Charter school may exit union: Teachers cite frustration with state federation

The Boston Globe reports:

Teachers at the first charter school in Massachusetts to form a union are now debating whether to dissolve it, dealing a potential blow to an effort to unionize charter schools statewide.

Three years ago, when teachers at Brighton’s Conservatory Lab Charter School formed a union, the elementary school quickly became a poster child for the American Federation of Teachers Massachusetts, the state’s second-largest teachers union, which had launched a charter-school unionization campaign.

The development stunned and embarrassed charter school supporters, who had long seen unions as antithetical to the very idea of these independent public schools, which rarely employ union teachers. They argued that it was the absence of unions at charter schools that allowed administrators to make quick changes to staffing and scheduling in the pursuit of innovation.

But now Conservatory Lab is facing dwindling union interest among its teachers and growing frustration over its affiliation with the federation, which frequently attacks the academic accomplishments of charter schools and last year tried unsuccessfully to block an aggressive expansion of these schools.

An article worth your time. Unions and education: crowd out education.