Why did San Francisco teachers choose CFT in 1989 instead of CTA?

It turns out that CTA's executive director has had her finger on the pulse of California teachers for quite a while. This lady can see the truth beneath the surface. Here's how she explains CTA's loss: "When you're dissatisfied, you look at someone else."

Norman K. Holsinger of CFT said: "Teachers want a greater voice in what is going on."

Education Week said, "After an eight-year battle, the San Francisco-American Federation of Teachers union succeeded May 26 in wresting the right to represent the city's teachers from the San Francisco Classroom Teachers Association..."

In an earlier article, Education Week reported:

"Kate Dennis, a resource specialist for the district's elementary schools who has belonged to each of the unions at different times, says, "I'm unaffiliated, because I got so disgusted with them both. The organizations, rather than represent the teachers versus the district, have fought each other.""

The article spoke of "site-based decision making""

In a survey of 150 teachers, only 2 percent mentioned educational reform as being an important issue, he notes. In another, longer telephone survey of 300 teachers, the number who responded favorably to questions about site-based management and shared decisionmaking was "so small we didn't finish the analysis," according to Mr. Threatt.

"We found that teachers didn't know what that meant," Ms. Dellamonica says of the reform buzzwords...

The rival sf-aft has attempted to make teacher empowerment a central plank of its platform, calling for democratically elected faculty councils in each school to give teachers a voice in the development of curriculum, programs, and instructional policies...

The sf-aft's pre-election polling found that "the overwhelming majority of teachers in the district are in support of the kind of restructuring and teacher empowerment that gives them a voice at the school-site level," maintains Norman K. Holsinger, an aft national representative and campaign coordinator for the local...

Under the current contract, each school has an Association Liaison Committee with which the principal must meet. In some schools, Ms. Dellamonica says, the committees have been a vehicle for discussion of reform issues, while in others, they have not been active.

Under the contract, only sfcta members can serve on the committees, which serve primarily to enforce the contract. Ms. Shelley says the idea of the committees serving as vehicles for shared decisionmaking is ''preposterous," since the councils have "frozen out" faculty members who do not belong to the union...

Meanwhile, a small group of teachers calling itself citrus, for Committee for Teacher-Run Schools, has begun holding meetings and gathering ideas to push for restructuring schools, according to Jonathan Frank, a member of the group and science teacher at Mission High School.

The citrus members are backing the a.f.t. in the election, Mr. Frank says, since it is perceived as more progressive on school-reform issues.

"I was hopeful that restructuring would become the apple pie and motherhood issue, and that the two unions would try to outdo each other on teacher empowerment," he explains. "What I saw was lip service to the idea. You wonder what they're more interested in--power to the teachers or the unions."