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Volume 1, Issue 1 
2017 

Allies for Education 2017, 1, 1 
https://journals.library.csuci.edu/ojs/index.php/afe 

 
Thoughts on the First of May 

 
David C. Berliner 
Regents’ Professor Emeritus 
Arizona State University 

As I write this on May 1st, I think, of course, of May Day. Over a century ago it was chosen by workers 
around the world to commemorate the Haymarket riot and deaths in Chicago, where workers were 
rallying around the slogan “An 8-hour day, with no cut in pay.” Many at the riot were union supporters 
and workers on railroads, in slaughterhouses, mines, and factories. Over a considerable period of time, 
these workers suffered death, jail, beatings, lockouts, and firings, until they got what was needed for 
each to have a modicum of dignity.  

Just before May 1st, on a long drive home, I listened to Woody Guthrie singing songs of the Great 
Depression, many of which extolled unions. He explained in his verses why unions are needed, if this 
land were really ever to belong to you and me.  

May 1st also brought back memories of my father, who took a job in 1929, at the start of the 
Depression. For years, the owners of that business exploited him and his fellow workers. But when he 
retired 35 years later, after having to participate in a strike every few years, my father had obtained a 
40-hour work week, time and a half for overtime, double time for weekends, medical coverage, and a 
small pension to augment his social security. The union not only helped him earn enough to keep our 
family from penury, it also gave him a sense of self-worth, which was just as important. It was his union 
that let him live with a sense of personal dignity.  

Dignity, crucial to well-being, often stems from some semblance of self-determination, and of being 
accorded some status. Professions confer both: they often have some control over their evaluation and 
are less likely to be subject to evaluation by others; they often control who comes into the profession, 
set up systems to police themselves, are less subject to the demands of non-professionals; and they 
have a say over their pay and hours. We tend to think of physicians and lawyers as professionals. But 
teachers, most of whom work for governmental entities, are not, despite our continued use of that term 
to describe them.  

However, influential unions can fill the gap: they have the same kinds of commitments to their members 
as do professional associations. Union members also have a say in the evaluation of their members; they 
too can control who enters the profession; and they can affect the hours they work and the pay they 
receive. The best of them that I know (i.e., the Alberta’s Teachers’ Association) work closely with their 
provinces’ principals to police themselves. At this point in American history, teachers’ unions and 



Thoughts on the First of May 
David C. Berliner 

Allies for Education 2017, 1, 1 
https://journals.library.csuci.edu/ojs/index.php/afe 
 

associations, in my estimation, need to become more influential in asserting the needs of their members 
and protecting them from ludicrous legislation.   

In the neoliberal environment in which we in the U.S. now live, unions—not just teachers’ unions—have 
lost their influence. Furthermore, the increasing growth of a gig economy, as in high tech and Uber-style 
firms and charter and private schools, makes everyone an individual entrepreneur. This makes 
unionization all the more difficult. Please note that I am not so silly as to think all unions are honest or 
that they always protect their members. But they have made a huge contribution to the American way 
of life. Unions played a significant part in giving the U.S. a huge middle class, and that certainly has 
served this country well.  

But now, when those in charge of the work of teachers abuse their workers, it seems to me that it is 
time to stand together to fight harder for what is right. Public schools are being denigrated through false 
news. And public school teachers throughout our country are being abused, while little is being done to 
moderate those trends. Neither the National Education Association nor the American Federation of 
Teachers is being anywhere near assertive enough to protect our teachers and the American public 
educational system. A few years ago, however, I did watch Chicago teachers in admiration. They felt 
their unfair treatment so keenly that they were among the first in my recent memory to call a strike, 
saying to the politicians who manage their schools: enough is enough!  

We need to remember that teachers are among the most important of America’s many workers. They 
are responsible for the nurturance of the social and intellectual growth of America’s youth, including 
those with special needs and from linguistic minority groups. For our 50 million or so public school 
students, school teachers are the face of America. And when those teachers are suffering indignities, it 
will be communicated—as social status always is—and in response, our youth and the country I love will 
suffer. John Dewey commented on this: he wondered how teachers could communicate the essence of 
democracy if they live in systems that are not themselves democratically administrated?  

If teachers’ salaries throughout their career are considerably lower than others with equal educational 
attainment, they know they are looked down upon by society – for how else could that happen?  

If teachers cannot afford homes in the communities in which they teach, they receive a message that 
they are among the less valued in our society. The children they teach respond to that message 
accordingly.  

If teachers’ competencies are judged by standardized achievement tests that have little validity, then 
they are surely being abused and yet seem powerless to stop that abuse.  

If teachers’ classroom instruction is judged by observers who use observation instruments that show too 
low a level of reliability and who spend too little time in classrooms, teachers are also being wronged.  

If teachers are not allowed continuing professional development activities to aid them in their 
professional growth, they receive a clear message that their profession is not complex or evolving; that 
there is little more worth learning!  

If teachers work in schools without the appropriate number of counselors, school psychologists, 
librarians, music and art teachers, sports opportunities, and after school programs, they are being asked 
to do their job with students who are being handicapped in their personal growth.  



Thoughts on the First of May 
David C. Berliner 

Allies for Education 2017, 1, 1 
https://journals.library.csuci.edu/ojs/index.php/afe 
 

If teachers in the upper grades are expected to help students write better or grade homework 
thoroughly, but they have 200 students a week to instruct, they cannot do that job well or frequently 
enough.   

And so forth. On top of all this, in my state of Arizona we do as little as we can to protect our most 
vulnerable families—our poor and our language minorities—thus decreasing the chances of so many 
teachers to be completely successful. As the percent of families in poverty or stress increases at a school 
site, it becomes much harder to teach. In Arizona we have few resources to help single parent families 
who often cannot afford childcare and/or a quality early childhood program. We have few social 
workers or treatment centers that can help families with food insecurity or drug and alcohol problems. 
We have a large population of undocumented family members living precarious lives whose children we 
try to educate while we also provide solace. We promote private school vouchers and charter schools, 
and by doing so we take money from the publics’ schools, the schools with the hardest to teach 
children.  

We just allocated to our state’s teachers—already among the lowest paid in the nation—a 4/10ths of 
one percent raise, which is not even enough to cover the teachers’ typical annual out-of-pocket 
investment in school supplies that they need in their classrooms. We have cut state support for our 
universities by huge percentages over the last dozen or more years and zeroed out funds for the two 
largest community colleges in our state. Budgets reflect priorities, which suggests that we do not want 
high quality higher education – so why should we worry about preK-12 education being high quality 
either?   

It is past time to play hardball. Here is what I am thinking. This May-day has come and gone. But perhaps 
we all can take a year to think about the many issues needed to make the lives of teachers better, as 
well the many services needed to improve the lives of the families our teachers want to serve: health 
care, child care, drug treatment, mental health counseling, job training, nutritional help, and the like.  

Our teachers are needed by our democracy. If they do not have the dignity that is their right, given their 
calling, the democracy we so value will suffer. The conditions under which they work, and their pay, 
must be negotiated from strength and that strength will arise from their solidarity. And for those of our 
citizens who are generally anti-union, I must remind you that states with stronger teacher unions do 
better in almost all ways than states that do not have such unions. And furthermore, that on the 
international tests, among the highest scoring nations in the world, teacher unionization is common.  

Teachers really have nothing much professionally left to lose, and something quite akin to a profession 
to gain, by unionizing and becoming more demanding—a lot more demanding. Teachers need to be 
much tougher in negotiating than I think they are now—not just for their personal gain, but also so our 
public schools, and thus our nation, can prosper. As teachers and their unions fight for their dignity and 
the needs of our public schools,  I am sure that the ghosts of my father and Tom Joad will visit them all. 
They will shake the hands of all our teachers and sing to them about solidarity, a social force that will 
make America a greater nation than it is now. 



Thoughts on the First of May 
David C. Berliner 

Allies for Education 2017, 1, 1 
https://journals.library.csuci.edu/ojs/index.php/afe 
 

About the Author 
Dr. David C. Berliner, Regents’ Professor of Education Emeritus at Arizona State University, is a member 
of the National Academy of Education, the International Academy of Education, and a past president of 
both the American Educational Research Association and the Division of Educational Psychology of the 
American Psychological Association. He has won numerous awards for his work on behalf of the 
education profession, and authored or co-authored over 400 articles, chapters and books. He has 
interest in the study of teaching, teacher education, and educational policy. 


	Thoughts on the First of May
	About the Author

