As the revolution in Egypt unfolds, it has been interesting to watch the role of unions in the uprising. Egypt had unions all along, but they were sponsored by the state and, as such, were ineffective. The movement appears largely centered around workers, with professionals taking to the streets in a unified manner, including doctors in white coats and lawyers in robes. Granted Egyptians were marching for fundamental freedom from oppression, but the solidarity of professionals in the revolution has been telling. The spirit and strength of “union” has been heard.
It was in this nexus of increased union organizing in the Middle East and the union-bashing antics of the education pseudo-reformers in America that a particular book caught my attention. The book is titled Women Don’t Ask: Negotiation and the Gender Divide, by Linda Babcock and Sara Laschever.
The website for the book sets the stage, stating, “It turns out that whether they want higher salaries or more help at home, women often find it hard to ask. Sometimes they don't know that change is possible--they don't know that they can ask. Sometimes they fear that asking may damage a relationship. And sometimes they don't ask because they've learned that society can react badly to women asserting their own needs and desires.”
All societies are built around institutions. Institutions of government and military, social institutions such as the media, and the institution of education. The thing with institutions is that they have inertia. They tend to continue in the same direction no matter who is at the helm. This is why candidate Obama’s message of hope was, well, a little hopeful. Not only are institutions harder to steer than a large oil tanker, they also perpetuate the ills of society, including racism and sexism.
The book caught my eye for two reasons. First, unions are powerful negotiating institutions. Unions provide a buffer between the inertia of the institution and the worker. Yes, I did say that the unions themselves are institutions and yes this can be problematic, but in general the members of a union value the collective strength of negotiation over the nimbleness of individuality. That is why in times of revolt, such as in Egypt, organization plays a key role.
Secondly, the hypothesis put forth in the book that females do not enjoy negotiating is an example of institutional inertia perpetuating an inequity. The system discriminates against the success of women. No one is at fault, the system is just set up for failure.
Our current education system is set up for failure in many ways as well. The possibilities for institutionalized discrimination are great, and while the losses may not be directly measureable in salaries, students are losing out on opportunities to experience success.
If the inertia of an institution grows too large, its mass becoming too unwieldy, then it will and should be allowed to break apart. “Too big to fail” is not a recipe for change and growth. The education system is big and it is broken and it needs to be rebuilt. Teacher unions are also big and powerful and have inertia, but they are not the institution that needs changing. In fact, it is institutions like unions that help offset the inequities of society.
Union-bashing is simply a distraction, enough so, darn it, that I keep finding myself writing in defense of unions when that isn’t really my interest in education at all! The tactic is working I guess, at least on me.
So to refocus on education, I suggest the following: Education reform needs to focus on making the institution more nimble and more equitable to better serve the needs of all students. Adding layer upon layer of testing and accountability does not achieve this. Taking away teachers’ rights does not achieve this. In fact, teachers need to be given more professional power to make informed and experienced decisions for the benefit of their students. Teachers need to be accountable to each other and their communities, not to layers of government.
While Republicans usually shy away from adding more layers of government and regulations, they, along with the Democrats, seem to have no problem in doing this when it comes to education. Many of the current reforms are just adding to the institutional inertia of education and placing more and more inequities on teachers.
There is one area of deregulation that has the support of these factions - charter schools. Charter schools are a favorite of the pseudo-reformers because they give schools more freedom to operate. They can also be privatized, which is another story. Freedom to operate means a resistance to inertia, the ability to be nimble. This is great. So why, I often wonder, aren’t these reformers freeing up the rest of public education in this manner? Whose inertia is stopping that from happening?
Let’s start building inertia for positive change and reclaim public education!
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