cover image: Teacher Unions and Professional Organization: Re-Examining Margaret Haley's Counsel on Councils.

Teacher Unions and Professional Organization: Re-Examining Margaret Haley's Counsel on Councils.

This paper examines Margaret Haley's speech to the 1904 National Education Association (NEA) annual meeting on her views about teacher unions. Haley viewed organized labor as public school's partner in democratizing United States society. The first section outlined her political views on the relationship between democracy and education, noting teachers' responsibilities to advance both. Haley stated that neither unionism nor professional organizations could be vital or progressive if one or the other was absent. She suggested teachers needed to be organized as unionists and intellectuals. The second section of the speech outlined the need for teacher's unions, identifying conditions requiring reform (making wages correspond to the cost of living, improving job security and pensions, reducing class size, and making teachers participants in school decision making). The final section reexamined the relationship of democracy and education, discussing reasons why teachers had to understand the conditions needed to succeed in teaching. Haley suggested that through organization, teachers could learn to reach the public with accurate information. She combined her views about the irreconcilability of class interests with a critique of labor's limitations. This paper uses Haley's principles to draw conclusions about how teacher unionism might become the vehicle for educational and social reform. (SM)

Authors

Weiner, Lois

Peer Reviewed
F
Publication Type
['Speeches/Meeting Papers', 'Information Analyses']
Published in
United States of America

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