Unions making charter school inroads

WASHINGTON, July 27 (UPI) -- More teachers at U.S. charter schools, citing long hours and low pay, are voting to unionize, perhaps jeopardizing their freedom to innovate, analysts say.

Seven charter schools in Florida were the first to unionize two years ago, and now teacher organizing has also been conducted at least a dozen more charters from Massachusetts and New York to California and Oregon, The New York Times reported Monday.

Charter schools experience high turnover rates among teachers because of lack of input, longer working hours and lower pay than their counterparts in traditional public schools, union officials say, leading to labor organizing inroads in the publicly financed but privately run academies.

"A charter school is a more fragile host than a school district," Paul Hill, director of the Center on Reinventing Public Education at the University of Washington, told the Times. "Labor unrest in a charter school can wipe it out fast. It won't go well for unions if the schools they organize decline in quality or go bust."

"They'll have a success here and there," predicted Todd Ziebarth, vice president of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. "But unionized charters will continue to be a small part of the movement."