A Teacher Policy Worth Supporting
Thursday, June 16, 2011
They appear as unrelated developments. But in fact, they are connected.
The seniority court fight is the most significant and the fact that the legal battle is centered in Portsmouth, a high performing, suburban district, is an important development for all the state’s school districts to watch.
The court case, to be heard in Superior Court, was triggered when the Portsmouth School Committee’s approval of a new merit-based policy of hiring and placements for all school personnel was swiftly followed by the filing of an unfair labor practices complaint by the local chapter of the NEA. The School Committee and Superintendent then filed suit, asking the court to stop the labor complaint.
The court case is important from many perspectives. It not only raises the larger question of who should ultimately be deciding which teacher is best suited to which particular classroom, it also has widespread implications on what factors must be considered when making hiring, transfers, or lay-off decisions. As more and more school districts, certainly within the state’s inner core, grapple with collapsing school budgets, lay-off guidelines are taking on a far greater significance. As the legal filing from the Portsmouth School Committee and Schools Superintendent Susan Lusi state, appropriate teacher assignment is truly at the heart of the educational mission. Contrary to what the union leadership seems to believe and is legally arguing, those decisions do not and cannot belong within the jurisdiction of the union’s contract.
The new Portsmouth policy stems from the Basic Education Program (BEP), developed by Education Commissioner Deborah Gist, to govern standards for all school districts. Among its central requirements is that seniority of teachers can no longer be the core determining factor for teacher placement. Make no mistake about it, the BEP, as the core Gist doctrine, is what is truly going on trial from the union’s perspective.
A teacher who is mismatched to a particular grade level, subject matter, and/or student need is not going to be able to produce the best results possible for those students, period. Those kinds of considerations cannot be hammered out within the inflexible framework of a union contract, which was originally designed to protect appropriate working conditions for teachers, protect fair compensation structures, etc.
What many see as the true obstacles to progress in all too many public school classrooms today is the overreach of the union contract to micromanage each and every nuanced decision governing the development of curriculum, teacher-student interactions, and the most important of them all, teacher classroom assignment. Furthermore, the Portsmouth case takes on more urgent relevance in the context of a summit held this week on the so called skills gap problem, which showed the state is losing ground on properly educating and preparing its newest high school graduates for the type of advanced degrees needed for today’s surging technology-based job market. The growing skills gap is hardly unique to Rhode Island, and the data sprung from a Harvard University national study. But the numbers reflecting the percentage of the state’s high school graduates who actually go on to complete an advanced degree are stunningly low, with only about one-fifth of those with high school degrees ultimately earning a bachelor’s or even associate’s degree.
They are either not properly academically prepared, stimulated, or guided for the rigors of higher education.
Let’s be clear: This is certainly not the exclusive fault of any given teacher. Many factors contribute to our students’ declining pursuit of college degrees. However, given the reality of the data, one would think the teaching community and their union leadership would at least be in support of policies that will strive to produce the best teacher match to a classroom.
That’s why the third item circulating in recent days on the hotly debated legislation, now approved, which will enable Commissioner Gist to tap retired teachers for an unprecedented teacher training program is notable. Some union leaders were in the unfamiliar position this spring of citing pension excesses (which they never have had a problem with before) in arguing against the Gist effort, because the retired teachers called back to do the training will be able to retain their existing pensions while being paid as consultants. That is a separate concern. But the training, which is primarily aimed at creating a higher caliber teaching corps in the state’s schools, is being mostly funded through the Race to the Top federal grant award. It seemed the union’s opposition to the plan what mostly driven by their overall opposition to Gist controlling the training and teacher evaluation effort.
It comes down to this: As a state, are we going to support merit—or multiple years in the system—to determine who is best suited to be placed in front of a given class of students?
It would seem an obvious choice.
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Donna Perry is a Communications Consultant to the RI Statewide Coalition www.statewidecoalition.com
Comments:
Buc Kner
7:39am on Thursday, June 16, 2011
THANK YOU GO LOCAL FOR MS PERRY
ITS AN ONLINE PRINT VERSION OF THE DEPETRO "RADIO REVENGE SHOW"
Ed Jucation
7:46am on Thursday, June 16, 2011
She forgets to mention that before seniority was used teachers were dismissed and hired at the whim of the principal. These principals would often hire relatives and quickly fire anyone who disagreed with them. Seniority was a strategy to defeat these practices and although it isn't perfect, I believe it's better than the alternative. This being Rhode Island, one of the most corrupt and "Who You Know" states, do you want to return to the past?
Cheryl Dowdell
6:45pm on Thursday, June 16, 2011
When personal attacks take over the blog, you have to know the "message" is hitting home and is right on target. Wake up and start living in the real world, with bosses and supervisors and managers that are truly responsible for the "product". If that means that poor performers are let go, so be it.
Public Education is Big Business and the protections are ludicrous. If business owners in the private sector had to put up with a 90 plus page Public School union contract, rather than the 2 page "letter of agreement" that the public charters in RI have, they would pull a "Galt".
william eccleston
10:41pm on Thursday, June 16, 2011
While your criticism of teacher's unions regarding the seniority issue is well founded and worthy of serious attention, there is no support for your contention that unions are involved in curricular issues. They are not. On the contrary, failure to stick up for membership when administrations implement dopey curricula such as Math Investigations and "Balanced Literacy" is one of the great weaknesses of the unions. The paradigm has always been, "We don't care how stupid your instructional program is as long as you pay us well to implement it." With value-added evaluation's advent, however, unions can no longer ignore stupid management. Central Falls HIgh School is a perfect example where a union has failed miserably to fight back on this issue, an issue where they potentially have the support of parents and the general public.
barnaby morse
6:31am on Friday, June 17, 2011
william you really have no clue! The Cf union has continually fought for changes in the instructional programs including the need for a curriculum.
william eccleston
7:08pm on Friday, June 17, 2011
You are correct. I have no clue. Nor does the public in general. Search the local and national media far and wide and you will not find a coherent, recurrent, relentlessly on message media campaign to expose to public scrutiny the ludicrously inept management that poor district has endured for at least the past two superintendents. Most of the public don't even know that the district is run by the State, acting through the Board of Regents and the Dept. of Education. Whose fault is that? The AFT apparently hasn't a clue how to organize and lead a battle like this. So the teachers get beat up and beat up and beat up while the unions leaders collect their fat paychecks for doing nothing.
barnaby morse
7:08am on Saturday, June 18, 2011
Not sure what you call a fat paycheck since many union reps con't get paid at all!
william eccleston
8:56am on Saturday, June 18, 2011
I mean the state leadership of the AFT and NEA. I know very well that building reps don't get paid.
Yesterday's news offers a perfect example of the leadership ineptitude, both at the building, state and national levels. WRNI reported that Gist views the entire problem at CFH as "cultural" and a matter of "relationships." Her response is going to be the appointment of a mediator, a professional relationship masseuse, to conduct "conversations" at CFH next year to "facilitate" better understanding between the parties. Where is the union response to this idiocy? Where is the day-by-day recounting of the management dysfunction at that building? All the little management details a competent administration does by default but which are completely ignored at CFH? The union needs to get that story in front of the public.
tia juana
11:04pm on Thursday, June 23, 2011
I agree with William. Does anyone realize that for this past school year the teachers have spent more time with the students than any previous year? How can it be about relationships? Also, a culture of calling male teachers,Sir, and female teachers, Miss, of saying "sorry or my bad" if a swear slipped out, was decimated by a lack of discipline in the building. As a recent grad told NPR, They(the administration) let the bad kids run the school. It's pathetic.
tia juana
11:08pm on Thursday, June 23, 2011
Also, it was the administration who started and continue to throw stones at unions, teachers, and now, all staff.
She is the commissioner. She can tell the administration to cut it out but she would rather act as though it were the union's inflexibility so she must appoint a mediator to give the appearance of neutrality?