May 8, 2008 4:19 PM
Tom Mooney was an AFT vice president, a leader of the Ohio Federation of Teachers and a hands-on education reformer until his untimely death in late 2006 at the age of 52. But the progressive teacher unionist left a legacy, and not just in the stronger, militant union federation he worked so hard to build, but in instilling a vision that incorporated a professional and social-justice emphasis into the union’s work.
So if social problems inhibited a child’s learning, then they were problems for union teachers, too. If schools didn’t work, unions couldn’t say, “not my concern,” but needed to step in to help fix them. And if school boards could be importuned to cooperate with union leaders on education and social issues, then let the cooperation begin.
Mooney’s living legacy, then, is the Tom Mooney Institute for Teacher & Union Leadership, which — as Mark Simon, one of the institute’s national coordinators, told Education Week — helps participants “create bold collaborations with school districts” while helping pass on the torch by training a new generation of local union leaders.
Predictably, like every project that deals with social change, it’s chronically short of friends with deep pockets. While it does boast an impressive list of funders, including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Joyce Foundation and Knowledge Works, it’s compromised by a corporate-world prejudice that says school reform and teachers’ rights don’t mix.
Foundations tend to favor instead alternative providers, such as charter schools or alternative certification programs for teachers — things that are often union-free. The same groups that target superintendents, principals and school boards for leadership development don’t notice when unions want to develop new leaderships, too — people who will act as practical problem solvers, as advocates for public education and as partners with school districts smart enough to want to cooperate with their teaching staffs.
To all those funders, the Mooney Institute says, “Wake up! It’s a brand new day.”
Education Week, April 2