The National Association of Charter School Authorizers does an online poll that asks questions of the charter authorizing community.  In my email this week was the answer to the most recent question:

Should teachers unions be encouraged to start charter schools?
a) Yes 48%
b) No 52%

I don’t think you can analyze what the results mean in terms of union animus or acceptance.  I bet some of the people saying “no” don’t think that collective action by teachers should have any role in charter schooling. Others may think the union should stay in the box of representing teachers contractually –and that the UFT’s charter schools, for example, are some sort of threat or are ill conceived.

Some of those saying “yes” may think this is a way to co-opt unions into management and away from that traditional role as labor representative.  When those who want to reinvent public education completely talk about the role for the union in any “brave new world of education” in this light, they often sound as if the union could become just another EMO.  (That’s usually when I roll my eyes).

The point is that the charter school world is a complex enough place that you can’t really expect to plumb its depths with any one question.  A lot of issues in the charter school world are complicated.  One that isn't, of course, is whether the New York Charter Schools Association engages in dishonest, spiteful, selfish and perhaps even unethical union busting activities and advocates for the same regressive labor policies as the far right. I know that one. The invective in the last sentence, by the way, was pulled from NYCSA’s Peter Murphy’s response to NYSUT President Dick Ianuzzi’s statement that “Expanding the number of charter schools without reforming the way these schools are authorized, held accountable, and funded would be bad pubic policy.” Murphy, of course, is the guy who thinks the system that allowed for this is fine without reform. There’s something in that Clifton Park water.