Detroit Free Press: EMU faculty refuse to work in failing schools if it means breaking union contracts

By Kyle Feldscher Crime and courts reporter

Posted on Wed, Jun 22, 2011 : 10:59 a.m.

Faculty from Eastern Michigan University will refuse to participate in a plan to reform failing schools if their work means nullifying any existing union contracts, according to a report in the Detroit Free Press

EMU's participation in the state's new Education Achievement System was approved by the EMU Board of Regents Tuesday .

"We won't have our membership involved in breaking union contract," said Howard Bunsis, treasurer of the EMU chapter of the American Association of University Professors.

EMU's role in the new Education Achievement System was announced on Monday at Detroit's Renaissance High School. Gov. Rick Snyder said Michigan is creating a new statewide authority to run the state's failing schools. Regents approved the university's participation in the EAS unanimously on Tuesday and appointed two regents to serve on the governing authority of the EAS.

The university would help create a "laboratory or university school" at the site of any public school that has been taken over by the EAS. It also would provide faculty and staff members to assist the new system, and conduct employee retraining. Approximately 200 schools in Michigan are considered to be failing, 100 of which are in Detroit.

EMU president Susan Martin told the Free Press no faculty would be assigned to the EAS to work in any school in Detroit, but union leaders remain skeptical.

To read the full report in the Free Press, click here.