From Professional Association To Teachers Union

The National Education Association, as the earliest nation-wide organization for the teachers in the United States of America, founded in Philadelphia in 1857, initially named as the National Teachers' Association (NTA), now stills serves as the most influential teachers' association in the field of American education. The more-than-one-century-long period during which American society marched towards urbanization and modernization witnessed the birth, growing, and prospering of the NEA. Consisting of only 43 educational professionals at the beginning, the NEA has undergone a big transformation from an unknown organization to a decisive force in American educational arena with 2.7 million members. Along with the expansion of the organization, the great and significant evolution of the NEA from a typical teachers' professional association to a teachers' union was also completed. This role transformation bestowed an enormous change in the operating style and organizational strategy within the NEA and an even more complex relation between the association and the American education.With a multi-purport, this dissertation set to explore the context, causes, process and significance of the role transformation of the NEA. First, this dissertation would make for the discipline construction of the history of foreign education in China, particularly, enriching the study on the history of American education; second, the background, process and impact of the NEA's role transformation are to be revealed; in addition, the complexity and uniqueness of American education would be researched into from the perspective of the NEA.In terms of structure, the whole dissertation consists of two parts. Part one would focus on the process of the NEA dedicating itself as a teachers' professional association; and Part two would expose the background, process, consequence and impact of the NEA's thorough transformation into a teachers' union out of demand for power competition and political rivalry.Professional Association in the Pursuit of Education is the title of Part one which directs at uncovering, from the NEA's birth to the mid of the 20th century, the NEA's wholehearted pursuit of serving as a teachers' professional association for enhancing the teaching and education in the United States of America. Chapter one introduces the historical background when the NEA was founded and the development from the association's founding to the mid of the 20th century; Chapter two, through exploring theNEA's major operation during the early period of American teaching professionalization, aims at showing the typical characteristics of the NEA as a teachers' professional association; Chapter three depicts how the NEA concentrated on promoting America's educational modernization in the shoes of a teachers' professional association to exhibit the NEA's consummating role transformation.Teachers' Union: the NEA in the fight for power and politics is the title of Part two. This part dives into the fact that the NEA, smitten by a series of dramatic social changes, along with the role transformation from a teachers' professional association into a teachers' union, turned into a radical teachers' union addicted to pursuing both political and economical benefit. Correspondingly, the NEA's attitude towards the American education changed. Chapter four explores the context and causes which lead to the role transformation of the NEA from a teachers' professional association into a teachers' union. To name a few, America's unique social environment during the middle of the 20th century and the most decisive element for the dramatic role transformation of the NEA—the rise of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), the major rival of the NEA; Chapter five focuses on the exposal and final figuration of the NEA as a teachers' union. The role transformation is best represented by: the collective negotiation strategy (frequently employed by the labor union) adopted by the NEA; collecting agency fees from the nonmembers; starting negotiation on merging with the AFT. Cha...