| September 4, 2007 |
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| Tuesday, September 04 2007 | |
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From the editor
As you'll see elsewhere in this issue of the HeadFirst e-newsletter, our bloggers last week (and into this week as well) have been grappling with one of the elephants in the school reform room: teacher unions. It has been fascinating, over time, to observe myself and some colleagues I greatly admire, who on most issues are left-of-center, sounding more and more like conservatives on a number of school reform issues. Nowhere is this more true than in our view of teacher unions. As my blogger friend Quique points out (see below), unions are an easy target, and criticizing them amounts to a cheap applause line. Fair enough, up to a point. I couldn't agree more that teachers are underpaid, that their preparation and ongoing professional development is woefully inadequate, that their working conditions are often less than ideal (three month summer vacations notwithstanding). It makes sense for teachers to organize to advocate for their key interests more effectively. Over time, however, too many teacher unions have adopted a chip-on-the-shoulder, us versus them victim mentality that hurts not only the long-term interests of their members, but the immediate interests of the kids their members are supposed to serve. Teacher tenure, endless direct placement of lousy teachers, absurdly proscriptive work rules, are but a few of the sacred cows of teacher unions that must be done away with if public education is to survive. The crux of the problem, I think, is that teacher unions rally their members by acting as though management is the enemy, out to screw teachers at every turn. Yes, school district management is often inept, and often works against the interests of kids as well. But unions and districts should be smart enough to realize they're on the same side of the war being waged against public education and the common school. As long as teacher unions make themselves easy targets, they'll have to put up with being hit by arrows launched by their friends, as well as poison-tipped arrows fired by their enemies. --Alan Gottlieb Blog highlights
The liveliest debate last week centered on teacher unions. Please feel free to weigh in by commenting on any of the posts that follow, at www.headirstcolorado.org/blog Union image boost: Dump tenure & direct placements!Monday, August 27, 2007 The Denver Classroom Teachers Association, tangled in a bargaining impasse of its own making, has embarked on its annual ritual of complaining about how underpaid and under-appreciated
How must this whining sound to
Here's a modest proposal to get negotiations rolling. Take the 99-page master agreement, tear it to shreds and negotiate a contract that focuses on those matters that relate directly to teacher compensation, benefits, and essential working conditions. Jettison the rest. Ten pages should suffice. The first thing that must go is teacher tenure. Combined with rules mandating "direct placement" of displaced teachers who can't find a job, tenure acts annually to recycle a couple dozen
Studies conducted in cities across the country by the New Teacher Project (highly worth reading) have demonstrated that virtually all urban schools typically are assigned teachers they have had no say in hiring and do not want. This has a direct, negative impact on student achievement, not to mention morale inside schools. Tenure and direct placement rules also protect the worst teachers " those chronic under-performers who can drag down an entire staff. Year after year, these teachers get shuffled from school to school, where principals must, from day one, begin documenting their deficiencies, so they can move them out after a year, and send them to another reluctant school. The savviest principals, or those with some clout, are able to negotiate a waiver that exempts them from receiving direct placements. What this means, though, is that less fortunate schools with less sophisticated principals receive an ever-larger share of these "lemon" teachers. If district schools could fire deficient teachers as readily as charters can, then this whole game of toxic musical chairs could cease once and for all. But the process of firing a teacher is so cumbersome and time-consuming that few principals or central administrators want to subject themselves to the brain damage. Negotiating away tenure would do more to enhance the DCTA's image than an 50 percentage-point bump in CSAP scores. Teacher unions have become a popular target of enemies of public education, and the tenure/direct placement intersection is the hanging curveball they hit out of the park regularly. I cannot imagine the union ever even entertaining this idea (go ahead, make my day: prove me wrong). But how's this for middle ground: Teachers who interview at say, 10 or 12 schools and can't land a position should lose their tenure. In any other work environment, you need to interview well to get hired. In school systems, you can flunk a dozen interviews and still have Daddy District ride to the rescue and place you in a job. Let's end that nonsense now. Of course, that's not going to happen either. So we need to turn up the heat. Let's bring in the New Teacher Project to document just how much damage the "dance of the lemons" is doing to our schools and our kids. Maybe that will force some action. 3 Responses to Union image boost: Dump tenure & direct placements!”
You go Alan! Teachers need to be paid more and be treated like real professionals, not a bunch of factory workers. I wonder how long before the public grows tired of hearing most teacher unions whine about the nasty exploitative school district while they protect their non-performing colleagues. Most school board members, superintendents, administrators, and the public want to pay teachers more. Could you imagine a group of architects, lawyers or doctors having a 90 plus page contract that described pay in terms of defined steps that went up every year in a predictable percentage along with countless rules or regulations on all aspects of their employment? I'd love to know how many teachers did not to return because of non-performance, probationary and tenured (DPS has a pool of 4,555). What's a reasonable percentage per year in any district? Some folks claim that there are next to zero firings because of the potential costs of litigation, no wonder there isn't a single charter school in
If teachers were accountable in the same ways that the rest of the professional white collar world is now I'm sure they could effectively demand substantial salary increases, not to mention the fact that it would take the most effective critique of public education away from the conservatives.
Actually, last winter DPS was negotiating with The New Teacher Project to come to
Yes, please, our time has come. I agree (as a union member), once again, DCTA has missed the mark. We are underpaid but good for Alan to go right to the true key issues. The teacher tenure and direct placement system are draining our schools drip by drip. Those of us who work our full hours and beyond are crying out to be treated and judged as professionals. Please hold us accountable and weed out those who do not belong. In this time of high stakes for students, let's do the same for ourselves and stop carrying the bad apples. And coffee mugs as an organizing tool? Come on, DCTA, we can do better than that! Treat teacher unions as rational actorsWednesday, August 29, 2007 Blogfather recently forthrightly articulated a feeling common among many education reformers that it may be impossible to improve schools, especially for low income kids, without ending direct placement of teachers and without giving principals more authority to hire the staff they believe will allow them to succeed, and to jettison others, with much more limited tenure protections. These restrictions are usually embedded in the collective bargaining agreements with teachers unions, state rules, or similar policies. While I certainly agree with the policy prescription, I'm amazed by how little thinking goes into crafting policies that might succeed in actually changing such rules. As Terry Moe has argued, teachers unions are rational actors pursuing their own best (perceived) interests, and we probably shouldn't expect them to act against their own perceived interests, even if we can breathlessly argue that they should be focused more on what is GOOD FOR THE KIDS ! The reality is that they aren't going to give up these bargained-for protections without getting something concrete in return. Why should they? Would we propose to solve the health care cost problem by telling doctors and nurses they have to be paid less, or could be sued more easily, for the sake of the patients? We might, but good luck. A policy reformer might ignore that reality and decide to take on the unions head-on, through future collective bargaining toughness, (a kind of Green Lantern willpower that will enable a fabled bargainer to get what no one else has be able to get), or through passing new legislation that might disallow these kinds of restrictions on teacher mobility, or perhaps through non-statutory regulatory changes. But all of these approaches require substantial political power and influence. And, teachers unions have political power at all levels of government and are perhaps the most important supporters of Democratic party officials, making it easy for them to veto these kinds of changes. A reformer could also try to create new unions and entice teachers into them, rather than the traditional unions, like NEA and AFT. There are such efforts underway, but they seem far from a tipping point. A reformer could also try to create a groundswell of opposition to tenure and direct placement policies, by publicizing them and linking them to lower student achievement rates. Common Good Colorado does some of this around the issue of firing poor teachers, but the public seems to kind of like teachers generally, so this is an uphill battle at best. So, it isn't clear to me that these approaches are likely to work, at least not in the academic lifetime of current K-12 students. That leaves the option of working with the unions, or making a deal.” While this is often dismissed as silly naivety, it worked with ProComp in
In any case, would-be reformers need to sketch out the deal that will work, to make these changes feasible. I think it has gotten too easy for reformers to say: teachers good, teachers unions and contract restrictions bad; stop being bad.” Certainly there has to be some price at which union leaders would trade some of these restrictions for more money, or other benefits, for their members. Even Blogfather seems to think teachers are underpaid, and
If we are thinking big, though, how about a deal of a lot more money, both across-the-board and somewhat performance based, in exchange for fewer restrictions? One Response to Treat teacher unions as rational actors”
I think you make some excellent points about the union interests and the importance of understanding their perspective. I guess I would not so quickly discount the power of making the teacher employment practices such as tenure and teacher pay public. I agree that most folks are very supportive of teachers but I doubt that most voters would support the current system if they knew more about the details of public teacher employment. There will need to be more money or other things on the table if we expect the unions to change. I also don't think any of the strategies outlined by Pol Econ Ed are mutually exclusive. I'm a big fan of teacher pay-for-performance but the jury is out on whether it will have an impact on student achievement or do much to change the relationship between teacher unions and districts. Why are teacher unions this blog's scapegoat?Tuesday, September 4, 2007 I'm intrigued about what seems like a recent movement on this blog to toss around negative caricatures of teachers unions. Why? Has this become an extension of the Independence Institute? Is there a political orthodoxy requirement that I am violating because I see teachers unions as merely rational political actors who we may or may not agree with on any given issue (like Pol Econ Ed sensibly explained a few days ago http://www.headfirstcolorado.org/blog/index.php/category/teacher-unions/)? The NEA and AFT are simply unions representing the interests of teachers. If you were represented by a union and your employer offered a proposal for you to work more hours for the same pay, wouldn't you want the union to oppose the proposal? Sure, the proposal may benefit schoolchildren (or may not -- it's open to debate). But it wouldn't much help teachers. I tend to see these unions as generally fighting for things I think are good for students, because good working conditions for teachers generally translates to good working conditions for students. But when teachers unions take a position I disagree with (e.g., seniority rules for transfers between schools in a district), I don't hesitate to say so. Of course, I also don't lose my mind and forget that they are unions, not children's advocacy organizations. Teachers and their unions have a stake in the well-being of public schools, and their members do generally care about the children in those schools. But -- for better and worse -- they are indeed still teachers and unions. So I do wonder why they have, on this blog at least, become a cheap applause line: Jeez, I hate HMOs/unions/people talking loud on their cell phones!” Take your pick and bask in the approval of your fellow bloggers. One Response to Why are teacher unions this blog's scapegoat?”As usual, Quique makes forceful and persuasive points. Where we part company on this issue is that Quique sees the self-interest of teacher unions as generally favorable, or at worst neutral for kids. If this were the case, I'd be as pro-teacher union as Quique. Unfortunately, teacher unions over time have become so enamored of their power and so effective at advocating for NARROWLY DEFINED interests of their members that they have become one of the biggest obstacles to meaningful school reform and improvement. It is no coincidence that the most effective schools serving low-income kids are charters or other schools not hamstrung by absurd union work rules, transfer policies, teacher tenure, etc. I absolutely agree that there is a place for an organization that advocates for the rights of teachers, better pay, better working conditions, etc. But to steal a phrase from my friend Ricardo Martinez of Padres Unidos, teacher unions too often stand up for the wrongs of teachers. 2 Quique Says: Like Hope? Like Life Skills? Yes, there are some great charter schools, but there are also great public schools (served by unionized teachers). 3. Jeff Miller Says:
If I understand your point, you're saying that the most effective schools serving low-income kids are charters or other schools in which teachers aren't unionized. Can you please provide some evidence to support this contention? What, exactly, do you mean by most effective? Is there nothing else that might possibly contribute to this effectiveness? And are there no unionized schools anywhere that do as good a job as your schools? 4.· WonkMom Says: I agree with both of you (the safe position?). Teachers' unions have become a convenient scapegoat for reformers, and at times they deserve it. However, to focus on teachers unions to the exclusion of the other challenges we have in education is completely misleading, and often intellectually lazy. Criticizing teachers unions is relatively easy " it usually does not come with a politically difficult call for additional funding for education, or address the socioeconomic challenges that many of our children face, or even address exactly how the teaching workforce will be magically transformed if no unions exist. These, to my mind, are the harder questions. Public education will always have a substantial workforce and be dependent on that workforce for success. How would we design the working conditions for that workforce in a way that both substantially motivates employees and achieves great outcomes for kids? Both of these things need to happen simultaneously, and I suggest that starting and ending with the teachers unions will not get us where we need to go. 5.· Alan Gottlieb Says: Quique: There are awful charters, of course, and some pretty good inner-city public schools. But it's hard to find a great one that sustains itself over time. I'm a big fan of Bryant-Webster K-8 in
Jeff: Check out
I'm sure you can find some urban public schools with unionized workforces that do a great job. But I'll lay money on this: at those schools, the teachers ignore the stupidity of the contract work rules and do what needs to be done, contract be damned.
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