Teachers Unions in the United States: Political-Economy and How it affect the American Working Class

Teachers Unions in the United States: Political-Economy and How it affect the American Working Class

Sponsored by Teachers as Leaders in Newark and New Reform Caucus of the Newark Teachers Union at Science Park High School in Newark, New Jersey

On Wednesday, October 5, 2011 from 5:30pm to 7:30pm

This is a one of a four part serious that describes the major problems facing teachers and their unions in today’s political economic climate. The first topic is Introduction to Political-Economy. It doesn’t relate directly to teachers and teaching, however it introduces the political and economic history, in order to give an insight on how we got to where we are today.

Aside from the history of economics, the two key takeaways from the lecture are:

With the progression of history, there is also change in vocabulary. What is considered liberal has changed drastically over time. Specifically in the times of Adam Smith, also known as the father of economics, he was considered a liberal. Although in today’s term, he would be a conservative. Adam Smith believed in capitalism, in the idea that government should back off and let the “invisible hand” of the market work its magic. During his time, he was fighting against monarchies and people with titles in Europe. In today’s environment, a capitalist would be considered a conservative, on the far right of the political spectrum and a communist, who believes that the government should seize and control all capitals of the economy would be on the far left.

2. The change in names of where a group lies on the political-economical spectrum is relative to its time in history. There is however, a commonality. At all times, there has been a group in power, usually a minority who controls the wealth and thus distribution of limited resources. At the current moment, more of this in future lectures, the few minority conservatives are the (fascist) republicans who wants to keep the wealth within and further the gap of power and wealth.

One thing that was said about the purpose of welfare that related to our school community is that it is the price of preventing revolution of the unemployed and poor. I think one of the inferences, I drew from the lecture is that the very few rich that really control both the wealth and power wants to keep the status quo. They don’t have an incentive to change urban education, because if that was the case, then they would have more competition. This ties into how and perhaps why school bureaucracies are so complicated. There are people of power who don’t want to spread both the means to success by education!

The lecture connected to our studies in social justices. One of the goals of the four part series is to educate teachers about the teacher’s union. Specifically, if more teachers are involved, their voices might be heard in the political realm. This relates to the theme in class of racism. Some people turn away from it and claim that it does not apply to them. In the same way, teachers are not aware of their role as part of a union. If they want changes and their voices heard, they have to stand together so their cries are heard. If there is no support from the teachers, then the current political-economical environment will not change much.