The Role of Teachers’ Unions in Urban School Decentralization

• In Event: Teacher Unions and Educational Governance

Abstract

Of late, teachers unions have worked together with district management in new and notable ways. This paper examines the role of teachers unions in shaping the Together Initiative (TI), which seeks to increase autonomy, broaden decision-making, and involve parents more centrally in urban schools in one northeastern state. We found that local unions supported TI’s growth and were willing to work with district leaders to reform schools in districts where labor-management relations had been collaborative in recent years and in schools where union leaders trusted the principal. Throughout TI, state-level union leaders have taken more consistently reform-oriented stances than those adopted by their local counterparts.

Authors

• Morgaen L. Donaldson, University of Connecticut

• Casey D. Cobb, University of Connecticut

• Anysia P. Mayer, University of Connecticut

• Kimberly LeChasseur, University of Connecticut

• Anjale DeVawn Welton, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign