Confronting the Myths About Tenure and Teachers' Unions

by Ellen Dannin
t r u t h o u t 
Saturday 11 December 2010


Current American education policy is built on these assumptions: The quality of American education has plummeted because our schools are filled with teachers who can't teach. Teachers' unions and contracts tie the hands of school administrators. And teachers' unions protect bad teachers. Here are a few reasons why these conclusions are leading our educational system in a bad direction.

First, these policies ignore the effects of poverty on educational outcomes. Given the increasing number of children growing up in poverty, we ignore its effects at our peril.

I know something about poverty and its effects because I grew up in an impoverished, single-parent home and attended a low-quality school through eighth grade. Despite those beginnings, I graduated from one of the top US law schools and am now a law professor. If I could make it, then poverty must not matter, right?

But not all poverty is the same. My mother had a nursing degree and our home was filled with books. We lived in rural, small-town poverty near my farmer grandparents, who made certain we had good-quality food. Crime in our area was almost nonexistent. I am white, and my family has spoken standard English for generations. And there wasn't much of a gap between the poorest and the richest in that area.

Compare my experience with a school I saw as part of a San Diego School District oversight team. The home language of 82 percent of the students at the school was not English, and 29 different languages were spoken in those homes. Most students qualified for free breakfasts and lunches. Many had had no formal education when they enrolled. The teachers there worked cooperatively to develop curricula to address the challenges they faced.  

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