Editor's note: A response to Kelly's piece from redefinED host Doug Tuthill is scheduled to run tomorrow morning. 

by Kelly Garcia

Fresh out of college, I was green about unions. I knew little about what they were and why they existed, yet I blamed many of the American education system’s woes on the powerful and bureaucratic teachers unions. Like most of my young and idealistic colleagues in Teach For America, I likened teachers unions to status quo. I resented them for that.

I also admired Michelle Rhee, a TFA alumnus, for her efforts to award Washington D.C. teachers for making achievement gains with their students. Performance pay was a concept that most union members did not support. I could not see the benefit of joining a union that was seemingly perpetuating the achievement gap by maintaining the system.

Over time, though, my black-and-white views about unions became more gray.

At the end of the first week of my first year of teaching, my roommate, a TFA corps member and a teacher in the Houston school district, came home to tell me she had met with a union rep at her school and joined the union. It seemed like an insult to her commitment to Teach For America, and to closing the achievement gap. I couldn’t make sense of her decision.

She explained she joined because teaching was a dangerous profession. At any time, a student or parent could make an accusation against her that could be career ending or have serious financial implications. She even shared a horror story of how the union helped save an accused teacher’s career and bank account after a student accused the teacher of sexual harassment.

Two years later, as I entered the public school system in Hillsborough County, Fla., I was invited to join the union for the first time. I declined. (more…)