Mike Antonucci, the union watchdog blogger at EIA Intercepts, has this contrary viewpoint to what he calls the “mass hysteria” in the media about the unionization of two New York City KIPP schools.
“All this hoohah is silly,” he writes. “How many stories have you read about the 355 new charter schools that opened this year? How many of them are unionized?”
It’s certainly true that a vast majority of charter schools are not unionized, and the teachers’ unions have had a very hard time making inroads into such schools in the past.
Still, the fact that charters that are part of big chains like KIPP and Green Dot are organizing, and in an economy where teachers like the rest of us are worried about their jobs, we at Teacher Beat can’t shake off the feeling that this just could just be a sign of trends to come. Of course, we could be wrong.
Feel free to pitch in with your thoughts, readers.