ABSTRACT
The growth of teacher unionism in the United States closely parallels the new concern among teachers for their professionalization. Historically, the American Federation of Teachers has been committed to the linkage between the growth of power through teacher unionism and the development of excellence in professional practice. Within the past decade, the National Education Association, the second major teacher organization in the United States, took on union-style tactics and stopped trying to distinguish between professionalism and unionism.
Educational problems facing teachers in the 1980s lend themselves to at least partial solutions through the collective bargaining process. A number of new ideas emerging from unionized teachers contribute markedly to their professionalization. Among the most promising are teacher centres, internships and entry tests for beginning teachers. If these programmes are to work, they will have to involve co-operation between sectors within education. If any teachers’ organization attempts to claim complete control or works to eliminate colleges and local school boards from the operation of the programmes, the whole effort could backfire. While teachers deserve a greater say in their own professionalization – perhaps the controlling voice – theirs cannot be the only voice to be heard.
If handled co-operatively and carefully, what could emerge from the new ideas supported by teacher unions is a common understanding among teachers of the basis of their professional knowledge and skill and how their shared experience can unify teachers and increase their professional self-respect. Teachers have not enjoyed this common understanding before the present decade. With the power that unionism gives them they could obtain the kind of professional control that now exists for other professions.
