|
|
9486 in the collection
Obama Wins a Battle as a Teachers' Union Shows Flexibility
Ohanian Comment: Of course Duncan calls this labor agreement "progressive." That's what kind of progressive he is--rate teacher performance on a basis of a corrupt standardized test. Duncan terms this as unions moving out of their comfort zones. I call it everybody grabbing for the money. It is one more brick in the relentless wall of privatization, school closings, militarization, union busting and blaming teachers for the problems of urban schools.
But in Chicago, the model city for all this, resistance is growing. Take another look at this Labor Beat video, which describes the Chicago Plan. In this video Substance News editor George Schmidt explains how Duncan's Chicago Plan is the template for a national strategy to dismantle public education.
Labor Beat comments: Through revealing footage and comments from Chicago teachers, this video shows the resistance that has been growing among teachers and community organizations.Here is a national alert for everyone who cares about the future of public schools, threatened now by Arne Duncan and his corporate vision for the nation's school systems.
By Neil King Jr.
A showdown between the White House and the powerful teachers' unions looks, for the moment, a little less likely.
This week in New Haven, Conn., the local teachers union agreed, in a 21-1 vote, to changes widely resisted by unions elsewhere, including tough performance evaluations and fewer job protections for bad teachers.
Education Secretary Arne Duncan, as well as the unions, said the New Haven contract could be repeated in other school districts.
"I rarely say that something is a model or a template for something else, but this is both," said Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, who helped broker the New Haven deal.
"This shows a willingness to go into areas that used to be seen as untouchable," Mr. Duncan said.
His cause for optimism is this: If teachers' unions start showing flexibility in other cities, the administration's high-stakes push to boost graduation rates and improve test scores at public schools could get a lot easier. That might even spare the administration an unwanted fight with a labor force that gave Mr. Obama a big lift in his election.
Under pressure from the Education Department, the country's two powerful teachers unions, Ms. Weingarten's AFT and the larger National Education Association, are already budging in ways that were previously unthinkable. The two unions have a combined membership of 3.6 million employees.
The AFT recently issued a batch of innovation grants to districts that are tying teacher pay to performance -- a practice usually frowned upon by unions. The NEA is taking similar steps to encourage tougher evaluations and to loosen seniority systems, moves that Mr. Duncan called "monumental breakthroughs."
It is also noteworthy that the AFT seems almost as pleased with New Haven as Mr. Duncan.
Public schools in many bigger cities, including New York, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., are seeing the usual tension between unions and school administrators.
In Washington, Chancellor Michelle Rhee has collided with both the national and local unions. The city moved ahead recently with the firing of 388 school employees, nearly 6% of the work force.
In New Haven, by contrast, all sides agreed on the new contract after months of closed-door negotiations. The deal allows the city to close its worst schools and bring in new management, though any new teachers would have to join the union. In exchange, the union got an average 3% raise each year for four years.
"We now have unusual flexibility for a unionized system," said New Haven Mayor John DeStefano.
A big question now is whether Mr. Duncan can proceed with federal efforts to remake U.S. public schools without stirring up storms like the one in Washington.
His one big advantage is financial. The administration plans early next year to distribute $4.3 billion under its "Race to the Top" program to help states set new testing standards, boost teacher quality and help rescue -- or close -- thousands of the worst-performing schools in the U.S. Beyond that, the department has another $5 billion for various school-improvement and innovation grants.
The administration is using its pot of money to get states to revamp rules that bar performance pay and charter schools, which rely on public money but are run outside the public system. Nearly 10 states have taken such steps to qualify for the funds. Select states will have to use the money to reward and encourage the changes.
So far, the administration has avoided a fight with unions. Mr. Duncan meets every few weeks with Ms. Weingarten and the NEA's president, Dennis Von Roekel.
But there is still plenty of room for friction.
Mr. Duncan, the former superintendent of Chicago public schools, got booed by teachers in July when he praised performance-based merit pay at NEA's annual convention. "You can boo," he told the crowd, "just don't throw shoes, please."
A few weeks later, the Education Department released tentative guidelines for changes states have to undertake to qualify for the federal grant money. Unions, school boards, city governments and outside groups responded with more than 1,200 recommended changes.
With the final rules scheduled to be out in mid-November, the unions are warning about limits on their flexibility. The groups are most troubled by Mr. Duncan's quest to link teacher pay to student performance, especially if it is measured only through standardized tests.
"To evaluate a teacher or a school on a single test makes no sense," said Mr. Von Roekel, who used to teach high school math in Arizona.
The unions also are wary of some of Mr. Duncan's other prescriptions, including his proposals to shut down and reorganize many of the country's most troubled schools.
For now, potential antagonists are holding fire. "I may disagree with their tactics," Mr. Von Roekel said, referring to Mr. Duncan and his team. "But I wouldn't question their intent or motivation."
Write to Neil King Jr. at neil.king@wsj.com
Excerpts: Education Secretary Arne Duncan
'I'm not going to be silent where schools are perpetuating poverty and social failure.'
*
In an interview Oct. 15, Education Secretary Arne Duncan talked to Wall Street Journal reporter Neil King about labor relations and his push to remake some of the nation's worst schools. Below are edited excerpts from the interview.
* * *
WSJ: What is your take on the teachers' contract that passed by a huge margin in New Haven, Conn., on Wednesday? Some are already calling it a potential model for other cities.
Mr. Duncan: This is a really important progressive labor agreement. It's one that folks around the country should take note of. Basically, everyone came together, the school district, the union, the city. I think it is a very significant step in the right direction.
This shows a willingness to go into areas that used to be untouchable. There are two core principles that undergird this thing.
First, this is about valuing growth in student achievement. This says that student achievement matters. Most labor-management agreements say nothing about student achievement. That is a watershed change.
Secondly, there is a real focus on teacher professionalism. That is often absent from traditional collective bargaining agreements.
WSJ: The national American Federation of Teachers got pretty heavily involved in the New Haven deal. What does that say about the national unions?
Mr. Duncan: This shows real courage on the union's part. These are uncharted waters. This is new territory. What you had, you didn't have any drama. This shows what can happen when adult egos are checked and when adult issues are put aside.
WSJ: In your Friday [Oct. 16] speech before the National Association of State Boards of Education, part of the message is to allay fears that the federal government may wade too deeply into local school matters. What's the gist of your message?
Mr. Duncan: We want to better define the federal role. When schools are doing really well, we want to get out of the way. When they are really struggling, we want to support them. President Lyndon Johnson talked about the federal role as being a partner. I want to be a good partner, but not a silent partner.
You always want to find the balance. Where schools are doing great, you want to get out of their way and be loose and get the bureaucracy out of their way. Where you have dropout factories and chronic underperformance, I am going to push people hard. I'm not going to be silent where schools are perpetuating poverty and social failure.
WSJ: How would you describe the current state of relations between the administration and the teachers' unions at the national level?
Mr. Duncan: I think we are in great shape. I continue to spend a tremendous amount of time with [the heads of the two big unions].
We have seen some pretty dramatic movement by them. The AFT did their own innovation grants, including some for pay for performance at the local level. That is a huge breakthrough. The [National Education Association] in the past two weeks has encouraged their districts to apply for our teacher incentive fund grants, which is all about pay for performance, while they had actively discouraged that before. Also, where they have agreements that hinder putting good talent into underserved schools, they have encouraged districts to create [memorandums of understanding] to encourage teachers to go into those schools.
I give their leadership real credit for having the courage to move out of their comfort zones.
— Neil King Jr.
Wall Street Journal
2008-10-17
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125572781296990785.html#printMode
INDEX OF OUTRAGES
Pages: 380
[1] 2 3 4 5 6 Next >> Last >>
|
