WASHINGTON, D.C.--As merger talks among the leaders of the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association continue at high levels, locals from the two unions have been sitting down together for two years to talk about how the unions can push school reform.

At a sort of public "unveiling" of the effort here during the annual AFT QuEST meeting, a panel of local union leaders described the unusual process and endorsed it as a strategy for local and state levels.

Funded by the Pew Charitable Trust of Philadelphia, the initiative has linked 21 locals, some of them the largest in the country, with researchers at UCLA to develop a network focused on reform issues. The Teacher Union Reform Network (TURN), directed by Adam Urbanski of the AFT's Rochester Teachers Association, is independent of both unions, but the two unions are "affiliates" of the network.

Urbanski told the QuEST session that the network originally started as an effort to reform unions but has expanded to tackle major issues of school reform. When the unions merge, he said, "we want to be ready to say that these kinds of dialogues about school reform can happen." These are important conversations, he said, because the merger "will create the largest lobby for children in the world."

John Grossman, head of the Cincinnati Federation of Teachers, said TURN is a continuation of an alliance among teacher unions in Ohio that began 15 years ago. The Cincinnati union's collaboration now includes higher education institutions, where teachers are redesigning teacher education. One course this next year will focus on what other TURN sites are doing to support school reform, he said. Also, the union will have three interns from other TURN locals who will spend a year learning about the Cincinnati reforms.

"The bottom line," Grossman said, "is that unions are taking over professionalism, which is what we should have done years ago."

Prompted by questions from the audience, the union leaders candidly addressed the problem of naysayers among union members who want the locals to stick to bread-and-butter issues. David Sherman, vice president of the UFT in New York City, noted that dealing with resistance is universal among the unions and that "it takes a while for ideas to gel." Urbanski was more blunt. "If union leaders don't want to change," he advised his listeners, "I would fight them. The union should not be the voice of teachers but give voice to teachers."

TURN's three to four meetings a year among the union leaders have covered such issues as peer assistance and teacher quality, standards for unions, shared decision-making, professional development, the role of parents, and student discipline and school safety. Its limited resources do not allow expansion of the original network, but Urbanski and others urged that satellites of tie idea be established within states. An electronic network is available to anyone interested in the ideas that are being shared among the TURN members (www.teleport.com/~obee/turn/home.htm)

The network includes Albuquerque, Bellevue (Wash.), Boston, Cincinnati, Columbus (Ohio), Denver, Greece, Hammond, Memphis, Minneapolis, Pinellas (Fla.), Pittsburgh, Rochester, San Diego, Seattle, Toledo, San Francisco, Dade County (Fla.), Los Angeles and Westerly (R.I.)