Compton, Mary and Weiner, Lois (Eds.) (2008) The Global Assault on Teaching, Teachers, and Their Unions: Stories for Resistance. Reviewed by Suzana Feldens Schwertner , Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (Brazil)

Compton, Mary and Weiner, Lois (Eds.) (2008) The Global Assault on Teaching, Teachers, and Their Unions: Stories for Resistance. NY: Palgrave MacMillan Pp. 281         ISBN 0-230-60631-8

Reviewed by Suzana Feldens Schwertner
Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (Brazil)

May 15, 2009

This review is also available in Portuguese

The recent rallies in support of public education all over the US are a strong indication that this is a good time to study the importance of education, teachers, and their unions. All across the country there have been countless rallies against cuts in public education expenditures; in Florida, Nevada, California, Washington D.C., and other states. In Arizona there were more than four rallies in fewer than twenty days: February 14 organized by K-12 schools; February 24 organized by students; February 26 planned by educators of Sunnyside Unified School District; and March 4 coordinated by the Arizona Education Association. Compton and Weiner support the idea that national educational events are also part of larger, global collective efforts and voices calling for greater equity in public education. Perspectives about educational struggles in India, Israel, China, and Germany, among others, are complemented with the voices and reflections about Namibian, Brazilian, English, Australian and Mexican teachers.

This book is divided into six sections with twenty-seven chapters presenting the voices of professors, teachers, researchers, thinkers, and union members. They share their thoughts through stories of professional life, teaching experiences, and narratives about challenges and problem-solving strategies inside schools, as well as analyses of documents and interviews. The authors begin by challenging neoliberal policies in education, particularly how this movement has affected teachers. One of the prevailing ideas advanced in neoliberal policies is that the private sector can deal with education more efficiently than the government. Compton and Werner typify this assumption in the following words: “… private corporations and entrepreneurs are much more able to make education work for the poor than teachers, communities, and their elected representatives in government” (pp. 5-6).

As Susan Robertson explains in the second chapter, these neoliberal notions are not new; they can traced back to classical Liberalism as espoused by philosophers such as Hobbes and Locke, who advocated personal freedom and individualism. The difference today, according Robertson, is that “… in contrast with liberalism, neoliberalism demands that freedom of the market, the right to free trade, the right to choose, and protection of private property be assured by the state” (p. 13). One of the implications of Robertson’s perspective is the importance of understanding how neoliberal ideas have influenced what teachers think and teach, as well ashow principals lead their institutions (or, in an economically oriented vocabulary, their “business”). In addition, according to Robertson, one of the most visible consequences of thirty years of neoliberal doctrine in education is that results and outcomes (specifically assessed by tests and standard measures) are understood as the main processes of evaluating students and schools.

In a similar vein, John Nyambe notes in his chapter, “Education Reform Under Strangulation,” that neoliberal institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), while claiming to promote education for all, especially for poor people, are actually emphasizing deregulation, competitiveness, and privatization. In countries such as Namibia, the Ministry of Education has very little influence on its own system of education, compared with the decision-making power of the World Bank and the IMF. Consequently, issues such as equity and access to public education do not receive much attention. At the same time, cuts in public expenditures have been made by those institutions in order to increase private sector spending. Thus, Nyambe warns: “In policy formulation (transnational policy), profit, instead of public welfare, occupies the center stage” (p. 35).

Considering the dangerous connections between the economy, the market, and education, three Mexican authors explain their concerns about technical schools focusing on specific training techniques for their students – neglecting issues like democratic thinking and leadership. They criticize those schools that focus solely on preparing workers to be employed in private industry. Rincones, Hampton, and Silva do not propose to eliminate technical schools as a possible solution, however, they highlight their concern: “We encourage technical education, but we would argue against and oppose policies that promote the expenditure of public funds to subsidize the production of these foreign industries” (p. 41).

Concerns about accountability, evaluation, and management of schools, students and teachers jeopardize the quality of education. Despite the claim that all of these changes proposed by neoliberal policies will improve efficiency and contribute to successful outcomes in education, practices inside classrooms present a different picture. Basant Chakraborty highlights, in Chapter 14, an example of different duties a teacher must perform in a primary school in India: “Primary teachers in India give surveys, collect census data, keep enrollment data, and in addition compile statistics on student enrollment, retention, and learning. As a result the primary school teachers have very little time to teach” (p. 146). How students' learning be focused on when the core of education and the main role of the teacher―teaching―are ignored?

Stephen J. Ball (2008) has examined these dynamics in his various writings. Ball is concerned about public education, and his attention is focused on the domination of economics in the education debate. As a discourse analyst, Ball demonstrates how the business lexicon has entered the field of education and how this new form of speech almost turns upside-down our understanding of education practices. Transformation, modernization, innovation, enterprise, dynamism, and competitiveness are a few of the words he lists as “special ones” in contemporary education debates. Words that were once only common in the field of economics and business are now part of the lexicon of public education.

To deal with the assault on teaching and teachers, Compton and Weiner assert that we need to fight against these conditions. Education issues must be elevated above economic concerns. Education is about investment in people, formation, quality of teachers and students; and it is not an instantaneous tangible purchase. For the editors of this book, teacher unions are the movement must speak with one collective voice as they pursue a continuous struggle against economic market forces.

Eberhard Brandt and Susanne Gondermann, interviewed by Mary Compton in chapter 20, assure that new standards of privatization, based on neoliberal ideas, are increasing the influence of private institutions of education and the importance of standardized tests. How can teachers face these new standards? The authors provide an example of resistance from union members in Germany, explaining how German teachers, supported by students' parents, planned a national boycott of standardized tests. The editors and collaborators in this book believe that only teachers and their unions can call attention to these issues; they can unite in solidarity and transform organizations into powerful forces for change.

Why teacher unions? According Nurit Peled-Elhanan, a teacher and researcher from Israel, it is possible to recognize the relationship between teaching and social movements for peace, social justice, and human freedom. Teachers' experiences from student movements and other political activities can be extended to union engagements beyond the school. “School improvement became a substitute for concentrated attention to social, political, and economic inequality outside the school walls” (p. 254). In Australia, Rob Durbridge explains his commitment to union membership: “While the political left has been largely checkmated by the success of neoliberal policies and ideology, the activism of the community and union-based movements of opposition and change has never been higher” (p. 122). On the other hand, Nina Bascia, in Chapter 11, calls attention to the distance between unions and teachers in recent years as she describes the findings of her twenty-years of research on teachers' opinion and involvement with unions in Canada and the United States. She concludes that organizing teachers around democratic values, not to mention exploiting opportunities and ideas, is the key to strengthening teacher unions.

Globalization produces shifts in economic, political, social, and cultural issues. For public education, the effects of economic globalization, as discussed by the contributors, are dangerous since they are reducing the budget for public schools, increasing vouchers for private institutions, and establishing unequal competition. Education as a marketable commodity, the lack of qualified teachers, and the reduction of the goals of education to scores on standardized tests represent an assault on teachers and true teaching.

There is an urgent need to face these challenges through a global dissemination of ideas and an exchange of knowledge. The contributors to The Global Assault on Teaching, Teachers, and Their Unions comprise thirty different voices struggling against the forces corrupting education. The struggle is global, fighting against paternalism in India, racist education in Israel, homophobia in the Caribbean Islands. Compton and Weiner sound an alarm. Teachers and their unions must be in the forefront of this battle. They more than others know that the fight is to ensure that children—all children—receive an equitable and excellent education.

Reference

Ball, S. J. (2008). The Education Debate. Bristol, UK: Policy Press.

About the Reviewer

Suzana Feldens Schwertner is PhD candidate at College of Education, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. She is pursuing her doctoral studies at Arizona State University as a visiting scholar (August, 2008 – July, 2009), supported by a CNPq scholarship.