Todd A. DeMitchell

A Reinvented Union: A Concern for Teaching, Not Just Teachers

The current school reform movement, with its emphasis on teacher professionalism, teacher empowerment, and shared decision making, has challenged teachers’ unions to develop more collegial relations with school boards. Bob Chase, president of the National Education Association, has called for the union to “reinvent” itself and to assume responsibility for improving school quality and the quality of the teaching force. This article discusses the development of teachers’ unions in the 1960s as adversaries of school boards. From the beginning the unions adopted an industrial model of labor relations, one tailored for factories and assembly lines rather than school environments. Today, there are signs that teachers’ unions are accepting Bob Chase’s vision of a more professional union, one in which union leaders and school leaders can become public allies in the struggle to improve schools.

Collective Bargaining and Its Impact on Local Educational Reform Efforts.

The purpose of this research is to examine the relationships between collective bargaining and educational reform efforts and to examine the different views that educators hold regarding those relationships. Questionnaires were returned by 135 educational professionals from 55 schools sampled from 5 states. Items related to local reform initiatives, the character of collective bargaining, and the impact of bargaining on reform efforts. Principals viewed bargaining as obstructing reform, and union representatives saw bargaining as facilitating reforn. Teachers were neutral on nearly every issue, raising questions about the role union representatives take on behalf of their constituents.

School Counselor Training with LGBTQ Clients: A Constitutional Conflict

Can school counselor trainees refuse to comply with the American Counseling Association (ACA) Code of Ethics and still complete the degree program to become professional school counselors? Two school counseling graduate students argued that they have the right to disregard the ACA Code of Ethics because of their religious beliefs. Two federal appellate decisions were examined to discuss whether the role of an ethics code can be selectively followed according to the school counselor trainees beliefs or if the code serves as a cohesive, binding statement of professional conduct for all members of the profession including its aspirants. Implications for graduate students training to become public school counselors are also discussed.

Invocations and the Establishment Clause: The Use of Different Lenses

ince at least 1973, the graduation ceremony at Granada (Livermore Unified School District, California) High School has included an invocation delivered by a member of the clergy or a student. Several hundred miles away, five high schools in the Morongo (California) Unified School District-Granada, Yucca Valley, Twenty-nine Palms, Sky, and Monument-similarly include invocations and benedictions in their graduation ceremonies. For allowing the invocations, both school districts recently were sued for abridging the Establishment Clause of the United States Constitution and the California Constitution.