What is the relationship between TPPs and the union local?
In the Minnesota arrangements, the teachers do not continue as district employees. So there is no need for a relationship with a teachers union—at least in the way teachers unions operate today. For many individual teachers-members of these TPPs, their status with the union is no different than the status they would have had when they opted to work for chartered schools in their state. Some members of the Minnesota model have thought about applying for individual or ‘affiliate’ memberships. Unions have sometimes puzzled about how to respond to this. The teachers would not need collective bargaining services, they think, so why would they want to be part of the union? But bargaining need not be an essential feature of unions. As proposed by Teachers as Owners: A Key to Revitalizing Public Education, a book edited in 2003 by Edward J. Dirkswager, “Members of TPPs will have need for a strong advocate for the teaching profession, as well as the usual strong advocacy for adequate funding in
