."

The mayor wants to give his hand-picked superintendent the power to reassign bad teachers, reshape failing schools and stagger class times without union contract barriers. Mayor Frank Jackson, the only Ohio mayor who controls schools through an appointed board, angered fellow Democrats and the party's labor allies by challenging timeworn teacher union contracts. "What we will not accept is incremental change or the belief that everything is OK and we should continue down the same path," he said in a city hall interview. "That is not acceptable to us."

I find myself asking that question right now as the result of reading an op ed in today's USA Today.  It has the title Column: 3 ways to improve the USA's teacher, and it is jointly written by Dennis Van Roekel, national President of the National Education Union, the teachers union for which I am a building representative, and Wendy Kopp, founder and Chief Executive Officer of Teach for America (TFA  -USA Today incorrectly identifies that organization as "Teach for All").

Regrettably, with the onset of the New Year, the debate on how to improve our public schools and student learning was once again marked by baseless attacks and a relentless effort to demonize teachers and the unions that represent them. Last week, Mayor Bloomberg repeatedly attacked the United Federation of Teachers (UFT) in his State of the City address over issues like holding teachers accountable and paying some teachers more if student test scores go up. MSNBC's "Morning Joe," picked up the next day where the Mayor left off and attacked teachers unions for "being out of touch" and supporting "mediocrity." Both are ridiculous and uninformed statements. Sadly, the Mayor and our newscasters should know better.

Los Angeles Unified School District is embroiled in negotiations over teacher evaluations, and will now face pressure from outside the district intended to force counter-productive teacher evaluation methods into use.  Yesterday, I read this  Los Angeles Times article a lawsuit to be filed by an unnamed "group of parents and education advocates."  The article notes that, "The lawsuit was drafted in consultation with EdVoice, a Sacramento-based group. Its board includes arts and education philanthropist Eli Broad, former ambassador Frank Baxter and healthcare company executive Richard Merkin."  While the defendant in the suit is technically LAUSD, the real reason a lawsuit is necessary according to the article is that "United Teachers Los Angeles leaders say tests scores are too unreliable and narrowly focused to use for high-stakes personnel decisions."  Note that, once again, we see a journalist telling us what the unions say and think, without ever, ever bothering to mention why, offering no acknowledgment that the bulk of the research and the three leading organizations for education research and measurement (AERA, NCME, and APA) say the same thing as the union (or rather, the union is saying the same thing as the testing expert).  Upon what research does the other side base arguments in favor of using test scores and "value-added" measurement (VAM) as a legitimate measurement of teacher effectiveness?  They never answer, but the debate somehow continues ad nauseum.  

SKDKnickerbocker (SKD) is one of the top firms providing outside assistance to labor coalitions while raking in hundreds of thousands of dollars for work to undermine organized labor, particularly teachers unions. Led by Anita Dunn, a former White House communications director and current Democratic Party advisor, SKD has spearheaded state-based campaigns for Students First, the anti-teacher's union charter and school privatization group founded by former Chancellor of DC Public Schools Michelle Rhee.

"Solution-driven unionism is rooted in solving problems, not winning arguments. AFT affiliates are pursuing this approach, and we are encouraging many more to follow suit. We know that this tough climate-marked by increasing poverty, continuing budget cuts, and a recession-fueled resurgence in attacks on unions and public services-can't stop us from having a proactive quality education agenda. To the contrary-while we will continue to fight for the resources children need, we must also devise innovative, creative and new approaches to help all children succeed."

"In this post on reclaiming the conversation on education I offer strong views on the need to reorganize and redirect the American Federation of Teachers and the National Educational Association if these unions are to survive as a meaningful force for and ally of public education. I believe teachers and their unions have the potential to be agents for progressive educational and social change, but I am not sure that they will. It means taking risks that the organizations so far do not appear willing to make."

"The sharp decline in U.S. union membership over the past 30-40 years is well known, but does it reflect a change in attitudes towards organized labor? In other words, is decreasing union membership accompanied by decreasing support for labor?"

"During the recent debates over public employees' collective bargaining rights, especially around the Wisconsin protests, I heard a few people argue that Republican governors are intent on destroying public sector unions, at least in part, because union members are more likely to vote - and to vote Democratic."