The Teacher Unions’ Role in 1990s Educational Reform: An Organizational Evolution Perspective

This article examines the involvement of two teacher organizations in state or provincial educational reform in the 1990s through the perspectives of constructivism and organizational evolution. The two unions adopted a complex mix of reactive and proactive, incremental and discontinuous orientations to change. The unions applied experience-based reactive responses, but they also engaged in evidence of proactive continuous improvement of past practice. Although incremental change was predominant, some evidence of discontinuous change emerged: Although one union took charge of the charter school movement, the other created an identity as a creator, manager, and broker of knowledge. A reactive stance resulted when the union or its members felt directly attacked; however, threats to public education as an institution led to discontinuous change initiatives.