What We Do or What We Get

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THE EDUCATIONAL FORUM

VOLUME XXXII NUMBER 3

MARCH 1968

What We Do or What We Get ROBERT H. KITE

URING the 13th century, the intel- D l e c t u a l lights of the University of Paris were dimmed for fifty years by the shadow of the cathedral chancellor who maintained strict jurisdictional control over both masters and students. Not until Pope Gregory IX issued his Bull, Parem Scientiarumin 1231, did the institution emerge into the full light of intellectual inquiry as masters again were given control over students through delegation of adequate judicial powers. Although other disputes arose, the masters retained their supremacy in the university throughout the Middle Ages.

The differences in hierarchical arrangement between medieval ecdesias- tics and contemporary American educators need no elaboration. More striking

W e h e h e an ancient issue in a new context of collective negotiation. ROBERT H. KITE i s Director of Secondary Curriculum in Palm Beach County, Florida. This article is an adaptation of a speech delivered at the Educational Sum- mer Conference on Professional Negotiation at the University of Mississippi. June ao, 1967.

are the parallels. Once again teachers are demanding professional autonomy in the interest of their students. But, tem- porarily at least, their achievement record is spotty.

Aside from the usual timid souls, part-time dilettantes, and those other- wise economically secure, there is no lack of fervor in teacher ranks. Primar- ily the problem lies in a lack of coordi- nated effort against the citadels of gov- ernmental status quo and the indiffer- ence of a public, tuned to more strident demands on their tax dollars.

For the most part, the successes which teachers thus far have been able to secure result from the exercise of one of two options-collective bargaining or professional negotiations. Similar in objective, the two processes theoretically differ vastly in approach. But the differences are narrowing in the press of ri- valry and unrequited need.

Collective bargaining involves four basic steps: ( I ) a bargaining agent (or

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agents) is selected by a majority of the employees; ( 2 ) a conference is arranged between employers and selected agents; (3) employers negotiate on all particu- lars of the controversy and offer coun- terproposals; and (4) an agreement is reached, the terms of which are written into a contract binding upon both parties.

These four steps are incorporated in the National Labor Relations Act. How- ever, public employment is exempt from the provisions of this act. This implies that state and federal labor laws and court decisions pertaining to collective bargaining originated without concern for their pertinence to public employees, including teachers. Left dangling is the question as to the authority of school boards to incorporate into a valid contract any agreement reached through collective bargaining.

Public employees are treated in a sep- arate category because the primary measure used to bring pressure upon employers is the strike. Judicial decisions against teacher strikes have been ren- dered in the absence of state statutes expressly permitting public employees to strike. Neither a union nor an employer has the right under the National Labor Relations Act to compel the acceptance of its proposed terms. Thus, without the ability to strike, collective bargaining loses much of its force. Both the Na- tional Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers have no-strike policies.

Professional negotiations, on the other hand, are a set of procedures de- vised to facilitate negotiation between

teacher associations and school boards through professional channels. Negotia- tion is pursued on matters of common concern in order to reach a mutually sat- isfactory agreement. Provision is made for mediation and appeal in the event of an impasse. According to the NEA, professional negotiations are characterized by the following four el.ements:

A provision for teachers’ representatives and the board of education to meet and express their views each to the other.

Each, in good fahh, listening to the views of the other and taking the other’s views into consideration in coming to a decision; both negotiating problems on which they do not at first agree.

A provision to deal with an impasse, whether the impasse be caused by the board, by the association, or by what seems to be the most obvious (but seldom mentioned) cause: the simple fact that the two honestly cannot agree.

Final decisions jointly determined by the teachers’ representatives and the school board, with, when necessary, the assistance of other educational agencies.’

Professional negotiations, therefore, provide the means to assure that educational channels, rather than industrial-labor channels, are used to deal with disputes between teachers and boards of education. School board members and teachers are assured access to a process that can resolve critical problems amica- bly without either ihe board relinquish- ing its legal authority or teachers violat- ing their professional obligations. Fail- ure to attain this end has in recent in-

’ Martha Ware, “Professional Negotiations,” N E A Journn2 g r : 2 8 - 3 0 (November, 1962), p. 28.

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19681 ROBERT H. KITE 267

stances led to another alternative-sanctions.

The use of sanctions perceptibly nar- rows the gap between collective bargaining and professional negotiation. In fact, state and local education associations, goaded by the cynicism of long denial, are beginning to combine some of the best features of the two approaches into a new concept of conflict resolution, most often characterized as collective negotiations.

Conflict Tolerianee The tolerance level of conflict pos-

sessed by an organization is determined by the extent to which the purpose of the organization is impaired by power conflict. Methods and procedures exist in every organization to resolve conflict. If the tolerance level is constantly being tested, the organization is forced to provide new and more effective methods of resolving conflict; the containment of conflict must remain within a level of tolerance. The underlying rationale and purpose of collective negotiation is the internal accommodation of power conflict within the educational organization. Collective negotiation makes two as- sumptions: first, conflict between groups within an educational organization exists and, second, parties to the conflict have the necessary power to go beyond the level of conflict tolerance.

A loss of conflict tolerance is usually caused by a change in power alignments within an organization. Efforts to develop procedures to deal with conflict may result in processes specifically designed for the resolution of power con-

flicts. Collective negotiation provides a formal process for the mutually satisfac- tory resolution of problems and is more than an elaborate structure of communi- cations. I t is a process which alters the existing decision making process.

Let us examine these two essential in- gredients. of the collective negotiation concepts: conflict and power.

Con$kt School boards, administrators, or bud-

get review committees do not lose their power within a process designed for conflict resolution. Power possessed by in- traorganizational levels is not elimi- nated, or, in the case of legal restric- tions, is not violated by collective negotiations. Unilateral and arbitrary decisions by one segment of educators are no longer possible in the process design. The re-allocation of power is caused by the introduction of a new force. Power units remain but their influence is altered in the presence of new units of power. The countervailing forces of collective negotiation compel the accommodation of emerging and existing units of power and result in attempts to resolve inevitable conflict.

Who is in conflict? Very often the answer to this question is assumed. The AFT has no apparent problem in deter- mining where conflict is going to occur, which groups within education are in opposition, and which procedure is needed to accommodate group conflict. Their belief that a hierarchy exists within education and that the levels of the hierarchy are in conflict places teachers in opposition to administrators and boards

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of education. The NEA demonstrates a somewhat more flexible attitude. How- ever, there are definite signs that the NEA will continue to become more like the AFT, Who is in conflict is a question neither organization has satisfactorily answered.

School districts have demonstrated conflict in many areas within them- selves: between school boards and real estate boards, between school boards and outside pressure groups, between principals and teachers, between secondary principals and elementary principals, between coaches associations and classroom teacher leadership. Obviously, these power conflicts have nat exhausted the tolerance level significantly, as have conflicts between teachers and school boards.

Conflict is not constant; it varies in source and in intensity. This brings into focus the critical question of whether various relationships within education should be structured for continuous conflict resolution. I t would seem to make little sense for teachers to marshal power components insufficient to attain their ends.

Power Underlying both collective bargaining

and professional negotiations is the concept that both parties to a dispute pos sess power and that the power may be applied to the resolution of conflict. Power is the ability to do something or to effect something. Power is demonstrated when one group has control or at least significant influence over other groups. Such words as “strength,”

“might,” and “force” are readily associated with the concept of power. Power is the ability to force alternatives. You do this or else! Raise our salary or we’ll strike! Accept tenure or we will call a professional day! Meet with our representatives or we will impose sanctions! Groups within education have a power potential which even they, much less other parties to their conflict, have not yet come to realize.

Power is derived through constitu- tional provisions, legislation, judicial decisions, administrative law, and bodies with policy prerogatives. Less formal sources are political inff uence, wealth, prestige, and tradition. The most impor- tant source of power, as far as educators are concerned, is organization plus num- bers. Organization is the antecedent to such power displays as picketing, boy- cotts, strikes, sanctions, and impasse en- durance. Organizations which develop machinery for the determination of bargaining units, majority representation, exclusive representation, union shop, dues checkoff, right to bargain, develop- ment of an enforceable agreement, grievance procedures, and binding arbitration have attained an effective base of power.

Organization, however, is the necessary prerequisite. Power without organization is aimless and unproductive. The sources of power are many and varied and are available to well organized teachers. Power has always been available to educators; the difference between teachers of the past three decades and teachers of the sixties has been a changing attitude towards the use of

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I 968 I ROBERT H. KITE 269

power. This is caused in part by changes in the composition of the profession. In 1964-65, 15 percent of all elementary school teachers and 54 percent of all secondary school teachers were men. This, coupled with higher standards of selection, better teacher training, greater recognition gained by women, and the emergence of young, bright, dedicated people interested in education has resulted in a “new force.” Educational organizations possess mass plus strong leadership. This organized new force, sometimes referred to as the “new mili- tants,” is conscious of the prerequisites of power. They are aware of the ingre- dients of democracy and believe that educators should participate in the decisions that determine the future of education. They are not afraid to engage the status quo and even risk the disaster to education of a power impasse.

Bargaining in good faith should be ca- pable of accommodating power and conflict. I t would appear to be the ideal conflict solution to arrive at consensus between opposing opinions and to reach a mutual agreement. Casual analysis, however, indicates that collective negotiations have set the stage in many communities for continuous conflict and, because of this, may have become an obsta- cle to professional autonomy. If educators sincerely seek professional autonomy as their ultimate goal this must be changed.

ProfessioMal Power Goats

The trend of educators to mimic the relationship between power groups prac- ticed by trade unions is a manifestation

of their inability to decide what is meant by a profession. What is a professional educator? What conditions must exist for a teacher to practice his profession?

Professionals possess expert skill and knowledge and employ this skill and knowledge to study, analyze, and resolve problems of contemporary society. To the three “learned professions” of the past, law, medicine and theology, have been added education and several professions inherently associated with the accelerating technological revolu- tion. The degree of professional autonomy usually indicates the professional status of a particular vocation. Profes- sional autonomy has as its reference point the scope of independent judg- ment reserved to professional people. They possess the skills and knowledge which are needed in order to perform their necessary functions. Decisions required within their professional scope are left to their discretion, and in exer- cising their privilege of making these decisions, the professionals are autono- mous; thus, certain matters must be de- cided by educators if they are to be ac- corded the status of a professional group.

These should include selection of materials necessary to teach the curriculum, criteria to determine who should be admitted to the profession, decisions on training standards, grounds for ex- plusion from the profession, codes of professional conduct, and the power to judge when professional educators have violated these standards. The essence of educational professionalism, however, stems from the relationship between the

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teacher and the pupil. Educators can make decisions, become expert in selected areas, remove poor teachers, influence the preparation of teachers, and gain collective negotiations. However, if their efforts fail to foster improved relationships between the teacher and the pupil, they are not contributing to that condition which sets the educator apart and makes him a professional. Teaching will be a profession when teachers make the decisions that determine the quality of the delicate relationship between teacher and pupil,

National Trends in Negotiations for Edzccators

Inevitable conflict between good faith bargaining and professional aspirations constitutes a critical problem. Adversary procedures, whether they be collective negotiations or collective bargaining, are born of power conflict. Both conflict and power remain in flux. The power of teachers as a grou? may expand in some direction and contract simultaneously in another direction. Conflict may vary from season to season as to both adversaries and issues. I t is too much to assume that rigid precepts for communica- tions and conflict resolution can always accommodate the cataclysm that is pro- ducing change within the framework of the teaching vocation. Professional autonomy becomes lost among the momen- tous trivia of negotiating for released time and other facets of teacher welfare, Good faith bargaining is neither enhanc- ing the professional status of teachers nor maintaining a realistic ratio between the cost of living and payday penury.

The following illustrate the present trends of the collective negotiations movement.

I . Collective negotiation is a national movement j it is gaining momentum and has demonstrated a considerable amount of success.

2. A trend is evident in the sponsor- ship of state legislation requiring local school districts to negotiate with designated teacher representatives.

3. The South, with the exception of Florida, is not an active participant in the collective negotiations movement.

4. Collective negotiation agreements for selected northern cities are elabo- rately labor-oriented.

5. The collective negotiations movement includes leadership other than professional educators.

I n the United States prior to 1965 only two teacher organizations introduced state legislation requiring local school districts to negotiate with teachers. Recognizing that a form of collective negotiations will be widely adopted and used in the future, state organizations have begun to sponsor state legislation. Bills have been introduced and passed in at least twenty states.

Conflicting views are held by legisla- tors, civic leaders, legal advisors, teachers, and school boards regarding the amount of participation teachers should have in the decision-making process. I n the absence of professional autonomy, teachers and school boards need guide- lines from the state to resolve and settle local problems.

State statutes already passed mark the trend towards a labor-oriented approach

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19681 ROBERT

to conflict resolution. Various state agencies have been suggested to administer laws related to conflict resolution. Both the question of exclusive recognition and unit of representation need to be included in state statutes. The responsibili- ties of both parties should be clear as to prohibited practices and the obligation to bargain in good faith. Provisions should be made for written agreements if either of the parties to the conflict makes such a request. In the event of an impasse, impasse procedures should be included. Whether or not a law including all these items would result in increased professional autonomy is obviously open to question.

Collective negotiation agreements in large northern cities have resulted in elaborate and detailed contracts, creating the need for specialists, This is charac- teristic of both NEA and AFT spon- sored agreements. An analysis of the methods and procedures used reveals:

I . Terms for agreements are developed by experienced professional nego- tiators.

2. Methods used to initiate contract agreements are supervised and directed by selected arbitration associations.

3. Actual writing of agreements is ac- complished by lawyers. 4. Subsequent administration and op-

eration of the contract requires professional knowledge in the field of labor relations, including, on occasion, the American Arbitration Association.

5. Labor concepts of employer-em- ployee relations permeate teacher-board collective negotiation agreements.

Intricate contracts are accepted as

H. KITE 271

standard practice in the North and Mid- west. These contracts impose the need for specialists. Consequently, bargaining leadership often has come from outside educational ranks, If the objective is the consummation of effective contracts, this is a worthwhile adjunct. However, the educational objective should be professional enhancement, not the perfected contract. Intricate contracts and the introduction of leadership from outside educational ranks have vital implications for the future status of the profession.

Many states, unlike northern and midwestern states, do not have a large organized labor movement. The south- ern labor movement may or may not be gaining in power, but today it is not a dynamic force. In large northern cities where tremendous union strength exists, teacher organizations are obviously going to be influenced by such a force. Organized labor in the North is court- ing teachers in a bid to increase its mem- bership. Many teachers in the North have relations and friends in labor unions; these teachers are familiar with labor practices and accept them as a way of life. In the South, teachers, for the present at least, are free from this type of influence, free to advance professionalism without succumbing to the inher- ent determinates of the labor movement.

County agreements and state legislation in the South can provide models for other states-models that advance professionalism rather than capitalize on the apparent tactical successes of big labor. Welfare and professional autonomy are not contradictory imperatives.

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W H A T WE DO OR WHAT WE GET [March 272

Teachers, we believe, want to maintain the intellectual dignity associated with professionalism and avoid methods used by organized labor to secure a voice in policy formation. However, teachers are being squeezed by inflationary factors over which they have no control-factors which wipe out raises as fast as they are secured and leave teachers in a con- tinually wretched economic state. It is this wretched state, sometimes described as genteel poverty, that has caused teachers to emphasize welfare as opposed to, or in association with, profes sional autonomy. One thing, though, is clear. Teachers must and will bring con- certed effort to bear upon the issues pertaining to education. They have no other choice, but the price paid does not have to be their professional aspirations.

Risks in Educational Negotiation Proce- dures

Of immediate concern is the danger of institutionalizing existing relationships when negotiation agreements are reached. Teachers possess no higher professional status than before. Conflict resolved by shifting power allocations does not alter basic institutional relationships.

The institutional relationship is altered only to the extent that a new unit of power is included in policy determination. The hierarchical structure of the present body of education does not provide for the professional realization of teachers. The present bureaucracy of education could not tolerate teachers with professional autonomy. Issues facing education, particularly the status of teach-

ers, cannot be resolved with procedures designed and operated to improve only the welfare of teachers. A total restruc- turing of the educational institution may be the most pressing problem to be met.

Cojlective negotiations preserve the integrity of the institution by retaining conflict within a level of tolerance. To provide the conditions for professional autonomy, the institution of education must change. Collective negotiations can never bring about the needed change. A new force must be created, a force capa- ble of enough power to force conflict beyond the level of tolerance.

Negotiation agreements crystallize relationships by imposing comprehensive, mandatory, and universally set procedures on a school system. In many situations this reduces the ability of the school system to deal with unique local characteristics. Developing a negotiation agreement may create cleavage between teachers and boards, administrators and supervisory personnel. As the cleavage increases, teacher leadership emerges with a vested interest in seeking out and maintaining conflict situations, leadership based on the amount of payday welfare delivered. Can you imagine a leader of the classroom teachers advocating the elimination of Latin from the curriculum and the inclusion of sex education, eliminating study halls and en- dorsing team teaching, or deemphasizr ing football in favor of emphasizing physical activity for all students? I t is not difficult, however, to imagine the leadership advocating increased salaries, free lunch periods, better insurance, and increased retirement.

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Local leadership has failed to under- stand that gaining teacher welfare is neither the best nor the only way to obtain professional status. The way to professional status, in the opinion of the thoughtful educator, is through the de- velopment and determination of the curriculum. What teachers do in their field inevitably will become their measure- not what they get.

There is every indication that re- course toward collective negotiation will increase. Collective negotiation is an accommodation of power conflict within an educational system. Collective negotiations appear to institutionalize conflict; that is, they permanently establish the adversaries and the means to resolve conflict, Overall economic conditions have forced teachers to seek welfare. Yet, the ultimate source of power should be professional autonomy. Pro- fessional autonomy is being wrenched from the grasp of teachers by present trends toward collective negotiations.

To Achieve Professiod Aatonomy How can this dilemma be resolved?

Must the nation’s teachers, some 2,000,000 strong, gradually be herded into a giant affiliate of the AFL-CIO in the interest of their daily bread? It is true that the NEA has joined the battle for professionalism against the AFT and the more militant United Federa- tion of Teachers. But professional organization techniques more and more tend to resemble those of the unions. One need not strain himself to equate professional days and mass resignations with the strike, pressure on business is not to locate in a state under sanctions with the

secondary boycott, Political Action Com- mittee Education (PACE) with labor’s COPE, and “dregs” (teachers who ig- nore sanctions) with scabs (non-union workers who continue to work a struck job) .

The time is fast approaching-and it may even now be too late-when teachers must opt for some arrangement which will continue their professional status. It will do them little good, however, if state, county, and city governments do not simultaneously decide they prefer accommodation and coordination with a professional body as opposed to contractual jousting with a union.

First off, to be a professional is to act professional and to be so identified by clear-cut professional standards. The professional categories of teacher, princi- pal, supervisor, and administrator must be delineated in terms of privileges, re- sponsibilities, skills, knowledge, and conditions necessary for the professional performance of specific duties. These professional tenets must be determined by the profession, not by employing agents or agencies. Professional educators must not accept positions in education where these tenets are compromised in any way. Nor should educators tolerate the employment of nonprofessional personnel in professional capacities within any school system, either public or private.

The profession must establish standards for the training and admittance of new members to the profession. In-state programs at schools of professional education must be examined and accredited by the profession. Competence and character of personnel receiving training at

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out-of-state institutions must meet the required level of those trained in-state before they are admitted to the profession. Admittance to the profession must be a prerogative of the profession itself.

The profession must acquire the necessary legal, judicial, and administrative machinery plus the full force of the profession and the law to accomplish these ends.

A Strategy for Professional Azctonomy As a beginning step, professional

teachers in a public school system would determine conditions necessary to practice their profession. A typical school should be identified, permission should be obtained from the proper authorities to use the school as a professional practice demonstration center. Conditions thus prescribed could be implemented in a nationwide sampling of selected schools. The A F T and NEA would not be allowed simply to print conditions for practice of the profession. No longer would our “professional leadership” be allowed to produce nebulous generalities in attractive brochures as a substitute for leadership. The leadership would be forced to leave air-conditioned offices, go into a school, and through hard nosed application of paper platitudes, develop conditions necessary for profcssional practice.

Professional practice demonstration centers should be developed for elementary, junior high, and senior high schools, 2nd perhaps even junior col- leges. Bases for selecting the bellwether schools probably would need to vary from state to state in light of differing

educational structures and funding ar- rangements. Initially, voluntarism for any political entity involved would be essential. Thus, centers might be es- tablished on such criteria as one-per- county, one-per-large city, or some ratio of student population. If teachers and state and local governments in fact wish to preserve teacher professionalism, these first representative centers will produce ripples of change and adaptation throughout America’s educational system.

After professional practice conditions had been implemented, each body poli- tic responsible for the operation of public education would be notified of the existence of the minimum professional practice demonstration centers. Each school system and the public at large would be informed that minimum essentials for a teacher to practice teaching would be guaranteed in those schools.

Because professional teachers could not practice teaching without conditions for professional practice, no teacher would be able to practice his profession in designated schools until professional conditions existed there. If school dis tricts failed to provide the conditions for professional practice, contracts of those professionals would terminate automati-

Local school boards would be given a reasonable time to adjust any discrepan- cies. If they did not adjust in the speci- fied time, then all professional personnel would assume the system had no positions for professional educators. Con- tracts calling for their services as profes-

cally.

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sionals would be voided, and all professional educators would be released from any commitment to the school board.

A case where this occurred might very well end up in court. Critics likely would cry “strike,” and strikes by public school teachers are considered illegal. However, it is possible, even likely, that the courts will rule in favor of bona jide professionalism, and that teachers would gain their first significant legal power and status as a profession.

Under the provision of the above strategy, teachers would be relieved of the onus of invoking sanctions, striking, lobbying, etc. In exchange, school

boards and communities would have to assume their responsibility to provide the best possible conditions for the education of the children. The entire concept of power conflict would be altered from sheer power confrontations to the assign- ment of responsibility where it should have been historically.

For too long teachers who claim to be professionals have failed really to con- sider the implications and consequence of professional autonomy, simply because they are professional in name only. The future of the teaching profession will be determined by what educators do, not by what they get.

FEROCIOUS STARVATION POLICY

T h e enormous build+ of the materials aspects of education-from school buildings to teaching machines& obviowly a product of the neglect of educatiort in the past. Some foresight, less miserliness, less attention to egoistic needs and more attention to public ones; less fie- glect of edwation irt favor of foreign policy, would have enabled us t o progress irt an orderly way instead of scampering like rats on an electric grid. The booming knowledge industry and the current anxiety abozct education are products of the ferocious starvatiolt policy with re- spect to the schools maintained for centuries here and in the rest of the world. Into this anxiety, which industry, by withholding approval of increased taxes helped very mach to create, industry now steps like a benign psychiatrirt w‘th a kindly ofer to cure all our i l ls . -]u~~s HENRY, c‘Public Education and Public Anxiety,” The Record, Teach- ers College, Colrwnbia (October 1967).

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What We Do or What We Get