Efforts to unionize charter school teachers need to be taken with a grain of salt, because they can slide easily into conflicting goals. Unions seek enforceable work rules, and work-rule flexibility is a bedrock principle for most charters.

That’s already playing out in New York, where New York State United Teachers is both seeking to organize charter school teachers and arguing in Albany that charters are a threat to the traditional public school systems that employ NYSUT members. It’s a tough stance for union leaders, and suggests a need for caution by charter school teachers who want their schools to succeed.

But New York’s parents have a dog in this fight, too. The entire charter movement started because traditional public schools were falling short, and charters were to be the experimental educational labs that proved the “best practices” in education that could reverse that. So students, and their parents, have a stake in maintaining the flexibility charter schools can provide.

That doesn’t mean that school weakening is automatic or that teachers shouldn’t explore the protections that unionization offers. After all, 21 of about 140 charter schools throughout the state already have unionized; in the Buffalo-Niagara region, seven of 16 charter schools have teacher unions, and Westminster Community School’s contract is a modified version of the Buffalo Teachers Federation contract. But it does mean communities, and not just the educators who staff or manage schools, should be concerned that efforts by NYSUT might one day simply morph into the structures in traditional schools, eroding the differences that can drive positive changes in education.

Charter schools brought to public education an ability to offer longer school hours, days and months along with varied programs that offered choices to parents and students. Not every charter has been a success and some have closed, but others—such as Tapestry, here—are known to be well-run without union representation. Further, charter schools are under performance contracts and have a limited amount of funds without the ability to levy tax increases.

The union can, of course, contractually agree to maintain the flexibility that makes charters unique. The opening premise of organizing, according to NYSUT President Richard C. Iannuzzi, is that teachers need a voice whether they work in charter, traditional public, private or parochial schools.

New York Charter Schools Association President Peter Murphy, meanwhile, contends NYSUT is working at cross purposes by seeking to represent charter school teachers while fighting charters at the state government level. Iannuzzi argues that there is no conflict, and advocates a separate funding stream for charters to diffuse the animosity between school districts and charter schools.

The union, Iannuzzi says, wants to “represent every public school teacher in New York State.” It already represents teachers in almost all of New York’s 700 school districts— which often are at loggerheads with charter schools they see as stealing students and funding. That’s one reason BTF President Philip Rumore is taking a principled stand and sticking with a hands-off policy. He has long been a critic of the state’s charter school law and what he contends is charter schools’ advantageous ability to expel students.

Among other things, Rumore would like to allow the state comptroller the ability to audit charter schools and would welcome another funding formula that does not affect traditional public schools. That approach, in the long run, might prove more fruitful in terms of communities and education than a one-size-fits-all approach to unionization.