Mark Anderson is a special education teacher and coordinator at a district middle school in the Bronx. He is also a teacher leader with the Viva Project, an organization working to bring more teacher voice to education policy decisions. Anderson has written a piece about the Friedrichs case in which he wonders if a loss for the unions may actually make them better.
Increasing disengagement presents a large problem for unions, especially as our economy and workforce undergoes increasingly volatile shifts. And let’s be honest–most unions haven’t demonstrated the greatest sense of urgency in trying to adapt to changing conditions.