Editorial: Detroit teacher union can commit suicide or embrace reforms

The national leader of the American Federation of Teachers union came to Detroit this week to deliver an unprecedented message to teachers: Your union local must change to save your city. We urge Detroit teachers to embrace this goal.

That choice was laid out at a historic rally convened at Cobo Center by the Michigan affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers, the Detroit Federation of Teachers and Detroit Public Schools Emergency Financial Manager Robert Bobb. The meeting was designed to generate support for needed reforms in upcoming contract negotiations.

The negotiations are critical to modernizing Detroit's archaic teachers union contract -- a must to improving student achievement in one of America's worst school districts.

Among the changes urged by Randi Weingarten, the AFT president, is the need to embrace merit pay. The Detroit local -- dominated by militant activists who are still living in the 1960s -- have embarrassed national leaders who are trying to make the union a 21st century symbol of progressivism.

Weingarten and local federation leaders, particularly Michigan AFT President David Hecker, deserve kudos for working to convince a powerful minority of resisting Detroit teachers that their union should lead academic improvements rather than continue to act as obstructionists.

Weingarten argued to more than 6,000 teachers that if they remain unconvinced of the necessity of that mission, they should consider: "We don't have a choice."

She pointed to global economic challenges facing students, the expected reauthorization of the federal No Child Left Behind Act and families anxious for better schools as the forces pushing for sweeping union changes. Under Weingarten's leadership, the New York teachers union teamed up with charter operator Green Dot Public Schools to open a high-achieving school. There is no reason why a Green Dot high school would not thrive here.

But in Detroit, a self-destructive mentality has sabotaged new ideas for years. That attitude was on full display at the meeting as Keith Johnson, Detroit Federation of Teachers president, argued other big cities' successful programs "cannot be retrofitted" to Detroit.

"Detroit has unique needs," Johnson said, adding, "Detroit has a unique future."

Uniquely tragic, that is. The Detroit teachers union's anti-outsider, rejectionist mindset suggests the children of Detroit are somehow uniquely inferior to other big cities' children.

That is an insult to Detroit families, who deserve the best practices this country has to offer.

Weingarten is the second national leader this month to offer help and resources to support Bobb's transformation efforts. U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan made a similar offer earlier this month, but only if Detroit is willing to adopt tough reforms.

To save their students and their dwindling number of jobs, union teachers would be nuts not to accept their help -- and embrace their ideas on change.