CH 4: Still Negotiating: What Do Unions Mean for Charter Schools? (HFR '09)

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January 2010
Mitch Price

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Can charter schools coexist with teachers unions and perhaps even provide innovative models for shaping productive new union contracts? In chapter 4, Mitch Price from the Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE) considers such questions. Drawing on early lessons from a new study underway at CRPE, Price assesses whether charter unionization is a growing trend, outlines the reasons that charter schools unionize, and describes the potential ways that individual charters can balance unionization and mission. He concludes that: “Charter unionization is not one concept; rather, there are different things going on in different schools motivated by different reasons and yielding different results.” In 2009, union activity in a few high-profile charter schools received a lot of media attention, stimulating much discussion about whether charters and unions are antithetical, or whether the few examples this year constitute a trend. Price cautions against such broad-brush speculation, and he brings new facts and thoughtful analysis to this highly divisive topic.