Top leaders of the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association came here to tell state leaders that their members, at the heart, are school reformers. Robert Chase, president of the NEA, explained to the annual meeting of the Education Commission of the States that his union is "putting the issue of quality front and center" and seeks a more cooperative role with those it is accustomed to battle with--school management.

Edward McElroy, AFT secretary-treasurer and a seasoned labor negotiator, said teachers support substantial school reform, "not cockeyed tangential things that educate only a few children well." He noted that some of the most progressive reforms are taking place where AFT locals are especially strong, such as Rochester, Cincinnati, and Miami/Dade County.

The two men showed real solidarity--they embraced jokingly---at the end of the panel session in response to a question about the possibility of merger of the two unions. More talks are scheduled for this week (July 15), McElroy said.

The debate about the future of collective bargaining was unusually polite. No one challenged the union leaders on their strong defense of collective bargaining. Both said it was necessary and would continue, but Chase also endorsed the idea of "interest-based" bargaining, a more limited and consensus-building strategy for negotiations than traditional bargaining.

What concerned many in the audience, however, is the gulf between what the national offices of the unions say and what locals do. Delegate Howard Rawlings, chair of the Maryland House Appropriations Committee, is battle-scarred from his attempts to bring about reforms in Baltimore. In traditional trade union negotiations, he said, quality issues are on the table, but this is not true in education's public sector bargaining. The Baltimore Teachers Union has negotiated the shortest working day in the state in a district marked by student failure, he said, and has opposed efforts to introduce performance-based evaluations of teachers.

The ability of many local school boards to negotiate with skilled union representatives is "pathetic," Rawlings said, although some in the audience pointed out that school boards hire professional negotiators, too.

Both McElroy and Chase admitted that, like politics, teacher unionism is local. While national officials and the NEA delegates have embraced more collaborative bargaining, Chase said, it will take a long time to retrain local leadership.