Becoming political: Teachers' activism in the face of Michigan's public education crisis

After eight years of Democratic leadership, in 2010 Michigan voters elected a Republican governor. Like his counterparts in Wisconsin and Ohio, Governor Rick Snyder has presided over a series of legislative and policy changes that would dramatically affect the strength and effectiveness of teachers’ unions. Unions can no longer automatically collect dues from their members, for example, nor can they bargain over how to evaluate teachers’ performance. Governor Snyder has also enacted measures that will dramatically affect the effectiveness of the public school system. He slashed the budget for public schools and is currently weighing legislation that would eliminate the cap on private charter schools. As such, public school teachers find themselves in a climate of fewer state resources and weaker organizational ability to advocate for stronger teaching and learning conditions.

While Michigan’s teachers’ unions have been active in mobilizing against these changes, the union response has not matched the intensity of Wisconsin’s or the recent success of Ohio’s. Indeed, not all teachers have been politically active or even supportive of their unions. Drawing on a series of semi-structured interviews with current and retired teachers from three school districts in south east Michigan, this paper examines how Governor Snyder’s recent political decisions have influenced the activism of individual teachers. Reflecting on the experiences of teachers who have become newly, or differently, active in politics yields insights about the factors that have driven their activism. Moreover, teachers’ experiences yield insights about the factors that are necessary for teachers’ unions to become more successful, not only in terms of mobilizing against policies that weaken public education in Michigan, but in mobilizing their members to become active in the struggle to maintain strong public schools and teachers' unions.