And yes, there may be more parents (numerically), but have you checked on the power of the PTA lately? Nationally? I'd be pleased as punch if parents flexed their muscles more. But they don't. And the only ones who get any financial or political support are those pitching vouchers or charters. And if you scratch below the surface of some of those "parent" organizations that support vouchers, you don't find a representative support network (a la PTA or NEA) – you find the big bucks. Evidence Black Alliance for Educational Options – from all appearances, it looks like this awesome grassroots (Black) thing. But it's really a front for the Bradley Foundation to pump money into their favorite cause (vouchers) and create a political wedge issue in the Black community. But again, I digress…

God help the parent who wants to support the teachers union. Who's going to be their sugar daddy?

You rarely hear about principals unions, or even principals, as enemy's of reform. I think the answer is two fold:

1) there are just way more teachers than any other group (except kids and parents, but you can't blame the kids!)

2) teacher's unions have more political power than other groups. Yes administrators get to set policies, and yes principals make things happen in the school, but still. Its a fact that teacher unions (like NEA) have lots of political clout, they have millions of dollars to spend on lobbying and they use it. you can argue whether or not they use it well, but you can't deny that they have influence.

maybe there are other reasons?

The other problem is that unabashed critics of unions blame any failures to reform K-12 squarely on the shoulders of the unions. A problem exacerbated by the fantasy that unions unilaterally write up their own contracts – ignoring the fact that the administration agreed to whatever terms are in the contract.

Unions' primary function is to support and enforce the contract. And more recently the level of anti-union rhetoric has reached a point that there are those out there who truly believe that a teachers union's primary function is to stop reform. Of course, as someone said the other day, one person's reform is another's status quo.

The other problem is that people seem to forget that unions are fundamentally democratic organizations. There's a membership, and they elect leaders. By and large the current so-called "reform" crowd (think DFER, KIPP, etc.) are all unelected. They're just a bunch of folks who got someone to give them a bunch of money to do something.

As for CCCR's report… I was pretty disappointed. CCCR has been on a steady decline in terms of actually advocating for equal opportunity in education for a number of years. But this anti-union screed takes the cake. Took a scan of the footnotes, and decent chunk of the quotes coming from "former union leaders" is a bit of a mischaracterization. I'm thinking primarily of their choice of David W. Kilpatrick as some kind of expert. Yes, he was a union leader. Now he spends his time writing pieces for a pro-free market, anti union outfit known as the U.S. Freedom Foundation. Referring to Kilpatrick as a "former union leader" is kind of like calling David Horowitz a "former civil rights activist." Yes, it may be true, historically, but it distorts current reality.

Figuring all that out took a few minutes, but that told me enough about the report that I didn't need to keep reading it. If you're going to begin an analysis of the impact of unions on education reform by quoting an anti-union mercenary, you're pretty much lost any claim to integrity. But I digress…

The real problem with this debate is that no one wants to take responsibility for their chunk of the enterprise. Yes, unions play a role. So do principals. And Superintendents. And local and state boards, and mayors and city councils, and legislatures, and national standards bodies. Oh, and don't forget the parents…