Collective Bargaining Amidst Education Reform

[Excerpt] It is increasingly clear that the prospects for educational reform in America and the future of collective bargaining in public education are closely intertwined and becoming more so. The authors of this paper attempt to provide a framework for understanding both sets of developments and their interrelationships. Tracing the evolution of the current reform movement, then discussing the origins of the present system of bargaining in public education, we argue that reformers and bargainers alike are beginning to grapple with the same realities: new issues and new kinds of power that are inherent in the changing labor and product markets, work processes and management system of public education itself