The Relationship Between Teacher Unionism and Educational Quality: A Literature Review

It was easier to find assertions about the connections between teacher unionism and student achievements than find credible evidence. Major studies found both positive and negative effects, and there is considerable methodological debate about methods used. In general, the effect size is not great and often the quality of the data do not warrant the […]

United Mind Workers: Unions and Teaching in the Knowledge Society

United Mind Workers was published by Jossey-Bass in 2008 and is still available at Amazon and other booksellers. CHAPTER ONE Organizing the Other Half of Teaching Book ideas are born in odd places. After a gestation period that would frustrate an elephant, this one revealed its true form in an elevator. A National Education Association […]

Charter Schools and Collective Bargaining: Compatible Marriage or Illegitimate Relationship?

In this article published in the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, (Summer 2007) 30:3, Martin Malin and I examine the legal tradition that supports the industrial definition of teaching work in light of the avowed intent of charter school legislation to crate high performance/high involvement work places. The article concludes that embedding methods of […]

Negotiating What Matters Most: Collective Bargaining and Student Achievement

Despite a statutorily narrow scope of bargaining, the scope of topics of union-management discussions has widened over the last 20 years, resulting in the birth of reform, or professional, unionism. But over the last half decade, professional unionism has waned. School management often refuses to see unions as partners, politicians fail to view unions as […]

Encounters with A Hoosier God

A personal essay about growing up Presbyterian in Indiana in the 1950s. Originally written in the late 199s and revised in 2005. I have a memory, recessed deeply in boyhood, of a towhead furiously peddling a balloon-tired single speed bicycle pretending it was a Corvette…peddling toward Tabernacle Presbyterian Church. Indianapolis in the ‘50s was just […]

A Union of Professionals

In A Union of Professionals, Julia Koppich and I show how teaching could be organized around professional rather than industrial principles. The book was published in 1993 by Teacher’s College Press. It is out of print, but copies are available on Amazon, and I have a few mint-condition copies. The following summary is not taken directly […]

Peer Review’s Advantages for Teachers, Schools, Kids

Julia Koppich and Charles Kerchner, in Sacramento Bee, 1/21/1999, p. B9. Gov. Gray Davis’ proposal for peer review for teachers comes at a good time, with a November Lou Harris poll showing that nearly 90 percent of Californians rate “ensuring a well-qualified teacher in every classroom” key to increasing student achievement. Current methods of evaluation […]

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'On California' at EdWeek.org

I have concluded my opinion blog on the Golden State's politics and education policies at EdWeek.org. An archive of the 281 posts can be reached by clicking HERE

Learning 2.0

Learning 2.0 is the next full scale version of public education, one that builds on the capacity of the Internet age.

The five elements of Learning 2.0 are explained by clicking HERE:

Mixing acquisition of knowledge and practice, head and hands.
An individual education plan for everyone.
Understanding that students are the real workers in the education system.
Unbundle teaching, testing, and mentoring.
Add collaboration and solving tough, ambiguous problems to the list of basic skills.

Recent Projects

Teacher Work and Teacher Unions
‘Learning from L.A.: Institutional Change in American Public Education’
Teacher-Run Schools

Currently Reading

About

Charles Taylor Kerchner is an Emeritus Professor and Senior Research Fellow at Claremont Graduate University. My daily musings appear in the blog. The archives of my EdWeek blog are available via link under the 'On California' head. Some of my photography can be seen by clicking on 'Gallery.' And numerous links to academic work and other research and commentary can be found by clicking on 'Projects.'

Mindworkers

Charlet T. Kerchner / MindWorkers