Teachers are people, too

There are days when CGR gets my best. And days when it doesn’t. I care about our work and I’m committed to my colleagues, our trustees, our donors and our clients. But there are days when other priorities intrude. “Family comes first” is socially acceptable. But there are days when I can’t hide behind that. There are days, frankly, when I come first. That doesn’t make me evil. It just makes me human.

Teachers are human, too. They bring the same jumble of motivations to the classroom that I bring to CGR. There are days when the well-being of their students means everything to them. And there are other days when the challenges of work life and the frustrations of home life are simply too much—that’s the day for a movie or a guest speaker! The interests of teachers and students are related, but they are not the same.

Aligning the interests of employees (at all levels) with those of the owners is the fundamental challenge of management, whether in business, the nonprofit sector or government. Our premise is that people will be people. Depending on your theology, people are either essentially good—except when they aren’t—or that they are essentially bad, but are socialized to keep their own interests in check. Only in strains of utopian socialism do we build a society on the assumption that people will always “do the right thing.”

As part of the panel responding to the movie, “Waiting for ‘Superman,’” I suggested that the premise, “what’s good for teachers is good for students” is implausible. By saying that, I don’t intend to demonize teachers, just recognize that teachers are people. Collective bargaining agreements are designed to protect teachers from arbitrary acts of management, not ensure high achieving schools. Rochester Teachers Association President Adam Urbanski disagreed, asserting that “good teaching conditions are good learning conditions.” I can accept that good teaching conditions are often good learning conditions but not that they are synonymous.

What role should the teachers unions play in governance? Adam suggested at the forum that teachers should annually elect school leaders (principals, I assume). This takes Adam’s proposition about teaching v. learning conditions one step further. If student achievement is the goal, do we believe that a leader who appeals to a majority of teachers will be the best equipped to set direction for the school as a whole? Almost by definition, management is about making decisions on behalf of the ultimate beneficiary—the students, in this case. These decisions may or may not please the majority of staff members. Successful principals nearly always attribute their success to their ability to identify and motivate good teachers—and to address the challenge posed by the weak ones. While being universally disliked would be a fatal liability in a principal, the best managers would not always win an election.

The union represents the interests of teachers, a right they possess by law. The Board of Education and the superintendent it hires represents the interests of students. Adam Urbanski and Randi Weingarten, head of the American Federation of Teachers, suggest that teachers are unique among the nation’s workers and can be relied upon to place the welfare of their students ahead of their own.  Teaching may be sacred work, but teachers are people, not saints.

Published in the Rochester City Newspaper