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Changing Educational Directions and Roles of Korean
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An Analysis of Policy Proposals, 1980-2002

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CHANGING EDUCATIONAL DIRECTIONS AND ROLES OF KOREAN TEACHER
ORGANIZATIONS:
AN ANALYSIS OF POLICY PROPOSALS, 1980-2002

Kapsung Kim

A DISSERATATION

Submitted to
Michigan State University
In partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Department of Education

2004

ABSTRACT

CHANGING EDUCATIONAL DIRECTIONS AND ROLES OF KOREAN TEACHER
ORGANIZATIONS:
AN ANALYSIS OF POLICY PROPOSALS, 1980-2002
By

Kapsung Kim

Skepticism toward teacher organizations has been widespread in Korea. It has
been said that teacher organizations in Korea has been more susceptible to political
impact than education situation and that they have competed each other not with
educational policy but with political gains and losses. They have been considered as
selfish organizations for teachers.

It is obvious that teacher organizations, however, have done much for education.
They have tried to improve the quality of education in many ways. One of them is
presenting educational policy proposals. They have presented various kinds of
educational policy proposals as their voices in educational policy field, which has also
asked them to play diverse roles in education.

This study reviews changing educational directions and roles of Korean teacher
organizations by categorizing and analyzing their educational policy proposals from 1980
to 2002. New typology was created to categorize their proposals through with four
categories; industrial, professional, students’ learning and developmental, and school

education intensification oriented issues, which came from the classification of general

roles of teacher organizations in education. Categorized educational policy proposals
were interpreted on the political/educational bases.

It was found that each teacher organization has possessed different educational
directions and played various roles in education over time. The Korean Federation of
Teachers’ Associations (KFTA) has paid more attention to educational policy for
teachers and played institutional actor in educational field regardless of political
influence. Meanwhile, the Korean Teachers’ Union (KTU) has focused educational
policy for both teachers and students and played various roles, depending on political
impacts. Therefore, whereas the KF TA has been susceptible to educational situations, the
KTU has been influenced by the political situations.

It was also found that the evolutions or changes of teacher organizations have
been related to the kinds of their proposals over time. The KFTA hadn’t experienced big
organizational changes before the KTU was legalized, which demanded that the KFTA
has presented educational policy proposals that require minimal changes in the
organization. With the entrance of legal teacher unions, the KFTA experienced big
organizational changes, which asked the KFTA to present appropriate proposals in order
to adopt changing external situations in education.

The KTU has experienced lots of organizational changes over time. Sometimes
the KTU changed itself to fit external environment and sometimes the KTU devoted itself
to organization expansion. When the KTU tried to adopt external environment, the KTU
presented more numbers of school education intensification oriented issues, and when the
KTU paid more attention to incremental evolution, the KTU announced more numbers of

institutional oriented issues.

Copyright by
Kapsung Kim
2004

To My Beloved Family

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I am deeply indebted to many people who have supported and assisted me in
many ways. This research would not have been possible without their help, support,
advice, and patience. First and foremost, I would like to thank David Plank, the advisor
and committee chairperson, for his guidance for me to keep the right directions while I
struggled to find out my academic goal. It was he who introduced a typology that used to
categorize educational policies and taught me an insight to see teacher organizations
based on political and educational environments.

Maenette Benham, a committee member, has been the most influential person in
my doctoral program. I was privileged to learn invaluable knowledge of organizational
theory and practice from her. I express the deep appreciation to her for her time in
correction of writing and academic suggestions for my dissertation. I am grateful to other
committee members: to David Arsen for his balanced and thoughtful critiques and to
John Beck for his advise on social justice unionism in education.

Many professors in the College of Education at Michigan State University taught
and assisted me in various ways during my courses of studies. I am especially grateful to
Gary Sykes and Stephan Kaagan, who always encouraged me with smile, offering
direction and criticism for my academic achievements. In particular, Gary Sykes gave me
lots of information about educational policy and practice in his class, which became the
motive for me to pay attention to educational policy analysis. Besides, I am personally
grateful to Drs. Ilyong Lee, J eabum Kim, and Kihyung Hong, Chung-Ang University in
Korea, M Ed. Advisor and professors, and Dr. Chongjea Lee, the president of the KEDI

in Korea, for their encouragement, guidance, and psychological and spiritual support.

vi

I must also thank those people on the faculties and staffs of the Center for
Integrative Studies in the Arts and Humanities at Michigan State University, in which I
had worked as a research assistant for past 5 years. They assisted me in various ways
during my life in USA. I am grateful to Dr. Kenneth Waltzer, Dr. Kathleen Geissler,
Mary Duff-Silverman, Deanna Thomas, Virginia Mrazek, Jan Cornelius, Dr. Vibha Bahla,
and Byung-woo Yoon. Especially, my special words of appreciation must be given to Dr.
Cecilia Samonte, who spent her precious time to edit my dissertation.

In my personal life, I truly cannot express the depth of gratitude I feel to the
following people. First, I would like to thank my parents and parents-in-law, Dr.
Jongchol Kim, Jungsoo Chung and the late Yongsik Kang, Wolsoon Kim, for endless
support and love. Especially, my father, Dr. Jongchol Kim, introduced the pedagogy to
me and has supported me as a father and academic senior who majored in as same area as
I did. Second, I also wish to thank my Sister, Dr. Youngok Kim, and my brother-in-law,
Dr. Donhee Park, for their devoted support. Without their help, I couldn’t have finished
my study at Michigan State University.

Finally, my biggest thank should go to my wife, Yoonjung Kang, and my twins,
Nicole Hayeon Kim and Alexander Seungwoon Kim. My dissertation couldn’t have
materialized without the support of Yoonjung. She has done much as a wife, fiill-time
doctoral student, and mother of twins at the same time. I really thank Yoonjung for her
endless support, love and encouragement in so many ways during the life in USA. My
twins! They are my strength and taught me what is really important in life. This

dissertation is dedicated to all of persons I mentioned.

vii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF TABLES ........................................................................... xi
LIST OF FIGURES ......................................................................... xii
LIST OF ABBREVIATION ............................................................... xiii
CHAPTER ONE
TEACHER ORGANIZATIONS AND THEIR DEVELOPMENTS
Introduction .............................................................................. 1
Statement of Problem .................................................................. 3
Purpose of Research .................................................................... 5
Significance of Research ............................................................... 6
Limitation of Research 7
CHAPTER TWO
TEACHER ORGANIZATIONS
The Understanding of Teacher organizations
The definition of teacher organizations ....................................... 10
The characters of teacher organizations ....................................... 11
The roles of teacher organizations ............................................. 12
Teacher organizations as institutional actors .......................... l6
, Teacher organizations as professional groups ......................... 21
Teacher organizations as social justice performers ................... 34
Three Teacher organizations in Korea
The Korean Federation of Teachers’ Associations (KFTA) ............... 47
Goals .......................................................................... 47
Characters and features ..................................................... 48
Activities ..................................................................... 51
The Korean Teachers’ Union (KTU) .......................................... 54
Goals .......................................................................... 54
Characters and features ..................................................... 55
Activities ..................................................................... 57
The Korean Union of Teaching and Educational Workers (KUTEW) 59
Histories and features ....................................................... 59
Goals .......................................................................... 59
Activities ..................................................................... 60
CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH STRATEGY
Research Questions ..................................................................... 62
Information/Data and Collection/Time Frame ...................................... 63
Information about teacher organizations ...................................... 63
Data and data collection ......................................................... 63

viii

Time frame ........................................................................ 65
Development of New Typology for Categorizations of Educational policy
proposal .................................................................................. 65
The review of previous researches for categorizing educational policy .. 66
Thompson and Ziemer’s ‘Major curriculum-instruction category’
(1975) ....................................................................... 66
Carnoy & Levin’s ‘Taxonomy of Educational Reforms’ (1976) 68
Bickel and Bickel’s ‘Cum'culum-Instruction Categories

Organized by Reform Taxonomy’ (1979) ............................. 69

Plank’s ‘Typology of major school reforms’ (1986) ................. 70

New typology to categorize educational policy proposals ................. 72

Data Categorization Method .......................................................... 75

Assessing the Reliability of New Typology ........................................ 77
CHAPTER FOUR

KOREAN TEACHER ORGANIZATIONS IN THE CONTEXT OF THE
POLITICS AND EDUCATION
History of the Politics, Education, and Teacher organizations in Korea
1980 — 1988: The period of partial autocracy

The politics ................................................................... 83
Education ..................................................................... 85
KFTA ......................................................................... 86
KTU ........................................................................... 88
Interactions between the KFTA and the KTU ........................... 89
1989 — 1992: The transition period from autocracy to democracy
The politics ................................................................... 90
Education ..................................................................... 92
KF TA ......................................................................... 93
KTU ........................................................................... 94
Interactions between the KFTA and the KTU ........................... 96
1993 - 1998: The beginning period of the political democracy
The politics ................................................................... 97
Education ..................................................................... 100
KP TA ......................................................................... 102
KTU ........................................................................... 104
Interactions between the KFTA and the KTU ........................... 105
1999 — 2002: The development period of democracy
The politics ................................................................... 107
Education ..................................................................... 108
KFTA ......................................................................... 109
KTU ........................................................................... 110
Interactions between the KFTA and the KTU ........................... 112
The Relations between Teacher organizations and the government
The KFTA and the government ................................................ 114
The KTU and the government ................................................. 116
The Collective Bargaining System of Teacher organizations in Korea ......... 121

ix

 

CHAPTER FIVE
ANALYSIS OF CATEGORIZED EDUCATIONAL POLICY PROPOSALS
Categorization of Educational Policy Proposals over Time frame
The number and percent of proposals presented by the KF TA over a

given time frame ................................................................. 123
The number and the percent of proposals presented by the KTU over a
given time frame ................................................................. 125

Analyzing Categorized Educational Policy Proposals presented by Two
Teacher organizations over Time frame
1980 — 1988: Unstable situation of two teacher organizations in the

period of partial autocracy ...................................................... 128
1989 — 1992: Conflict situation of two teacher organizations in the
transition period from autocracy to democracy .............................. 132
1993 — 1998: Monopolistic situation of the KFTA in the beginning
period of the political democracy .............................................. 135
1999 — 2002: Competitive period of two teacher organizations in the
period of the development period of democracy ............................. 139
CHAPTER SIX
CONCLUSION ............................................................................... 145
APPENDICES
Appendix A: Lists of educational policy proposals presented by the KF TA
and the KTU from 1980 to 2002 ...................................................... 153
Appendix B: Tables of accessing the reliability for new typology ............... 165
BIBLIOGRAPHY ........................................................................... 1 71

LIST OF TABLES
Table l. The number of the KFTA members and the percentage of members by the
year ................................................................................... 50

Table 2. The number of teachers and the KFTA members, and the percentage of
the members by schools in 1987 and 1989 ..................................... 50

Table 3. The number of the KTU members and the percentage of members by
important year ...................................................................... 56

Table 4. The numbers and percents of educational policy proposals presented by
the KFTA over a given time frame .............................................. 124

Table 5. The number and percent of educational policy proposals presented by the
KTU over a given time frame .................................................... 126

xi

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1. The summary of three Korean teacher organizations ........................ 60
Figure 2. Major Curriculum — Instruction Category ..................................... 67
Figure 3. Taxonomy of Educational Reforms ............................................ 68
Figure 4. Curriculum-Instruction Categories Organized by Reform Taxonomy 70
Figure 5. Typology of major school reforms ............................................. 70
Figure 6. New typology for categorizing educational policy proposals and 75
examples ..........................................................................
Figure 7. Types of Organizational Changes ............................................... 80
Figure 8. Characteristics of each field over time frame ................................. 113

Figure 9. Percents of educational policy proposals of the KFTA over time frame .. 124
Figure 10. Percents of educational policy proposals of the KTU over time frame .. 126

Figure 11. The numbers of proposals presented by the KFTA and the KTU over
time frame ......................................................................... 128

Figure 12. Percents of educational policy proposals presented by the KFTA the
KTU over from 1980 to 1988 .................................................. 130

Figure 13. Percents of educational policy proposals presented by the KFTA the
KTU over from 1989 to 1992 .................................................. 133

Figure 14. Percents of educational policy proposals presented by the KFTA the
KTU over from 1993 to 1998 .................................................. 136

Figure 15. Percents of educational policy proposals presented by the KFTA the
KTU over from 1999 to 2002 .................................................. 141

Figure 16. The changing educational directions and roles of teacher organizations
over time frame .................................................................. 144

xii

ACT
AFT
CEA
FKTU
ILO
IMF
KCTU
KFEA
KFTA
KTU
KTUC
KUTEW
NAEP
NCATE
NCEA
NBA
NSBA
NTA
OECD
PTA
PSRC
SAT
UNESCO
YMCA

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

American College Test

The American Federation of Teachers

The Chosun Education Associations

The Federation of Korean Trade Unions

The International Labor Organization

International Monetary Fund

The Korean Confederation of Trade Unions

The Korean Federation of Education Associations

The Korean Federation of Teachers’ Associations

The Korean Teachers’ Union

The Korean Trade Union Council

The Korean Union of Teaching and Educational Workers
National Assessment of Educational Progress

The National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education
The National Coalition of Education Activists

The National Education Association

The National School Board Association

The National Teachers’ Association

The Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development
Parent Teacher Association

Public Service Research Council

Scholastic Assessment Test

United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization
Young Men’s Christian Association

xiii

CHAPTER ONE

TEACHER ORGANIZATIONS AND THEIR DEVELOPMENTS

Introduction

Teacher organizations in the United States were first organized in the nineteenth
century and Since they have made considerable headway since the 19605. Over the past
40 years, teachers have been the largest unionized group of workers in the United States.
Over 80 percent of public elementary and secondary teachers are members of either the
American Federation of Teachers (AFT) or the National Education Association (NBA)
(Finch & Nagel, 1984; Bascia, 1994).

Teachers have embarked on amazing activities and adaptabilities in education and
have greatly improved their income and status. In less than a half-century, teachers have
gone from being underpaid and undervalued semiprofessionals to becoming powerful
actors in education, and now have even become key players in the labor industry, the
society and politics. To a large degree, it is said that the unionization of teachers must
have brought about these remarkable successes and benefits for teachers in education
(Cooper, 2000). Consequently, teacher organizations are now a powerful force in
education at the local, national and even international levels (Berube, 1988; Cooper,
1992; Murray, 2000; Riley, 2002; Smyke, 1985).

At certain points, to gain more benefits in the educational field, teachers and
teacher organizations become quite militant as they resort to waging strikes and job
actions at the local level together with aggressive lobbying at the state level (Bascia, 1994,

Sykes, 1997). Until the 19808, industrial-style bargaining issues prevailed for most of this

century, with wages and work conditions subject to contentious negotiations between
teachers and management. Industrial bargaining oriented issues emerged in the 19605
when teachers won the right to organize and negotiate wages, hours, and working
conditions (Blum, 1969; Johnson and Kardos, 2000; Nothem, 1992; Kerchner & Koppich,
1993).

Times are changing and many teacher organization leaders today try to overcome
the limits of traditional labor-management relations, industrial oriented issues, as they
start to pay more attention to innovative developments, professional oriented issues,
unfolding across the country (Bascia, 1992, 1994; Berube, 1988, Kerchner & Koppich,
1993; Streshly and DeMichell, 1994; Sykes, 1997). At the national level, leadership in
both the National Education Association (NBA) and the American Federation of
Teachers (AFT) has begun to sound a call for change and to focus on various educational
reform movements. At the local level, local teacher organizations in many districts have
started to transform labor-management relations (Sykes, 1997).

With the emergence of a new wave of teacher organizations, many researchers
have presented related studies that support the efforts of today’s teacher organizations.
They focus more on the new roles of teachers and consider teacher organizations as made
up of professionals in the educational field rather than institutional actors whose roles are
characterized as labor-management relations (Bascia, 1998; Kerchner, 1988; Kerchner &
Mitchell, 1988; Steve, 1998). They also argue that a teacher group is the one of core
factors in the success of educational policy and further, that a teacher group must be
involved in the educational reform policymaking process and in the performance of roles

associated with social justice unionism (Bascia, 1992, 1994; Bickel and Bickel, 1979;

Boyd, Plank, and Sykes, 2000; Hawley, 1978; Hendrick-Lee, 1998; Johnson and Kardos,
2000; McDonnell and Pascal, 1988; Naylor, 2002; Peterson, 1999; Poole, 1999, 2001).
In Korea, the changes in society and politics have encouraged teacher
organizations (KFTA) to increase the number of teachers’ rights in school organizations
and in the educational field. The enthusiasm resulting from social democratization in the
19805 stimulated educational democratization in the educational field as well.
Democratization in politics and the pluralization of teacher organizations in the 19805
and 19905 propelled the changing roles of teacher organizations in the educational field.
The entry of two teacher unions excluding the KF TA as incorporated body, the
Korean Teachers’ Union (KTU) in the late of 19805, the Korean Union of Teaching and
Educational Workers (KUTEW) in 1999, and the legalization of both of teacher unions in
1999, rearranged roles, political routes and activities of teacher organizations in the
educational field. This entry made the three teacher organizations in Korea hold each
other in check. Consequently, the environment surrounded with teacher organizations
changed rapidly and it is said that Korean teacher organizations should fashion new roles

in order to adapt themselves to the new educational environment.

Statement of Problem

It is said that stakeholders in education such as students, teachers and parents have
had few chances to participate in the formation of educational policy in Korea (Lee and
Han, 1997; Park, 2000). It is a fact that stakeholders form lots of opinions about

educational policy but these have not been accepted easily as said policies. Hierarchical

structures in society and education haven’t allowed them to participate in the educational
policy process.

Korean educational policymakers usually tend to judge educational problems or
issues by their own experience and form policies according to their own thoughts without
considering the opinions of those who are working in the practical field (Han, 1998). Due
to these reasons, whenever new educational policies are promulgated and applied to the
field, educational policies are not welcomed by stakeholders. Although it is said that the
three stakeholder groups should be considered as important factors in education, the
policymakers have paid less attention to their opinions or needs toward education (Kim,
2000)

This Situation also happens in the United States. In their book, The manufactured
Crisis (1997), Berliner and Biddle examine the real problems of education. They argue
that some proposals for educational reform reflect only the personal experiences or
prejudices of legislators, and that some are based on misunderstandings about schools
and the problems of education. For these reasons, although many educational reform
proposals were geared toward improving schools, there were serious problems that
emerged.

Among the three stakeholders, teachers play more important role as both
performers and recipients of educational policy in the practical field than any other group
(Fullan, 1993; Sarason, 1995; Tyack & Cuban, 1995). In addition, teachers systematically
built organizations, teacher organizations, and have played more powerful role as an
interest group in education and educational policy than other groups do (Berube, 1988;

Lieberman, Haar, & Troy, 1994; Jessup, 1985; Johnson, 1988; Urban, 1982). It is the

teacher groups that know best about what educational policies should be required in
schools.

Although many researchers have pointed out the important efforts made by
teacher organization in the educational policy field, Korean researchers have been
indifferent to the efforts undertaken by teacher organizations in the formation of
educational policy. This problem is caused by the narrow scope of studies related to
teacher organizations as representatives of teachers. The studies in Korea related to
teacher organizations have only focused on either the role definitions of teacher
organizations that were usually regulated in educational and labor laws or on the

expansive viewpoint of teacher organizations after the legalization of teacher unions.

Mose of Research

In 1999, the Korean government permitted pluralized unionism in the educational
field, and the KTU and the KUTEW enrolled as teacher unions in that same year.
Presently, Korea has three teacher organizations, the KF TA, the KTU, and the KUTEW.
Pluralized unionism stimulated teacher organizations to compete one another.

Even though two teacher unions succeeded in participating, and the KFTA has
still maintained its typical role as representative of teachers in education, it is said that
teachers still have not been considered as active players in education in Korea. They have
been expected to do typical work as instructors in schools and asked to abide by
educational policy. Teaching seemed to be the only duty that teachers have to do in

education.

However, they have never been passive strangers in education. They have made
an effort to have an influence on education, submitting educational policy proposals as
articulations of their opinions about education. Clearly, they have played a more active
role as educational policy proposers.

The purpose of this research is to review the efforts of teacher organizations as
educational policy proposers in the field of education. The research delves into the kinds
of educational policy proposals teacher organizations have presented in education given
the type of directions being taken within the field. The purpose will be achieved through
categorizing educational policy proposals of teacher organizations by typology and
analyzing them alongside the political/educational viewpoints.

Through simple categorizations of educational policy proposals, the research will
identify their tendency of educational policy, the direction of educational policy routes,
and their concern with educational policy. Through the analysis of categorizations using
political bases, the research will find out the changing roles of teachers organizations as
educational policy proposers, their relations with the government, and the interactions

among teacher organizations.

Significance of Research

Each teacher organization has a different goal, history, character, and political
route in education. The coexistence of the three teacher organizations brings about
positive impacts that propel the development of teachers’ rights and the educational
environment. On the other hand, this may also lead to the negative impacts that may be

related to the pursuit of selfish interests or the generation of conflict in the process of

recruiting members, and so on. However, they have tried to do their best to improve the
quality of education, as they influence education directly or indirectly.

The significance of this research lies in its potential to review the roles of teacher
organizations as educational policy proposers in education by categorizing their
educational policy proposals and by analyzing categorized proposals on
political/educational bases in order to explain relations with the government and the
interactions among teacher organizations. These efforts offer a realistic study of teacher
organizations’ status in educational policy, review the educational policy proposals
teacher organizations have presented in education, propose new ways that teacher
organizations should take in policymaking process in future, and expand the sequence of

studies related to teacher organizations in Korea.

Limitation of Research

The research has the following limitations:

First, the research examines the political actions of teacher organizations through
literature reviews. Even though the researcher has the interview with some important
persons in both of teacher organizations, most information about their political actions
and the relations with the government are inferred from literature reviews. This may
bring about some misunderstanding the real situation and the relations of teacher
organizations.

Second, the research focuses on a finite time period (1980 to 2002). The research
doesn’t collect all educational policy proposals from all teacher organizations in

illustrating their roles in education. That is, educational policy proposals of the KUTEW

are not collected. Therefore, this narrow data collection limits the conclusions that can be
drawn from data coming from all Korean teacher organizations and all Korean
educational history.

Third, there is a limitation related to the collection of educational policy proposals
presented by teacher organizations. Since the KFTA started to arrange educational policy
proposals from 19905, educational policy proposals in 19805 were collected from the
book, KF TA history of 50 years. The KTU also doesn’t have official documents that deal
with educational policy proposals. Educational policy proposals of the KTU came from
the records of meetings held by the representatives. Therefore, there might be differences
between the original educational policy proposals and the collected educational policy
proposals.

Fourth, the researcher just collects educational policy proposals related to primary
and secondary education. All other educational policy proposals for early childhood
education or higher education are excluded. Therefore, it is difficult for collected

proposals to express all efforts of teacher organizations toward education.

CHAPTER TWO

TEACHER ORGANIZATIONS

Teacher organizations have tried to do their best to protect teachers’ rights and
benefits and to improve the quality of education since they were first organized. However,
even though teacher organizations have done many things for teachers and education, a
serious gap still exists between what we think we know about teacher organizations and
what we really know. Many researchers have tried to narrow the gap by advancing
several viewpoints.

This chapter tries to bridge the gap by examining the realities of teacher
organizations. The researcher presents, at first, an understanding of a teacher union,
which embodies the definition, character, and roles of teacher organizations in general.
After that, three viewpoints pertaining to the roles of teacher organizations, teacher
organizations as institutional actors, teacher organizations as professional groups, and
teacher organizations as social justice performers to improve school education, are
explained respectively. This part becomes an important basis upon which to build the
typology, which is used to categorize educational policy proposals in terms of types and
the roles.

The part ‘Teacher organizations as institutional actors’ encompasses the effort of
teacher organizations to protect teachers’ rights and to improve the teaching environment.
The part ‘Teacher organizations as professional groups’ provides the explanation of their

influence on professional issues such as teacher accountability and the involvement in

educational policy. In addition, a newly introduced concept, ‘teacher organizations as
social justice performers’ pays more attention to the improvement of (school) education.
The general information of teacher organizations in Korea is provided in the last
part of this chapter. There are three teacher organizations in Korea, and they have
different features. The part explains the goals, characters and the features, and activities
of each teacher organization. The purpose of this part is to review the differences among

the three teacher organizations.

The Understanding of Teacher organizations

 

The definition of teacher orgafnizations

The development of science and technology and the division of labor has helped
form a complex and heterogeneous society. Lots of labor groups that try their best to gain
better conditions for survival have been divided into interest groups and professional
groups (Park, 1999). Interest groups are regarded as collectivities that are organized in
order to achieve common and shared goals or values. As the twenty first century
commences, it has been said that the human is not an individual and idealistic being but a
social being that should live and establish relations with others.

Many kinds of interest groups have been organized to preserve human’s interest
and, the teacher organization is one of them. The teacher organization is built by teachers
for themselves and is organized to promote teachers’ socioeconomic status and to help
develop teachers’ professionalism (Yoon, 1998; Lee, 2003). The teacher organization

could thus be considered as either a professional group or interest organization.

10

The Korean Federation of Teachers’ Associations (KFTA) (1997) presents a
couple of reasons why teachers build teacher organizations. First, they want to improve
teachers’ capacity as educational professional groups. Second, they try to improve their
socioeconomic status. This is most important reason for building organizations. Third,
they build teacher organizations in order to participate in the educational policymaking
process. Fourth, they want teacher organizations to represent the interests of teachers.

The organization built by teachers could be called a ‘teacher organization’,
‘teacher association,’ ‘teacher union,’ and so on. In this study, the researcher opts to use

the term ‘teacher organization’, in lieu of “teacher association” and “teacher union”.

The characters of tezgher organizations

Teachers build teacher organizations in order to achieve effectively goals that
cannot be achieved through the power of individual teachers, such as the development of
teachers’ rights, the improvement of professionalism, and the promotion of their
socioeconomic status. The character of a teacher organization depends on how the work
of teaching is considered. It is said that teaching has been considered in line with jobs
associated with the holy orders, the labors, or the professions (Sub, 1998).

Considering teaching as holy orders distorts the value of a teacher organization’s
existence. As public education became widespread in Europe, teacher organizations
developed the character of labor unions in order to promote teachers’ socioeconomic
status, and teaching was thus considered as a labor. Unlike the European culture, Korean
culture thinks of teaching as professional. A teacher organization that develops teachers’

professionalism aims to promote education and to develop culture, and embodies the

11

character of a service organization that does not pursue material profits but pays more
attention to the spirit of service (Yoon. et al., 1989).

It is said, however, that a teacher organization has embodied the last two
characters at the same time (Bascia, 1994; Cresswell & Murphy, 1976; Jessup, 1985; Kim,
1985; Kim, 1997; Urban, 1982, Yoon, 1993). Unlike other labor unions or labor
organizations, the goals of teacher organizations are influenced heavily by two characters.
Teacher organizations should not only promote teachers’ socioeconomic status but also
develop professionalism in teaching. Therefore, teacher organizations usually play the

roles associated with labor unions and professional groups in education.

The roles of teacher organizations

Previously, the researcher stated in that teacher organizations have embodied two
characters in education. These characters exert a great influence on the roles of teacher
organizations in education. The researcher presents a few studies that refer to the roles of
teacher organizations.

A recommendation prepared by United Nations Educational, Scientific, and
Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the International Labor Organization (ILO) in
1966 concerning the Status of teachers, presented some of the roles performed by teacher
organizations'. First, teacher organizations should participate in the deve10pment of new
courses, textbooks and teaching aids. Second, teacher organizations should seek to
cooperate fully with authorities in the interests of pupils, of service in the field of
education and of society generally. Third, teacher organizations should be recognized as a

force which can contribute greatly to educational advancement and which should

 

‘ Source: http://www.ei-ie.org/ressourc/english/erecl966.htm

12

therefore be associated with the determination of educational policy. Fourth, teacher
organizations should consult with the government to promote the establishment of a wide
system of in-service education, made available freely to all teachers. Fifth, teacher
organizations should participate in the process of negotiation for salary and sufficient
working conditions. Teacher organizations should also establish the hourly teachers’
salary schedule per day and per week. Sixth, teacher organizations should establish a
‘Codes of ethics or of conduct’ Since such codes contribute greatly to ensuring the
prestige of the profession and the exercise of professional duties in accordance with
principles agreed upon.

In 1985, Kim identified teacher organizations’ roles in education, based on the
summary of the Korean Federation of Educational Association (KFEA)2’5 previous
activities: 1) promotion of local autonomy in educational administration, 2) increase of
teacher salaries, 3) protection of teachers’ rights, 4) reforms of entrance examinations, 5)
promotion of private schools, and 6) improvement of educational finance.

Kim (1995) also presented three typical roles of teacher organizations. First,
teacher organization should perform their roles as representatives of teachers. Teacher
organizations should gather teachers’ opinions and present those to the government for
better education. Second, teacher organizations should be the interest group that
negotiates with the government on educational issues. Teacher organizations should
protect teachers’ and students’ interests and rights in both teaching and learning. Finally,

teacher organizations should be the professional group that improves the quality of

 

2 The Korean Federation of Educational Association (KFEA) was the antecedents of Korean Federation of
Teachers’ Associations (KFTA) and was renamed to the KF TA in 1989.

13

education. Teachers should improve their teaching abilities and participate in the
educational policymaking process related to teachers and education.

Yoon et al. (1989) emphasizes the kind of roles teacher organization should
perform. First, teacher organizations should develop professionalism in teaching. Second,
teacher organizations should participate in the educational policymaking process. Third,
teacher organizations should study the development of education. Fourth, teacher
organizations should promote the authority of teachers in education. Fifth, teacher
organization should help teachers attain a good life and work for the betterment of their
welfare. Sixth, teacher organizations should exert their efforts toward establish a better
society. Finally, teacher organizations should do their best to acquire support from the
pubhc.

Urban (1982) stated the roles of teacher organizations through answers to the
issue ‘why teachers organized.’ “First, teachers organized to pursue material
improvements, salaries, pensions, tenure, and other benefits and policies which helped
raise teaching in the cities to the statues of a career for the women who practiced it.
Second, through the pursuit of salary scales and other policies, teachers sought to
institutionalize experience, or seniority, as the criterion of success in teaching (p.22).”

J essup (1985) summarized the roles of teacher organizations with other
researchers’ definitions. One is that of labor union tradition (Cole, 1969). This concept
has an ideology emphasizing broad social goals stressing the importance of raising
workers’ consciousness and energies to press collectively for improvement in their work

situation. The other is the professional tradition (Goode, 1973). This concept stresses the

14

importance of service to students and responsibility of the occupational group to uphold
the quality of this service.

Poole (1997) presented the roles of teacher organization through data collected
through interviews with teacher organizations’ leaders. Considering factors that
influenced the roles of teacher organizations such as membership issues, the
government’s policy agenda, the degree of public support for organization goals, and the
extent to which members shared a local or provincial perspective, Poole concluded that
teacher organizations should have dual functions; to promote both the economic welfare
and professional development of teachers. He thus confirmed two important roles of
teacher organizations.

Consequently, the roles of teacher organization can be summarized using two
segments. First, teacher organizations as institutional actors protect teachers’ rights,
increase teacher salaries, and help improve working conditions to better student
achievement. Second, teacher organizations as professional groups promote the quality of
teaching and the acquisition of authorities in the educational field.

Recently, however, a new approach to see the role of teacher organizations
differently has been introduced in education. This new approach expresses a different
viewpoint about their role in education. Peterson (1999) agrees with the dual roles
(industrial and professional oriented roles) of teacher organizations in education, but
another role must be required for future school education. He calls it ‘Teacher
organizations as social justice unionism’ and it has a broader concept than the dual roles
of teacher organizations such as the movement for social progress. The following parts

explain these three roles of teacher organizations in detail.

15

1. Teacher organizations as institutional actors

This part discusses some researchers’ arguments related to teacher organizations’
roles for improving teachers’ working conditions in schools. This part gives the
researcher information needed to understand the industrial-style negotiations of teacher
organizations in the educational field. This effort has been considered as a fundamental
role of teacher organizations since these were first formed.

Most studies related to the role of teacher organizations before the 19805 pay
attention to teachers salaries and working conditions. The formation of teacher
organizations was instrumental in promoting increases in the salaries of teachers and the
improvement of their working condition in schools. Peterson (1999) says that the
industrial unionism model “focuses on defending the working conditions and rights of
teachers” (p.14).

Kasper (1970), Thornton (1971), Baugh and Stone (1979), Doherty (1981), and
Stone (2000), Eberts and Stone (1984a), and Zwerling and Thomason (1995) studied the
relations between teacher organizations and teachers’ salaries. Whereas earlier studies
found that collective bargaining done by teacher organizations had little influence on
teachers salaries, later researches showed that in fact, this factor helped increase teachers
salaries (Zwerling, 1995). Even though it was obvious that the collective bargaining of
teacher organizations increased teachers salaries, the effect of increased teachers’ salaries
on education was vague.

The study conducted by Kasper (1970) was the earliest work that came out with

findings pertaining to the effect of bargaining on teachers salaries. Using data collected

16

from 50 states and Puerto Rico, Kasper set up the average classroom salary of teachers in
the states as the dependent variable and the measure of the degree of bargaining as one of
the independent variables. He concluded that a) the effect of collective bargaining on
teachers salaries was very small; b) if there was a positive effect, the range of increase in
salaries was between $40 and $400; and c) with these small estimates, it seemed unlikely
that bargaining produced a significant or widespread reallocation of educational
resources.

Unlike Kasper, Thornton (1971) studied wage effects in 83 large, urban school
districts and found greater effects than did Kasper. Thornton set up several points on the
salary scale in his salary variable and found out that “collective negotiations have indeed
affected higher teacher salary at all four salary levels. The differentials range from a
fairly small $1600 for the minimum to a substantial $3,132 at the maximum level”
(pp.42-43). This study, however, was criticized by Hall and Carroll (1973). They found
out some errors in Thornton’s ‘interstate and interregional’ comparisons of large districts
and suggested that the outcome might be influenced by variables other than unions, such
as state certification requirements, degree of urbanization, and regional income
differentials.

Baugh and Stone (1982) studied teachers salaries by using data gathered from
1974 — 1975 and 1977—1978 of the Current Population Survey. They set union
membership as an independent variable, and set the estimated hourly wage and the
change in the hourly wage as dependent variables. They found that teachers gained
relatively small wages during the early 19705. However, the gap of wage differential

between union teachers and nonunion teachers by the late 1970s reached 12 to 22 percent.

17

Baugh and Stone (1979) and Eberts and Stone (1984a) emphasized the correlation
between the existence of teacher organizations and teachers salaries. By examining the
impact of teacher unionization, in particular, the impact of collective bargaining, they
agreed on the importance of teacher organizations’ existence in labor market for teachers.
Their studies revealed that the wage differential increased in the 19705, even though the
differential declined in the mid-to-late 19805. The studies concluded that teacher
organizations increased teachers salaries through the collective bargaining process.

Doherty (1981) and Stone (2000) argued in similar studies that the controversial
topic related to teacher organizations would involve the effect these had on educational
quality - whether schools are better or worse because of collective bargaining. He
surveyed teacher organizations’ influence on four aspects of schools and provided the
following conclusions: a) collective bargaining tends to increase teacher pay and
benefits; b) collective bargaining standardizes work conditions, lowers student-teacher
ratios, and provides protections against job loss for teachers; c) costs is increased under
unionization; and d) the effects of collective bargaining are mixed and, whether positive
or negative, are small. They concluded that teacher organizations had provided lots of
benefits to teachers.

Zwerling and Thomason (1995) examined the effects of collective bargaining on
the determinants of teachers salaries by analyzing teacher organizations’ impact on two
measures of teachers salaries, the lowest and highest in a school. They used national data
that was drawn from the 1984 Administrator Teacher Survey of the National
Longitudinal Survey, High School and beyond. The results revealed that teacher

organizations increased teachers salaries at the high end of the salary scale, but had no

18

influence on entry-level salary. Among the determinants of teachers salaries, they found
out that bargaining spillovers was the most important of these.

Meanwhile, McDonnell and Pascal (1979), Fuller, Mitchell, and Hartmann (2000),
and Bascia (1998) focused on studying teachers’ working conditions. Requesting better
working conditions is another controversial issue in the era of industrial-style teacher
organizations. Teacher organizations have believed that better working conditions in
schools could improve better students’ academic achievements.

McDonnell and Pascal (1979) analyzed data from a national sample of school
districts at two time periods, 1970 and 1975. They concluded that there was a
“convergence of collective bargaining outcomes over times. As more and more school
systems follow the lead of flagship districts, there is less variation among individual
contracts” (p. 31). They also argued that organized teachers kept gaining influence over
many things happening in the classroom, the schools, and the school system. In the
classroom, teachers possessed control over class size, curriculum, disciplinary matters,
and use of aids. In the school and district, teachers contributed to decisions over who
would be employed and where, who would administer, who would evaluate, and who
were interested in the duration and composition of the teaching day.

Fuller, Mitchell, and Hartmann (2000) pointed out the indirect influence of
teacher organizations on working condition through the analysis of contracts. They found
that Milwaukee’s teacher contracts had primarily paid attention to compensation, job
security, and working conditions since teachers created organizations. The Milwaukee
contract increased from 18 pages in 1964 to 174 pages in 1992, but the efforts of schools’

to improve their performance could not be found in these documents, which means that

19

Milwaukee schools suffered from the educational quality problems during the same time
period.

Bascia (1998) criticized the negative relations between teacher organizations and
working conditions. She argued that in the press and in the educational literature, teacher
organizations were often characterized as conservative organizations whose narrow
precaution with teachers’ material and occupational well-being was antithetical to
students’ educational interests. Collective bargaining has encouraged the formalization of
administrator-teacher relations, adversarial dynamics, reactive strategies, and the framing
of teaching as labor rather than professional work. Organizations’ tough-talking public
image was blamed for ‘undermining public trust’ in education.

Summary: The efforts of teacher organizations to improve their rights and
interests are essential to protect their jobs in the educational labor market. Sometimes,
however, they are criticized as being negative forces and critics of educational innovation
possessing narrow vested interests (N aylor, 1997). On the other hand, it is said that good
teaching quality usually comes from a stable job position and better teaching
environment. Good teaching environment will give teachers the positive volition to
provide students with a better quality of education.

Researches related to teacher salary and working conditions have shown largely
positive results even though there are a few negative results in research, such as the
report from Public Service Research Council (PSRT) (1978)3 . Teacher organizations

increased teachers salaries, improved working conditions in schools, and improved

 

3 Public Service Research Council (1978) reported that collective bargaining of teacher organizations was
not found to have a major impact on the growth of teacher salary and later studies concluded that
unionization has resulted in a negative impact on teacher salary.

20

teachers’ socioeconomic status in society. Many researches have concluded that teachers
gained lots of benefits through collective bargaining.

In Korea, teacher retirement age and teachers’ salaries (based on ability) are
presently becoming hot issues. Korean teacher organizations are trying to extend a
teacher’s retirement age, but the government is lowering the retirement age in order to
hire more new and young teachers in primary and secondary schools. In addition, the
government has tried to implement the salary system based on the individual teachers’
abilities but teacher organizations prevented it from being implemented because they
mistrusted the government’s ability to measure who has good ability and who doesn’t.

Correspondingly, the government succeeded in lowering the teachers’ retirement
age from 65 to 63, but it failed to introduce the adoption of the policy related to
determining teachers salaries by the ability in education. These decisions, however, were
influenced by the interests of politicians and the resistances of teacher organizations, not
through sufficient researches. There must be more related studies conducted to support

the standpoints of each organization, the government and teacher organization.

2. Teacher organizations as professional groups

The influence of teacher organizations on the fundamental structures of the school
system and educational policy is becoming a highly debated topic in education. After the
end of the 19805, teacher organizations started to change their focus from industrial
oriented to professional oriented issues. Bascia (1994) said that some analysts explained

the change with the following reasons:

First, teacher organizations should function more like professional organizations to
provide occupational self-regulation and that they must work on improving public

21

confidence in education, second, changing the substance of educational labor
relations to issues more directly related to teaching and learning will result in more
opportunities for teachers’ participation in school and district life and will not only
improve the quality of education for children but increase teachers’ professional
commitment and satisfaction (p. 2).

To develop teachers’ professionalism, many researchers have studied specific
methods such as ‘joint committee meetings’, ‘peer review programs’, ‘site based
management’, and so on. In addition to these, they have also studied the way teacher
organizations play the role as political actors in education. In this part, the researcher
presents some arguments focusing on professional oriented issues, that is, the influence
of teacher organizations on the policymaking process, educational policy, and politics in
general. These days, these efforts by teacher organizations are supported by the public
because the public has believed that a better quality of teacher organizations or teachers
can provide better education for students (Tyack and Cuban, 1995).

This part starts with the reasons why teacher organizations are beginning to shift
their focus to professional oriented issues. This kind of atmosphere emerged from the late
19705 when industrial oriented issues prevailed“. Among many researchers, the
arguments of Johnson and Kardos (2000), Streshly and DeMichell (1994), Boyd, Plank,
and Sykes (2000) on the importance of professional oriented issues are usually presented.
They explained that the change of organizational directions should not just be a
satisfactory condition, but an indispensable condition in organizational development.

Johnson and Kardos (2000) argue that teachers’ negotiations have evolved over

time. Industrial-style bargaining prevailed from the 19605 to 19705 since teachers gained

 

4 Selden (1967) said teacher bargaining moved beyond industrial collective bargaining to the extent that
teachers regard themselves as professionals, bargaining not only on conditions of work but on matters of
educational policy, including curriculum determination, textbook selection, teaching hours, and special
educational programs.

22

the right to negotiate with the government. From the 19805, the style of bargaining was
changed to reforrn-style bargaining. They explained the reasons for this change: “a)
management, which had been unprepared for early bargaining and had often made
unwise concessions to union demands, started to encounter the consequences of careless
negotiation and resisted further union gains; b) declining enrollments and budget cuts in
the 19705 led to much more cautious conservative negotiations by administrators and
school boards; and c) teachers, themselves started to see the limits of industrial
bargaining and to resent the inflexibility it sometimes imposed on them and their
schools” (p.21). Johnson and Kardos discovered that whereas contracts negotiated with
reform bargaining were able to translate into educational reform, contracts produced by
industrial bargaining were not. They concluded that reforrn-style bargaining would
enlarge the power of teacher organizations to improve teaching as a profession and to
make education reform more general.

Streshly and DeMichell (1994) also presented six reasons for abandoning
industrial-style labor negotiations. First, traditional industrial style, adversarial labor
negotiations between teacher organizations and school boards seriously injure the
district’s community relations. Second, formal industrial-style negotiations actually
restrict and confuse communication within the organization. Third, teachers don’t need
an extensive contract to protect their interests. Fourth, the extended conflict within a
school district caused by the industrial-type labor relation model denies school district
employees the full satisfaction of the public education enterprise. Fifth, school boards

tend to be the best employers in town if they are allowed to be so. Sixth, in the long run,

23

the staff will not make any more money through the industrial-style collective bargaining
model.

Boyd, Plank, and Sykes (2000) said that “union progressive reckon that in order
to restore public confidence in organized teachers, the unions must engage proactively in
school improvement and must alter certain traditional features of unions” (p. 196). This
means the shift from distributive bargaining to integrative bargaining needed to be made.
They predicted that teacher organizations would evolve and become ‘professional
organizations’. They presented the following as evidence of evolutions; joint union-
management committees, educational policy trust agreements, and contract waivers that
promote innovation at the school level. They argued that professionalism among teachers
would be essential to improve schools and school outcomes. In addition, they suggested
that for teacher organizations to build ‘professional organizations’, they must solve two
problems; first, teacher organizations must reduce internal opposition form traditionalists,
and second, they must gain political support from politicians.

The professionalism of teacher organization has been supported by the public
which thinks that teachers’ professionalism in teaching and studying could influence
student achievement positively. Professionalism is driven not only by outside pressures
but also by teachers themselves. The following studies which have come out recently
focus more on professional development for teachers themselves.

Kerchner and Koppich (1993) introduced the best way of developing professional
unionism, a concept in opposition with industrial unionism. In order to achieve
professional unionism, teacher organizations, first need to get rid of “three of industrial

unionism’s most cherished assumptions: a) the inherent separateness of labor and

24

management, or teaching and administration, b) the necessity of adversarial relationship
(between the bargaining units and district administration), and c) ideas about teacher
protection being rethought to include protecting the quality and integrity of teaching as
well as individual teachers (p. 9-10)”. Therefore, with teacher organizations working
together with the administration through such as avenues as ‘joint committees’,
organizations and management need to realize and focus on interest-based bargaining and
educational improvement, and teacher organizations should combine self-interest and
public interest. Clearly, they have to protect teaching as well as teachers’ rights.

Steve (1998), in his article, focused on democratic unionism through gaining
collective bargaining and professionalism. He said that Newark teachers wanted the
union to gain the right of collective bargaining and to be treated as professional groups.
They argued that teachers would never be able to set their own working conditions
without the right of collective bargaining and that that right would give teachers
professional autonomy, control of their working conditions as well as matters of
education related to students. However, 25 years later, teaching and learning did not
improve even after teachers organized unions. Teachers had succeeded in helping
themselves, but they did not succeed in helping their students, nor had they attained the
right to be involved in decision making which had been accorded to professional groups.
Clearly, individual teachers had their own needs, but teacher unions could not satisfy
what each teacher wanted. He found out that the most serious problem of teacher unions
was that they did not have the ability to operate themselves democratically. The union
itself consequently became just another boss of teachers. Steve concluded that a

democratic union that would have given teachers the chance to speak and to listen to each

25

other, would help teachers possess the true right of collective bargaining and be real
professional groups.

Kerchner ( 1988) said that the struggle for teacher organizations in the 19905
focused on three important issues in public education: how public education regains
popular supporters, how organization activity can enhance school effectiveness, and how
teachers can become employed professionals. As organizations become increasingly
involved in the determination of educational policy, teachers would take on greater
responsibility for the public’s perception of their status, the definition of their own work,
and for the worth of their schools.

Kerchner and Mitchell (1988) argued that “professional unionism recognizes the
need for individual autonomy and latitude in the workplace, and it recognizes the need
for corporate self-govemance by teachers” (p.18). They presented three changes that
should be required if teacher organizations aim to become professional organizations. a)
The scope of negotiations should be expanded. Teacher organizations need to be
encouraged to discuss all issues related to the quality of education, such as curriculum,
teaching methods, student assignments, criteria for assessment of student achievement,
and teacher responsibility for non-instructional duties. b) Teacher organizations should
build new negotiated agreements with school districts. The agreements should be flexible
in their application according to external conditions. c) Teacher organizations should
have a different approach to the problem of small unit determination. Professional
unionism needs to recognize the importance of functional groupings and to create units

that can effectively address the integration of workers and educational services.

26

Meanwhile, Ballou and Podgursky (2000) worried about teacher organizations’
negative influence on the profession of teaching. They especially criticized proposed
changes in regulating the teaching profession, especially the idea of shifting control of
training and licensure from state agencies to professional boards. They pointed out some
problems related to professional self-regulation: a) many institutions licensed by teacher
organizations or related organizations would accredit too many teachers whose quality as
teachers could not be verified; b) teacher tests conducted by institutions was not
standardized; and c) if public schools are filled with teachers associated with teacher
organizations or related organizations, they have too much power to negotiate with
school districts. They concluded professional self-regulation would increase the power
of teacher organizations such as the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher
Education (N CATE), but it would not improve American schooling.

Bascia (1999) argues that in recent years teacher organizations have paid more
attention to their membership and members’ interests. Teacher organizations selected
professional deve10pment as the way to rethink their obligations to members. Whereas
previous efforts to develop teacher organizations’ professionalism focused on the
public’s needs, recent efforts toward professionalism began to be geared for teachers
themselves. The need for professional development is driven by several motives. First is
that teachers want to learn to work more effectively with diverse students. Second is that
teachers want to play more a important role in educational practice. She presented three
different types of nonformal and informal professional development provided by teacher
organizations. The first type involved holding annual conferences, which often consisted

of brief workshops of the traditional staff development variety. The second type is a

27

meeting sponsored by other organizations, which usually focused on improving
classroom teaching and teachers’ involvement in educational decision-making process.
The third type is informal learning Opportunities developed by teachers themselves. This
effort was usually generated by those who wanted to be capable teachers.

Participation of teacher organizations in the policymaking process is another
important role of professional organizations. They participate in the policymaking
process in order to reflect their opinion of educational policy and to induce policymakers
to create policies for them. The following studies present the roles and results of teacher
organizations’ involvement in educational policymaking process.

A ten-year longitudinal case study of Bickel and Bickel (1979) examined
collective bargaining by reviewing proposals for the years 1968 to 1978 in order to find
out teacher organizations’ impact on educational policy. Results indicated that teacher
organizations have attempted to use collective bargaining to influence educational policy,
but this attempt met with only a moderate, although improving, rate of success. Factors
that seemed to influence the success rate included growing organizational strength and
changing school board interpretations of what matters were negotiable. Finally, they tried
to find out the effects of organizational stability on the union’s interest in policy reform,
and results were unclear.

Bascia (1992) stressed that through the change in the direction of organizational
routes, teacher organizations were major participants in American educational practice.
During the 19605 and 19705, federal laws restricted collective bargaining to issues of
salaries, benefits, and basic working conditions. Teacher organizations, however, have

recently begun to expand the scope of their issues. Teacher organizations played a greater

28

role in local educational policy making, with the goal of creating opportunities for greater
teachers’ influence on educational practice. Bascia argued that by identifying, reinforcing,
or responding to issues and values around which teachers could find their common
identity, teacher organizations might contribute to the formation, composition, and
boundary setting of ‘professional communities’. Three case studies emphasized teachers’
perspectives of the local union and other related issues during a period when each local
teacher organization was posed to play a greater and more proactive role in district. The
cases illustrated how the particular contexts provided by school and district contributed to
conceptions of teaching that evoked particular attitudes toward and uses for unions by
teachers.

Poole (1999) said that existing arguments that supported increased teacher
organization involvement in educational policymaking assumed that collective bargaining
was the most important means, or the most legitimate means, by which teacher
organizations exerted influence within the educational policy arena. Pool provided an in-
depth examination of a wide variety of traditional and emergent techniques that one
teacher organization employed during the 19905 as a means of influencing provincial
educational policy. The circumstances and reasoning that gave rise to specific influence
techniques was included. Pool classified organization techniques for influencing
educational policy into consultation, holding government accountable, political action,
collective bargaining, earning external support, developing and mobilizing knowledge,
and building and testing member support. The case raised issues that have had important
implications for the government, departments of education, and teacher organizations

within North America.

29

Hyun (2000), in Korea, investigated what teachers think of issues on whether
teachers’ organizations would develop their activities through goodwill competitions, or
whether separation from each other would cause confusion. She also studied how these
teachers’ organization should act. She got the following results: first, when active
teachers think of their occupation and the nature of teacher organizations, there is a
compromise or ambivalence about their perception, taking it for granted that teaching
should be treated as a profession, whereas their organizations should be something of a
trade union. Second, to what extent do teachers understand the activity of teachers’
organizations? Both the KFTA and the KTU have a limited membership because of the
conflict between two teacher organizations. The recently formed Korean Union of
Teaching and Educational Workers (KUTEW) is situated in the same position as both its '
competitors. Male teachers know about the activity of the KFTA better than female
teachers. Teachers who have pursued their career for less than 10 years know about the
KTU better. Third, in the aftermath of the legitimization of teacher organizations, it is
anticipated that the activity of teacher organizations will be made public as they generally
accept pluralized teacher organization, and that teacher organizations can be pressure
groups, if their activity is strengthened, given the fact that 98.5% public opinion supports
the idea that group negotiation should set the agenda on educational policy.

Teacher organizations are also considered as political interest groups in most
countries. They are usually affiliated with other organizations such as labor unions,
which in turn, strengthens their political power in education. They really became a

powerful interest group in the United States. In fact, Berube (1988) said that teacher

30

organizations became the most powerful political force in education. The following
studies explain how teacher organizations play their role as political actors.

Boyd, Plank and Sykes (2000) who were focusing on the state teacher
organizations in Michigan and Pennsylvania, considered teacher organizations as
political actors. The two state organizations enjoyed political success in the 19805 and
then experienced declined political power in the 19905. The results of the election for the
governors in two states reflected voter unhappiness with the educational status quo. The
two governors expressed their approval of educational reforms that included expanded
parental choice of schooling and stronger academic standard proposals which teacher
organizations opposed. Teacher organizations cast heavy blame on two governors’
educational policies and severely fought any Republican proposal for reform. They urged
increased funding as the solution to education’s collapse and expressed the view that
educational reformers were enemies of public education. This strategy failed politically
and allowed teacher organizations to be called obstacles to reform.

Cibulka (2000) examined the politically opposite characteristic of teacher
organizations to school choice. The national teacher organizations opposed vouchers that
provided students with public funds to attend private schools. Cibulka said, however, that
the National Education Association (N EA)’s position on school choice was not fixed. Its
political route on other forms of school choice, such as charter schools, has been less
rigid and more accepted over time. He also noted that local teacher organizations
possessed various positions on charters and that some of them had changed their stance
according to local political conditions. Cibulka argued that the NEA has two analytical

perspectives on choice, the institutional perspective and the regime perspective.

31

According to the institutional perspective, the NEA plays the role as interest group
pursuing goals in an institutional arena filled with competing interests. The regime
perspective focuses on how the NEA’S leaders dealt with internal pressures for change,
leading the organization to strategically alter its stance on major issues. In conclusion,
like other organizations, the NEA’s political positions emerged in response to both
external and internal forces.

Summary: Teacher organizations are eager to be supported by the public in order
to gain power for holding government or its rivals in check. Without the support from the
public, teacher organizations would be the ordinary critical organizations in education.
To obtain this support, teacher organizations should figure out what kinds of roles the
public wants them to perform in education.

What the public wants may be a good quality of education for students. Good
quality of education comes from the good quality teaching of teachers. Good teachers
cannot be born and must be educated. It is the duty of teacher organizations to maintain
the quality of teachers and to ask the government to provide both good quality pre-service
and in-service teacher programs. It is also their important responsibility to keep an eye on
the educational policy of the government as political actors.

In the United States, teacher organizations have tried to strengthen and legitimate
their roles in education affairs. Moreover, two teacher organizations, the NBA and the
AFT, had tried to merge to expand their power both in education and in the politics. For
teacher organizations to strengthen their power in education, many researchers argued
that they should be professionals and participate in the efforts for improving the quality

of education. Accordingly, teacher organizations at all levels (national, state, and local)

32

have worked to transform themselves, to initiate and support educational reform even as
they attempt to maintain their advocative roles for teachers. Teacher organizations should
identify and support endeavors that are substantive and require teachers’ ongoing
involvement and commitment that in turn, provide opportunities for teachers’ greater
participation in educational policy.

In Korea, teacher organizations have tried to improve the quality of teaching and
to obtain professional status in education. The effort to recruit qualified teachers is
another good strategy to gain professional status in education. Even though teacher
organizations in Korea have a short history, they have tried to do their best to be
professional groups both in society and in education.

In spite of their efforts, teachers have not been evaluated as professional groups
because, as Sykes pointed out in 1997, women are the chief source of teachers and their
salary is relatively low, and teaching appears not to require much specialized, expert
knowledge. These kinds of misunderstanding and information could be corrected through
many researches. However, many researches associated with teachers’ professionalism
have not been performed in Korea.

Korean teacher organizations fully realize that the efforts of teacher organizations
toward professionalism could raise teachers’ status in society. However, since teacher
organizations should gather more members than its competitors, teacher organizations
also pay much attention to industrial oriented issues for their members. This is the reason
why teacher organizations are suffering from a dilemma in organizational directions.
More researches in Korea could guide teacher organizations to escape this dilemma and

to help them set up organizational directions as professional organizations.

33

3. Teacher organizations as social justice performers

Recently, new role of teacher organizations has started to be the focus of many
researches. While traditional arguments about the role of teacher organizations have
focused on their dichotomous roles (industrial and professional roles), which have
provided lots of benefits to teachers themselves, their new role involves improving the
quality of school education and students’ outcomes through the support of society. This
new viewpoint reflects both the needs within the educational system and external
pressures (N aylor, 2002).

The dichotomous roles of teacher organizations have prevailed in the US. since
the 19605. Many researchers, however, have begun to argue the limits of this
dichotomous role. Weiner (1999) points out that “many teachers view the union as
irrelevant to their teaching and pay little attentions to its affaires (p. 47).” Kerchner,
Koppich and Weeres ( 1998) and Naylor (2002) argue that the dichotomous roles are
outdated and that teacher unions in North America should now focus on a multiplicity of
areas such as the improvement of education for children. Peterson (1999) warns that if
teacher organizations don’t reconsider their strategies and overcome narrow trade-union
boundaries, they will remain isolated from their supporters.

The new role of teacher organizations is called ‘social justice unionism’. Peterson
(1999) says that ‘social justice unionism’ is a more recent phenomenon and defines it in

the following terms:

The social justice unionism model embraces concepts of industrial and professional
unionism, but also is linked to a tradition that views unions as part of a broader
movement for social progress rather than merely focused on narrow self-interest. It calls

34

for participatory union membership, education reform to serve all children, collaboration
with community organizations, and a concern for broader issues of equity (p. 14).

This definition of this new role gives lots of responsibilities to teacher
organizations. This new role encourages teacher organizations to look outwards, to
improve the quality of education for students, to focus on educational reform, and to
include community for the purpose of developing the quality of education. Even though
social justice unionism requires teacher organizations to deal with a lot of additional
burdens, it widens the scope of teacher organizations’ roles in education.

The National Coalition of Education Activists (N CEA) (1994) presents the
following as key components of social justice unionisms.

a) Social justice unionism should defend the rights of its members while fighting
for the rights and needs of the broader community and students. Teacher
organizations pursuing social justice unionism should secure the educational
rights of the community and students and provide a better quality of education.
Teacher organizations, however, should not forget that the fundamental power
of organizations usually comes from their members.

b) Social justice unionism should recognize that the parents and neighbors of
students are key allies, and thus it is important to build strategic alliances with
parents, labor unions, and community groups. Since parents play very
important roles in the education of their children and are the strongest political

allies, teacher organizations should realize that parents are full partners in

schools.

 

5 Source: http://www.rethinkingschools.org/special_reports/union/sjun.shtml and modified by the
researcher

35

c) Social justice unionism should fully involve rank-and—file members in running
the organizations and initiate widespread discussions on how teacher
organizations should respond to the crises in education and society. Many
local unions need to move from the “service model”, where inactive members
are passive recipients of services provided by the paid staff, to a model where
a mobilized membership takes active responsibility for union affairs. Unions
need to constantly encourage membership involvement and mobilization.

d) Social justice unionism should put teachers and others who work in classrooms
at the center of school reform agendas, ensuring that they take ownership of
reform initiatives. It is teachers who know best about what happens in
classrooms and what kind of school reforms should be required. Unfortunately,
teachers have not ensured that their voices are adequately heard. Teacher
organizations need to allocate sufficient resources to promote reform
initiatives and build the public support for these.

6) Social justice unionism should aggressively educate and mobilize its
membership to fight for social justice in all areas of society. The goal of social
justice unionism should not just be limited to education. Teacher
organizations pursuing social justice unionism should also pay attention to
social justice in all areas of society such as local, community, state, and
national level.

In conclusion, the important role of teacher organizations as channels of social

justice unionism is to promote the quality of school education and to improve students’

learning and development in schools. To promote this, teacher organizations should

36

approach this issue with a new viewpoint, which is somewhat different from those of
dichotomous roles of teacher organizations. They should pay more attention to
educational reform to reflect their voice in educational policy, community involvement
for better education, the equal quality between urban and rural school education,
students’ learning environment, and curriculum developments.

This part starts with the efforts of teacher organizations to participate in the
educational reform process. McDonnell and Pascal (1988) examined the participation of
teacher organizations in the education reform process. They analyzed the many roles that
teacher organizations played at the national, state, and local levels through collective
bargaining and political action. They focused on three major issues: a) the extent to
which teacher organizations attained more professional teaching conditions through
collective bargaining; b) the political response of teacher organizations to national, state,
and local reform initiatives; and c) the way in which the interests and activities of teacher
organizations were likely to shape successive generations of educational reform,
particularly those related with efforts to restructure the teaching profession.

Hendricks-Lee (1998) foCused on teacher organizations’ roles in systemic
educational reform policy. She argued that the challenge facing the United States was not
that its schools were not as good as they once were, but that these needed systemic
educational reform in the educational field. She believed that teacher organizations had a
crucial role to play in reforming the educational system. In fact, it could not be
accomplished without them. She said that the NBA and the AFT, and local teacher
organizations can have - and some already do have -— a powerful impact on reform and on

the improvement of education. Teacher organizations have affected the issue of class size,

37

the career ladder and the peer review program. For teacher organizations to participate in
systemic educational reform, however, she argued that they needed standards for the
preparation of teachers, for beginning teacher licensing, and for advanced certification.
Sec (1998) examined the characteristics of policy proposals on educational reform
by the KTU. He explained that the KTU movement, which started its activities in the late
19805, was the first teachers’ movement to discuss educational problems in public and to
express teachers’ opinions as a group. The KTU has been a progressive group which
identified the nature of educational problems and introduced solutions. But their
movement has been strongly curbed by the conservative camp and the government. As a
result, many teachers had to leave schools. However, with the launching of the new
government in 1998 and the establishment of a progressive regime, teacher organizations
began to have a political advantage. Their proposals on educational policy had
considerable influence upon the reform policy of the government. But the government
bases for its reform policy were grounded on an economy-based philosophy. In the
process of implementing its reform policies, the government faced severely negative
responses from most of the teachers, including those in teacher organizations. He
concluded that even though a considerable number of the proposals on educational
reform policy came from teacher organizations, the methods of implementation of these
proposals angered some teachers. It is therefore necessary to provide a systematic device
that reflects teachers’ opinions on the process of policymaking for the sake of successful
educational reform by the government. In addition to this, the government should change

its prejudice toward teacher organizations.

38

Unlike other researchers who believe that teacher organizations should be
considered as the most important factor in educational reform, Lieberman (1994),
Kirkpatrick (2000), Johnson (1987), and Haar (1998) described teacher organizations to
be the enemies of reform. They pointed out the negative impact of teacher organizations’
activities on educational reform. According to them, teacher organizations paid more
attention to self-interests such as wages, working conditions, or the maintenance of their
status within the current bureaucratic systems. They considered teacher organizations as
selfish organizations working for the interests of teachers solely.

Lieberman (1994) argued that teacher organizations were the major obstacle to
market oriented educational reforms, in relation to such issues as school choice or the
contracting out of instruction to the private sector. They were also the main stumbling
block to lowering the age of compulsory schooling, home schooling, and other reforms
that would shrink the market for public education. Kirkpatrick (2000) said that the NBA
and the AFT consistently blocked any significant changes, such as school choice and
charter schools. Johnson (1987) contented that the collective bargaining of teacher
organizations was a hindrance to the process of designing new programs and resolving
difficult problems.

Haar (1998) also contended that teacher organizations were ‘the most formidable
foes of meaningful education reforms’. Haar pointed out that both the NBA and the AFT
negotiated highly inefficient contracts related to teachers’ salaries, working conditions,
teachers’ welfare, and so on. In addition, they enjoyed a monopoly in education and
sought increased taxes and more government expenditures for teachers and union

bureaucracies. It is argued that highly paid persons operating both teacher organizations

39

maintain their position even though they are doing few jobs. Haar also argued that
teacher organizations restricted parental involvement in their policy process, which may
have brought about indifference about education and consequently, the deterioration of
education.

The research undertaken by DeMichell and Barton (1996) also showed the
negative impact arising out of collective bargaining done by teacher organizations in
attaining educational reform. They surveyed 135 educational professionals including the
principals, union teachers, and nonunion teachers, and concluded that collective
bargaining of teacher organizations had little impact on reform. In addition, three target
subjects had different viewpoints about the impact of collective bargaining. Whereas
principals saw the bargaining process as an obstacle to reform and something that had a
negative impact on school reform efforts, union teachers saw positive effects on reform
efforts and the quality of education. Nonunion teachers, however, were indifferent to the
whole process of bargaining and reform.

The second aim Of social justice that teacher organizations attempt to realize is
related to the maintenance of good relations with parents and communities and to
persuade them to be involved in their children’s educational process. Many people agree
that parent involvement in children’s education is very important. In fact, parent
involvement in American education has a long history and has been supported by the
public.

The oldest and largest organization advocating parent involvement is the National
Parent Teacher Association (PTA). The organization was founded in 1897 in Washington,

DC, which was about the same time the National Congress of Mothers was spearheaded

40

by Alice McLellan Birney and Phoebe Apperson Hearst. For more than a century, the
National PTA has provided families support, information and resources, with an
emphasis on the health and education of children.

The goal of all PTA activities is to involve parents in their children’s education. A
key object of the PTA is to build closer relations between home and school in which
parents and teachers COOperate for the education of children. PTA has been developed as
one of the powerful interest groups that has a significant effect on education, even as it
also boasted its power to affect the activities of teacher organizations.

The PTA in Alabama however, points out that even though more parents want to
participate in organizations and play a more active role in their children’s education, they
do not know how to go about doing this. This does not mean that parents do not possess
the interest to be involved in their children’s education but that they really need a
program to guide their involvement in education. Therefore, all PTA leadership should
develop a necessary program that helps parents and schools work together for their
children’s education.

To develop a program, the following objectives should be fulfilled by the PTA".

a) To improve parent/family involvement

b) To create a school climate that is open, helpful, and friendly

c) To help all families establish home environments to support learning and

provide ideas and programs for parents on how to help their children succeed

in school

 

6 Source: http://wwwalabamapta.org/members/committees/parentinvolvement.htm

41

d) To enlist the support of parents in the educational environment such that there
would be an increase in the percentage of parents who visit school and work
with the business community

e) To pay special attention to parents who work outside the home, divorced
parents, and culturally diverse families by providing flexible meeting times
and volunteer incentives, as well as similar activities

f) To recruit and train parent leaders to participate in decision making,
governance, and advocacy

g) To assist schools and families in collaborating with community organizations
and businesses to assist in effectively educating children to become productive
community members

In connection with parent involvement in education, Haar (1999) expresses his

opinion about the relation between teacher organizations and parental involvement. He
argues that parental involvement does not happen without help from others. He says that
it is affected by many factors, but one of most important factor that affect parent
involvement is teacher organizations. He explains that teacher organizations usually
guide teachers to have attitudes toward parental involvement. The NBA and the AFT in
fact, welcome and promote parental involvement in education, although they do not want
parents to interfere in the organizations’ policies nor competence. Thus, teacher
organizations ask parents to participate in education passively. Haar expresses this issue
as “the huge gap between union rhetoric and union practice with respect to parent

involvement” (p. 49).

42

The third role of teacher organizations as social justice unionism performers is
related to improving students’ academic achievements in schools. Many researches say
that collective bargaining by teacher organizations in education could result in bettering
student achievement. Some researches, however, also reveal the neutral or negative
influences of teacher organizations on student achievement. Therefore, the arguments
from both sides are presented. Eberts and Stone (1984b, 1986), Nelson, Rosen and
Powell (1996), Hoxby (1996), and Doherty (1981) debate on how teacher organizations
affect student achievement.

Eberts and Stone (1984b) studied the effect of teacher collective bargaining on
student outcomes and explored the relationship between collective bargaining and
teachers and administrators. They concluded that collective bargaining affected the way
schools were run in the United States. Union teachers received higher salaries, taught
smaller classes, and spent slightly less time instructing students and more time in class
preparation. Eberts and Stone (1986) also indirectly revealed the role and the importance
of teacher organizations’ existence. The major difference detected in the study was that
the educational cost per pupil was 15 percent higher for union than for nonunion districts,
while the average student in union districts scored 5 percent higher than students in
nonunion districts.

Nelson, Rosen and Powell (1996) led a study that examined the influence of
collective bargaining in consideration of other factors such as region, family income, race,
school spending, and levels of private school attendance. The focus of this study was the
relationship between high, medimn and low levels of unionization among teachers and

student test scores on the SAT College Entrance exams and the NAEP fourth grade

43

reading tests in a state-by-state comparison. The result revealed clearly with all other
variables held constant, student performance on tests was significantly better in states
with high levels of unionization. Average student scores on the SAT exams were 43
points higher in states in which over 90% of teachers were unionized. In addition, when
collective bargaining is removed from the analysis, scores dropped in all states. This
result suggested that collective bargaining among teachers didn’t harm student school
performance. They concluded that “breaking the unions will hurt, not help students’
performance”.

In the mean time, Hoxby (1996), Doherty (1981), and Steelman at al. (2000)
revealed the neutral or negative influence of teacher organizations on student
achievement in education. Hoxby (1996) tried to explain how teacher organizations
affected education production. In her article, using panel data on Untied States school
districts, she identified the effect of teacher organizations through differences of state
laws that facilitated teacher unionization. She found that teacher organizations increased
school inputs but reduced productivity sufficiently to have a negative overall effect on
student performance. Organization effects were magnified where schools had market
power. She concluded that teacher organizations helped us understand how the market
structure of schooling affected actual school behavior and student achievement.

Steelman et a1. (2000) pointed out although many researchers labeled teacher
organizations, as the enemies of education, there have been few empirical analyses to
prove their arguments. They focused on the relations between SAT/ACT scores and
teacher unionization and found out that there were either positive or negative relations

between the scores and teacher organizations.

44

Doherty (1981) gathered previous studies related to student achievement in order
to find out the relations between teachers’ bargaining and student achievement. He
argued that collective bargaining tried to affect student achievement in two ways. First,
collective bargaining was influenced by teachers’ background related to such aspects as
experience, graduate education, gender, and so on. Second, collective bargaining affected
teachers’ working conditions in that collective bargaining lowered teaching time and
teacher-student ration. He concluded that even though collective bargaining resulted in
good working conditions for teachers, he doubted the effect of collective bargaining on
educational outcomes and student achievement.

Summary: The new role of teacher organizations as social justice performers was
introduced recently and is still a controversial topic. There are both positive and negative
aspects emanating from the performance of this role. Here are some arguments related to
the roles of teacher organizations as advocates of social justice unionism.

Most controversial arguments come from whether or not social justice unionism
guarantees better student achievement. As the research mentioned earlier, many results of
researches have not distributed fixed outcomes. In other words, studies have argued either
for the positive (Eberts & Stone, 1987; Argys & Rees, 1995; Kleiner & Petree, 1988) or
negative (Hoxby, 1996; Kurth, 1987) impact of teacher organizations on student
achievement.

Johnson (1988) pointed out this vague answer in this manner: “There have been
minimal research on the effects of collective bargaining on student achievement, largely
because the causal connections between bargaining gains and test scores are virtually

impossible to identify” (p.619). Steelman, Powell & Carini (2000) also stress this

45

unsolved problem, criticizing the limits of existing researcher linking teacher
organizations and student achievement. They also point out the lack of adjustment for
student selectivity in many previous studies.

The role of teacher organizations as social justice performers in educational
reform is also unclear. Both positive (Hendricks-Lee, 1998; McDonnell and Pascal, 1988;
Seo, 1998) and negative (Haar, 1997, 1998; Lieberman, 1997; Lawton et. a1, 1999;
Walkom, 1997) impacts of teacher organizations on educational reform are coexistent.
Whereas supporters of teacher organizations in educational reform consider these
organizations as the most important factors for the success of reform, opponents consider
these to be objects that should be reformed themselves before they can even work toward
educational reform.

In Korea, teacher organizations as social justice performers have made great
efforts to concentrate on the development of the curriculum. The KTU entered into the
educational field by citing problems associated with curriculum and asked the
government to revise curriculum for all students. The KFTA also argued that the
government presented too many curriculum policies that were changed every time a new
regime was established. Consequently, both teacher organizations criticized the
government’s inconsistent curriculum policy.

There is a very short history underlying the case of parental involvement in
education in Korea. In 2001, students’ parents in Seoul formed a ‘Parent Committee’
under the slogan, ‘Defend the right of students’ leaming’7. This Parent Committee
widened its sphere of influence to regional areas and now six cities/provinces have a

Parent Committee. Presently, this organization has 15000 members.

 

7 Chungang Ilbo (Korean Newspaper). April 5, 2003.

46

The Parent Committee had no official channel to communicate with teacher
organizations. It served as an unofficial interest group in education. Therefore, it had no
power or authority to influence teacher organizations’ decisions related to educational
issues. In addition, there had not been any way for parents to participate in the
educational policymaking process.

The present regime in Korea, however, has started to recognize the importance of
the Parent Committee and tries to involve the committee8 in collective bargaining, which
is usually held with teacher unions, namely the KTU and the KUTEW. Thus, some
representatives from the Parent Committee should be involved in the collective
bargaining process that-could be protect or revise laws for teacher unions9. This means
that parents are guaranteed the chance of participating in the educational policymaking

process and requiring authorities to check on the activities of teacher unions.

Three Teacher organizations in Korea

The Korean F ederaLtion of Teachers’ Associations (KFTA)

1. Goal

The KF TA works to consolidate and unify teachers, so as to improve their
socioeconomic status as well as their professional qualifications, to advance the welfare
of children and youth, and to contribute to the development of democratic education in

Korea. In a single word, the basic route of the KFTA as an educational organization is

 

8 Existing law for teacher union requires the parent involvement whenever teacher union contracts
collective bargaining or labor agreement each other.
9 This law is a special one of Labor union law in Korea.

47

‘professionalism’. Article 4 of the KFTA Constitution specifies the activities of the
Federation as follows"):

a) Cooperation and solidarity among members.

b) Improvement of teachers’ economic living status and welfare,

c) Protection and extension of teachers’ rights,

d) Achievement of specialties of teaching and democratic development of

education,

e) Educational and cultural exchanges among countries

f) Establishment of the teaching profession and educational development,

g) International exchange of educational and cultural activities,

h) Improvement of the children’s and youth’s welfare and culture,

i) Publication of educational books,

j) All other matters necessary for attaining the aims of this Federation.

2. Characters and features

The KF TA has been the only and legal teacher organization for the past 50 years
and has possessed a conservative character, maintaining good relations with the
government. As the only, unified, professional organization of teachers, the KFTA has
been a major social force affecting most education policies, as developed and
implemented in Korea (Kim, 1985). It is also said that the KFTA has expanded teachers’
rights and improved teachers’ status in education.

It is argued, however, that the KFTA usually spoke for the government rather than

for the development of teachers’ rights and educational reform in education (Y oon, 1998).

 

'0 These goals of the KF TA are cited from the website, www.kfla.or.kr. .

48

Therefore, the KFTA has been underestimated as an association because of the following
factors: a) the KF TA has a passive relationship with the government, b) the activities are
limited because the KFTA is an incorporated body, not a union, and c) the methods of
gathering and maintaining the members are so bureaucratic that the structure of the
organization could be weak (Shin, 1996). Kim (1985) also alleged that the position of the
KF TA was far from that of an advocate for teachers and was much closer to that of an
official organization responsible for the regulation of teacher activities.

In spite of heavy criticism, the KFTA has been the largest teacher organization
among the three existing organizations. It is basically composed of 16 metropolitan and
provincial federations of teachers’ associations and 23 subsidiary bodies based on various
functional organizations and majors. Metropolitan and provincial federations of teachers’
associations are its subordinate organizations which presently encompass 176
metropolitan and county- and district-based teachers’ associations and over 11,030
branches at schools. These branches, fundamental constructions of the KFTA, are the
places where discussions for the democratization of school administrations and local
organizations for the solidarity of teachers take place, even as they perform various works
with their own regulations and continuous support from the central federation.

Any Korean teacher is eligible for membership in the KFTA. The association
pursues educational communitarians and all Korean teachers including principals,
assistant principals, and even professors in colleges. Clearly this shows how the KFTA

has tried to harmonize relations between employers'1 and employees.

 

” School principals and assistant principals are usually considered as possessing the status of employer in
Korea.

49

Most of its members consist of principals, senior teachers, elementary school

teachers and college professors. In June 2001, members of the KFTA, totalled 182,822,

which represented about 48% of total teachers in Korea: 83,142 elementary school

teachers, 84,720 secondary school teachers, 11,651 college or university professors, and

3,309 others. Even though its membership grows alongside the growth in the number of

teachers, the percentage of its membership has been declining. The following Table 1

analyzes the number of members and the percentage of becoming members in 19805.

Table 1. The number of the KFTA members and the percentage of members by the

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

year
The The The The The with?
Year number number of percentage Year number number of of
of the KFTA of members of the KFTA members

teachers members (%) teachers members (%L
1985* 299,562 243,285 81.21 1995* 390,934 256,220 65.54
1986* 310,218 256,609 82.72 1997* 403,927 261,425 64.72
1987* 320,067 260,575 81.41 1998" 41 1,517 250,484 60.86
1988* 330,605 262,581 79.41 1999“ 398,199 197,569 49.61
1989* 343,231 240,746 70.00 2000" 393,722 183,998 46.73
1991* 363,375 237,953 65.48 2001" 375,822 182,882 47.97

 

* Source: The Korean Federation of Teachers’ Associations. (1997). KF TA history of 50 years. Seoul: The
national textbook Co.. p.300 and p.461.

** Source: The research institution for educational policy in the KFTA (2003)

Table 2 explains the number of teachers in primary and secondary education, and the

percentage of membership before and after the entrance of the KTU.

Table 2. The number of teachers and the KFTA members, and the percentage of

the members by schools in 1987 and in 1989*

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1987 1989
The The The The The
number number of percentage number number of percentage
the KFTA of member of the KFTA of member
teacher members (%) teacher members (%)
Total 320,067 260,579 81 343,23 1 240,746 70
Elementary 140,168 129,496 92 147,823 123,863 84
Secondary 144,679 1 17,488 81 158,569 103,200 65

 

* Source: Yoon, J. I., et al. (1989). The Study on building the status of Teacher organizations. Department

of Education at Seoul National University. p. 44-45.

50

 

 

Table 2 showed that the entrance of the KTU brought about the diminution of the number
of KF TA members. This means that the monopoly in the educational field was broken by
the entry of the KTU.

Consequently, the entrance of the KTU rearranged the general situation in
education and stimulated the entire movements of the KFTA. This event stimulated the
KFTA to attempt to reform its structure and system so it could compete with the KTA.
This means that the structure and system of the KF TA started to be democratized through

the power of general teachers.

3. Activities
No matter what kinds of reputations the activities of the KFTA earned, the KFTA,
as the first teacher organization in Korea, has performed lot of activities that for the past
50 years played many important roles in the advancement of education. The following
refers to the important activities undertaken by the KFTA12 .
a) Activities for the reinforcement of members’ solidarity
It can be said that the activities and capabilities of any organization are
proportional to its members’ recognition of membership and participation. In
this respect, the KFTA is striving to construct a powerful organization wherein
400,000 teachers become one united body irrespective of grade of school,
establishment, status, and gender. Additionally, it is conducting diversified work
such as continuous systemic improvement for the democratic activation of the

organization, development of various businesses for the increase of its

 

'2 Source: http://www.kfta.or.kr/eng_kfia/kfta_subtab_project.asp

51

membership, commendation of members for educational exploits and supply of
scholarship for their children, holding of various training assemblies for the
reinforcement of organizational cohesion, and the production of a climate that
accords necessary respect for teachers and education.

b) Activities for collective bargaining with the government
The KFTA and metropolitan/provincial federations of teachers’ associations
conduct collective negotiations with the Ministry of Education regularly twice a
year, by securing the right to collective negotiation with the government on the
basis of “the Special Act on the Improvement of Teachers’ Status” enacted in
May 1991. This brought about a turning point in the activities of teachers’
associations by solving pending problems of education and old complaints of
the incumbent teachers through negotiations conducted

c) Activities for protecting teachers’ rights
The establishment of teachers’ authority is the major premise of educational
activities. Without teachers’ authority being established, educational activities
cannot be performed smoothly and more positive outcomes cannot be expected
as well. The teachers’ associations, therefore, are right and responsible for their
protection and promotion. The KFTA performs diverse activities such as the
establishment of teachers’ morale, the creation of a climate for pan-social
respect of teachers’ authority, improvement of associated laws, preventive
teachers’ authority activities, and recovery of infringed teachers' authority. In
this context, the KFTA, which established the Committee for TeaChers’ Right in

1957, which intervenes if any teacher’s authority is unjustly infringed, conducts

52

activities to recover the infiinged authority actively in cooperation with
metropolitan and provincial federations of teachers’ associations and willingly
offers legal and financial supports such as assistance in lawsuit costs (to the
third trial) by the use of the federation’s Teacher Protection Fund.

(1) Activities for special promotion
Teachers should continuously develop their qualities and abilities and promote
their specialties to cope with rapidly changing situations during the present time.
The KFTA defined the maintenance and promotion of teachers’ specialties as
one of its target programs. For this purpose, it conducts the following
businesses: national contest of classroom research, national exhibition of
educational materials, teacher training and so on.

e) Activities for policy research and development of education and teachers
The KFTA continually makes efforts to activate its policy study function and
create practical methods to extend opportunities for teachers to participate in the
educational policy decision’process with more interests in educational issues. In
order to establish a system that would activate teachers’ society and elevate the
specialties of teachers in front of the international and information-oriented
society in the 2lst century, the KFTA, by collecting widely the opinions of
members, selected the following 10 tasks needed in addressing educational
problems:

0 Restoration of teachers' retirement age to 65 years
0 Improvement of educational conditions and expansion of educational

finance

53

0 Great improvement in the treatment of teachers

0 Early introduction of the Chief Teacher System

0 Enactment of the Brilliant Teachers Security Law

0 Specialization in educational administration

0 Promotion of teachers’ welfare

0 Introduction of the Real-Name System for Educational Policy
0 Securing political activities of teachers and their associations

0 Correction and supplement of the 7th Curriculum

The Korean Teachers’ Union @TU)

1. Goals

The educational goal of the KTU is called ‘the authentic education’'3 for all
students. The KTU has advocated three slogans, ‘Nationalistic, Democratic, and Humane
education’. The nationalistic education teaches students the love and the pride that
humankind should have while democratic education helps students learn the ideology and
the system of the democracy that they should practice in life. Finally, the humane
education teaches students the way to live in harmony with other people (Lee, 1991).

Whereas the KFTA focuses on teachers’ welfare, the KTU focuses its efforts
more on the quality of education, especially curriculum developments and students’
academic development. This difference is deeply rooted in the origins of two teacher
organizations. The KFTA was established to improve teachers’ working conditions,

increase benefits, and establish teachers’ professionalism, but the KTU was organized not

 

'3 Synott (2002) calls it ‘true education’.

54

only for securing teachers’ socioeconomic status but also for providing student-centered
curriculum for all students.

After a new law in 1999 admitted the KTU as a legal teacher union, the
educational environment changed rapidly. The government maintained its basic position
that the KTU’s agenda item should be limited to bread-and-butter issues, such as wages,
working conditions and welfare, as stipulated in the new act of establishment and
operation of teachers’ labor unions. Other educational policy such as reform-oriented
policy issues should be left to negotiations between the government and the KFTA.

Moreover, the KTU started to pay more attention to its members’ welfare than the
quality of education. The KTU came to realize that they needed support from members
and that support could come from members’ socioeconomic stability. Consequently, after
its legalization, the KTU started to perform roles similar to those adopted by most labor

unions.

2. Characters and features

The KTU has possessed progressive and sometimes aggressive stances toward the
government. The KTU has been quite militant in communicating with the government
and in informing the public of their existence (The KTU, 1990a). It has cooperated with
many non-government parties and is now under the control of the progressive umbrella
labor union, the Korea Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU).

Legalization of the KTU was largely influenced by its efforts to correct
educational problems. The KTU endeavored to enlarge the base of social democracy by

calling attention to the seriousness of school matters or making a better educational

55

environment. It deserves recognition not only for its efforts in bringing forward some

vices of the inhumane examination-oriented policies like compulsory supplementary

classes, but also for its effort to teach the basics of a cooperative life with the educational

ideas of nation, democracy and humanity.

Table 3. The number of the KTU members and the percentage of members by

 

 

 

important year*
. The The The The The rThia
Year number number of percentage Year number number of pe oer; ge
or the KTU of members of the KTU magi,“
teachers members (%) teachers members (%) s
1989 343,231 20,500 5.97 1999 398,199 62,654 15.73
1998 41 1,517 7,206 1.75 2000 393,722 75,776 19.25

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

* Source: The research institution for authentic education in the KTU (2003)

Most of the KTU members are schoolteachers in primary and secondary
education, and employers and employees for the schools cannot be members. After being
legalized in 1999, only early childhood, elementary, and secondary teachers can be
members of the KTU. In 1989 when the KTU was formed, the members of the KTU
numbered around 20,500. In 1998, the number of the KTU members dropped to 7,206
because of severe repression by the government. After legalization, the number of the
KTU members increased up to 62,654.

The KTU recognizes teachers as workers and insists that the union is the only
union that can protect the rights and benefits of teachers and overcome the limitations
that the KF TA and the government have committed in education. Although the KTU has
a shorter history than the KFTA does, the KTU has received lots of supports from
younger teachers and the public because of the progressivism and the enthusiasm it has

demonstrated toward the advancement of education. The activities of the KTU for the

56

past decade has developed education by competing with the KFTA and provided a new

lens with which to look at educational progress.

3. Activities

The entrance of the KTU in 1989 was recognized as a sensation itself both in
education and in the society at large. It stimulated the movement toward educational
democracy, the developments of teachers’ rights, the resistance against a dictatorial
government, the reconsideration of the field of education itself, and the reappraisals of
teachers (Son, 1999). Afier being legalized, the KTU has worked toward achieving the
advancement of education. Lee (1999) summarized the activities of the KTU for past 10
years as followings:

a) Activities for development of teacher’s right — The KTU has asked the
government to secure the right of labor in education, which was the most
important issue the KTU has paid attention to. Acquiring the right of labor in
1999 wiped off a dishonor about Korea characteristic of countries that
oppressed teacher unions among the members of the Organization for Economic
Cooperation and Development (OECD).

b) Activities for the development of educational environment - The KTU has tried
to improve teaching and labor conditions in education. The KTU kept asking the
government to increase educational finance up to 5 % of the GNP. The KTU
eliminated the so-called ‘black donation’ in school society and abolished extra
day and night duties of teachers in school system. The KTU also proposed the

‘rearrangement of salary schedule and realization of basic salary’, which are

57

accepted by the government in part. In 1990, the KTU submitted a bill, which
provided for ‘the introduction of special teachers for art/physical courses’ to the
National Assembly, which revised Educational Law in 1992.

c) Activities for collective bargaining with the government — The KTU has made
a lot of educational policy proposals to the government. It prepared proposals
based on the results of the poll in 1992 and submitted these to the government.

As a result of its activities, the KTU efforts were reflected in 5' 31 Education

Reform which had influenced many educational policies of the government.

(1) Activities for educational autonomy — The KTU has paid attention to the
expansion and attendance of educational autonomy, especially school autonomy.
The KTU proposed the establishment of ‘The School council”’, which was
founded and run since 1995. From 1995, the KTU has tried to do its best to fix
‘The School council’ in educational field.

e) Activities for the practice of ‘authentic education’ — The KTU has played lots
of activities related to ‘authentic education’. To increase professionalism in
curriculum development, the KTU organized 13 groups to take care of each
course in the school curriculum and supported them by analyzing contents of
textbooks, developing teaching materials and teaching methods, and suggesting
better practical education and extra-activities in school. In addition, the KTU
distributed lots of multimedia material such as slide films, CD titles,

audio/videotapes and so on to guide schoolteachers. In addition to this, the KTU

 

'4 The School council, the main instrument for the participation of parents, teachers, and community is
established at each elementary and secondary schools. It takes care of and compromises the interest of the
education shareholders and, as a result, ensures efficient performance in the educational process. It makes
decisions about the appointment of the principal and teachers, mange all contributions for the school
development fund and its use as well as other contributions from the regional community.

58

held annual ‘in-service program for the authentic education’ in order to diffirse

the idea of ‘authentic education’.

The Korean Union of Teaching and Educational Workers (KUTEW)

1. Histories and features

The Korean Union of Teaching and Educational Workers (KUTEW) was formed
on May 16, 1999 as the third teacher organization. It tries to develop teachers’ working
conditions through the coordination of its members, to maintain the dignity of teachers
and to build teacher professionalism in education. The KUTEW pays more attention to
the value of education than to ideological and the political issues.

To complete its organizational goal, the KUTEW sets up the following as
practical items for teachers - the guarantee of the right for unity; the improvement of
teachers’ socioeconomic status related to wages, working conditions, welfare and so on;
the democratization of schools’ administrations and the development of educational
systems; the effort to improve teacher’s status in education (K00, 2000). The KUTEW is
under the control of the moderate umbrella trade union, the Federation of Korean Trade

Unions (F KTU).

2. Goals

The KUTEW pursues the middle-of-the-road and rationalism. The KUTEW
criticizes both of the goals and articles of the KFTA and the KTU and does not satisfy
any of their activities. Consequently, the KUTEW presents a new educational slogan,

which is called ‘bright education’.

59

The slogan of the KUTEW is completed through 1) the establishment of resolute

teacher’s viewpoint, 2) a transparent educational process, and 3) a future-oriented and

creative educational system. The KUTEW presents 10 articles that focus on considering

teachers as workers and on efforts toward the unification of Korea. The article of the

KUTEW focusing on this unification effort has not been considered as organizational

policy by other teacher organizations.

3. Activities

It is difficult for the researcher to present the KUTEW’ activities for teachers due

to its short history. The most that the KUTEW now focuses on is the organization of its

local branches. Otherwise, recent activities of the KUTEW include the resolution meeting,

the protest meeting, and some kinds of joint activities with the KTU to improve the

socioeconomic status of teachers.

Summary: The researcher introduced general information of three Korean

teacher organizations. The following Figure 1 summarizes the characters and the current

features of three teacher organizations.

f three Korean teacher organizations

 

gigure 1. The summary 0

 

 

 

 

 

 

The KFT A The KTU The KUTEW
Established year 1947 1989 1999
Established The improvement of Security of basic Development of
purpose teachers’ socioeconomic rights for working conditions
status and the development educational workers through the
of education and culture in and contribution to coordination of
Korea democratic members,
education maintaining the
dignity of teachers
and building
teacher

professionalism in

 

60

 

 

education

 

Goal

Humanitarianism

The authentic
education for all
students -
nationalistic,
democratic, and
humane education

Bright education —
the establishment of
resolute teacher’s
viewpoint,
transparent
educational process,
and future-oriented
and creative
education

 

Qualification of
member

Teachers and
superintendents/researchers
according to Educational
Law for elementary and
secondary school, article
21 and Educational Law
for high school, article 16

Teachers according
to Educational Law
for elementary and
secondary school,
article 21 (except
principals and
assistant principals),
retired teachers, and
the associate
members who are
majoring in
education in
University

Teachers according
to Educational Law
for elementary and.
secondary school,
article 21 (except
principals and
assistant principals)

 

The number of
member (in 1999)

250,603

62,654

25,091

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Structure of 16 metropolitan and Nationwide single Nationwide single

organization provincial federations of organization (16 organization (9
teachers associations and metropolitan and metropolitan and
23 subsidiary bodies based provincial branches) provincial
on various functional branches)
organizations and majors

Type .Of . The incorporated body The union The union

organization

Source: Koo, IS. (2000). A study on the ' of Korean Teacher Unpublished Master‘s thesis.

 

hunnam University. p. 36.

As shown on Figure 1, three teacher organizations in Korea have different goals,

histories, structures, and memberships. These features have been formed through the

relations with the political/educational situations. The next chapter four explains teacher

organizations in the context of the political/educational situation in detail.

61

 

CHAPTER THREE

RESEARCH STRATAGY

This chapter is mainly concerned with research strategy. It investigates the efforts
of teacher organizations to propose changes in educational policy. It also encompasses
both the educational directions and roles of teacher organizations in education. This
chapter consists of several parts including research questions, information/data
collection/time frame, the process of building a new typology, the data categorization

method, and assessment of new typology.

Research Questions

This research focuses primarily on the efforts of Korean teacher organizations to
shape educational policy. The following questions served as a guide to the researcher in
studying the various point of focus of the inquiry.

1. How have educational directions of teacher organizations been changed over

time and how much did they ground these on political/educational situations?

2. What educational directions can the research find out or anticipate by

analyzing categorizations and analysis of educational policy propoSals over
time periods?

3. What did categorizations and analysis of educational policy proposals

presented by teacher organizations provide over time periods?

62

Information/Data and Collection/Time Frame

Information about teacher organizations

All information related to teacher organizations such as its history, its political
actions in education, and its roles in the educational field come from the literature review
and are used as fundamental backgrounds of the research. The research reviews both US.
literatures and Korean literatures of teacher organizations in order to get general and
specific information of teacher organizations. For better study, this research reviews all
available web-based documents that refer to teacher organizations and their voice both in

education and in educational policy.

Data and data collection

 

For reviewing the efforts of teacher organizations as educational policy proposers,
the researcher collected educational policy proposals presented by teacher organizations
over time. All formal/informal proposals gathered from two Korean teacher organizations,
the KFTA and the KTU, were used as data. In the case of the KUTEW, its proposals were
hardly gathered because of its short history (which starts in 1999). Therefore, educational
policy proposals presented by the KUTEW are excluded in the research.

Major sources of proposals presented by the KFTA were collected from the book,
KF T A history of 50 years, and the material source books that have arranged their
educational policy proposals. Before 1992, the associations did not put in order the
proposals they had presented systematically. The first book published in 1997 by the

KFTA traces the work of the KFTA in education and educational policy. The researcher

63

extracted educational policy proposals presented by the KFEA (the KFTA) between 1980
and 1991 from the first book and arranged them.

The material source books which provide a record of educational policy proposals,
arose out of yearly negotiations with the government since 1992. They started to arrange
educational policy proposals after they acquired the right to negotiate with the
government on educational issues. The KF TA met the government to negotiate on
educational issues twice a year and recorded what they got from the negotiation tables
whether or not the proposals were accepted.

Meanwhile, the KTU had not arranged educational policy proposals
systematically. It presented educational policy proposals as statements or addresses to the
public before the KTU was formed. The history of KTU was recorded in the book, The
White Book of Educational Movement in Korea, published by the KTU in 1990. This
book contains the voices of its members as reflected in various statements and addresses
made between 1978 and 1990.

After being formed, the KTU held meetings with representatives and recorded
their decisions in the meetings in different documents. These records contain all the
educational activities of the KTU, including educational policy proposals. There were
two major sources upon which the proposals made by the KTU were based: one was the
book, The White Book of Educational Movement in Korea, and the other is composed of

the records of meetings held by representatives.

64

Time frame
The time frame for data collection is limited from the year of the Fifth Republic
(1980) to 2002. All branches of Korean society began to be democratized from the
establishment of the Fifth Republic. This democracy also affected the field of education.
In fact, active movements related to teacher’s unions could have originated from the
establishment of Fifth Republic. Given this historical context, the researcher collected
information and data related to teacher organizations from the time of the Fifth Republic.
The specific time frame is as follows:
1980 — 1988 The Fifth Republic before the formation of the KTU: A
period of partial autocracy
1989 — 1992 The entrance of the KTU and the Sixth Republic: The
transition from autocracy to democracy
1993 — 1998 The early period of the Kim Dae-jung
Administration/Before the legalization of teacher union:
The beginning of political democracy
1999 — 2002 The rest period of the Kim Dae-jung Administration/After the
legalization of teacher union: The developmental period of the

democracy

Develohment of New Typology for Categorizations of Educational policy hrohosals

This part provides the process of building a new typology to categorize
educational policy proposals. In the first part, this researcher reviews previous researches

used to categorize educational policy proposals or educational reform policies. There are

65

four different frameworks introduced in this part. They suggest the use of a lot of criteria
to categorize educational policy proposals. In the second part, the researcher introduces
newly built typology. Based on knowledge from previous researches, the researcher
builds new typology to categorize educational policy proposals presented by teacher

organiZations. Categories in this typology come from the results of literature review.

The review of previous researches for categorizing educaiional policy

 

There have been many researches made in categorizing educational policies. Each
research uses its own criteria to categorize policies or educational reform agendas.
Categorizing educational policy proposals provides more of an understanding of the

purposes or the intentions of each proposal.

1. Thompson and Ziemer’s ‘Major curriculum-instruction category’ (1975)

Thompson and Ziemer presented the framework for categorizing proposals related
to educational policy issues, which was sponsored by the National School Board
Association (N SBA) on “The Influence of Collective Bargaining on
Curriculum-Instruction”. The authors of the NSBA report stated that they developed their
framework using three steps. A search of the literature was conducted which led to the
identification of 96 elements related to curriculum and instruction. These 96 elements
were submitted to a panel of 80 judges comprised of teachers, instructional supervisors,
and university faculty members from departments of curriculum and instruction. The

judges rated each of the 96 elements as to their relevancy to the areas of curriculum and

66

instruction. Finally, based upon the ratings, Thompson and Ziemer reduced the elements

into eighteen categories.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 2. Major Curriculum — Instruction Category*
Proposal A2333? ffigu‘flg Curriculum Extra-Class
- Aides ' Schedule of - Contents - Athletics
- Special teachers classes - Change - Extra-curricula
' School procedures
Example . .
organization - Scope
- Demonstration - Guides
SChOOIS - Evaluation
Proposal I Faculty Time Materials Professional
nvolvement improvement
- Flaming ' Length of class - Audio-visual - In-service
- Staff planning period - Textbook - Institution
days - Length of school selection - New teacher
Example ' Decision making day - Facilities trainingand
Length of school onentatron
year - Advanced study
' Professional
libraries
Proposals School goal 59.th! Special- program Student related
organization
- Aims of schools ' Schedule of - Funds - Discipline
classes - Remedial procedures
- School instruction ' Grouping of
organization Programs for learners
Example ' Demonstration handicapped ' Required
schools DrOp-out programs subjects
- Early childhood - Citizenship
training
' Student grade
Teacher ’ Teaching ’ ' _
Proposals professional Working condition ed re Racially oriented -
Responsibiligy proe u
' Academic freedom - Teacher evaluation - Demonstration ' Multi-ethnic
- Accountability - Transfer policy teaching programs
- Experimentation - Teaching hour ' Methodology ‘ Integration
E I in classrooms - Teacher ' Team teaching - Composition of
xamp e . . .
- Rating system preparation - Programmed faculties
- Research periods instruction
procedure ' Supervision of
teachers

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

* Source: Thompson, A.G., & Ziemer, R.H. Impact of Collective Bargaining on curriculum and instruction.
National School Board Association. Report number 1975-2. p. 4.

67

2. Carnoy & Levin’s ‘Taxonomy of Educational Reforms’ (1976)

In their book, The Limits of Educational Reform, Carnoy and Levin set up four
categories of reform namely, micro- and macro-technical and micro- and macro-political,
to describe possible innovation that could exert an influence on educational systems.
Originally, this typology was developed to explain the result of changes in workplaces
but they presented a revised typology that was very useful to describe the reform in

education.

Figure 3. Taxonomy of Educational Reforms*

 

Reform Types MiCrmTechnical Modernism _
- New subjects - Changes in internal governance of
- Changes in instructional materials classroom or school with respect
— different approaches to to students, teachers, and
teaching reading, purging administrators
textbooks of sex stereotypes - Greater responsibilities to students
Example _ T h . . . . . . . .
eac er trarmng and retramrng in operation of instructional
- Multicultural and bilingual process — peer teaching.
programs

' Educational technology (special
yplication)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reform Types Macro-Technical Macro-Political
- Differentiated staffing - Community control
- Team teaching - Educational vouchers
- Open classrooms - Deschooling policies
- Flexible modular scheduling ' Factory-run schools
- Mastery learning
Example - Educational technology
(generalized use)
- Work-study
- Desegregation and integrated
education
Source: Carnoy, M. & Levin, H. (1976). The Limits of Educational Reform. New York: David Mckay Company, Inc.
p.98

Micro-Technical reforms represent “those nominal or piecemeal changes in
schooling within the context of the existing organizational arrangements” (p.97). Micro-
Technical changes require the smallest change in organizations. While this Micro-

Technical category of changes is related to very specific sets of actions, Macro-Technical

68

reforms “appear to have more widespread implications (p.99)” than Micro-Technical
reforms. The purpose of educational reform based on Macro-Technical is to develop the
elements related to education indirectly, such as differentiated staffing, staff training, and
team teaching.

Micro-Political reforms include “those reforms in the internal governance of
educational organizations with respect to the rules, regulations, curriculum, personnel
selection, and resource allocations as well as control of the educational process” (p.103).
While overall control belongs to the board of directors or trustees, internal authority goes
to teachers or administrators. Finally, Macro-Political changes are most comprehensive
and “those which alter the external governance and control of schooling organizations
and this category includes changes in the control of the existing school organization and
shifts in the provision of education form the existing schools to educational marketplaces
and workplace” (pp. 104-105). This category includes changes in the control of existing
school organizations. In other words, control shifts from the existing schools to

educational marketplaces.

3. Bickel and Bickel’s ‘Curriculum-Instruction Categories Organized by Reform
Taxonomy’ (1979)

Bickel and Bickel combined two frameworks to reflect how districts’ collective
bargaining process related to the larger urban educational reform processes characteristic
of the period under study. For their convenience, by Bickel and Bickel, 18 categories by
Thompson and Ziemer (1975) were further reduced to sixteen; that is, two categories,

time and working condition, were removed.

69

Based on two frameworks, Bickel and Bickel created a new framework to
categorize educational reform policy proposals in terms of curriculum-instruction and

political bases. Figure 4 shows this combined framework.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fi ure 4. Curriculum-Instruction Categories Or anized by Reform Taxonomy*
Reform Types Micro-Technical Micro-Political
- Curriculum - Additional personnel
Curriculum- - Extra-class - Faculty involvement
Instruction - Materials - Professional improvement
Category - Teacher meetings - Student related
- Teacher professional responsibility
Reform Types Macro-Technical Macro-Political
- Classroom - Community participation
Curriculum- ' Racially oriented - School goals
Instruction - School organization
Category - Special programs
- Teaching procedures
" Source: Bickel, W.E. at Bickel, DD. (1979). A Study of a District Teacher Organizations' Impact on Educational

Policy. Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association. San Francisco, California, April, p.
40.

4. Plank’s ‘Typology of major school reforms’ (1986)

With the summary of the major educational reform policies adopted by American
states between 1983 and 1986, Plank developed four major reform policy categories:
additive, external, regulatory and structural reform policies. He argued that the four
categories of reform policy were ranked in terms of the magnitude of organizational
changes. While additive reform policy requires the least change, structural reform policy
requires the most. Figure 5 explains this typology according to the degree of difficulty of

performance.

Fi ure 5. Typology of major school reforms*

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

Reform Types Additive External
- New and increased revenues - Pro—service teacher tests
Examples - Increased salaries - Certification Changes
- Pre-school initiatives - Education school standards
- Mandatory Kindergarten ' New high school graduation

 

70

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

- Computer literacy requirement

- Aid or specialized teachers - Exit tests
- New college admission
standards

Reform Types Regulatory I 7 Structural

- Longer school day - Career ladders

- Longer school year - Smaller classes

- Fewer extracurricular activities - In-service teacher tests

- More basic skills - Professional improvement — In—

Examples . .
- Statewrde assessment servrce program and New
teacher training and orientation
- Teachers’ acaderrric freedom
- Teachers’ learnin
* Source: Plank, D.N. (l 987). Why school reform doesn’t change schools: political and organizational perspectives.

Politics of Education Association Yearbook. p. 144.

Additive reform policy aims to improve the performance of schools by adding
new programs and functions and by increasing the resources available to educators. Since
this kind of reform policy causes small effects on the existing system, additive reform
policy is usually welcomed by schools and school members. This policy includes new
revenues, increased salaries, and increased funding for schools.

External reform policy is reform where the costs of change can be imposed on
organizational outsiders, including students and prospective teachers. External reform
policy assumes that educational problems are usually caused by the outside educational
system, and that better inputs to the system (e. g., providing good quality teachers) will
result in better outputs (e. g., higher achievement) without making changes in the system
itself. External reform policy often causes the conflicts among school members although
these conflicts are solved easily because external reform policy does not change the
structure and operation of schools and school systems.

Regulatory reform policy assumes that educational problems exist within the
school system, and requires changes in the behavior of school members. Therefore,

regulatory reform policy causes the intensification or restriction of present school

71

 

activities but does not change the school system itself. In this category, policies include
longer school days and school years, smaller class sizes, cutbacks in extracurricular
activities, renewed emphasis on the core curriculum and ‘basic skills’, and statewide
achievement testing.

Unlike additive, external, and regulatory reform policy, structural reform policy
requires systematic alterations in the structure and operation of schools and school
systems. Proposals for structural reform policy include hidden barriers that may evoke
powerful opposition from stakeholders who have interests in the present educational
system. As a result, there have been few structural reform policies and fewer adopted
policies. Educational policies such as career ladders, merit pay plans, and competency

tests for present teachers can be included in structural reform policy category.

New typology ttfiahegorize educational policy proposals

There are three strategies that help researchers categorize educational policy
proposals (Bickel and Bickel, 1979). First, one develops a unique categorization based on
the actual data one reviews. If this is good enough to use, other researchers can use this
categorization for future studies. Second, one tries to find out other researchers’
categorizations. Well-organized and verified categorizations used by other researchers
permit a researcher to use categorizations easily without any problem of the validities and
reliabilities. Third, one tries to combine the two previous strategies. The benefits of this
third strategy are to avoid possible biases that may happen when one creates a unique

category and to utilize cumulated knowledge by other researchers.

72

Among these three strategies used to build the categorizations for educational
policy proposal, the researcher takes the first way. The typology is developed with
educational policy directions and the roles of teacher organizations in educational policy,
which were reviewed in chapter two. Each main category on the typology represents the
educational policy direction of teacher organizations and each subcategory represents the
roles of teacher organizations in education.

Existing typologies that were explained above have unique characteristics.
Thompson and Ziemer’s taxonomy categorized educational policy on the bases of
curriculum and instruction. Carnoy & Levin’s taxonomy grouped educational policy
according to changes in the organization of work. Bickel and Bickel created their
taxonomy to categorize educational reform policy proposals in terms of curriculum-
instruction and political bases, which means that they integrated Thompson and Ziemer’s
taxonomy and Carnoy & Levin’s taxonomy. Plank argued that the four categories of
reform policy were ranked in terms of the magnitude of organizational changes.

Existing typologies, however, are not sufficient for the research that reviews the
efforts of teacher organizations as educational policy proposers in educational policy.
Thompson and Ziemer’s taxonomy has too many categories to use, which may generate
wrong classifications of educational policy proposals. In addition, educational policies
related to industrial oriented issues are not considered in their taxonomy. Carnoy &
Levin’s taxonomy focuses only on teachers’ work places, which means that there is no
categorization of educational policy for students’ learning or development.

The taxonomy organized by Bickel and Bickel to categorize educational reform

policy proposals in terms of curriculum-instruction and political bases missed basic

73

industrial oriented issues such as teachers’ salaries and working conditions. Plank’s
taxonomy is almost perfect to use with the research, but what is missing is the connection
between educational policies and community and society. His taxonomy has no category
to classify educational policy proposals representing the role of teacher organizations as a
social justice union.

To find out the efforts of teacher organizations as educational policy proposers,
the typology should have sections for categorizing roles in education and types of
educational policy simultaneously. Therefore, newly built typology has two main
categories: “Educational policy for teachers” and “ Educational policy for education”.
The former has two subcategories, “institutional oriented issues” and “Professional
oriented issues”. The latter also has two subcategories, “Student learning and
development oriented issues” and “School education intensification oriented issues”.
Main categories are developed to figure out the educational policy directions of teacher
organizations and subcategories are for finding out their efforts or roles in educational
pohcy.

There are three benefits of creating a new typology. First, a new typology is the
first one to categorize the roles of teacher organizations as educational policy proposers
in Korea. Second, this new typology can analyze types of educational policy proposals
and roles of teacher organizations in educational policy at the same time. Third, the new
typology can help the researcher anticipate roles of teacher organizations as educational

policy proposers in educational policy.

74

Figure 6. New typology for cateflrizing educational policy proposals and examples

 

Institutional oriented
issues

Educational policy for teachers

Professional oriented
issues

Educational policy for education

 

Student learning and
development oriented
issues

School Education
intensification oriented
issues

 

 

. New and increased

 

 

- Teacher training and

 

 

Development/modificat

 

' Connection with

revenues retraining ion of the contents of parents and

- Increased salaries - Pre/in-service teacher curriculum community

- Aid or Specialized tests - Mastery learning - Site-based
teachers - Providing subsidies for - Extra classes governance

- Reducing teachers’ in-service training - Students’ ability - Multicultural and
work of teachers oriented teaching and bilingual education
responsibilities - Teachers’ participation curriculum - Improving the quality

- Improving teachers’ in decision making - Providing equal of education in
working/teaching - New teacher training opportunity for study distance/farming]
conditions and orientation to students fishing

- Setting up teachers’ - Teachers‘ academic - New college admission communities
retirement age freedom standards

- Increasing the number ' Teachers’ learning - Supporting
of teachers - Teacher meeting extracurricular

' Better equipments for - Teacher qualification activities
teaching - Providing subsidies to

- Teaching hour develop teachers’

' Length of class professionalism
periods - Teacher professional

- Modifying class size responsibilities

~ Modifying school ' Teacher certification
day/year changes

 

 

All examples of educational policy proposals come from both literature reviews and examples of previous

studies.

Data Categorization Method

To categorize collected proposals, the researcher counts educational policy

proposals through content analysis. Counting sets the following rules:

1. Each category of the typology is defined according to the following:

1) Educational policy for teachers: all proposals for teachers’ working

conditions/status and professional developments in schools.

a) Industrial oriented issues: all financial issues related funds or allowances

for teachers, all improvement issues related to teachers’ working

conditions and welfare, and all other issues related to teachers’ personnel.

 

b) Professional oriented issues: all improvement issues related to teachers’
professionalism, all financial issues related to teachers’ learning and
development, and all development issues related to teachers’ learning
and training.

2) School Educational policy for education: all proposals for students’ learning
and developments and education intensification. Most proposals for students
are included in this category.

a) Students’ learning and development oriented issues: all development
issues related to curriculum and educational policy, all educational
environmental issues related to students’ learning and development, and
all financial issues related to students’ learning, all other issues related to
students’ academic and physical improvements.

b) School education intensification oriented issues: all education
improvement issues like the connection with communities, self-
govemmental issues, or social justice unionism issues like the balance of
school quality between public/private schools and urban/rural schools,
and all other issues related to equal opportunities to learn, and all
participation issues related to school developments and school council.

2. All educational policy proposals of teacher organizations are assigned to one of
the categories through content analysis. Even though a proposal seems to be assigned to a
category, if the content of proposal doesn’t fit the category, the proposal should be

assigned to a category that corresponds with the content.

76

3. Each proposal is counted once in the period even though the same proposals
were presented several times within the period.

Once proposals are categorized, the researcher converts categorized educational
policy proposals to numeric values to find out the following:

1. The number of proposals and the percent of proposals in terms of teacher
organizations and categories over time frame

2. Analyzing the differences of proposals in terms of two teacher organizations

based on categories over time frame

Assessing the Reliability of New Tm

Good reliability is necessary when the researcher tries to use new typology for the
categorizations in the study. To obtain the reliability of newly built typology, the
researcher distributed educational policy proposals of the KFTA in 2000 and 2001 and of
the KTU in 2000 and 2002, to two educational policy experts together with a newly built
framework, and asked them to categorize proposals the same way the researcher did. To
help them categorize educational policy proposals of teacher organizations, proposals
written in Korean were provided. All procedures for categorizing proposals were
informed to two experts.

Agreed proposals of the KFTA in 2000 were 29 out of 37 educational policy
proposals. Disagreed ones were 8 out of 37. In 2002, agreed proposals of the KFTA were
47 of 56 and disagreed ones were 9 educational policy proposals. Agreed proposals of the
KTU in 2000 were 28 out of 32 and disagreed ones were 4 out of 32 educational policy

preposals. Agreed proposals of the KTU in 2002 were 68 of 80 and disagreed ones were

77

12 educational policy proposals. The total number of agreed educational policy proposals

of both the KFTA and the KTU were 172 out of 205. Therefore, inter-rater reliability is

greater than 83.9%. (See Appendix B for details)

78

CHAPTER FOUR
KOREAN TEACHER ORGANIZATIONS IN THE CONTEXT OF THE

POLITICS AND EDUCATION

All features of teacher organizations usually reflect the complexity of societies,
cultures, and the legal system (Cooper, 2000). Nations that have diversities in all areas
possess the chance to have elaborate teacher organizations and complex bargaining
processes. In contrast, nations with highly centralized and strong systems usually have
fewer teacher organizations and a more centralized view of organization-management
relations.

The broad plan of this chapter is to review general information of teacher
organizations in Korea, based on the political15 /educational situations for the past 20
years under a centralized system in the nation. The Korean Federation of Teachers’
Associations (KFTA) has developed together with societal and political developments,
and the Korean Teachers’ Union (KTU) had been both an illegal and legal organization
due to the political impacts. It can be said that both teacher organizations have been
heavily influenced, directly or indirectly by developments both in the political and
educational arena._1n other words, they have evolved.

Nadler and Tushman (1995) argued that all organizations have evolved.

Developments in natural science have found out that organizational evolution is not

 

'5 The political history of Korea is based on the following sources:
http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=96215826; http://mnmn.essortment.com/southkoreahist_rvih.htrn;
http://mnmn.essortment.com/southkoreahist_rvih.htrn; http://myhome.shinbiro.com/~mss l /history.html;
http://www.workmall.com/wtb200l/korea_south/korea_south_history_index.html; Oberdorfer, D. (2001).
The two Korea: a contemporary history. New York: Basic Books; Oh, K. (2000). Korea briefing: 1997 —
1999: Challenges and change at the turn of the century. Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe; Seoul international
pubic house (1986). Korean History. Seoul, Korea.

79

always increased but sometimes is punctuated by radical, unexpected, and discontinuous
changes (Tushman & Romanelli, 1985). Organizational evolution theory says that when
organizations meet disequilibrium or rapid change in the environment, they respond by
changing the direction of their organizations (Aldrich, 1999; Singh, 1990; Tushman &
Romanelli, 1985). The direction of change can be analyzed within two dimensions
namely, continuity, including incremental and discontinuous change, and timing,
including reactive and anticipatory change (N adler and Shaw, 1995).

Incremental change usually happens when there are smaller changes that occur
during periods of equilibrium. On the contrary, discontinuous change occurs during
periods of disequilibrium. That is, organizations change to correspond with radical
changes in the environment. The other type of change is based on the timing standpoint.
Whether or not organizations prepare the change, this type of change is called
anticipatory and reactive change respectively. Figure 7 presents the typology based on the

two dimensions mentioned above.

Figure 7. Types of Organizational Changes“

 

 

 

 

 

I Incremental Discontinuous
Anticipatory I T uning Reorientation
Reactive J Adaptation Re-creation

 

 

* Source: Nadler, D.A. & Tushman, M. (1995). Types of organization change: From incremental improvement to
discontinuous transformation. In D. Nadler, R. Shaw, A. Walton and associates (Eds). Discontinuous change: Leading
organizational transformation. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. p. 24

Tuning occurs when an organization initiates incremental change in anticipation
of environmental events, but there is no immediate requirement to change. Tuning is
usually initiated internally, whereas adaptation change results fiom external conditions in
the environment. Reorientation is discontinuous but initiated in advance of the cycle of

organizational changes. The organization questions its identity, vision, and strategy and

80

reconstructs or transforms them. Finally, re-creation is the change with which the
organization tries to rapidly reconstruct itself to survive and to escape from problems.

In the research, organizational evolution theory is used to explain the changes of
teacher organizations based on political and educational situations. Teacher organizations
have evolved to adapt themselves to the political/educational environments. At times,
they have fought with external interferences and at other times, they have accepted
external changes. The theory guides the researcher to infer the changes of teacher
organizations over time on the bases of political/educational situations.

This chapter consists of three parts. The first part reviews the histories of the
politics, education, teacher organizations, and the interactions between teacher
organizations over time. The second part explains teacher organizations in the context of
politics and education. The third part introduces the collective bargaining system of

teacher organizations briefly.

Pre-l980 period of the political history in Korea: Before starting to review the
political and educational situation in existence from 1980, the research introduces the
political history from 1945 to 1979 in order to reveal why it focuses on the post-1980
period of political and educational developments. The pre-l980 period was marked by
big events in politics and relations between labor unions and the government in Korea.

In 1945, Korea was liberated from Japan after a 35-year colonial period and
started to be governed by the US. military government for the next 3 years, from 1945 to
1948. The government of the Republic of Korea was proclaimed on August 15, 1948 and

President Rhee Syngman started to govern Korea. From 1948, the ideological

81

confrontation between South and the North Korea_inevitably gave rise to a tense military
confrontation which was a major burden on the government.

The Korean War broke out on June 25, 1950. In its aftermath, Korea was beset
with many economic, social and political problems. The Rhee Syngman Administration
had no abilities to resolve accumulated problems afier the Korean War and abused the
power and committed rampant graft, which aroused the people movement, the 4-19
public movement. The 4- 19 public movement forced President Rhee to step down and
finish his 12-year autocratic rule.

After a short period of cabinet-style government which was unable to cope with
the unstable societal, economic, and political situation, the Military Revolutionary
Committee led by Major General Park Chung Hee took over the governance of Korea. A
new constitution was approved in a national referendum and promulgated in December
1963, thus inaugurating the Third Republic. In the presidential election held in October
the following year, Park Chung Hee, who had resigned from the army, ran for office and
was elected President.

Under President Park’s leadership, the human and natural resources of the nation
were effectively organized for the first time in modern history. The economy began to
grow significantly and relations with neighboring countries such as Japan and North
Korea became friendly. Many societal fields including education were reformed and
renovated under his governance. Although President Park led remarkable economic
grth and successful modernization of society, he relied on autocratic means in

implementing his policies.

82

People began criticizing the harshly repressive measures of the government. The
combination of this dissatisfaction with the high-handed methods of the government and
the frustration in popular desire for political participation and economic redistribution led
to Park’s eventual demise. On October 26, 1979, President Park was assassinated and his
governance was finished.

President Park pursued authoritarian industrial relations with labor market. His
government prompted an export-oriented industrialization strategy by supporting
competitive Chaebolsl6 and by repressing Korean labor unionism. The close relations
between Chaebols and the government and the heavy intervention of the government in
Chaebols were key aspects of the Korean economy and politics in this period (Bamber
and Leggett, 1996).

Activities or movements of Korean labor unions were politically suppressed
during the Third and Fourth Republics (Shin, 2001). Unions were obliged to affiliate with
industrial federations under the Federation of Korean Trade Unions, a government-
sponsored national peak organization under the rule of President Park’s regime (Park and
Leggett, 1998). The Trade Union Act prohibited unions’ political activities, blockading

political connections between labor and political parties (Choi, 1989).

History of the Politics, Education, and Teacher organizations in Korea
1980 — 1988: The period of pafirtial intocracy

l. The politics

 

’6 Chaebols are large industrial conglomerates, which came to extend their influence throughout the
economy through aggressive expansion (Bridges, 2001).

83

Political parties began to organize in December 1980, and all political activities
were resumed in January 1981 after assassination of President Park. On March 3, 1981,
President Chun Doohwan, who was a retired general, took office, promising to build a
“Great Korea” in a new era. His ascension to power was the product of autocratic
governance and bloody suppression of resistance against military government by students
and workers.

Although it possessed almost the same autocratic governing-style as the Third and
the Fourth Republics, the Fifth Republic produced some remarkable achievements. This
included the first-ever surplus in the international balance of payments and a peaceful
transfer of power at the end of the seven-year term of President Chun which was
considered a major democratic development. In addition to this, the Fifth Republic tried
to build a systemic foundation of education in Korea. Consequently, society and politics
in Korea developed out of the nation’s economic stability.

Even though the period also had many political problems, accomplishments
tended to offset them. Questions included the legitimacy of the government itself and
pressure for constitutional change for the direct election of a president. Even though the
Fifth Republic succeeded in developing the economy, it was evaluated badly in the field
of politics. These political issues persisted to the Sixth Republic and as political burdens
to resolve.

The Fifth Republic resolved industrial unionism structures and established a
system of enterprise unionism through the Trade Union Act. The government continued
to prohibit unions’ political activities and locked out third parties who were not employed

by the enterprises concerned (Block et al., 2000). The prohibition on third parties’

84

intervention, which blockaded support from the outside, weakened the local unions’
bargaining power. In addition, industrial strikes were prohibited in the public and defense
sectors (Lee, 1992).

Unions protested this repression. Protests in the middle of 19803 led by workers
and students against President Chun’s authoritarian rule brought about good results in
June 1987 when presidential candidate Roh Tae Woo promised political liberalization.
The political gambit of Rob Tae Woo stimulated independent unions to evolve

nationwide and helped labor unions develop structures dramatically during this period.

2. Education

Entering the 19803, Korean education started to be changed rapidly. The Fifth

Republic government tried to develop education by promulgating “7-30 education

reform” and by reinforcing the articles related to education in the Constitution. That is,
with economic development in the 19703, the government had an inspiration to develop
the country qualitatively through the improvement of education.

The government declared “the renovation of education and the development of
culture” as one of four important government’s policies. To achieve this goal, the
government set up “education for the whole person”, “moral education”, “science
education”, and “lifelong education” as four practical purposes. The government tried to
build the systematic bases for education. In addition, the government created a new
educational tax to secure stable educational revenue and build “the council for

educational reform” that was under control of the President in 1985 in order to gather

knowledge for developing the country.

85

The government, however, propelled these four purposes partially. Moreover, the
government didn’t reflect the opinions of teachers when the government was
implementing the four purposes. Consequently, the educational movement performed by

the government in this period was incomplete.

3. KF TA

The Chosun Education Associations (CEA), which was the origin of the KFTA,
was organized in 1947. Modeled on one of US. teacher organizations, the National
Education Association (NBA), the CEA was created through the voluntary participation
of educators. However, since this association was composed of minor persons related to
education and local administrators, it published the journal, New Education to gather the
opinions of educators nationwide.

In 1948, with the establishment of the Korean government, the CEA was renamed
the Korean Federation of Education Associations (KFEA) and started to work as an
independent association in the field of education. The KFEA helped the government
establish the Educational Law and tried to protect teachers’ rights for the first time in
1954, trying to separate the regulation of wage for an educational public servant from that
for a public servant.

In 1960, the KFEA revised the Articles of Associations to induce teachers to
participate in the associations and changed the goal in order to protect teachers’
socioeconomic status and build professionalism in education. The KFEA published the
newspaper called the Saehan Newspaper in order to exchange and share the information

and news among members. In addition, it tried to restore the educational autonomy

86

abolished by the military government before, and in 1963, it made an effort for a new
type of educational autonomy to be set up.

By the Third Republic in 1972, the Revitalizing System enforced the revision of
the organizational system for the KFEA and tried to gather as many members as
possible”. In addition, rational management and reorganization of the system were
introduced to expand the productivity and efficiency within the organization. The
necessity of devices to protect teachers’ rights and status in education promoted special
funds used for lawsuits related to the infi‘ingement of teachers’ rights.

The Fifth Republic attempted to diminish the structure of the KFEA and tried to
control the association. Relations between the KFEA and the government became worse.
In 1982, the KFEA tried to do its best as a teachers’ organization, restoring the special
day for teachers and making government perform the single salary schedule for both
elementary and secondary school teachers.

When the Fifth Republic devoted its attention to the deve10pment of education,
relations between the government and the KFTA were restored. The KFTA suggested
lots of educational policy proposals in the period and the government tried to do the best
to implement them in education. The following are some of the remarkable achievements
of the KFTA during the period.

a) Revising educational law

b) Improving private school education

c) Securing educational finance

(1) Operating the Special Council for Developing Educational Policy

 

'7 In 1973, almost 9 out of 10 teachers in both primary and secondary teachers became members of the
KFEA.

87

e) Reforming the Rules for the Public Educational Personnel and Staff Act

In sum, the KFTA had developed their organizations easily without any troubles
with the government and without any competitor in education. From 1986, the KFTA had
met the competitor, the NTA, but the entrance of the NTA did not seem to affect the
activities of the KF TA in this period. The KFTA pretended to be indifferent to the
movements of the NTA. Consequently, political and educational situations in the period
allowed the KF TA to change the organization minimally and incrementally. That is, the
KFTA devoted itself to organizational expansion not by external pressures but by internal

demands in the period within supportive political/educational environments.

4. KTU

The KTU originated from the 4-19 Teacher union which was formed to resist the
military junta in April 19, 1960. But this union did not work for teachers because of
repression by the government. The union was restored in 1982 by the Korean YMCA
Secondary School Teachers’ Committee”, which became a nationwide network of
teachers. Additionally, local organizations met regularly to discuss educational issues and
possible solutions.

The growing units encouraged teachers to establish the National Teachers’
Association (NTA) in 1987, which strengthened the power to build the organization
systematically. With the politically peaceful situation in 1988, the NTA increased its
activities. In January 1989, an association meeting in Seoul made a very important
decision to form a union for serving the interests and rights of teachers and other

educational workers.

 

‘8 YMCA Secondary School Teachers’ Committee pursued a pure organization for education itself.

88

With organizational development, the KTU pursued various goals in the period. It
tried to recruit many members to initiate incremental change, build firm visions and
organizational directions to distinguish from those of the KFTA, and respond to the
external oppressions by the government. The KTU tried to inform its’ efforts for
education to the public by showing various goals to which the KTU paid attention.
Consequently, the KTU had the organization changed to perform various goals in this

period.

5. Interactions between the KF TA and the KTU

The Korean Federation of Education Associations (KFEA)l9 in the period was
only a formal organization for teachers, even though there was an informal organization
for teachers, the YMCA secondary School Teachers’ Association (1982 - 1986)
(YMCA), which was more similar to a teachers’ meeting, not a systematic organization.
It was renamed the National Teachers’ Association (1987 — 1989) (NTA). The entry of
the National Teacher Association (NTA)20 in 1987 threatened the monopolistic status of
the KF EA.

The KFEA started to respond to the movements of the NTA from 1988. The
KF EA, however, did not respond actively and instead watched the movements of the
NTA. The KF EA tried to persuade the NTA to join as an affiliate organization under the
name of the KFEA in order to prevent the collapse of the teacher society. In other words,
the KFEA did not want to make the conflict with the NTA worse and consequently,

settled the conflicts reasonably.

 

‘9 The KF EA was the antecedent of the KFTA.
2° The NTA is the antecedent of the KTU.

89

The moderate response of the KF EA against the entry and movements of the NTA,
however, gave the opportunities for the NTA to persuade teachers to secede from the
KFEA”. Actually, many members withdrew from the KFEA. Consequently, it could be
said that the conflict between the KF TA and the KTU started from 1987.

Meanwhile, the NTA pointed out the problems the KF EA had raised in the
educational field and criticized the educational directions of the KF EA. The NTA

described the formation of the KFEA in the following way (The KTU, 1990b):

The KFEA was originated by educational bureaucrats, most of whom had been
collaborators with the Japanese colonial powers, without the participation of the
ordinary teachers. From the very beginning, the KFTA could not escape the charge of
being a yellow organization that is a government-organized and dominated, pro-
government and elite body. (p.13)

The NTA criticized the KFEA with the following issues (Synott, 2002). First, the
KFEA wasn’t built as an autonomous organization. The KFEA was built with the help of
the US. military government in 1947 and the KFEA’s inability to represent a majority of
teachers was a fundamental problem. Second, the KFEA wasted large amounts of funds
in an expensive gift to the Fifth Republic in order to get benefits in the field of education.
Third, the KF EA didn’t pay attention to the efforts of teachers for the improvement of the

education system.

1989 — 1992: The transition period from autocracy to democracy

1. The politics

 

2' The reasons why the NTA developed the movement to secede from the KF EA are explained by leaders
of the NTA with the followings: l) the KFEA is not autonomous from the government, 2) recruiting
members are almost compulsory, 3) the KFEA does not _protect teachers’ rights, and 4) the KFEA
maintains high-handed personnel administration. Park, 8.11. (1987). The National Teachers Association,
which challenges the authority of the Korean Federation of Education Association. Monthly Chosun. 10.
p.224.

90

The Sixth Republic began with the inauguration of Rob Tae Woo as president for
the 13th presidential term and the simultaneous implementation of the revised
Constitution. These events had been preceded by the June 29, 1987 Declaration of
Political Reforms in which Roh himself made a political gambit, pronouncing a
declaration on democracy which embraced all of the opposition’s demands. His
declaration defused the political crisis and provided for the first direct election of the
president in 16 years.

President Roh began his term of office promising that authoritarian rule would
end and that the June 29 Declaration would continue to be faithfully implemented.
Although he exhibited some of the characteristics of autocracy, Roh implemented
democratic practices, including freeing up the media and the judiciary. He also tried to
change not only the government systems but their substance as well. In addition, a
number of people who had been detained on political charges were released and had their
civil rights restored.

President Roh’s democratic movements came along with the 1987 Declaration to
labor unions which in effect, meant the return of authoritarian repression from 1990 due
to the economic downturn in 1989. His government resumed the old repressive labor
control policies by restricting wage increases through wage guidelines, and physically
and legally oppressing militant independent unions. The government declared a policy of
direct intervention into illegal22 labor disputes for national security.

With economic pressure, the government resumed political repression against

independent unions selectively. For example, the Korean Trade Union Council (KTUC),

 

22 Korean labor laws were restrictive, especially to union activities, and at the same time, the government
had wide discretionary power to define illegality of industrial action.

91

the first national peak organization of independent unions, was outlawed and oppressed

(Shin, 2001). In 1990, 456 independent unions established the KTUC as national center

for democratic, independent unionism. It covered 160,000 members, about 8.6% of total
organized workers. However, it was targeted for tough coercion by the government and

the organizational base was broken within a year (Kim, DC, 1995).

In contrast to selective repression, the government provided institutional
protections for workers at the workplace level to discourage individual workers to belong
to unions. The government began to institutionalize labor welfare programs to mediate
labor disputes. In December 1990, President Roh also announced a program to build 2
million houses for employees. He promised to introduce Employment Insurance System
(EIS) in 1995. The system was to mediate unbalances in labor demand and supply, to
provide vocational training, and to provide unemployment benefits. Consequently, the

government used so-called “carrot and stick” tactics to control labor unions in the period.

2. Education

Whereas the educational direction of The Fifth Republic was characterized as
rapid progress, that of The Sixth Republic was considered a democratic movement. Even
though these were not realized, many educational policies related to democratic
movements in education such as the self-goveming system and the term of service for
principals. These unimplemented educational policies in the Sixth Republic became the
bases of the educational policies of the Kim Young Sam administration later.

The Sixth Republic tried to promote educational reform consistently, organizing

special committees such as a Central Educational Council and an Educational Policy

92

Advisory Council. The former councils played roles of practice organs of educational
policy and the latter council proposed educational policy or suggested improvement in
the directions of existing educational policies. Whereas the former has existed until now,
the latter had been operated for the period of the Sixth Republic.

Educational reforms of the Sixth Republic were evaluated affirmatively with the
following results:

a) Improvement of elementary and secondary educational conditions

b) Promotion of private school education

c) Elimination of discrimination in the recruitment of teachers according to types

of universities (national or private universities)

(1) Improvement of teachers’ status and welfare

3. KF TA

The new building of the KF EA in 1989 started to boost the additional
development of teachers’ welfare. The active movements of the KTU in education also
stimulated the KF EA to change its title to the KFTA and to modify the system and the
Articles of Association. In addition, to improve the role of teacher organization as a
professional actor, the KFTA rebuilt Educational Policy Institution in 1989. In conclusion,
the period of the KFTA could be characterized as the “Period of Organizational
Rearrangement”.

The effort of the KF TA to rearrange the organization started to maximize the
power of subordinate organizations in individual schools and in metropolitan/provincial

organizations. The KF TA provided the guidelines to operate subordinate organizations

93

and maintain them efficiently. In addition, the KFTA operated the so-called Special
Committee for Organizational Improvement in order to maintain the organization
systematically by giving careful attention to the trends of members’ opinion and
obtaining new information in education.

In 1991, the KFTA acquired the rights of collective bargaining based on the
Special Act on the Improvement of Teachers’ Status. Under the special law, the
collective bargaining meetings were to be held twice a year from 1992. Consequently, the
KFTA completed the institutional foundation to protect teachers’ rights and status in
education.

Consequently, the inauguration of the KTU in 1989 changed the external
environment surrounded with the KFTA. The KFTA faced strong competition in
education and couldn’t but compete with the KTU, even the KTU was illegal
organization. Therefore, the KFTA experienced two organizational changes in this period.
First one was reactive change to adapt changing external conditions. With the entrance of
the KTU, the educational field started to change significantly, which asked the KFTA to
accept and adopt external conditions. Second one is incremental change to expand
organizational power to take the initiative in the competition with the KTU. As noted, the
KFTA started to rearrange subordinate organizations to maximize organizational power.

That is, the KFTA paid attention to have the organization changed incrementally.

4. KTU

The stronger the effort of the NTA to form a union the severer the repression

committed by the government. On March 9, 1989, the National Assembly revised the

94

Labor Union Act to acknowledge the rights of public employees such as teachers to form
unions and negotiate collectively. However, this new bill was rejected by President Roh
Tae-Woo as he insisted that public servants including teachers had no legal rights to form
unions. With this regulation, the government dismissed or arrested teachers who
participated in the NTA. In other words, the government considered teachers in the NTA
as enemies that hindered the development of _public education.

In spite of the severe repression of the government, the NTA kept trying to form a
union. On May 28, 1989, the KTU was finally inaugurated. From this day, the KTU
started to fight against the government in order to protect both teachers’ and students’
rights in education. The government also threatened that it would arrest all teachers who
joined the union. As a result, most teachers who joined the union were dismissed and
suffered poverty and personal difficulties.

In other words, the KTU started to reconstruct the organization by rebuilding the
organizational visions, identity, and strategy in order to face changing educational
conditions. The KTU as an illegal organization would face severe oppression by the
government in education. In addition, they would obtain support fi'om the public to prove
the value of their existence as a teacher organization in education. On the other hand, the
KTU also came to realize the importance of its members. Lots of members were
dismissed due to the membership of the KTU in this period. Since the power of the
organizations comes from that of individual members, the KTU recruited as many
members as possible in schools. Therefore, the KTU also tried to have the organization

changed incrementally in the period.

95

5. Interactions between the KFTA and the KTU

In 1989, the KTU was formed and started to work actively even though it was
oppressed severely by the government. The entrance of the KTU in the educational field
in 1989 was caused not only by the desire for social democracy but also by the criticism
for bad and habitual practices of the KFEA. The entrance of the KTU left a huge impact
on education.

As noted, the political directions of the KTU were somewhat progressive and
aggressive. It was welcomed by younger teachers and students because of this
progressive character. The KTU had gained lots of members and expanded its power in
the educational field within a few years since it was formed. The goals of the KTU during
the period focused on two goals: the realization of “true education” and the discovery of
the solution to the structural problems in education.

The KFTA which served as the competition of the KTU in the educational field
didn’t welcome the entrance of the said organization. When the KTU had just entered in
education, the KFTA did not criticize the KTU directly and instead blamed the KTU’s
ideology indirectly23 . The KFTA argued that the KTU caused lot of troubles in education
and the dissolution of teacher society.

From 1990, the KF TA changed the way they treated the KTU. The KFTA started
to criticize the KTU from a more aggressive and vigorous standpoint. The criticism was
supported by the government who considered the KTU as an illegal organization and by

some parents who worried about the political movements of teachers (The KF TA, 1997).

 

23 The KFTA argued that the aggressive character of the KTU would ruin the education, and the KFTA
labeled the teachers of the KTU as violent revolutionary forces who were spreading leftist ideology to
students (The Korea Herald 1989, April 7, l).

96

The conflicts between the KFTA and the KTU became more severe in 1991 when
the Special Act on the Improvement of Teachers’ Status was promulgated in May 1991.
Under the Special act, the KFTA was entitled to negotiate and consult with the
government on all educational issues concerning both teachers’ welfare and teachers’
professionalism. Since July 1992, the KFTA has negotiated with the government for
better treatment and the improvement of working conditions of teachers twice a year.

The Special Act met the severe resistance of the KTU. The KTU claimed that the
Special Act considered the KTU as illegal organization and thought of the KFTA as the
only teacher organization in the educational field. Moreover, the KTU argued that since
collective bargaining and agreement under the Special Act had no responsibility to oblige
the government to implement what was agreed on the negotiating table, the opinions from

around 40 million teachers would be easy to distort.

1993 — 1998: The bewing period of the political democracy

1. The politics

In February 1993, Kim Young Sam was elected as President in Korea. Kim’s
election returned Korea to the hands of a democratically elected civilian president for the
first time since the military coup d'etat of 1961. President Kim started well, with an active
and well-publicized campaign to clean out corruption which was to extend subsequently
to putting his two predecessors on trial. President Kim expected his reform campaign
against corruption to continue throughout his five-year term, and at that point, no one
doubted him. His anti-corruption efforts extended not only to the administration and

political parties, but also to the military, universities, and even the banking system.

97

President Kim realized, however, that it was difficult to break out of traditional
patterns of patronage and political parochialism. Despite the transition to democracy,
authority systems still remained traditional. Political parties and cabinet ministers
continued to have secondary importance to political leaders and, above all, the president,
along with his immediate circle of advisers and bureaucrats, still wielded considerable
political power and influence. To make matters worse, Korea faced a financial crisis in
1997, which made the last period of his governance unstable.

The Kim Young Sam administration controlled labor unions with two aspects,
“market-oriented labor control” at the functional level and “pseudo-inclusive politics” at
the national level (Shin, 2001). The key feature is that individual capitals emerged as
major actors in workplace industrial relations under the patronage of the government, and
at the same time, the government controlled organized labor at the national level, while
sitting back from the functional level. At the functional level, individual employers,
especially Chaebols, played a leading role in industrial relations.

Despite the mixture of policies, market-oriented labor control dominated during
President Kim’s governance. The declining labor union status was due mainly to the
policies of labor market flexibility which reduced the economic power of the unions at
the workplace level. Consequently, labor union power was sharply reduced by market-
oriented control strategies.

On February 25, 1998, with the inauguration of Kim Dae-jung, who was to serve
his 15th presidential term, the era of the Government of the People started. The new era
promised that all the people could participate as masters of the nation. In his inaugural

speech, President Kim, urging the nation to overcome the national crisis and make a new

98

leap forward, said that it was the day when the first democratic transition of power had
been realized. He called his Administration the “Government of the People”, and
declared that he intended to pursue democratization and a free market economy at the
same time.

President Kim said his administration would overcome the economic crisis
through strong reform, undertake a spiritual revolution valuing the rights of the
individual, pursue education reform, and liquidate the Cold-War style confrontational
relationship with North Korea. He declared his intention to realize participatory
democracy in which all people would take part and control politics. Facing the greatest
national crisis since the Korean War, President Kim said the nation was being asked to
put up with the economic crisis and to overcome the crisis without fail as soon as possible
through strong reform.

From the day after his election, President Kim Dae-jung began to work vigorously
to help the nation overcome the economic crisis. He formed the Tripartite Committee of
Representatives from labor, management, and the government in order to negotiate a
national agenda for the social protection of workers, economic restructuring, and
industrial relations laws (Song, 1999). In this way, the govemment took the lead in
national efforts to “share pain”. He also urged foreigners to invest in Korea and is now
pushing for economic reform including the restructuring of corporations in order for them
to strengthen their competitiveness.

In the initial stage, relations between the government and labor unions were better
than ever due to the successful meetings of the Tripartite Committee. The government

asked labor unions to work together to resolve the economic crisis and to reduce the

99

surplus working forces. As a reward for this sacrifice, trade union rights to engage in
political activities and organize unions for teachers and public servants were recognized.
But the Committee did not run smoothly and met with severe difficulties because
the differences between the demands of the government and their acceptance by labor
unions were too big to be reduced. The representative of labor unions in the Committee,
the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, has remained apart since February 1999 due
to the conflicts with the government. Consequently, unilateral industrial restructuring of

the government increased political tension between the government and labor unions.

2. Education

After President Kim Young Sam was elected through a referendum and became
the first civilian president since 1961, the public expected the civilian government to do a
lot of things for the attainment of democracy. This kind of expectation applied to the
educational field as well. For example, the school council was organized for the first time.
The special examination for measuring students’ abilities to study in colleges was also
put into effect. In 1994, around 1400 teachers who were dismissed because of the issues
of the Korean Teachers’ Union in 1989, were restored to their former positions.

Among the many educational events by the government, organizing of the
Committee for Educational Reform was the most successful event in this period. The
committee was organized to propel educational reform in Korea. The committee
presented “Education Reform” in 1995 and revised it three times. To escape the typical
education that focused on learning partial knowledge, the Kim Young Sam

Administration presented educational reform for building new educational system in

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order to prepare for the age of globalization and information. The new educational system
was not provider-oriented but consumer-oriented.

Between 1997 and 1998, the Korean educational field experienced two big
economic and educational impacts since the Korean modern government was established
in 1947. One was the economic crisis. These huge impacts altered the direction of
education in Korea.

The Kim Dae-jung Administration declared he would develop the democracy and
the economy simultaneously. However, the economic crisis made the development
difficult. The IMF (International Monetary Fund) relief fund demanded that Korean
society be strongly reconstructed. As a result, almost all of entire sections in Korean
society started to experience severe reconstruction.

In education, the economic crisis shrunk the educational investments to
educational policies that needed much funds such as reducing class size or eliminating
gigantic size schools and so on. Instead, educational policies in this period were aimed at
reconstructing the system of educational administration and implementing the
educational democracy in schools. Besides, the economic crisis brought about the
modification of educational system and the reduction of private educational expenses in
educational society.

Another development was the legalization of the KTU. This came from
unexpected events. In late 1997, Korea met the economic crisis and loaned money from
the HVIF to escape the crisis. The IMF insisted on a major restructuring of Korean
economy. The government realized that the escape of the economic crisis was impossible

without the assistance of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU),

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representing several million workers in Korea. The KCTU said that it would support the
restructuring of labor legislation in Korea in order to overcome the crisis on the condition
that public officials and teachers could form trade unions. The government accepted the

KCTU’s offer and finally, the KTU was legalized in July 1999“.

3. KF TA

The efforts to expand the power of the KFTA have been continued in the period.
The roles of Special Committee for Organizational Improvement became more
intensified in the KFTA and many teachers including professors in universities became
the targets of recruiting. The efforts of the KFTA to recruit more members, however,
were unsuccessful.

The KFTA had played a role as interest group for teachers by asking presidential
candidates to accept their educational policy proposals as the candidates’ educational
policies. The KF TA also participated in the educational policy development process of
political parties that prepared the Assembly elections. The KFTA helped them develop
educational policy proposals and requested political parties to select educational policy
proposals that were developed as political parties’ election pledges for education.

Acquiring the right to negotiate with the government for educational issues
brought lots of benefits to members of the KFTA. Many kinds of educational policies for
teachers’ better working conditions/welfare and teacher professionalism have been

negotiated with the government. The KFTA could also negotiate with the government for

 

2’ When the KTU was legalized as union, it didn’t acquire the right to act collectively among labors three
primary rights.

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school-based management and professionalism in educational administration. The KF TA
had fully utilized the rights of collective bargaining for teachers.

Among the many achievements of the KF TA, it is said that one of significant
achievements of the KFTA in education is the protection and improvement of a “self-
goveming system in education”. The KFTA pressed the government to enact the “law for
local self-goveming system in education” in 1991 and had the law improved in this
period. The efforts of the KFTA to improve the system, however, resulted in conflicts
with the Ministry of Education, which wanted to increase the power of bureaucratic
control in educational administration and with the government, which tried to considered
local self— governing system in education as one part of local administration.

In the period, the KFTA still paid more attention to incremental changes for the
organizational expansion. The KFTA tried to develop the organization not through the
competition with the KTU but through internal tuning of the organization such as the
increase of members and maintenance of vested rights in education. The Special Act,
which was solely for the KFTA enabled the said organization to adhere to incremental
changes in the period. On the other hand, the KF TA accepted the advice and admonition
of the government. The negotiation for educational issues with the government provided
not only the rights to attend the negotiation table to discuss about education issues, but
also the responsibilities to follow the educational directions of the government. The close
relations with the government allowed the KFTA to take the initiative in the educational

field over the KTU.

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4. KTU

With the entrance of the Kim Young Sam25 administration, international pressure
pushed the government to consider human rights in Korea, including the issue of the
dismissed teachers. In 1993, the government offered the dismissed teachers reinstatement
on the condition that dismissed teachers in 1989 should sign a form testifying to his or
her withdrawal from the union. The KTU accepted the offer through negotiations among
members to resolve the economic problems of dismissed teachers. Finally, except for
core activists for the union, 1,294 teachers among 1,524 teachers who were dismissed in
1989 were reinstated. The KTU still had no official channels to communicate with the
government. In the early part of this period, one of the important goals of the KTU was to
acquire support from the public and to maintain the reason why the KTU should exist for
education. The KTU tried to work with and inform the public of the pursuit of its goals.

From 1996, the KTU started to focus on another goal. It began preparing the
general election and presidential election. The KTU paid more attention to political
movements and tried to build the connections to other labor unions in order to obtain
power in educational society after elections were finished. As a result, the number of
educational policy proposals presented by the KTU in 1996 and 1997 were smaller than
ever. However, the KTU had presented various kinds of proposals for Korean education.

The movement of the KTU between 1997 and 1998 was busy. Since the Kim
Dae-jung administration had good relations with labor unions, the KTU expected that it
would become legalized soon. Therefore, to get support from all fields of society, the
KTU continued to present educational policy proposals in which teachers, students, and

parents were very interested and which usually pursued democratization in school society.

 

2’ Prior to his election as President of Korea, Kim Young Sam had expressed the support for the KTU.

104

To get legalized, the KTU tried to do its best to enhance the capacity of the
system and continued to build links with international labor organizations and
international teacher associations. The KTU invited many leaders of teacher unions from
other countries to strengthen its external affiliations. This effort worked and the
international society finally forced the Korean government to legalize the KTU.

The KTU faced two big organizational changes in the period. The first one was
related to the reinstatement of dismissed teachers. They gave their support to the KTU,
but also gave rise to conflicts with the existing members because of different educational
directions. In order to resolve the complications between dismissed members and existing
members, the KTU needed to perform a process of reorientation. The second change the
KTU met was incremental change in organization. The favorable attitude of the
government toward the KTU from 1997 allowed the KTU to have the organization
changed incrementally. The KTU paid more attention to organizational expansion by

recruiting more members and intensifying memberships.

5. Interactions between the KFTA and the KTU

In the period of the Kim Young Sam administration, the KTU still struggled with
its legitimacy even though Kim Young Sam expressed support for the KTU prior to his
election as President of Korea. Many dismissed teachers went back to their previous jobs,
but this issue was controversial in the period. The reinstatement of dismissed teachers
brought about another conflict between the KF TA and the KTU.

Reinstated teachers did not harmonize with existing teachers in schools and made

trouble for them. They were usually neglected and excluded in teachers’ meetings. That

105

is, even though reinstated teachers went back to their job positions, they experienced
difficulty in getting involved with the mainstream in school society.

The KFTA blamed the KTU for the aggressiveness directly through the mass
media. The KFTA described the KTU as an enemy of educational reform and a barrier to
public education. The KF TA argued that the KTU interfered whenever the KFTA tried to
implement educational reform and that the KTU was opposed to educational policies
presented by the KF TA. The KFTA (1997) announced the mistakes the KTU made to the

public in this way:

Whereas the movements of the KTU realized the seriousness of problems in Korean
education and stimulated to held the meeting for educational reform, aggressive
movements of the KTU that pursued only a ideological disputes hampered the
development of Korean education (p. 704)

The KTU also accused the KFTA as a principal offender which deteriorated the
quality of public education. Consequently, they demanded the dissolution of organization.
The legitimacy of the KTU was still a hot issue among researchers and the public in this
period. The KTU publication (1995) announced that the KTU declared the years 1995
and 1996 as the period for the capacity-building of the system, for the purpose of
achieving legal authority. This effort preceded the second struggle for its legalization.

To achieve the goal of legalization, the KTU continued to build its links with the
International Labor Organization and international teacher associations instead of
building affirmative relations with the KFTA. The KTU invited many leaders of teacher
unions from other countries in order to strengthen the affiliations for education
movements. These efforts were effective in bringing international pressure to bear on the

Korean government to legalize the KTU.

106

From 1996, the issue of pluralized teacher organizations including the legalization
of teacher unions was examined by the Kim Young Sam administration and teachers who
were core members but were not involved in the KTU26. The response of the KF TA
against the issue of pluralized teacher organizations was rapid. They scrutinized the
possible problems that might happen after the legalization of teacher organizations and
tried to identify problems related to teacher organizations.

On the contrary, the reaction of the KTU against the issue of pluralized teacher
organizations intended to be one of indifference. The KTU did not want to be involved
with this controversial issue because the government already started to discuss about the
legalization of teacher unions. That is, the KTU did not want to maintain negative
relations with the government due to this issue. Regardless of the intention of the KTU,
pluralized teacher organizations including the legalization of teacher unions was getting

realized.

1999 — 2002: The developmental period of democracy

1. The politics

The people hoped for a democracy that would develop in tandem with a free
market economy. They also hoped that the Kim Dae-jung administration would develop
into a society where upright and able men and women can succeed without
discrimination, as many in Korea felt that there was a bond between people of a particular

region, province, or even common school, that was damaging to the nation as a whole.

 

26 Teachers who were core members in 1990 but were not involved in the KTU formed the Committee for
Preparing to Build Seoul Teachers’ Conference Group in 1996. They argued that one of Enforcement
Ordinances of Educational Law violated the basic right provided by the Constitution that allows freedom of
association and guarantee of equality.

107

Many believed that regionalist feelings between people caused discrimination. They felt
that this discrimination had to end if some kind of national reconciliation can ever be
achieved.

The Kim Dae-jung administration overcame the economic crisis with the
assistance of labor unions and workers. Many workers including public servants lost their
jobs due to strong reconstruction in the societal and economic fields. They sacrificed a lot
in their support of the government. The government had affirmative relations between
labor unions including teacher unions.

In conclusion, although the goal of the Tripartite Committee was not achieved
successfully, organized labor realized organizational achievements due to IMF
intervention (Shin, 2001). First, the KCTU was legally recognized. The prohibitions on
plural unionism, political activities of unions, and third party intervention were removed.
The government could no longer totally exclude the KCTU in forming labor-related
policies. Moreover, the govemment-led economic structure steadily shifted to a market-
oriented economy. As a result, relations between the government and labor unions were
rearranged and labor unionism entered into a new era in which unions had to search for

alternative options to replace the past authoritarian regime (Block et a1. 2000).

2. Education
In 1999, the educational field in Korea experienced another big impact. This
involved the legalization of teacher unions. As noted, although political negotiations

allowed teachers to form a union, it was said that the legalization of teacher unions was a

108

victory of teachers who really wanted democracy in education. Pluralized teacher
organizations began to bring many changes in Korean education.

From 1999 when the economic crisis was nearly overcome, the Kim Dae-jung
administration restarted to invest funds in education. The government set 5-year plan for
educational development in order to build a strong country. The government also
presented educational policy proposals to decrease the number of students per class or
school and to improve public education. In addition, the government tried to expand
compulsory education in secondary education.

Moreover, the political change in this period made an influence on the educational
situation related to teacher organizations. The Kim Dae—jung administration were
supported by labor unions including teacher unions and kept good relations with them
during the period of the regime. Therefore, the relations between the government and
teacher unions became closer and the government paid more attention to the voice of the

KTU than that of the KFTA.

3. KFTA

The entry of the KTU as a legal teacher organization caused the KFTA to change
its organizational improvement. The KFTA realized that they should change their
deve10pmental directions in order to distinguish them from other teacher unions in Korea.
The KFTA eventually elected to employ organizational development in attaining this
goal. Thus, in pursuit of this objective, it provided the following as the developmental

directions and tasks of the KFTA:

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d)

The improvement of teachers’ professionalism, authorities, and morality in
education

The participation of the KFTA in educational policymaking processes

The promotion of efforts toward the development of society and traditional
culture

The maximization of the abilities of the KF TA as a professional organization
with the rights of collective bargaining

The maintenance of good relationships with teacher organizations around the
world

The improvement and maintenance of systematically 24 affiliated
professional, horizontal organizations in order to develop teachers’

professionalism in education

The legalization of teacher unions stimulated the KF TA to reform their

organization in order to face rapidly changing political/societal conditions and to prepare
for competition with the KTU. The KFTA cannot but share the benefits from the
government with other teacher organizations even as they experience a weakening of
these relations with the government. Consequently, the KFTA changes the organizational
directions and strategies to adapt to the external changes and expend the organization

quantitatively in order to take the lead among other teacher organizations as well.

4. KTU

After being legalized, the KTU assumed roles as a real teacher organization. The

improved status of the KTU as a legal teacher organization in education allowed it to

110

work together with the KFTA. In addition, the KTU, as one of the political interest
groups in education, acquired the rights to negotiate with the government for educational
issues.

As a legal teacher organization, the KTU started to pay more attention to
members’ working conditions and welfare in schools. It switched its role to “institutional
actors”. The KTU, however, was still devoted to its efforts to educational policies such as
the 7th curriculum reform, the revision of educational law for private schools and the
improvement of public education.

The KTU as a legal union announced the following as the big pictures of its
efforts to prepare education in future:

a) Improvement of teacher’s working conditions and welfare

b) Development of teachers’ professionalism

c) Establishment of school-based management

(1) Democratization of school administration

The legalization of teacher unions prompted the KTU to have its organization
changed. At first, the KTU, as a legal organization, put in good order the organizational
system to face a new educational environment. Unlike illegal organization, the KTU had
to be aware of its responsibilities for the development of education. As an educational
partner of the government, the KTU needed to work with the government to improve the
quality of education. This means that the KTU started to have strong connections with the
government and to pay more attention to relations with the government, not the KFTA. In
other words, the KTU focuses more on the development of the organization itself, not on

its rivalry with the KFTA.

111

5. Interactions between the KF TA and the KTU

In January 1999, the National Assembly passed a law which allowed teachers to
form trade unions for the first time in Korean history. Finally, teacher unions became
legalized in the period of the Kim Dae-jung administration. The KTU was first enrolled
as a teacher union and the KUTEW became the second teacher union in Korea.

The KFTA was opposed to the legalization of teacher unions but its reactions
against the legalization were not favorably received. The KFTA tried to dissuade the
government from recognizing the KTU as a legal teacher organization but it failed in this
effort. The KFTA cited possible problems the KTU would raise alter its legalization in
this way: 1) the KTU pays too much attention on political issues; 2) the efforts of the
KTU for legalization lacked systematic preparation to become a teacher union; and 3)
although teacher unions possess the characters of both teacher organizations and the labor
union, the KTU focuses only on the labor union movement.

To compete with the KTU after its legalization, the KFTA started to reform itself.
It came to realize the importance of general members and elevated them to key positions
in organizations. In addition, the KF TA tried to listen to members’ voices and have these
reflected on educational policy proposals positively.

The legalization of teacher unions brought lots of changes to the KTU. After its
legalization, the KTU started to focus more on teachers’ welfare. From 1999, the
organizational directions of the KTU began to separate into two parts, education-ism and

unionism. Between two isms, the KTU decided to pay more attention to teachers’ welfare

112

than educational movement because unionism could receive lots of supports from
teachers after legalization,

The effort of the KTU toward union movements, however, sometimes raised
problems in the educational field. First, many teachers were anxious that the
confrontation of the two -isms, education-ism and unionism, within the KTU weakened
organizational solidarity. For example, one of the members who supported unionism was
elected chairman in the KTU and consequently, most the power of the KTU concentrated
on union movement. On the other hand, members who supported education-ism did not
play active roles and just monitored the union movements of the KTU.

Second, the conflicts between school principals and the KTU members became
serious. After its legalization, the KTU could not be indifferent to members’ demands
because the KTU wanted to expand its power in order to cope with the KFTA’s power in
education. In a hierarchical school system, teachers had been weak individuals in most
problems that happened in schools. The legalized teacher union tried to solve those kinds
of problems with principals acting directly as representative for individual teachers.
Therefore, the relation between school principals and the KTU members became worse
than ever.

Summary: The following figure shows the important characteristics of each field
over time frame.

Figure 8. Characteristics of each field over time frame

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1980-1988 1989-1992 1993-1998 1999-2002
The transition . . h d l l
The period of period from Th? begrnmng T e eve opmenta
Politics . period of the period of
partial autocracy autocracy to 1' . l d d
democracy po rtrca emocracy emocracy

 

113

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

. Rapid progress in Democratic The improvement Open competitions
Education . movement in of quality of . .
education . . in education
education education
The period of
The period of The period of The period of organizational
KFTA organizational trial organizational organizational improvement as
and overcome rearrangement expansion professional
organization
The period of The period of . The period of The period of
. . organizational trial orgamzational organizational
KTU organizational .
. . . . as illegal rearrangement and development as
initiation . . . . .
organization expansron legal organization
KFTA — Tuning KFTA — Tuning . IEFT .
Organizational KTU — Tuning, and Adaptation KFTA — Tuning A — Tunmlg
. . . KTU — Tuning and and Reorientation
Development Reorientation, and KTU — Tuning and Reorientation KTU _ Tunin
Adaptation Reorientation g
Interactions Unstable situation Conflict situation Monopolistic Competitive period
between the . .
of two teacher of two teacher Situation of the of two legal teacher
KFTA and the . . . . . .
KTU organizations organizations KFTA organizations

 

 

 

 

 

The figure suggests that educational directions and organizational development of

 

teacher organization in Korea have been strongly related to the political/educational
situations. The KFTA has paid more attention to the changes of educational situations
over time. On the other hand, the KTU has been influenced by the changes of both
political and educational situations over time. Besides, conflict or competitive
interactions between teacher organizations have forced organizations to adapt to external

situations.

The Relations between Teacher organizations and the government
The KF TA and the government

To understand the relations between the KFTA and the government, the
educational/political origin of the KFTA should be explained. The Chosun Education

Association (CEA) (the predecessor of the KFTA) was organized by Ukkyeom Yoo,

114

Dongsik Cho, and Namhoon Bak among others, in opposition to the political direction of
the Chosun Educators’ Association that was organized in September 18, 1945. The latter
was organized as soon as Korea became independent in 1945 (Park, 1990).

During the period between 1945 and 1950, Korea had been governed under the
US. military government and it tried to plant an American-style educational system in
Korea. For example, the US. military government suggested the “plan for founding
National Seoul University” in order to reorganize the Korean educational system.
Meanwhile, the Chosun Educators’ Association led the opposite movements against the
plan, which made the US. military government oppress the association and establish a
new teacher organization that was friendly to the US. military government. This
organization which was supported by the US. military government was the Chosun
Education Association.

The CEA was not an association operated by the efforts of general teachers. It
was protected and controlled by a minimum number of members composed of
educational personnel, educational administrators, and the US. military government. This
is why the KFTA, the successor of the CEA, maintained good relations with the
government. This relation, however, has been considered as the weakest fragility of the
KFTA. Park (1990) points out that the most serious problem of the KFTA could be its
subordination to the government.

Moreover, the organizational type of the KFTA is not that of a union but an
incorporation, which has been supervised by the Ministry of Education. According to the
articles of the KFTA, fulfilling some articles requires the approval of the Ministry of

Education. Consequently, the KFTA does not play a political role as an interest group for

115

teachers and just suggests or expresses their educational/political opinions to the
government. In the same vein, even though most of the financial revenue of the KFTA is
appropriated with membership fees, the extra funds that were supported by State
subvention27 or lots of imperial grants came from the government. This shows how the
government has controlled the KFTA indirectly. This solid relation between the KF TA
and the government continued until 1998.

The relations between the KF TA and the government started to change from 1998.
As soon as the Kim Dae-jung administration came into power, the government tried to
maintain better relations with the KTU because the Kim Dae-jung administration was
supported by labor unions, including the KTU, in the presidential election. Therefore, it
was said that the relations between the KF TA and the government began to grow worse
from 1998.

For example, in 1998 the Kim Dae-jung administration started to discuss about
two hot issues, lowering teachers’ retirement age and legalizing teacher unions, with the
KTU. The KFTA asked the government not to implement those big issues in education
but they failed to convince the said institution. Finally, these two policies were
implemented in 1999 and the KFTA experienced a sense of alienation in the educational

field for the first time.

The KTU and the government
The relationship between the KTU and the government had been conflictive

because the KTU had been aggressive against the government and illegal organizations

 

27 In 1984 and 1985, the Korean Federation of Education Association (KFEA), which was the antecedent of
the KFTA, received subsidies. The Korean Federation of Education Association history of 20 years. p.718.

116

until 1999. Before the KTU was formed in 1989, the conflict between the National
Teachers’ Association (N TA) and the government was not serious. The government only
supervised the ideology or the meeting/conference of the NTA.

The serious conflict between the KTU and the government started in 1989 when
the NTA transformed the type of organization into a union. In the early part of 1989, the
government seemed to allow teachers to form the union. The government, however,
suddenly changed its standpoint and did not allow teachers to form the union in order to
prevent a so-called “void in education” that may be caused by the collective movement of
teachers in the educational field.

The researcher was able to identify the reasons why severe conflicts between the
KTU and the government happened and have lasted for long time. First reason is related
to an ideological issue, the progressiveness of the ideology and the political directions of
the KTU. When the progressiveness of the KTU’s ideology is explained, the most
controversial subject is the term, “the people”. This term has been under taboo because it
has been said that the term has the meaning of the political class, not that of the society or
the economics in Korea.

For example, when the KTU distributed a book, The People Education, the KTU
explained why the term, “the people”, was selected as the title. It explained that the book
covered practical educational problems and paid more attention to non-systemic
education that might happen in real life. Ironically, the government did not suppress the
distribution of another book, Educational Field, which was published by the KF TA and

had almost same point of view as the previously discussed work. Consequently, the

117

meaning of term, “the people”, was misjudged and became the target of severe repression
by the government.

The second reason comes from different standpoints in considering what is
characteristic of a teacher’s job. As noted in the second chapter about the characteristics
of teacher organization, it is said in Korea that teaching has been considered as the one of
following jobs, the holy orders, the labors, or the professions. Among three job characters,
teaching has been traditionally considered as holy orders in Korea. Teachers have been
treated like parents, and have been respected by students as parents are.

This conflict between the KTU and the government is heavily related to teachers’
job characteristic as holy orders. In other words, the viewpoint to take in conceptualizing
a teaching job is different between the KTU and the government. Whereas the KTU
thinks of teaching job as labor, the government considers it as part of the holy orders.

According to the Constitution and the Labor law, teachers have the right to form
the union. In addition, the characteristic of teaching as labor can be denied because the
labor teachers provide is considered sacred and is different from other ordinary labor.
This is why teachers gain the respect of the public.

Therefore, the movement of the KTU to consider teaching job as labor cannot but
cause conflict with the government and the public. For example, the government worries
about educational loss and negative impact on elementary and secondary schooling,
which could be caused by labor movements of the KTU such as a strike. Parents are also
concerned that labor movements of the KTU have the possibility of trespassing over their

children’s rights to study in schools.

118

The third reason of the conflict between the KTU and the government was caused
by the government’s repression of the KTU. It is said that there have been many reasons
why the government has repressed the KTU. Among them, the following reasons are
often debated: l) the concern about the diminishment of government’s control over
education, 2) the crisis of the ruling ideology by the defiance of the KTU, 3) the blockage
of forming the union by public service personnel.

Until 1999, the voice of the KTU for education had not been accepted officially
but was selected intentionally by the government. Although the KTU tried to suggest a
lot of educational policy proposals which were good enough to be performed as
educational policies, the government did not accept them as proposals. Among the
proposals the KTU suggested, however, the government developed some of them to
become educational policies without any discussion with the KTU.

After the legalization of teacher unions, relations between the KTU and the
government became favorable. The KTU gained many advantages and benefits over the
negotiation table and its voice on the table was accepted officially as educational policy
proposals. Consequently, the KTU was not just a bystander in education any more but
became one of axles that supported the development of education in Korea.

Summary: Teacher organizations have obtained many benefits for teachers
through their active relations with the government. They experienced lots of successes
and failures in educational field. Among many benefits they obtained for teachers, the
followings are the most important results for both teacher organizations.

a) The improvement of teachers’ rights — This could be the most important result

teacher organizations acquired through active relations with the government. The

119

negotiations with the government enabled teacher to obtain better salaries, equipment,
facilities, and working conditions. Even though teacher organizations obtained lots of
benefits from bargaining table, it is often said that they have paid too much attention to
improving their own rights (Jung, 1993).

b) Influence of teachers on educational policy — Teacher organizations showed the
most powerful influence on educational policymaking process and played the role of
invisible interest groups in education. In fact, even though the KTU was an illegal
organization until 1999, the KTU had put individual teachers’ and subordinate
organizations’ power together in order to influence on educational policy. Moreover, the
KTU persuaded students’ parents to get involved in the educational policymaking process,
which showed how the KTU has tried to work with the public in achieving progress in
education.

c) Establishment of school democratization -— Most school systems in Korea are
structured hierarchically. The command usually flows from the top to the bottom. Two-
way communication between employer and employee rarely happens in the school
system. Teacher organizations, however, have tried to reform habitual practice and to
plant a democratic school system. It is said that their efforts succeeded partially. That is,
even though general teachers are able to attend school affairs and meetings and even
though most schools established school personnel committees, the voice of general
teachers is hardly accepted and is not developed as real agendas.

d) Appearance of the organizations built by students’ parents — Activities of
teacher organizations provide the opportunity for students’ parents to participate in the

educational process. Students’ parents, who had been excluded in education, began to pay

120

more attention to educational issues after the KTU was formed. They started forming
several different organizations and became important interest groups in education.
Consequently, the organizations by students’ parents play the role as strong supporters of

teacher organizations.

. The Collective Bargaining System of Teacher organizations in Korea

Individual teachers in Korea possess the right to choose teacher organizations and
the right is under the control of totally different collective bargaining acts and systems.
That is, whereas all efforts including collective bargaining by members of the KFTA are
managed under The Special Act on the Improvement of Teachers’ Status, all activities by
the members of the KTU and the KUTEW should follow The Act of the Establishment
and Operation of Teachers’ Labor Unions. All teachers, however, should abide by the
results from the two different acts.

The two acts set the limits of negotiable issues in education. The negotiable issues
on The Special Act on the Improvement of Teachers’ Statuses are limited to the
improvement of teachers’ welfare/working condition and the development of teachers’
professionalism. The Act of the Establishment and Operation of Teachers’ Labor Unions
sets the limit of negotiable issues to the improvement of teachers’ socioeconomic status
in education. The collective bargaining meetings have been held twice a year for the
KFTA from 1992 and at least once in two years28 for teacher unions from 1999
respectively.

The partners of both the KFTA and the KTU in the collective bargaining system

are the Minister of Education in the center and superintendents in

 

28 In general, the collective bargaining meetings have been held once a year for teacher unions.

121

municipalities/provinces. Prior to the main collective bargaining meeting, the
subcommittee meets two or three times to discuss practical issues that could be discussed
in the main meeting and to make the draft of mutual agreement of educational policy
proposals. Agreed proposals are discussed in the main collective bargaining meetings and
signed by both the chairman of the KFTA and the Minister of Education.

The validity of agreed educational policies between the government and teacher
organizations, however, is not strong. That is, the government in collective bargaining
system is obligated to make out agreed educational policy as documentations and just
tries to implement them sincerely. There are no sanctions by laws even though the
government fails to implement agreed-upon educational policies with teacher
organizations. Which policy should be implemented or not depends on the will of the

government.

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CHAPTER FIVE

ANALYSIS OF CATEGORIZED EDUCATIONAL POLICY PROPOSALS

Teacher organizations have done much for education since they were organized
and have become very important players in almost every field of modern society.
Because of the importance of education in society, the roles of teacher organizations have
come into the spotlight. These roles have changed over time and teacher organizations
have assumed different roles to keep pace with the times. It is said that these roles have
been so related to and been influenced by societal and the political conditions.

In this chapter, the researcher shows the results of categorized educational policy
proposals over time frame and interprets what kinds of stories categorizations tell the
researcher. The researcher also analyzes them on the basis of the political and educational
situation. In addition, the researcher compares the results of categorizations between two
teacher organizations to order to investigate the competitive relations between them with

organizational evolution theory.

Categorization of Educational Policy Proposals over Time frame

The number and percent ofiroposals presented by the KFTA over a given time
frame

The following table shows the numbers and percents of educational policy
proposals presented by the KFTA based on a specific time frame. It shows the various

kinds of educational policy proposals presented by the association since 1980.

123

Table 4. The numbers and percents of educational policy proposals presented by

the KFT A over a given time frame
1980 — 1988 1989 ~ 1992 1993 - 1998 1999 — 2002

I P S E l P S E I P S E l P S E
35 10 9 8 31 10 3 3 29 12 0 4 67 28 8 22
(561 L16) 15) (13) £66) (22 (6) I6) 054) (27) (0) i9) 54 (22) (6) (13)

Total: 62 Total: 47 Total: 45 Total: 125
o 1: Industrial oriented issues; P: Professional oriented issues; S: Students’ learning and development
oriented issues; E: School Education intensification oriented issues

0 The parenthesized numbers are the percents of proposals.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 9. Percents of educational policy proposals of the KFTA over time frame

 

:2 y / \\
55 / \

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

50
Tc: 45 +|nstitutional oriented
a) proposals
3% 40 +Professiona| oriented
a 35 ' proposals
’5 : +Students' learning oriented
.23 30 ' proposals
8 25 _____ A j +School education oriented
(if / ' proposals
20

 

 

\
.. < /’
1: v A,
0 . V .

1980-1988 1989-1992 1993-1998 1999-2002

 

 

 

 

 

The KF TA presented a total 62 kinds of educational policy proposals from 1980
to 1988. 35 kinds of these proposals centered on the category of industrial oriented issues,
10 kinds to the category of professional oriented issues, 9 to the category of students’
learning and deve10pment oriented issues, and 8 to the category of school education
intensification oriented issues. The percents of proposals for each category were 56%,
16%, 15% and 13% respectively.

From 1989 to 1992, the KFTA presented a total 47 kinds of proposals to the

government. 31 kinds of proposals were based on industrial oriented issues, 10 kinds on

124

professional oriented issues, 3 kinds on students’ learning and development oriented
issues and school education intensification oriented issues. Percents of each category
were 66%, 22%, 6%, and 6%.

Between 1993 and 1998, the KFTA submitted a total 45 kinds of educational
policy proposals to the Ministry of Education. 29 out of these 45 types were related to
industrial oriented issues, 12 kinds to professional oriented issues, and only 4 kinds to
school education intensification oriented issues. None was for students’ learning and
development oriented issues in the period. The percents of proposals in each category
were 64%, 27%, 0% and 9%.

After the Korean Teachers’ Union was legalized in 1999, the KF TA presented a
larger number of proposals. A total of 125 kinds of educational policy proposals were
presented by the KFTA. 67 kinds of proposals were for industrial oriented issues, 28
kinds for professional oriented issues, 8 kinds for students’ learning and development
oriented issues, and 22 kinds for school education intensification oriented issues. The
percents of proposals presented by the KFTA on each category were 54%, 22%, 6%, and

18%.

The number and the percent of proposals presented by the KTU over a given time
frame

Table 5 and figure 10 show what kinds of educational policy proposals the KTU
presented within the educational field over a given time frame. Although the number of
educational policy proposals was fewer than that of the KFTA, the KTU presented almost

equally distributed patterns of educational policy proposals beginning in 1982.

125

Table 5. The numbers and percents of educational policy proposals presented by
the KTU over a time

     

o 1: Industrial oriented issues; P: Professional oriented issues; S: Students‘ learning and development
oriented issues; E: School Education intensification oriented issues
0 The parenthesized numbers are the percents of proposals.

Figure 10. Percents of educational policy proposals of the KTU over time frame

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

w ..
45 //.
40 .. _.
m 35 A/\ / _. W + institutional oriented
g ///\ X proposals
8 30 + Professional oriented
g k/ V \ proposals
“6 25 ' +Students' learning oriented
.3 /\\‘_\ X. “ proposals
3 20 \ N + School education oriented
ci’ 15 —-_._ _, \ / _ proposals
10 ‘” \O/
5 ..___ __
0 I i l 1
‘ 1983-1%8 1%9-1992 1%19% 1999-20:2
L

 

The KTU presented total 47 kinds of educational policy proposals from 1982 to
1988. However, unlike the educational policy proposals of the KFTA, the KTU paid
more attention to both educational policies for teachers and education. 11 kinds of
proposals belonged to industrial oriented issues, 13 kinds of proposals to professional
oriented issues, 12 kinds to students’ learning and development oriented issues, and 11
kinds to school education intensification oriented issues. 23% out of all these proposals

were industrial oriented issues, 28% were professional oriented issues, 26% were

126

students’ learning and development oriented issues, and 23% were school education
intensification oriented issues.

Between 1989 and 1992, the KTU announced a total of 38 kinds of educational
policy pr0posals to the government. 14 kinds of proposals were industrial oriented issues,
3 kinds were professional oriented issues, 8 kinds were students’ learning and
development oriented issues, and 13 kinds were school education intensification oriented
issues. The percents of categories on each category were 37%, 8%, 21%, and 34%.

From 1993, the number of educational policy proposals presented by the KTU
started to increase. A total of 69 kinds of educational policy proposals were presented
from 1993 to 1998. 17 kinds of proposals were related to industrial oriented issues, 12
kinds to professional oriented issues, 13 kinds to students’ learning and development
oriented issues, and 27 kinds to school education intensification oriented issues. The
percents of each category were 25%, 17%, 19%, and 39%.

After being legalized, the KTU negotiated with the government for the biggest
number of educational policy proposals. A total of 93 kinds of proposals were negotiated
with the government from 1999 to 2002. 44 kinds of proposals were for industrial
oriented issues, 19 kinds for professional oriented issues, 14 kinds for students’ learning
and development oriented issues, and 16 kinds for school education intensification
oriented issues. 47% of proposals were assigned to industrial oriented issues, 21% of
proposals to professional oriented issues, 15% to students’ learning and development

oriented issues, and 17% of proposals to school education intensification oriented issues.

127

Figure 11. The numbers of proposals presented by the KFT A and the KTU over
time frame

 

 

‘—O—|nslitutional oriented proposals of
the K A

+Prolesstonal oriented proposals of
the KFTA

m
E +Students‘ learning oriented
8 proposals of the KFTA
8
a +Schoo| education oriented
~— proposals ol the KFTA
O
9
g » - - O— - - - Institutional oriented proposals of
E
3
Z
-----O Protessronal oriented proposals ol

- - - - I- . - - Studnets‘ learning oriented
proposals ot the KTU

~ - - - -- > > - School education oriented
Droposals ol the KTU

 

 

 

 

1980-1988 1989—1992 1993-1998 1999-2002

 

Figure 11 shows the numbers of educational policy proposals presented by both
teacher organizations over a given time period in order to compare the number of
proposals in terms of categories. It is found that all numbers of proposals based on
categories increased except for the number of school education oriented proposals

presented by the KTU starting in 1999.

Analyzing Categorized Educational Policy Proposals presented by Two Teacher
organizations over Time frame

1980 —- 1988: Unstable situation of two teacher organizations in the period of
partial autocracy

During this period, the educational directions that two teacher organizations

possessed were somewhat different. Of course, the two teacher organizations had

128

i___ 4

different status in education, but their focus on education seemed to be different. Whereas
the KF TA had its organizational structure, the KTU did not build a firm structure and
instead held meetings with those both teachers and students who really wanted education
to be reformed.

The educational policy proposals of the KFEA outnumbered that of YMCA and
the NTA in this period. Whereas the KFEA continued to work with the government, their
opponent, an illegal organization, had no channel with which to communicate with the
government. Therefore, both YMCA and NTA tried to find out which channel to use in
communicating with the public and to let the public know of their existence and their
efforts for the progress of education.

In the case of the YMCA and the NTA, educational policy proposals were usually
presented as statements toward the public and the government. They had no power to
bring the government to the negotiation table because the government did not recognize
them as teacher organizations. Therefore, they had no official proposals to present to the
government during this period.

The KF TA tried to expand its power by recruiting more members and to
strengthen its structure by amending articles of associations. Both the YMCA and the
NTA had no firm structures and were not supported by many teachers. The public did not
even know of the existence of KTU at that time. Under the autocratic governance, the

KTA, considered an illegal organization, was oppressed severely.

129

Figure 12. Percents of educational policy proposals presented by the KFT A the

 

Institutional oriented
proposals

l
Protessmnai oriented
proposals f—fi
‘ I KFTA
illKTU !
Students learning 7
oriented proposals 5 331E. E:ZE':'E':"‘>EE":N

 

 

School education
oriented proposals {jg-.33.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As the sole teacher organization, the KFTA paid more attention to educational
policy for teachers. During the concerned period, total 62 kinds of proposals were
presented by the KF TA. Among them, 72% of proposals were for teachers, 56% were for
the improvement of teachers’ working conditions and 16% were for the development of
teachers’ professionalism. Educational policy for education constituted 28% of all kinds
of proposals.

On the contrary, many kinds of educational policy proposals presented by the
KTU belonged to all categories evenly. There was almost an equal number of educational
policy proposals presented for both educational policies related to teachers and to
education. The biggest number of proposals (13) was for professional oriented issues.

It can be said that educational policy proposals presented by the two teacher
organizations in this period reflected the character of each organization. The KFTA
presented more educational policy proposals for teachers’ welfare and working

conditions in order than the KTU did. Educational policy proposals such as improving

130

[inn—fl

teachers’ working conditions and increasing teachers’ salaries were good inducements
that led teachers to join in associations. Consequently, the main role of the KFTA in this
period was that of an institutional actor.

As noted, the KFTA preferred the tuning type of development in the period. This
means that the KF TA wanted the organization to remain stable regardless of the existence
of the NTA in the period. Downplaying its competition with the NTA, the KF TA gave
more importance to developing organizational structures by satisfying members’ needs,
as it presented proposals for improving teachers’ working conditions and protecting
teachers’ rights in schools. In other words, the KFTA wanted to keep the relations with
the government stable and strong by presenting it with easily acceptable proposals.
Clearly, the KFTA considered the relations with the government more important than the
competitions with the KTU in the period.

Meanwhile, the KTU announced more number of educational policy proposals for
education in this period than the KFTA did. The organizational goal of the KTU in the
period was to inform its existence and efforts for education to teachers and the public.
Younger teachers and the public welcomed the educational policy proposals presented by
the KTU because they thought that the efforts of the KTU could improve the quality of
education in Korea. Consequently, the KTU focused relatively more on educational
policy for education and played roles of both professional group and school education
practitioner during this period.

Overall, the KTU presented all types of educational policy proposals evenly
within the period. In its initial stages, the KTU tried to present various kinds of

educational policy proposals in order to develop the organization and to achieve various

131

 

goals. It presented institutional oriented proposals to pursue incremental changes in
organization, and announced school education oriented proposals to expand visions and
strategies, sharing opinions with the communities including parents in education. The
KTU tried to have the organization develop by adapting to external conditions, and by
paying attention to professional and students’ learning oriented proposals, which were

usually regulated and guided externally.

1989 — 1992: Conflict situation of two teacher (Lganizations in the transition
period from autocracy to democracy

In 1989, the KTU declared its formation of a union and entered the educational
field in spite of the disturbance of the KFTA and the repression of the government. Even
though the KTU was illegal at that time, it left considerable educational and political
impacts on the educational field. The entry of the KTU started to cause conflicts between
the two teacher organizations.

In the field of politics, the government started to experience its transition from an
autocracy to democracy. Because of this, the stand of the government in terms of teacher
organizations changed as well. Dismissed teachers who joined the KTU were restored to
their former positions beginning in 1992.

This period of conflict witnessed how the two teacher organizations rearranged
their organizational structures in order to be able to recruit more members for
organizational expansion. The KFTA tried to do its best to develop itself as a professional
teacher organization. On the other hand, the KTU needed a similar organizational

structure and a larger membership to compete with the KFTA in the educational field

132

if

after unionization. These efforts of these two teacher organizations may be analyzed

through their educational policy proposals.

Figure 13. Percents of educational policy proposals presented by the KFT A the
KTU from 1989 to 1992

 

 

institutional oriented
proposals 'i ' '

Professional oriented
proposals

I KFTA l
lEHKTU ‘

Students' learning
oriented proposals '5;

 

 

School education
Oriented proposals .355

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In this period, the KF TA presented a total of 47 kinds of educational policy
proposals. Among them, 66% were for teachers’ welfare and working conditions while
22% were introduced for teachers’ professionalism. The percent of proposals for
education decreased significantly from 28% to 12%, compared with previous period. As a
whole, 88% of proposals were for teachers and only 12% of proposals were for education.
Therefore, the KFTA paid more attention to educational policies for teachers and played
the role of institutional actor during this period.

During this time, 66% of proposals were related to institutional oriented issues on
typology, which means that the KFTA paid attention to incremental changes in the period.
It was not concerned about competition with the KTU even though the KTU formed a

teachers’ union and performed actively as a teacher organization from 1989. The KFTA

133

preferred developing its organizational structure by augmenting its human and material
resources.

The KTU experienced big changes in this period. After being formed, the KTU
received lots of supports from younger teachers and the public. Forming the union,
however, brought severe hardship to union members. Even though the KTU tried to
increase the number of members, KTU members were arrested or dismissed from schools.

Between 1989 and 1992, the KTU presented a total 38 kinds of educational policy
proposals. 14 out of 38 proposals (37%) were industrial oriented issues, and this numeric
value increased slightly, compared with the same category in the previous period. During
this time, a lot of KTU members were arrested and lost their jobs. The severe oppression
of the government caused the influence of the KTU in the educational field to diminish.
Consequently, this weakened the structural power of the KTU.

The hardship made the KTU realize the importance of the number of members in
its organization and as a result, it started to pay more attention to recruiting new members.
It presented more educational policy proposals related to industrial oriented proposals in
order to persuade teachers to join the union, promising to improve teachers’ welfare and
working conditions in schools. Consequently, the organizational direction of the KTU
was changed because of the political impact.

The KTU, however, still focused on educational policy proposals. Even though
the number of educational policy proposals for students’ learning and development in
schools decreased slightly, 21% of proposals were announced for students’ learning and
development in school during the period. In addition, they announced almost the same

number of educational policy proposals for school education intensification oriented

134

issues, compared with the previous period. Consequently, the focuses of the KTU in this
period were on both educational policy proposals for teachers and education, and the
main roles of the KTU were both institutional actor and school education practitioner.

Most of the proposals the KTU presented during this period were for tuning and
reorientation type of organizational evolution. As noted, the KTU was formed as a union
in 1989. As a newly formed union, the KTU needed to fit itself to new educational
environments by focusing on school education. This is why the KTU came out with a
large number of proposals for school education. At the same time, the KTU wanted to
take the lead in its competition with the KFTA by coming out with school education
oriented pr0posals, which have been welcomed by those who were not satisfied with the
existing educational system or structures.

The KTU, however, still tried to maintain the stability of its organizational
structure by presenting institutional oriented proposals. The government considered the
KTU as an illegal union and started to oppress it. As a result, the KTU strengthened its
organizational structure to cope with the oppression by developing strong memberships,
presenting educational policy proposals that protect members’ rights, improving their

socioeconomic status in schools, and expanding organizational power quantitatively.

1993 — 1998: Monopolistic situation of the KFTA in the beginning period of the

political democracy

In 1992, the Kim Young Sam Administration gave the KFTA the right to
negotiate with the government for educational issues on the base of “The Special Act on
the Improvement of Teachers’ Status”. Only the KF TA could attend the negotiation table

at which they presented educational issues, which were limited to those related to

135

um ._
.1

teachers’ welfare, teachers’ personnel, and teachers’ professionalism. It declared that the
acquisition of the right to negotiate with the government for educational issues was a
victory in the competition with the KTU and that the government recognized the KFTA
as the only teacher organization in Korea.

Even with the ascension of civilian government in 1998, and even when relations
between the government and the KTU started to be favorable”, the legalization of the
KTU was still controversial in the educational field. As a teacher organization, it
struggled in communicating with the government about educational issues. Consequently,
the KF TA enjoyed the status as the only official teacher organization in the educational
field and presented various kinds of educational policy proposals during the period.

Figure 14. Percents of educational policy proposals presented by the KFTA the
KTU from 1993 to 1998

 

institutional oriented
proposals

Professional
oriented proposals fffi; ....,

Students' learning
oriented proposals ‘1

 

Schooleducafion
oriented proposals

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

29 It is said that the Kim Dae—jung Administration came into the power with the support of labor unions
including the KTU and that the government started to show a friendly feeling to unions (source:
http://my.dreamwiz.com/lb359/jungangsa.htrnl).

136

The KF TA presented a total of 45 kinds of educational policy proposals during
the period. 91% of them were for both improvement of teachers’ welfare and
development of teachers’ professionalism. Only 4 kinds of educational policy proposals
were for school education intensification oriented issues and none for students’ learning
and development in the period. The KFTA seemed to exist for teachers themselves in the
period.

The KF TA preferred gradual development in this period as it presented lots of
proposals for teachers’ working conditions and status in schools, which were easily
accepted by the government under the Special Act. Without considering the competition
with the KTU, the KFTA still paid more attention to proposals that were needed to
preserve the organizational strength and system. That is, educational directions of the
KFTA against the KTU were not changed during the period.

The KFTA also focused on professional oriented proposals, which means that the
KFTA did not want rapid organizational evolution or development in the period. As
noted, the KFTA tended to accept the advice and admonition of the government while the
KFTA negotiated with the government for educational issues. Most of the professional
oriented proposals were for the regulation or the admonition of teachers. Consequently,
the KF TA tried to have the organization develop gradually, as it received support by the
government.

The KTU presented a total of 69 kinds of educational policy proposals during
the period. The percent of proposals for teachers’ working conditions was almost the
same when the numeric value was compared with the previous period. The percents of

proposals for teachers’ professionalism and the development of education, however,

137

increased remarkably compared with those of the previous period. 17% of proposals for
teachers’ professionalism, 19% for students’ learning and development oriented issues,
and 39% for school education intensification oriented issues were presented in this period.

Many variables influenced the tendency of educational policy proposals presented
by the KTU in this period, but the most important variable was the re-appearance of
dismissed teachers. The efforts of rehabilitated teachers changed the educational
directions of the KTU in this period. A lot of dismissed teachers were restored to their
jobs in schools and started to resume work with the KTU indirectly”. They were original
members of the KTU and eager to develop teachers’ professionalism and the
deve10pment of education in schools. Their rejoining meant another leap of development
for the KTU as professional group and educational practitioner.

In sum, the activities of the KTU within the period concluded in three parts. The
first involved the information of younger teachers about its efforts for the development of
education and teachers’ professionalism in order to invite these to join the KTU and to
expand its power in educational field. The second was the acquisition of support from the
public in order to overcome its weakness as an illegal teacher organization in education.
The final one was the expansion of organizational power through connections with
original members. Therefore, it can be said that KTU in the period paid more attention to
the roles of professional group and school education practitioner than institutional actor.

Educational policy proposals presented by the KTU explain how the organization
underwent its evolution in this period. The biggest number of proposals in the period was

for school education oriented proposals, which usually entailed organizations changing

 

3° The dismissed teachers were reinstated on the condition that they should sign a form testifying to his or
her withdrawal from the union.

138

their organizational directions, vision and strategies to fit with the external environment.
This means that the KTU experienced a “reorientation” type of evolution. As noted, the
KTU experienced hard times during the period, as it became wary of the KFTA acquiring
the right to negotiate for educational issues with the government and that union teachers
should be broken by force. Therefore, the KTU should adapt itself to the new educational
environment to survive in the period.

In addition, the KTU suggested many number of institutional oriented proposals
in the period. From the latter part of the period, relations between the KTU and the
government became favorable, and the conflicts between them started to be resolved,
owing to the change of the administration. The KTU did not want to make any trouble
with the government and just presented proposals for incremental organizational

development in preparing for the upcoming legalization of teacher organizations.

1999 - 2002: Competitive period of two teacher organizations in thgeriod of
true democracy

 

In 1999, teacher unions were legalized and entered the educational field as legal
teacher organizations. This event brought about lots of impacts on both teacher
organizations, the KFTA and the KTU, and compelled them to compete with each other.
In addition, the Kim Dae—jung administration supported two teacher organizations
politically.

Teacher organizations experienced two big changes in this period. First, teacher
organizations negotiated with the government for educational issues within the criteria of
totally different laws. As noted, the KFTA followed the regulation of “The Special Act

on the Improvement of Teachers’ Status” from 1992. Meanwhile, the KTU started to

139

follow the regulation of “The Act of the Establishment and Operation of Teachers’ Labor
Unions” from 1999.

The second big change in the educational field took place when the KTU started
to gain political benefits from 1999. Unlike the previous government, the Kim Dae-jung
administration and the current administration had good relations with the KTU from 1997.
The two administrations recognized the KTU as the political and educational partner at
the negotiation tables and maintained closed relations with the said organization.

The contents of educational policy proposals presented by the KFTA in this
period were almost similar to those of the previous period. The reasons came from the
limitation of negotiation between the KFTA and the government and the failure of the
latter to fulfill mutual agreements. First, the KF TA acquired the rights to negotiate with
the government through “The Special Act on the Improvement of Teachers’ Status”. The
law asks the government to implement what the government agreed to do through the
negotiation with the KF TA, although the government is under no obligation to do 30.

Second, after the KTU was legalized in 1999, the partner of the government at the
negotiation table was practically changed from the KFTA to the KTU. The government
paid more attention to the voice of the KTU than that of the KFTA. Consequently, the
performance rate of mutual agreements with the government in this period was lower
than average3 1. The KFTA has presented similar proposals to the government over and

over again.

 

3 ' Whereas the government implemented 36.1% of educational policy proposals suggested by the KFTA for
this period, the government did 54.4% of proposals from 1992 to 1998. (Source: The Korean Federation of
Teachers’ Associations. (2002). The study on the analysis of mutual agreements through collective
bargaining from 1992 to 2001. Seoul: Hanla. p. 19.)

140

Figure 15. Percents of educational policy proposals presented by the KF TA the
KTU from 1999 to 2002

  

institutional oriented
proposals ’I', -*.‘jif_:':':”j‘;}

Professional oriented
proposals

I KFTA i

i: KTU i

Students' learning

oriented proposals if}:

School education
oriented proposals 1.1» . ‘

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The KFTA presented a total of 125 kinds of educational policy proposals from
1999. 76% of all kinds of proposals were for teachers and 24% of them were for
education. 54% out of 76% of proposals were concerned with industrial oriented issues.
22% of these were for developing teachers’ professionalism. The KFTA has played a role
of institutional actor for educational policy for teachers from 1999.

A remarkable feature of this period was that the number of educational policy
proposals for education was the biggest ever. A total of 30 kinds (24%) of proposals for
education were presented in the period. 8 kinds (6%) of proposals were related to
students’ learning and development oriented issues and 22 kinds (18%) belonged to
school education intensification oriented issues.

Unlike other periods, the KFTA presented a greater number of proposals related
to school education intensification, which needed modified visions and strategies in order
to achieve and change the organization to fit the environment. The KFTA started to

recognize rapidly changing external environment and realized the legalization of teacher

141

unions. In results, the entry of teacher unions stimulated the KFTA to reform their
organization in order to prepare for its competition with the KTU and to face rapidly
changing political/societal conditions. The KFTA, however, still presented a large
number of proposals for teachers’ working conditions and status in schools. This shows
how the KFTA wanted to maintain the stability of the organization. Consequently, the
KFTA sought to implement gradual changes in realizing this goal.

After the KTU acquired the right to negotiate with the government for educational
issues related to teachers’ welfare and working conditions, the tendency of educational
policy proposals presented by the KTU was to change remarkably. At first, the number of
educational policy proposals presented by the KTU increased. Whereas the KTU
presented a total of 69 kinds of educational policy proposals in the previous period, it
submitted a total of 93 kinds of proposals in this period.

Second, the number of educational policy proposals belonging to industrial
oriented issues started increase significantly. Among 93 kinds of educational policy
proposals presented by the KTU, 47% of proposals were industrial oriented issues.
Compared with the previous period, 27 kinds of proposals belonged to industrial oriented
issues are increased. Although the number of proposals presented by the KTU
outnumbered proposals that were presented before legalization, the contents of proposals
were duplicated.

There are three reasons why the number of proposals for industrial oriented issues
increased. The first one is related to the legal aspect. As noted, the KTU acquired the

rights to negotiate with the government only on issues of teachers’ welfare”. The second

 

32 Since the KTU has only rights to negotiate on teachers’ welfare and working condition, efforts made by
the KTU to improve curriculum were not made during the period.

142

 

one is the chairperson and his staff paid more attention to industrial oriented issues in
order to recruit more members33 . That is, the KTU wanted to get support not only from
younger teachers but also from older teachers in schools, who were more interested in
teachers’ welfare. Consequently, it can be said that the KTU played a role as an
institutional actor from 1999. The third reason is related to members’ expectations of the
legal union. Members started to ask the KTU to pay more attention to their welfare in
schools and to become an institutional actor in educational field. Whenever members face
conflicts with employers, including principals or administrators, about issues of working
conditions or welfare, members wanted the KTU to resolve these as representative of
teachers. The role as representative of teachers, however, led to more severe conflicts
between the KTU and employers.

Table 3 shows the numbers of the KTU members from 1998 to 2000. The table
tells how the legalization of the KTU and its efforts to improve teachers’ working
conditions influenced the number of members. The table indicates that the number of
KTU members increased remarkably after the legalization. This means that many
teachers welcomed the legalization of teacher unions and became members of these. The
number of members continued to increase after the legalization. It could be assumed that
presenting a greater number of educational policy proposals for the improvement of
teachers’ welfare and working conditions persuaded more teachers to join the KTU.

Although there was a decrease, the KTU presented almost 32% of educational
policy proposals for education. 14 kinds of these proposals were related to students’
learning and deve10pment oriented issues, while 16 kinds were related to school

education intensification oriented issues. This means that even though it paid more

 

’3 The statement came from the interview with a member of the KTU.

143

attention to industrial oriented issues in this period, the KTU still considered the
presentation of educational policy proposals for the development of education as a very
important job of a teacher organization. As noted, most proposals of the KTU in this
period were for teachers’ working conditions and status in schools. The KTU was
legalized and became one of partners who worked with the government in improving the
quality of education. Using organizational evolution theory, it could be interpreted that
the KTU performed incremental organizational changes, as it presented institutional
oriented proposals that did not give rise to complications with the government. Aiming to
establish a stronger connection with government, the KTU understably paid more
attention to the relations with the government, not the KFTA. In other words, the KTU
focused more on the development of the organization itself, not on its competitions with
the KFTA.

Figure 16. The changing educational directions and roles of teacher organizations
over time frame

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1980 — 1988 1989 — 1992 1993 — 1998 1999 - 2002
KF TA KTU KFTA KTU KFTA KTU KFTA KTU
Educational Educational Educational Educational Educational Educational Educational Educational
olic for policy for olic for policy for lie for policy for licy for policy for
p y teachers and p y teachers and p0 y . p0
teachers . teachers . teachers education teachers teachers
education education
Professional lnstitutional Intuitional
lnstitutional gr oup/ lnstitutional actor/ Institutional actor/ lnstitutional lnstitutional
actor SChOOI actor SChOOl actor SChOOl actor actor
education education education
practitioner practitioner practitioner

 

As shown on Figure 16, the KFTA continued to pay more attention to educational

policies for teachers and to play the role of institutional actor for the entire time frame.

On the other hand, the KTU assumed various roles in educational policy field, paying

attention to both educational policy proposals for teachers and students for time frame

involved. These facts imply close relations between teacher organizations and the politics.

144

 

CHAPTER SIX

CONCLUSION

Teacher organizations in Korea, even though they have a short history compared
with that of teacher organizations in the United States, have experienced lots of big and
small events from 1980. Sometimes they fought for democracy in the educational field
and sometimes they compromised with the government in order to gain benefits for i
teachers. They believe that they have done much in helping to develop education in E“

Korea.

 

They have often been criticized for seeming to exist for teachers themselves. They
paid more attention to the improvement of teachers’ welfare or teachers’ working
conditions in schools. They also tried to do their best in developing teachers’
professionalism and school education in schools. After the era of pluralized teacher
organizations came into the educational field, their competitive situation required that
they play various roles in the educational field.

The research started with the question: What efforts have teacher organizations in
the proposal of educational policies over time? The research tried to find out the type and
direction of educational policy proposals teacher organizations presented, given the

competitive relations with other teacher organizations and the government. Categorizing

 

the educational policy proposals of teacher organizations with the typology and analyzing
these using political viewpoints was key in addressing this problem.
By categorizing and analyzing educational policy proposals, this research came

up with the following important results:

145

a) The KF TA paid more attention to institutional oriented issues in order to
improve teachers’ welfare and working conditions in schools. It also wanted minimal
changes in the organization over time period. Meanwhile, the KTU devoted itself evenly
to all four kinds of issues: institutional, professional, students’ learning and development,
and school education intensification oriented. However, if the KTU focused more on
institutional oriented issues from 1999, in later years, it paid more attention to
educational policy. Consequently, the KTU experienced various kinds of developments
over time period. F i

b) The roles of teacher organizations in Korea changed according to the political/
educational impacts. The KF TA continued to focus on playing a role as institutional actor
from 1980. It paid more attention in improving teachers’ welfare and teachers’ working
conditions in schools.

Meanwhile, the roles of the KTU changed over time. This organization preferred
to play roles of professional actor and school education practitioner between 1980 and
1988. It aimed to play the same types of roles from 1989 to 1998. After being legalized,
the KTU paid more attention to playing the role of institutional actor in education.

The roles of teacher organizations should be interpreted on the basis of relations

with government and on the political situation in Korea. Influenced by the impact of

 

politics, the roles of teacher organizations were changed to improve relations with the
government. In this effort, however, the KTU experienced difficulty in relating with the
government.

Politically speaking, the KF TA was supported by the government and

understandably maintained good relations with the said institution. No matter what type

146

of government came into power, their roles as teacher organization have not changed.
The educational directions of the KFTA demonstrated how it paid attention to
institutional issues and have lasted all the way regardless of the relations with the
government or political impacts. Good relations with the government allowed the KF TA
to maintain its role unchanged. As noted in the previous chapters, the direction of
organizational development of the KFTA was influenced more by educational and not
political impacts.

Therefore, the researcher anticipates that the KFTA will keep focusing on playing
the role of institutional actor in educational policy. That is, the KFTA will maintain its
stand of not losing the privileges it has possessed in educational field. Educational
directions that seeks organizational stability or minimal changes of organizations will
allow the KFTA not only to reduce the conflicts with the government but also to recruit a
larger number of members who want stable and permanent jobs in the educational field.
This effort will correspond with the goals of pursuing the improvement of teachers’ status
and the development of teachers’ working conditions.

In the meantime, the roles of the KTU changed due to the relations with the
government or the political impacts over time. According to the external impacts, the
KTU could not but change the roles in order to survive in the educational field.
Consequently, it possessed various kinds of educational directions and played different
roles from 1980.

Clearly, the KTU changed roles whenever the regimes changed is to adopt itself
to the political situation. That is, these efforts of the KTU seem to minimize the political

impact. When repression by the government was severe (from 1982 to 1998), the KTU

147

needed to get support from teachers and the public in order to justify its existence in the
educational field. During this period, the KTU played roles of professional actor and
school education practitioner.

On the contrary, when relations with the government became favorable beginning
in 1999, the KTU started to pay attention to its role as an intuitional actor. Unlike
previous roles and educational directions, it focused more on playing a role of
institutional actor for educational policy proposals for teachers. From 1999, the KTU has
presented more number of institutional oriented proposals. As a result, the KTU was
required to change the organization minimally. The legalization in 1999 brought the KTU
organizational stability and allowed the KTU to pay more attention to members’ welfare.

The future roles of the KTU will be subject to change according to the political
impact. The KTU seemed to be more susceptible to political conditions than to
educational conditions. If political conditions are stable and are not changed, KTU’s role
as an institutional actor will continue to be more focused on intuitional oriented issues. If
political conditions, however, are changed suddenly or the regime resumes the oppression
against the KTU, it is expected that the KTU will try to adapt itself to the new political
condition, paying attention to new roles and educational directions in educational field.

c) Educational directions and roles of teacher organizations in Korea have also
been changed became of their competition within the field. Whereas the second result
mentioned above tells that educational directions and roles of teacher organizations
changed because of political/educational impacts, this one argues that educational
directions and roles of teacher organizations change according to the competition

between teacher organizations in the educational field.

148

 

 

Their competition started when the KTU was formed and entered into the
educational field in 1989. The KF TA felt that there was possibility of they would lose
members to the KTU and as a result, started to hold the KTU in check. Even though the
KF TA did not consider the KTU a teacher organization, the competition for survival
between the two teacher organizations in educational field was started.

As noted, the KFTA presented a larger number of institutional oriented
educational policy proposals from 1989 to 1998, when the KFTA competed with the
KTU. This means that the KF TA preferred organizational stability and changed
organization minimally in education. However, it started to pay more attention to the
reorientation type of organizational development from 1999, as it presented a greater
number of school education oriented proposals. This was caused by the legalization of the
KTU. This shows the efforts of the KFTA in preparing for competition with the KTU.

On the contrary, the KTU announced many numbers of educational policy
proposals for school education intensification oriented issues since 1989. This was an
effort of the KTU to obtain support of the public and younger teachers in order to take the
lead in the competitions with the KFTA. However, after legalization and the building of
good relations with the government from 1999, the KTU prioritized the stability of the
union over its unnecessary competition with the KFTA, as it presented a great number of
institutional oriented proposals. Therefore, the researcher assumes that the competitive
situation between the two teacher organizations motivated teacher organizations to
change their educational directions and roles in the educational field.

d) The change in number of both KFTA and the KTU members after 1999 also

caused teacher organizations to change their educational directions and roles in

149

 

 

educational field. As shown in the Chapter 3, Table 1 indicates the shift of the number of
KFTA members from 1998. The table shows that the number of KFTA members
decreased since 1998. There are a few reasons why this change happened. First, the
number of teachers decreased from 1999. The table also shows the decrease in the total
number of teachers. Second, the legalization of teacher unions stimulated teachers to
change their memberships to other teacher organizations. Third, the number of primary
and secondary schoolteachers in KFTA was decreased.

Consequently, the decreased number of total teachers caused smaller number of
teachers to join the KFTA. The entrance of teacher unions as legal organizations gave
schoolteachers the opportunity to choose teacher organizations. Primary and secondary
schoolteachers were an important source of the KFTA membership. The decease of the
number of primary and secondary teachers resulted in the decrease of the number of the
KFTA members. As a result, in 1999, the KF TA started to present more numbers of
educational policy proposals for education which persuaded more primary and secondary
teachers to join in the KFTA, in order to compete with teacher unions. On the contrary,
the number of the KTU members increased significantly since 1999 (See Table 3). At
present, the KTU has around 100,000 members. This numeric value of members
increased around 14 times as that in 1998 (See Table 3). Consequently, the legalization
brought lots of new members to the KTU.

With the increase in the number of members, the KTU was forced to establish
new educational directions for its members. Some wanted the KTU to devote its efforts to
improving teachers’ welfare or developing teachers’ professionalism in schools. Others

wanted the KTU to pay more attention to improve students’ learning and development.

150

 

 

 

As a result, from 1999, the KTU begin presenting many numbers of educational policy
proposals for teachers themselves and for education as well.

e) Teacher organizations should pay more attention to educational policy for
education. From 1999, the KFTA has presented a total of 30 kinds of educational policy

proposals for education, which means that 15% of proposals for education increased

 

compared with the previous period. It was the first period the KFTA presented increased
percents of educational polity proposals for education. The increased percent of
I i

educational policy proposals, however, did not mean that the KFTA paid more attention

to proposals for education because only 24% proposals belonged to proposals for

 

education from 1999 to 2002.
The KTU presented 30 kinds (32%) of educational policy proposals for education

in the same period, which demonstrates that 26% of proposals for education decreased

 

compared with the previous period. This numeric value is below the average percent of
total educational policy proposals for education presented by the KTU fi'om 1982. As
noted, three reasons, the impact by the law, the intentions of the chairperson and his staff,
and members’ expectations in a legal union forced the KTU to present a lesser number of
educational policy proposals for education.

The results of the categorization of educational policy proposals presented by the

two teacher organizations indicate that since 1999, teacher organizations paid less

 

attention to proposals for education. Although they could assert that they still tried to do
their best in improving the quality of education, the categorization of their educational

policy proposals proved that they devoted their efforts to improving teachers’ working

151

conditions and developing teachers’ professionalism in schools. In other words, teacher
organizations exist for teacher themselves.

f) It is time to reconsider whether or not the legalization of teacher unions
influenced the development of students and school education. This was a very difficult
question to answer. The researcher, however, could assume that teacher unions had
difficulty in paying attention to educational policy proposals for students and education
under the Act of the Establishment and Operation of Teachers’ Labor Unions.

As noted, even though the new act gave teacher unions the rights to participate in i ‘
educational policy at the negotiation table, their agenda should be limited to bread-and- F
butter issues, such as teachers’ wages, working conditions and welfare. Other educational a!
policies such as issues related to teachers’ professionalism should be left to negotiations
between the government and the KFTA. All teacher organizations, however, have no
rights to negotiate with the government for educational issues of curriculum or school
managements and operations.

As a result, the legalization of teacher unions allowed them to enter into the legal
system, but on the other hand, the act seemed to limit the scope of their activities in
education. They could not but play a role for teachers themselves under the Act.

1

Therefore, if they want to exist for both teachers and students, they should acquire the

right to negotiate for educational issues of teachers’ professionalism, students’ learning,

 

and school education intensification.

152

APPENDIX A.

List of educational policy proposals presented by the KFTA and the KTU

153

 

 

KOREAN FEDERATION OF TEACHER’S ASSOCIATIONS (KFTA)

I: Institutional oriented issues; P: Professional oriented issues; S: Student learning and development
oriented issues; E: School educational intensification oriented issues

KFTA: 1980 - 1988

I - Adjusting the retirement age of administrators

I - Arranging supplementary administrators in schools to help teachers’ works

I - Building daycare center for teachers

I - Building lounge for female teachers

I - Eliminating the differences of benefits from the government between public and private schoolteachers

I - Establishing special day for teachers (May 15) to promote teachers’ moral spirit

I - Establishing teachers’ rights in schools

I - Exempting teachers’ night duties

I - Expanding the chance of honorable retirement

I - Hiring all exceeded teachers who were produced because of the diminution of classes as public school
teachers

I - Hiring more male teachers in schools

I - Hiring persons who are going to charge on day/night duties for teachers

I - Implementing single salary schedule

I - Improving personnel structure in schools

I - Improving teachers’ status in education

I - Improving teachers’ status in private schools

1 - Improving teachers’ welfare

I — Improving teachers’ working condition

I - Improving the regulation of teachers’ promotion

1 - Improving the regulation of teachers’ salary

I - Improving the status of private schoolteachers

I - Increasing long-service allowance to teacher

I - Increasing teachers’ salary

I - Increasing the fund for protecting teachers’ rights in schools

I - Increasing the welfare of teachers who are working in remote places

I - Providing a subsidy to teachers who have college students

I - Providing an allowance of honorable retirement to teachers

1 - Providing an allowance of overtime teaching to teachers

I - Providing temporary rest for pregnancy and delivery to female teachers

I - Providing traveling expense to teachers

I - Reducing teachers’ overtime teaching in schools

I - Reducing the difference of salary between elementary and secondary schoolteachers

1 - Securing professionalism in education

I— Securing teachers’ socioeconomic status

I — Supporting to maintain school automobiles

P - Acquiring teachers’ right to teach

P - Improving teachers’ autonomy in schools

P - Improving the quality of qualifying exam for becoming teachers

P - Improving the quality of teachers’ abilities

P - Improving the quality of teachers’ in-service training

P - Improving the regulation of teachers’ researches

P - Involving teachers in the process of educational reform

P - Presenting the competitions of educational materials made by teachers

P - Providing a subsidy for studying teaching materials to teachers

P - Providing special seminars to improve teachers’ professionalism

S - Abolishing supplementary lessons and self-control studies for students

S - Establishing special tax for education

S - Expanding compulsory education for students (protecting students’ right to learn)

154

 

 

 

S - Fortifying the qualification of administrators

S - Implementing the study on analysis of students’ life

S - Improving students’ learning environment

S - Improving supplementary lessons and self-control studies for students
S - Increasing students’ learning hour in schools

S - Reducing the number of students per a class in middle schools (70 -> 60 pupil per class)
E - Enacting special law to secure the mutual aid for school security

E - Improving the fund for the quality of private school education

E - Improving the system of educational self-govemance

E - Improving to operate School support committee

E - Proposals for educational authorities in schools

E - Securing educational finance

E - Securing professionalism in educational administration

E - Supporting to improve the quality of private education

KFTA: 1989 — 1992

1- Acquiring teachers’ rights in schools

I - Adding teachers’ missing career into salary step

I - Arranging administrators in schools to help teachers’ works

I - Arranging teachers who charge on specific subjects in elementary schools

I - Establishing ‘An enforcement Ordinance of the special law for improving teachers’ status’

I - Implementing the term of service for principals

I - Improving an allowance of overtime works for teachers

I - Improving teachers’ welfare

I - Improving teachers’ working conditions

I - Improving the regulation of honorable retirement of teachers

I - Improving the regulation of teachers’ promotion

I - Improving the system of teachers’ salary

I - Increasing a long-service allowance to teachers for elementary and secondary teachers
I - Increasing salary for elementary schoolteachers

I - Introducing teachers’ collective bargaining

I - Planning an allowance of class teachers

I - Proposal of principals’ honorable retirement

I - Propose ‘The special law for improving teachers’ status’

I - Providing an allowance for the position to teachers

I - Providing an allowance of overtime teaching to teachers

I - Providing an allowance of retirement to teachers

I — Reducing teachers’ extra works in schools

I - Reflecting military career on a long-service allowance to teachers

I - Reintroducing an allowance of teaching certain subjects

I - Reintroducing honorable retirement of principals

I - Revising teachers’ salary schedules and an allowance

I - Securing teachers’ status in schools

I - Securing the budget to improve teachers’ working condition

I - Solving the problem of missing career of teachers

I - Supporting teachers to possess houses

I - The nation’s subsidy to an allowance of retirement for private schoolteachers
P - Acquiring teachers’ right to teach

P - Allowing a teachers’ meeting as an organ of consultation

P - Establishing ‘The special law for securing capable teachers’

P - Improving professionalism in education and educational administration
P - Improving the activities of teachers’ field study

P - Improving to operate the disciplinary committee for punishing teachers

155

 

P - Proposal for acquiring capable teachers for improving the quality of education
P - Providing tax deduction of a subsidy for researches by teachers

P - Providing the authority to select contents and methods for education to teachers
P - Securing the political activities for teachers

S - Improving educational facilities for school environment for students

S - Protecting students against accidents that may occur in schools

S ~ Providing equal opportunity to learn to students

E - Enacting special law to secure the mutual aid for school security

E - Presenting the proposals to improve educational policy

E - Increasing educational finance

 

KFTA: 1993 - 1998

I - Acquiring teachers’ right and status if they move from one school to the other i

I - Acquiring teachers’ right in private schools

I - Adding teachers’ experience in private schools into salary step in public schools if they move to public 5 1.
schools

I - Amending special law for improvement of teachers’ status

I - Building a daycare center in schools _

I - Eliminating the discrimination of rewards for retired teachers among all educational levels ‘ ‘4‘

I - Enacting the regulation for teaching hour of elementary and secondary schoolteachers

I - Encouraging educational public servants who have been working for over 20 years to retire honorably

I - Establishing the system of chief teacher in schools

I - Expanding the chance of special advance for honorably retired schoolteachers

I - Extending the period of paying an annuity for teachers

1- Improving teachers’ status in schools

I - Improving teachers’ working conditions

I - Increasing a long—service allowance to teachers for elementary and secondary teachers

I - Increasing a subsidy for study of teachers’ children

I - Increasing an allowance for elementary teaching staffs to improve labor condition

I - Increasing an allowance for teachers’ overtime works

I - Increasing number of elementary teachers who should charge on specific subject (for example: English)

I - Increasing number of teachers who should charge on specific subject

I - Increasing teachers’ salary

I - Increasing traveling expenses for schoolteachers

I - Objectively selecting teachers who want to be principals or associate principals in public schools

I - Providing a subsidy to teachers who are working during summer/winter breaks

I - Providing a subsidy to teachers who don’t have a house

I - Providing a subsidy to teachers who have college students

I - Reducing official documents in schools to decrease teachers’ work responsibilities

1 - Reducing work responsibilities for elementary and secondary schoolteachers

I - Revising the salary step of teachers who are working for all kinds of schools

I - Securing number of teachers required by the law

P - Awarding the prizes to teachers who propose the good plans for the improvement of the quality of
schools

P - Collecting the opinions of teachers in private schools

P - Enacting special law for securing capable teachers

P - Improving the professionalism in educational administration

P - Improving the professionalism of elementary schoolteachers

P - Increasing the chance of in-service training in abroad for elementary and secondary schoolteachers

P - Increasing the chance of special in-service training at both domestic and foreign educational institutions
for teachers

P - Preventing teachers who don’t have any experience of educational public servants from being principals

P - Providing study rooms to elementary and secondary schoolteachers

 

 

 

156

 

P - Providing the benefits of tax deduction to teachers who are studying at college
P - Providing the fund for self-training system to teachers

P - Revising the method to provide an allowance by teachers’ abilities

E - Enacting special financial law for the improvement of educational environment
E - Enacting special law to secure the mutual aid for school security

E - Improving the quality of convenient facilities in schools

E - Securing educational finance (up to 6% of GNP)

KFTA: I999 - 2002

I - Abolishing day and night duties for teachers

I - Acquiring teachers’ right in private schools

I - Adding female teachers’ temporary rest for nursery into educational career

I - Adding some of bonus into regular salary

I - Adding teachers’ experience in the business into salary step

I - Adding teachers’ military experience into career

I - Allowing couple teachers to work together in closed area

I - Arranging special persons who charge on technological materials in all schools

I - Arranging supplementary persons in schools in order to reduce teachers’ works

I - Building a lounge for female teachers

I - Building administrative department in schools in order to reduce teachers’ works which aren’t related to
teaching

I - Building facilities for teachers’ physical strength in schools

I - Building special hospital for teachers

I - Diminishing official documents in schools

I - Enacting special provision of salary or bonus for educational public servants

I - Enacting teaching hour of elementary and secondary schoolteachers

I - Enacting the provision for honorable treatment of teachers

I - Expanding rewards for teachers

I - Expanding the period of sick leave

I - Implementing flexible working time for teachers

I - Improving facilities for teachers’ welfare in schools

I - Improving teachers’ working conditions in vocational schools

I - Improving temporary teachers’ treatment

I - Improving the system of teachers’ promotion

1 - Improving the working conditions for teachers who are working in farming/ fishing communities

I - Increasing a long-service allowance to teachers

I - Increasing an allowance for class teachers

I - Increasing miscellaneous subsidies for teachers

I - Increasing number of elementary teachers who should charge on specific subject (for example: English)

I - Increasing teachers’ salary

I - Increasing the allowance for assistant principals in schools

I - Increasing the number of administrators in schools in order to help teachers’ works

I - Increasing the number of teachers

I - Increasing the salary of highest salary step

I - Intensifying the activities for protecting teachers’ rights in schools

I - Introducing the system of chief teacher

I - Modernizing houses for teachers provided by schools

I - Opening special teachers’ day supported by both the government and the KFTA

I - Planning long-range policies for the increase of the number of teachers

1 - Preventing teachers from being participated in political activities which are not related with teaching

I - Protecting and confronting violence happened in schools

I - Protecting teachers’ status against cyber abuses

I - Providing a special holiday once a month to female teachers

 

 

 

 

157

I - Providing a subsidy for developing teachers’ physical strength

I - Providing a subsidy to teachers who have college students

I - Providing a subsidy to teachers who have no house

I - Providing a subsidy to teachers who should move to other schools

I - Providing an allowance for family to teachers who don’t live with family

I - Providing an allowance for overtime teaching and work

I - Providing better equipments (fax machine, copy machine, modem etc) for teaching

I - Providing equal opportunities for rewards or promotions to teachers in both public and private schools

I - Providing parking spaces for teachers in schools

I - Providing subsidy for cleaning schools

I - Providing the chance of a medical checkup at regular interval for pregnant female teachers

I - Providing traveling expenses for field trips to teachers

I - Reducing miscellaneous works that are not related to teaching in schools

I - Reducing personal education expense

I - Reducing teachers’ work responsibility by placing specialists for administration

I - Reducing teachers’ works related to college entrance exam

I - Reducing teachers’ works that are not related to teaching

1 - Reporting in advance regular transference of teachers to other schools

I - Restoring teachers’ retirement age to 65

I - Revising the schedule of teachers’ salary

I - Revising the standard of an arrangement for teachers who are appointed to certain positions

I - Securing number of teachers who should charge on specific subject required by the law

I - Securing the number or teachers as provided by the law

I - Simplifying official documents in schools

P - Acquiring teachers’ right to teach

P - Adding the credits from in-service training into salary step

P - Collecting the opinions of teachers in private schools

P - Developing self-training system for teachers

P - Enacting special law for securing capable teachers

P - Expanding qualifying training for teachers who are charging on foreign languages as second languages

P - Expanding the chance of in-service training for teachers who want to major in another subject

P - Expanding the chances of long or short term of training in abroad with teachers

P - Improving scoring system of in-service training

P - Intensifying the supports to the college of teacher education in order to secure future capable teachers

P - Introducing self-training system for teachers

P - Introducing teachers’ sabbatical year for study

P - Introducing the plan for teachers’ study in abroad

P - Flaming the salary by teachers’ abilities

P - Planning to build graduate schools for teachers

P - Providing a subsidy of utilizing cultural facilities for teachers’ educational activities with teachers

P - Providing a subsidy to teachers who are studying at college

P - Providing funds for in-service training to teachers

P - Providing study rooms for elementary and secondary schoolteachers

P - Providing the benefits of tax deduction to teachers who are studying at college

P - Providing the chance of being administrators to female teachers

P - Providing the funds for in-service training

P - Providing the funds for self-training for teachers

P - Reforming teachers’ qualifying system

P - Revising the method to provide an allowance by teachers’ abilities

P - Securing activities of teacher organizations as professionals

P - Securing the participation of teacher organizations in educational policymaking process

P - Supporting study groups organized by teachers

S - Adjusting the number of student per class (35 pupils per class of elementary and secondary school/ 40
pupils per class of high school)

S - Diminishing size of schools (36 classes for elementary school and 24 classes for secondary schools)

S - Eliminating classes which have been held twice a day because of too many pupils in a schools

158

 

 

 

S - Improving students’ welfare in schools

S - Increasing Internet lines for students

S - Providing the alternative chance of being taught to students who aren’t adopted to school education

S - Reducing the number of student per class (35 pupils per class of elementary and secondary school/ 40
pupils per class of high school)

S - Securing students’ right to learn

E - Abolishing the reckless merges of small size schools

E - Activating vocational education

E - Arranging administrators to small size schools

E - Arranging assistant principals to small size schools

E - Building and improving ‘National information education system’

E - Deceasing school days

E - Enacting special law to secure the mutual aid for school security

E - Encouraging all schools to build gymnasiums

E - Improving heating and cooling system in schools

E - Improving school libraries

E - Improving the professionalism in educational administration

E - Improving the quality of education in farming/fishing communities

E - Improving the quality of vocational schools

E - Increasing educational finance (up to 6% of GNP)

E - Innovating school libraries by setting up digitalized materials

E - Introducing 5-day class per week

E - Maintaining special tax for education

E - Reducing regulation to individual schools to give autonomy to them

E - Securing educational finance

E - Securing parents’ right to educate their children

E - Setting up electronic settlement system in schools

E - Solving problems of small size schools (absence of assistant principals and so on)

KOREAN TEACHERS’ UNION (KTU)

1: Institutional oriented issues; P: Professional oriented issues; S: Student learning and development
oriented issues; E: School educational intensification oriented issues

KTU: 1982 - 1988

I - Acquiring number of teachers as provided by the law

I - Establishing special day for teachers (May 10)

I - Improving teachers’ right in private schools

I - Improving teachers’ working conditions

I - Improving teaching conditions in schools

I - Increasing teachers’ salary

I - Reducing teachers’ work responsibility that is not related to teaching
I - Securing principals’ term of office

I - Securing teachers’ labors three primary rights

1 - Securing teachers’ political freedom and socioeconomic status

I - Securing teachers’ right in schools

P - Developing new teachership (teachers for the people)

P - Improving the pre/in-service teacher training system

P - Improving the system of the appointment for capable students (future teachers) at college of education
P - Organizing teacher committee to make teacher personnel fair

159

 

 

!-
.i

 

P - Organizing teacher council in schools

P - Providing teacher meeting with the right to vote for decisions on school matters
P - Securing teachers’ freedom to form teacher organization in schools

P - Securing teachers’ freedom to study and to participate in curriculum development process
P - Securing teachers’ right to teach in schools

P - Securing teachers’ right to unite

P - Securing the freedom of teachers’ publication, expression, and criticism

P - Securing the participation of teacher in school management

P - Securing the participation of teacher in self-governance of schools

S - Abolishing exam to compare students’ abilities among provinces

S - Abolishing extracurricular study that is performed in proprietary schools

S - Abolishing supplementary lessons

S - Correcting the contents of curriculum

S - Encouraging students’ autonomous activities in schools

S - Establishing special week for students

S - Improving an insurance system for students

S - Reducing class size

S - Reforming college entrance exam and implementing education for the whole man
S - Reorganizing supplementary lessons for students who are in poor progress

S - Securing students’ right of autonomous activities and parents’ right to participate in school management
S - Securing students’ right to learn in schools

E - Abolishing inappropriate funds in school society

E - Correcting distorted private school education

E - Implementing secondary education as compulsory education

E - Increasing the estimate for self-govemance in schools

E - Normalizing private school education

E - Providing special education to prepare the unification of North and South Korea
E - Pursuing the national, democratic education in schools

E - Reforming undemocratic and bureaucratic educational administration

E - Securing a clean estimate and performance of school budget

E - Securing proper use of educational tax

E - Securing the participation of students, and parents in self-govemance of schools

KTU: 1989 — 1992

I - Abolishing day/night duties

I - Acquiring the number of teachers required by the law

I - Appointing accumulated numbers of teachers

I - Improvement of teachers’ right in schools

I - Improvement of teachers’ status in private schools

I - Improving teaching condition (20hrs-teaching per week for teacher, at least 45 pupil per class and so on,
renovation of school facilities and so on)

1- Increasing miscellaneous bonus for teachers’ overtime works

I - Increasing teachers’ salary

I - Providing better materials for teaching (chalk, blackboard and so on)

I - Providing special vacation for female teachers (pregnancy, delivery, nursing etc)

I - Realizing teacher’s employment

I - Securing number of teachers required by the law

I - Securing teachers’ labors three primary rights

I - Securing teachers’ status and abolishing discrimination between school teachers in terms of school types

P - Improving the pre/in-service teacher training system

P - Providing teachers’ freedom to develop initiative teaching

P - Securing the activities of autonomous teacher organization

8 - Decreasing the ratio of teacher and pupil

160

N

r

 

S - Improving school facilities for students

S - Modifying curriculum to eliminate distorted historic contents in textbook

S - Presenting the alternatives of the school entrance system

S - Providing education for whole man and extracurricular to students in schools

S - Reducing size of schools and classes

8 - Renovating school entrance system

S - Renovation of library

E - Abolishing inappropriate funds in school society

E - Abolishing the difference among all school levels

E - Acquiring educational budget (increasing special tax for education)

E - Acquiring educational finance for enlargement of compulsory education

E - Better equipments for rural schools

E - Building Democratic parent organization

E - Developing and distributing textbooks considering regional differences

E - Implementing cleanup movement of school environment

E - Increasing educational finance

E - Pursuing ethnic, democratic, and humanistic education for students

E - Pursuing the national, democratic education in schools through acquiring teachers’ labors three primary
rights

E - Reducing air pollution and noise around city school areas

E - Reducing personal education cost

KTU: 1993 — 1998

I - Abolishing day and night duties

I - Abolishing the discussion about salary by teachers’ ability or contract and about yearly salary
I - Acquiring number or teachers as provided by the law

I - Developing teachers’ socioeconomic status

I - Exchanging teachers between public and private schools

I - Improving elementary school teachers’ socioeconomic status

I - Improving teachers’ right in schools

I - Improving teachers’ salary schedule

I - Improving teachers’ working conditions

I - Legislating l9hr-teaching per week for teachers

I - Providing better equipment to teachers such as laptops and high-speed intemet

I - Providing much educational information and materials to teachers

I - Reducing teachers’ work responsibility that is not related to teaching

I - Reducing teachers’ work responsibility, placing specialists for administration

I - Rejecting the classification of teachers’ position

I - Securing teachers’ labors three primary rights

I - Specific proposals for improvement of teachers’ socioeconomic status

P - Developing teaching methods

P - Establishing research allowance for teachers

P - Improving the pre/in-service teacher training system

P - Legislating Teacher council

P - Preparing and holding teacher training to practice ‘authentic education’

P - Presenting teacher training and orientation

P - Proposal for allowing teacher council to be a legislative one

P - Proposal for letting principal and assistant principal to be assigned among teachers
P - Proposal for letting teacher organizations be involved in educational policymaking process
P - Proposals for special law to secure capable teachers

P - Securing teachers’ authority to teach in schools

161

i
i”
i

 

P- Proposal for letting elementary teacher take full charge of specific subject

8 - Abolishing supplementary and self-control lessons

S - Deceasing number of pupil in a class (30 pupil per class) in order to perform individual teaching
S - Developing new curriculum (6”)

S - Modernizing library in schools

S - Preparing new curriculum

8 - Providing curriculum based on education for the whole man

S - Reducing the number of pupil per class

S - Reforming and revising 6th and 7’11 curriculum respectively

S - Reforming school entrance exam

S - Rejecting the entrance exam for high school

S - Renovating classrooms

S - Renovating curriculum

S - Securing students’ right to learn

E - Abolishing English class as compulsory class in elementary schools

E - Abolishing the corruption of private schools

E - Acquiring educational budget

E - Building new relations between teachers and parents

E - Democratization of school operation

E - Developing independence and authority of individual schools

E - Developing the model to operate individual schools democratically

E - Establishing and developing school council

E - Improving activities of school council

E - Improving education for rural/fishing communities

E - Improving procedure of composing and implementing educational budget

E - Improving school operating system

E - Improving self-goveming system for education

E - Legislating Parent meeting

E - Maintaining small size schools in farming and fishing communities

E - Practicing ‘authentic education’ in schools

E - Preparing the alternative plan of English education in elementary schools

E - Presenting the alternate proposals that point out the problems of Education Reform and can solve them
E - Proposal for letting teacher organizations be involved in educational policymaking process
E - Providing special education to prepare the unification of North and South Korea to students
E - Realizing school autonomy

E - Realizing school reform

E - Reducing personal education cost through cutting the price (30%) of reference books
E - Reducing personal education cost through the renovation of entrance exam

E - Securing the authority of private schools

E - Securing the equalization of the difference among high schools

E - Strengthening independence and authority of individual schools

KTU: 1999 — 2002

I - Abolishing day and night duties

I - Acquiring the number of teachers as provided by the law

I - Adding teachers’ experience in the business into salary step

I - Adjusting teachers’ working hour according to the condition of communities

I - Allowing couple teachers to work in same area

I - Building daycare center in schools

I - Building single standard for presenting rewards to teachers

I - Eliminating the difference of salary between elementary and secondary schoolteachers

I - Eliminating the discrimination of rewards for retired teachers among all educational levels
I - Enacting 5-day work for teachers; 8-hour work per day; 40-hour work per week

162

 

 

 

I - Improving educational environment for teachers working in rural/fishing communities

I - Improving teachers’ salary schedule

I - Improving teachers’ welfare, treatment, and pension

I - Improving temporarily teachers’ status and welfare

I - Improving the regulation of teachers’ temporary rest from teaching

I - Improving the system of teacher selection and appointment

I - Improving working and teaching conditions

I - Increasing aid or specialized teachers in schools

I - Increasing allowances of day/night duties

I - Increasing miscellaneous bonus for teachers’ overtime works

I - Increasing teachers’ salary

I - Increasing the number of clerical workers for teachers

I - Increasing the number of teachers who should charge on specific subject

I - Increasing traveling expense for teachers

I - Indemnifying accidents occurred in schools

I - Introducing single salary schedule among teachers in all levels

I - Introducing total personnel record system

I - Legislating l9hr-teaching per week for teachers (elementary school); 18hr (middle school); 16hr (high
school)

I - Preparing temporarily teachers who should be replaced with teachers who are on a vacation or a sick
leave

I - Protect female teachers against sexual abuse

I - Providing a lounge for teachers

I - Providing a subsidy to teachers who are separated from family due to the work

I - Providing a subsidy to teachers who don’t have a house

I - Providing a subsidy to teachers who have college students

I - Providing better equipments (fax machine, copy machine, modem etc) for teaching

I - Providing computer software for teachers

I - Providing moving expense to teachers

I - Providing recreation facilities to teachers

I - Providing special vacation for female teachers (pregnancy, delivery, nursing etc)

I - Reducing teachers’ work responsibility that is not related to teaching

I - Replacing desktop computers for teachers with laptop computers

I- Securing private school teachers’ status

I - Securing the equity between male and female teachers

I - Supporting teachers’ cultural life

P - Allowing teachers to participate in curriculum development process

P - Developing self-training system for teachers

P - Developing teachers’ professionalism - providing teachers the authority to select textbooks and teaching
methods

P - Development of self-training system for teachers

P - Encouraging teachers’ learning

P - Improving teachers’ learning

P - Improving the pre/in-service teacher training system

P - Improving the regulation for letting principal and assistant principal to be assigned among teachers

P - Introducing new system for appraisal of teachers

P - Proposal for allowing teacher meeting to be a legislative one

P - Proposal for letting principal and assistant principal to be assigned among teachers

P - Providing a room for teachers’ learning

P - Providing a subsidy to teachers who are studying at college

P - Providing special vacation for in-service training to teachers

P - Providing subsidies for teachers’ in-service training

P - Revising the system for appraisal of teachers

P - Securing teachers’ political activities

P - Teachers’ Participating in educational policymaking process

P - Training special teachers for the disabilities

163

 

 

S - Abolishing 7’h educational curriculum

S - Building libraries in elementary and secondary schools

S - Improving educational environment of rural/fishing communities for students
S - Improving students’ welfare in school life by providing better facilities
S - Improving the quality of school library

S - Improving the quality of school meals for students

8 - Improving the quality of the facilities for students’ health in schools

S - Making connections between school libraries and public libraries

8 - Providing aid teachers for students’ learning

S - Providing subsidies to improve the quality of libraries in schools

S - Reducing school days (less than 190 days)

8 - Reducing the size of schools and classes

S - Revising 7’h educational curriculum

S - Securing students’ right in schools

E - Abolishing school evaluation

E - Establishing special law for school autonomy including improvement school council
E - Expanding compulsory education

E - Expanding compulsory education for the disabilities

E - Expanding the special fund to indemnify accidents in schools

E - Improving school council

E - Improving the facilities in vocational schools

E - Improving the influence of school council

E - Improving the quality of school education

E - Improving the quality of vocational schools

E - Increasing educational budget

E - Increasing the number of special schools for the disabilities

E - Maintaining small size of schools in rural/fishing communities

E - Reducing parents’ personal expenses for students

E - Reforming vocational education system

E - Securing educational finance (up to 6% of GNP)

164

 

APPENDIX B.

Tables for accessing reliability for new typology

 

 

165

 

KFTA 2000

A = Industrial/ B = Professional/ C = Students’ leaming/ D = School education

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

l A A A 20 B B B
2 A A A 21 A A A

3 A A A 22 B B B

4 A A A 23 B B B

5 A A A 24 A D 1)

6 A A A 25 A A A

7 A A A 26 B A B

8 B B B 27 B A A

9 B A A 28 A A A

10 B B B 29 A A A

11 B A A 30 B A A

12 B B B 31 A A A "
13 C C C 32 B B B

14 A A B 33 C C C

15 A C D 34 B B B

16 A A A 35 B B B

17 A A A 36 A A A

18 A A A 37 A A A

19 A A A

AGREE: 29/37

DISAGREE: 8/37

9. Introducing chief teacher system

11. Improving the system of teacher selection and appointment
14. Improving the professionalism in educational administration
15. Securing educational finance

24. Reducing the number of student per class

26. Improving scoring system of in-service training

27. Adding teachers’ military experience into career

30. Supporting teachers’ cultural life

 

166

 

KFTA 2001

A = Industrial/ B = Professional/ C = Students’ learnin / D = School education

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1 A A A 29 A A A
2 A A A 30 B A A

3 A A A 31 A D 1)

4 A A A 32 A A A

5 A A A 33 A A A

6 B A A 34 A A A

7 B B B 35 A A C

s B B B 36 n p n

9 B A B 37 p p D

10 A A A 38 D D D

11 A A A 39 D D D

12 A A A 40 C 1) n

13 D n p 41 C C C l ‘
14 D n p 42 A 1) A

15 A A A 43 A A A

16 A A A 44 A A A
17 A A A 45 A A A

18 A A A 46 A A A

19 A A A 47 A A A

20 A A A 48 A A A

21 A n A 49 A A A

22 A A A 50 B B B

23 A A A 51 A A A

24 D n D 52 A A A

25 A A A 53 A A A

26 A A A 54 B B B

27 A A A 55 A 1) C

28 A A A 56 C C C

AGREE: 47/56

DISAGREE: 9/56

6. Improving teachers’ salary schedule

9. hnproving scoring system of in-service training

21. Introducing electronic approval system in schools

30. Improving the system of teachers’ appointment in schools

31. Arranging assistant principals to small size schools

35. Reducing the number of student per class

40. Increasing telephone lines in schools

42. Arranging technicians charging on office machines in schools
55. Innovating school libraries

 

167

 

KTU 2000

A = Industrial/ B = Professional/ C = Students’ leaming/ D = School education

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

l A A A 17 A A A
2 A A A 18 B B B
3 A A A 19 A A A
4 A A A 20 A D D
5 A A A 21 A D D
6 A A A 22 A A A
7 A A A 23 A A A
8 A A A 24 A A A
9 A A A 25 B B B
10 A A A 26 A A A
11 A A A 27 A A A
12 A A A 28 A A A
13 B A B 29 A A A
14 A A A 30 A A A
15 B B B 31 A A A
16 B A A 32 A A A
AGREE: 28/32

DISAGREE: 4/32

13. Providing a subsidy to teachers who are studying at college
16. Adding teachers’ experience in the business into salary step
20. Providing software to schools

21. Increasing the number of office machines in schools

168

 

 

 

 

KTU 2002

A = Industrial/ B = Professional/ C = Students’ leaming/ D = School education

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1 A A A 41 A A A
2 A A A 42 A A A

3 A A A 43 A A A

4 A A A 44 A A A

5 A A A 45 A A A

6 A A A 46 A A A

7 A A A 47 B B B

8 A A A 48 A A A

9 A A A 49 A A A

10 A A A 50 A A A

l 1 A A A 51 A D i)

12 A A A 52 A D 1)

13 A A A 53 A C 1) {-1
14 A A A 54 B B B ~
15 A A A 55 A 1) A i
16 A A A 56 C D C
17 A A A 57 C C C
18 A A A 58 C i) B

19 B B B 59 C C C

20 A A A 60 C C C

21 A A A 61 C C C

22 A A A 62 A A A

23 A A A 63 A A A

24 A A A 64 C C C
25 A A A 65 C i) p

26 B B B 66 B B B

27 B B B 67 A 1) A

28 B B B 68 1) D D

29 A A A 69 A A A

30 A A A 70 D D D
31 A B A 71 A A A

32 A A A 72 A A A

33 A A A 73 A A A

34 A A A 74 A A A
35 A D A 75 C C C

36 A A A 76 C C C

37 A A A 77 D C C

38 A A A 78 1) C i)

39 A A A 79 A A A

40 A A A 80 A A A

 

AGREE: 68/80

DISAGREE: 12/80

31. Protect female teachers against sexual abuse

35. Providing equal opportunity to both male and female teachers
51. Reducing school size

169

 

52.
53.
55.
56.
58.
65.
67.
77.
78.

Reducing the number of student per class

Expanding school facilities

Increasing the number of office machines in schools

Improving school facilities for students

Providing special room for teaching

Improving the facilities in vocational schools

Providing laptop computers to teachers

Making connections between school libraries and public libraries
Reducing parents’ personal expenses for students

170

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