The UFT Contract Negotiations, the RttT Funding and the State Budget Debacle: How Do You Agree to Teacher Salary Increases in a Time of Potential Drastic Budget Cuts? Can the Mike(s) Craft a Win-Win?

 

What happened to the UFT Contract negotiations?

 

Is the hand across the aisle to the Mayor being caressed or bitten?

 

The UFT flip-flopped on their own internal Governance Task Force Report and supported the reauthorization of mayoral control and stayed on the sidelines for the hotly contested Bloomberg/Thompson contest. The surprising, to some, not to others, closeness of the vote leads to “what if” speculation, what if the UFT had endorsed Thompson and turned out the troops? Alas, all “woulda, coulda, shoulda,” idle meanderings.

 

The election is over, Mike is ensconced in Gracie Mansion for another term; teachers are sophisticated, they understand the quid pro quo realities of politics and anticipate a contract announcement, an announcement that may not be in the near future.

  

Can the Mayor agree to a contract at the same time that the State faces a huge deficit and the union is fighting possible midyear budget cuts?

 

Would a contract settlement and school cuts look like a funds transfer from classrooms to teacher pockets?

 

The UFT has joined with a wide range of parent and advocacy organizations to fight midyear cuts.

 

November 9, 2009 – CFE joined parents, community members, and major education organizations from across the state in urging legislators to oppose Governor Paterson’s proposed $686 million mid-year cut to New York schools. The group broke pencils in unison to symbolize the broken promise, and then delivered the broken pencils – inscribed with the slogan, “No more broken promises!” – to Governor Paterson and legislators. Download the full press release.

 

In addition to working with other organizations the union is blitzing Albany legislators with emails from members through their powerful political action arm.

 

The legislature will be back in session Monday and Tuesday, and the NY Times reports legislators appear to be backing off on cuts, pushing the problem into the next legislative session that begins in January. The State fiscal year begins April 1st and the budget is usually approved about that date.

 

The Mayor might be telling Mulgrew, “Mike, I really, really appreciate your support, and I did put aside dollars for a raise, but let’s wait a while, if Albany can’t plug the holes, and I face drastic cuts I’ll have to use the dollars I put aside for your raise to avert cuts and layoffs, just be patient.”

 

Another scenario might be a share of the $4 billion in RttT funds, the first application is in January, the second in April. If the City and the UFT agree to a contract that is “innovative,” a possible national model, the feds could drive substantial dollars to NYC, An “innovative” contract contains risks, what is “innovative” to Obama-Duncan and the NY Times might be viewed as give backs or weakness by members.

 

The July MTA-TWU arbitration award did grant the Transport Workers Union (TWU) raises in spite of the fiscal circumstances of the Metropolitan Transit authority (MTA). The MTA went to court to try and invalidate the award. If the court rejects the MTA and supports the award perhaps the court decision could boot strap the UFT predicament

 

State law does provide for intervention by PERB, the mediator, impasse and fact-finding process. Fact-finding is a  lengthy process at which the Department could place merit pay, termination of ATRs, etc. on the table, and the union, the abolition of the ATR pool, etc. The key salary issue would be “pattern bargaining” versus “ability to pay.”

 

The Department has been spending freely, $100 million to sustain the ATR pool and endless contracts. (See November 12 contracts here) At a fact-finding hearing the union would certainly point to the allocation of contracts and say, guys, who says they have no money! Could be quite embarrassing to the Department and the Mayor.

 

Perhaps a Latin proverb controls, vincit qui partitur, “he prevails who is patient.” But let’s not forget that other proverb, when the rich and powerful say “trust me,” the weak and powerless tend to get pregnant.

Will the Race to the Top Drag Obama Down? Is the $4 Billion the Gold At the End of the Rainbow or the Proverbial Thirty Pieces of Silver?

 

The US Department of Education has released the much anticipated regulations (read Executive Summary here) that will determine the distribution of the $4 billion in Race to the Top (RTTT) funding, ending the tea leaf reading and the parsing of every little word uttered by Ed Secretary Duncan.

 

The New York Times describes the process,

 

The $4 billion is the most money Washington has ever given to overhaul schools. It is to be awarded in two rounds, in April and September, to about a dozen states that propose bold schemes to shake up the way they evaluate and compensate teachers, use data to raise achievement and intervene in failing schools. With $16 billion in school budget shortfalls projected for next year, states are hungry.

Experts say the process is like watching dozens of states bid for the Olympics.

In August of 2008 I listened to a video feed of a 12-minute Obama speech to the American Federation of Teachers convention, to be polite the response of the delegates was tepid, better than the booing he received a month earlier at the National Education of Teachers convention.

The Obama-Duncan policies: encouraging the opening of more charter schools (no state imposed caps), pay for teacher performance, using data to evaluate teachers, aka “getting rid of bad teachers,” and national standards are viewed by teachers as assaults on their professionalism. While Obama makes vague comments about collaboration he is clearly is moving forward, with or without teacher unions.

 Across the country, different groups are coming together to bring about change in our schools — teachers unions and parents groups, businesses and community organizations.  In places like New Haven, educators and city leaders have come together to find a smarter way to evaluate teachers and turn around low-performing schools.

The public understands much of the healthcare debate: cover all Americans, no rejections for pre-existing conditions, more choice of carriers and lower costs for insurance., The nuances are many but the basics of the proposed law, in spite of Republican bricks is popular among Obama voters.

The Obama-Duncan educational reform policies are obscure to the public and alienating to teachers, among his strongest supporters. There simply no evidence that any of his education policy will “turn around” the national education system.

Gerald Bracey, a well regarded educational icon (who recently passed away) has written a superb critique of the core Obama dicta.

 This year’s Bracey Report identifies and discusses the research support for what the author considers to be three of the most important assumptions about how to reform public education:
1. High-quality schools can eliminate the achievement gap between whites and minorities.
2. Mayoral control of public schools is an improvement over the more common elected board governance systems.
3. Higher standards will improve the performance of public schools.

 

Bracey concludes: there is no research support.

 

Pay for performance is the touchstone of the Obama ideologues, and research is scarce, a collection of research shows some successes but clearly the jury is still out.

 

What we do know is that collaboration does work, we do know that teachers are experts, and using teacher-experts to work with their peers is a highly successful strategy.

 

 A staff of hardworking teachers with access to basic technology could learn much more together than they would under the tutelage of an imported expert. Rather than hiring external presenters, schools can see much better results by putting the responsibility for, and the control of, professional growth in the hands of their own teachers.

 

Teachers increasingly see the $4 billion as a biblical “thirty pieces of silver,” the feds using the lure of dollars to drive states to embed the Obama-Duncan weltanschauung, even if their view is a  slight of hand rather than research-based.

 

The selection of twelve or states to receive the four billion means 38 or so states will not receive funding. Pressure from teacher union members will grow and any chance of an Obama slanted reauthorization of No Child Left Behind may be bleak. In fact, the reauthorization could undo Obama policies.

 

When Rahm Emmanuel picks up the phone to call Randi Weingarten and asks for her minions to beat the bushes for democratic candidates he may find Randi in her Al Shanker mode, the “tough liberal.”

“V,” Ayn Rand and the Direction of Education Policy: Does the Chancellor Matter? Is It a Question of Style Over Substance?

 I wonder whether the revival of the ABC sci-fi series”V,“ which rolls out an alien reptilian plot to dominate and consume mankind is actually a thinly veiled description of the Department of Ed Leadership Academy?  Is the Academy the “mother ship” attracting the innocent and using them as tools of the plot for world-wide domination? Am I being too paranoid? And remember, just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean people aren’t plotting against you.

 

We never cease being amazed by the vision of Obama, Duncan and Klein and their acolytes, including University of Penn President Amy Gutmann, they continue to view competition as a key to school improvement, with charter schools driving the competition with public schools, seemingly ignoring a recent internal Department powerpoint showing public schools outperforming charter schools, in spite of the “darling” status of charter schools, as described by Chancellor Meryl Tisch,

 

Speaking at Hunter College, Tisch said that charter schools have benefited from being the political “darlings” of the city and state, blessed with the most qualified teachers and some of the highest-achieving students.

 

Competition, leadership totally in the hands of principals without restraints provided by labor contracts, or school boards, or parents, a sort of libertarian climate emphasizing the power of the individual. Maybe the recent interest in Ayn Rand has morphed into the philosophy driving ed reform? ( “Ethical egoism … endorses selfishness, …”)

 

Randi Weingarten, American Federation of Teacher struggles to parse Obama’s words, trying to find a glint of “collaboration” in his speech,

  

“If we embark on a course of shared responsibility and collaboration, we will be much closer to reaching the ultimate goal of providing a great education to all students,” Weingarten says. “When teamwork, trust and respect become ingrained in the fabric of a school district and are incorporated into all decision-making—not just used during contract negotiations—the outcome is good for kids. Teachers want their students to do well, but they need the tools and resources that will create the conditions to help their students succeed.

“President Obama cited just a few of many recent stellar examples where collaborative partnerships are making a tangible difference for students and teachers.”

I’m not so sure that the Prez has moved away from his stance, in spite of his “tip of the hat” to the New Haven contract, his November 4th speech avers,

Now, before a state is even eligible to compete, they’ll have to take an important first step.  And this has caused some controversy in some places, but it shouldn’t be controversial.  Any state that has a so-called firewall law will have to remove them.  Now, here’s what a firewall law is:  It basically says that you can’t factor in the performance of students when you’re evaluating teachers.  That is not a good message in terms of accountability.  So we said, if you’ve got one of those laws, if you want to compete for these grants you got to get rid of that law.

And we’ll encourage states to take a better approach when it comes to charter schools and other innovative public schools.  When these schools are performing poorly, they’ll be shut down…

 Across the country, different groups are coming together to bring about change in our schools — teachers unions and parents groups, businesses and community organizations.  In places like New Haven, educators and city leaders have come together to find a smarter way to evaluate teachers and turn around low-performing schools. 

So guys, does it matter who is chancellor? Do we have a national agenda, from Obama to Duncan to Regent Tisch to Commissioner Steiner to the NYC Chancellor?

David Bloomfield, in a puckish blog begins to speculate on the next NYC Chancellor, but, is it a matter of personality rather than policy?

Will the educator chancellor be any different than the businessman/lawyer chancellor?

Joel Klein chose to be confrontational, the “in your face” litigator, constantly taking on his critics while Arne Duncan is the suave, charming Secretary of Ed, with pretty much the same agenda. Then again it is nicer to be romanced before being seduced.

 

What’s Happening With the UFT-DOE Contract Negotiations? Is Mulgrew the Nimble Leader Who Can Avoid the Abyss and Deliver for his Members? Can Bloomberg Emerge as a National Education Mayor Who Can Work With Unions?

 Labor negotiations, especially for public employees, tilts toward management. Strikes are almost always not an option. New York State law imposes strict penalties both on the strikers and the union. The employees are fined an additional days pay for each day on strike, and the union incurs substantial fines and the loss of dues check off. “Work stoppages” are broadly defined as any concerted action, i.e., “blue flu,” not going to open school night, etc.

 

The Public Employees Relations Board (PERB) has been around for forty or so years, the law establishes regulations for the unionization of public employees, labor or management can appeal to the Board and claim “improper practices,” and the Board monitors and guides contract negotiations.

 

The UFT, DOE, and City labor negotiations have been characterized by a deafening silence. The NY Times printed a story saying there was no news to report.

 

Some aver that the contract was done months ago and are awaiting the end of the mayoral election to announce a straightforward contract with salary increases and no surprises. Others urge the Mayor to demand substantial changes eroding benefits and eroding core union values.

 

If the parties are unable to reach a settlement  PERB assigns a mediator. If, after the mediator works with the parties s/he feels the parties are far apart an impasse can be declared and PERB appoints a panel of three arbitrators, the panel conduct a fact-fining review. The parties provide evidence to the panel, through testimony and the submission of evidence. Salary is determined by “pattern bargaining,” the raises that similarly situated employees have received from the employer and “ability to pay,” the economic situation of the municipality. (See 2002 UFT-BOE Fact-Finding here and 2005 UFT-DOE Fact-Finding here. Either party can assert any issue into the process.

 

In July, at the Municipal Transit Authority/Transport Workers Union fact-finding the chief city negotiator testified that the City has put aside 4 + 4 (four percent for each of the next two years), however, in the last few months the budget situation has eroded, if the State cuts its budget now, the City will have to impose midyear budget cuts.

 

Could the City justify raises for teachers at the same time it is cutting school budgets?

 

The union “bargaining goals” are moderate, the weighty issues of ATRs, Rubber Rooms, pay for performance are thorny and may not be at the table.

 

I constantly hear members scrie that the union should be tough, they should endorse Thompson, the non-Bloomberg, attack Klein, mount a campaign to “win-over” the public.

 

The mediation, impasse, fact-fining process takes from 9-12 months, and there is no guarantee about the report. Fact-finders could support “ability to pay” over “pattern bargaining” and not support any increase. The City will certainly argue about terminating ATRs after a period of time. We have no idea how a fact-fining panel will respond. And, the report is not binding.

 

What are the options for the union?

 

Endorse and fight for Thompson, understanding that should he lose you will face four year of open conflict, possibly without a salary increase. Are the risk/rewards worth it?

 

Endorse no one, try to work with Bloomberg where you can and negotiate a contract with a 4% + 4% with little else.

 

A glum outcome is you try to work with Bloomberg, unsuccessfully, and the months go by without a contract and without much movement on either side.

 

In Washington the union (WTU) has confronted Superintendent Michelle Rhee, maybe it had no choice. Many, many months have gone by, layoffs not in seniority order, with no contract agreement and a bitterly divided and weakened union.

 

On a national scene the Obama-Duncan agenda seems eerily similar to the Klein agenda, and the $4 plus billion in Race to the Top funding will require the inclusion of Klein-like policies.

 

If it wasn’t for the Obama stimulus package NYC would have faced many, many thousands of layoffs. The no layoff clause is void if the City declares a fiscal emergency. This is Year One of a two year stimulus infusion with absolutely no guarantee of another stimulus.

 

How would the union respond if an additional stimulus package required the inclusion of policies with which the union is uncomfortable?  And let’s not forget that “No Child Left Behind,” the law that provides Title 1 funding, is up for reauthorization, and, pay  for performance etc., are in play.

 

It’s easy to bitch and complain, it really, really hard to produce results with so many missteps possible. Is Mulgrew the nimble leader who can navigate the yawning abysses scattered over the landscape?

 

Mike is going to earn his paycheck over the next weeks and months.

 

Zombie Fallacies: Discredited School Reform Ideas That Refuse To Die

 

Alright, I admit it, I’m a Paul Krugman junkie, both his op ed pieces and his blogs. He reminds me of a concept that haunts us,

 

zombie fallacies — ideas that you kill repeatedly, but refuse to die — inevitably make their appearance.

 

So, as a tribute to Halloween, let’s kill them again.

 

ATRs have can’t find a job on their own should be fired after a year or so … they’re weak teachers, they don’t even look for jobs, they are a drain on the school system.

 

The 1300 or so ATRs are teachers who were excessed when their school closed, others are newer teachers who were bumped due to budget cuts or student register decreases, or, are teachers coming back from a leave. The “pool,” costing over $100 million a year was created by the Chancellor for political reasons. He has consistently vilified ATRs and attacked their competence, without a scintilla of evidence. At the NY Post and the Daily News the line between news and opinion is not blurred, it has disappeared and the newspapers attack the UFT over the Tweed-created ATR issue. 

 

Many ATRs have applied for scores of jobs with nary an interview. They carry the stigma of a rain of attacks by the press and the Chancellor, and principals shy away. The mark of Cain, tenure and higher salary dooms them to the depressing nether-nether land of teacher ATR purgatory.

 

The Chancellor is willing to spend over $100 million of public dollars, in a climate of declining dollars and a bleak budget future, to force the union to the end of the contract bargaining process: fact-finding, in the hope that the fact-finders, the arbitrators, will issue a report supporting the Chancellor, a report by the way that is not binding.

 

The Chancellor has succeeded in driving teachers together and strengthening the union, if there ever was a strike issue the firing of ATRs would be that issue.

 

Resolution: ATRs are permanently assigned to their current positions, DOE picks up the full cost for the remainder of this year and half the cost for next year. If an ATR receives a U rating in June, 2010, they are mandated to participate in Peer Intervention Plus (PIP) for the following year. If they are truly terrible teachers the principal can prefer charges and the PIP intervener reports are admissible at the trial.

 

Rubber Rooms are filled with incompetent teachers that can’t be fired because of union rules.

 

There are about 600 DOE employees, mostly teachers. scattered in the Teacher Reassignment Centers, aka, “Rubber Rooms.” Who are they? One group have been arrested for a minor offense. The police routinely “overcharge,” charge the arrested person with a violation or crime well above what actually happened. The case eventually gets before a judge and is “Adjourned Contemplating Dismissal” or “Dismissed” outright. The teacher returns to his/her school or is dumped into the ATR pool. Another group is pulled from school due to an accusation of “verbal abuse” or “corporal punishment.” Many, many months later, sometimes more than a year, the accusation disappears and the teacher slides back to their school or the “pool.” In other cases the teacher agrees to pay a modest fine, their file is expunged and they return to school. Well under 100 cases actually go to trial and fewer reach a conclusion. With forty years and thousands of cases the case law is deep.

 

Why does the DOE waste millions? Either shortsightedness (they claim they don’t have enough attorneys, but they pay the 600), incompetence, or, once again to gain political points in the war to drastically change the union contract and state law.

 

Resolution: A rapid due process hearing before an arbitrator, similar to a grand jury, to determine whether or not the teacher can be removed.

 

A State law passed through the political clout of the union prevents student achievement data from being used in the tenure granting process, allowing endless incompetent teachers to achieve tenure.

 

Teachers serve a three year probationary period, the principal should have been in and out of the classroom a hundred or so times, conducted a score of formal observations, if inept teachers receive tenure it is the fault of the principal not the law. The teacher union is concerned that the DOE will issue a regulation: “No teacher shall receive tenure unless their class show x progress on State examinations.”

 

The end product of an outcome-based system, that ignores teaching inputs is both fatally flawed and dangerous. The scandal at Lehman High School is a prime example. If students in classroom A are exceeding expectations and students in classroom B not achieving expectations the “answer” is not giving teacher A a raise and firing teacher B. The “answer” is finding out why.

 

If we believe that teacher classroom decisions are based on evidence, on artifacts, on data, then we can only expect that the Secretary of Education follows the same pattern. Education Next, published by Harvard University argues that “…school turnaround efforts have failed more often the not.”

 

Researchers at the Chicago Consortium for School Research report,

 

 This report reveals that eight in 10 Chicago Public Schools (CPS) students displaced by school closings transferred to schools ranking in the bottom half of system schools on standardized tests. However, because most displaced students transferred from one low-performing school to another, the move did not, on average, significantly affect student achievement.

 

If Arne Duncan’s reform are seriously questioned in Chicago why is he moving ahead with the same reforms nationally. Frederick Hess at the American Enterprise Institute, as reported in the NY Times, finds

 

The Obama administration’s solution is that we’re going to make all the lousy schools better, but that’s harder than the administration has let on. The next most attractive alternative is to shut them down, and let the kids go to other schools, but this Consortium report has found that that brought little benefit to students in Chicago.

 

Arne should take his head out of the pumpkin.

Making Curriculum Matter: Does Curriculum Trump Governance and Accountability?

 Obama/Duncan are pumping $4 billion into highly targeted “Race to the Top” funding, with a host of caveats all driving a single agenda. Mayoral control, charter schools, early childhood education, state-wide student data systems, accountability-based schools and school leaders, teacher pay and evaluation fixed to pupil performance, somehow tying ed schools to the performance of their graduates’ students.

 

Nick Kristof and David Brooks , NY Times op ed writers are totally on board.

 

Interestingly no one is talking about curriculum, in other words the content of what is actually taught.

 

The one national test is the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), referred to as the “gold standard.” It is distressing that Barack and Arne are moving ahead with an agenda that ignores nationwide NAEP scores.

 

Why are some state doings much better than others?

 

Shouldn’t we be investigating the wide discrepancy among state NAEP scores?

 

The just released NAEP scores for 4th grade Mathematics places Massachusetts, as usual at the top, New York State is 26th and Illinois 34th.

 

Arne Duncan served as the Superintendent in Chicago, yet the NAEP scores in Chicago are flat during the Duncan years, just as the scores in New York City have been flat during the Klein years.

 

A Brookings Institute Report, “Don’t Forget Curriculum,” muses,

 

 But one can also imagine an administration that is staffed with policy makers who cut their teeth on policy reforms in the areas of school governance and management rather than classroom practice, people who may be oblivious to curriculum for the same reason that Bedouin don’t think much about water skiing.

 

The Report investigates the impact of the range of “innovations” that are at the heart of the administration reform efforts,

 

Curriculum vs. Other Policy Levers

Summary of Effect Sizes

Charters
Charter schools in general		0.00 mathematics
Oversubscribed NYC charter schools		0.09 mathematics
Reconstituting the teacher workforce
Merit pay for teachers in India		0.15 reading and mathematics
Teach for America		0.15 mathematics
Preschool programs
Abecedarian Preschool		0.45 reading
Head Start		0.24 letter naming
Head Start		0.00 vocabulary
Even Start		0.00 vocabulary
Nurse Practitioner Partnership		0.09 reading & math test scores
State standards		0.00 mathematics
Curriculum comparisons
More effective math curricula		0.30 mathematics
Most effective preschool curricula		0.48 vocabulary
Most effective dropout preventions		1.00 progressing in school
Most effective early reading programs		0.80 alphabetics

 

 

 Anyone interested in, “doing what works for the kids,” should pay attention to this table. The particular point estimates of effect sizes are not important, but the general range and magnitude of effects is. Curriculum effects are large compared to most popular policy levers.  

This is not to say that curriculum reforms should be pursued instead of efforts to create more choice and competition through charters, or to reconstitute the teacher workforce towards higher levels of effectiveness, or to establish high quality, intensive, and targeted preschool programs, all of which have evidence of effectiveness. It is to say that leaving curriculum reform off the table or giving it a very small place makes no sense. Let’s do what works for the kids …

 The Brookings Study has already created a flurry of comment, see Debra Viadero at Inside School Research and Curriculum Matters at Education Week.

 

Linda Perlstein over at the EWA blog goes even further in regard to Obama’s claim re: the impact of teacher quality, and, has generated some real interesting comments.

 

In his education speech to the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce in March, President Obama said, “From the moment students enter a school, the most important factor in their success is not the color of their skin or the income of their parents. It’s the person standing at the front of the classroom.”

To put it bluntly: “He’s wrong.”

  

Perhaps, coincidently E. D. Hirsch’s new book, The Making of Americans: Democracy and Our Schools, has just been released. (See reviews here). Hirsch’s position is clear,

 

…the core problem with American education is that educational theorists, especially in the early grades, have for the past sixty years rejected academic content in favor of “child-centered” and “how-to” learning theories that are at odds with how children really learn.

  

Although principals can chose from a range of Support Organizations the preferred  methodology cuts across the system: the workshop model is the pedagogy of choice, in fact, in many schools deviance is considered grounds for unsatisfactory ratings.

 

One of the blurbs on the back cover of the Hirsch is by NYC Chancellor Joel Klein,

 

…he not only highlights the ‘knowledge deficit’ that has long impaired our student’s reading abilities, he also explains how this deficiency in undermining the role of education in developing an informed citizenry. With all the talk in Washington about national standards and what it means for a high school student to be ‘college ready’ this book is an essential read.” 

  

Maybe Joel should make it an essential read for his 1450 principals.

The Intractable Power of School Cultures: Why Teachers Resist Chancellors and School Culture Determines Quality Education.

 The Chancellor dubs the new principal on each shoulder with the ceremonial sword of leadership, grants him/her the scepter and the orb, and they stride onto the stage before the faculty, who snickers at the ermine clothed principal. Leadership is earned, not granted.

 

A just released report by Public Agenda finds that 40% of teachers nationally define themselves as “disheartened.”

 

the Disheartened, … which accounts for 40 percent of K-12 teachers in the United States, tend to have been teaching longer and be older than the Idealists. More than half teach in low-income schools. They are more likely to voice high levels of frustration about the school administration, disorder in the classroom, and an undue focus on testing. Only 14 percent rated their principals as “excellent” at supporting them as teachers …

 

I would say that the percent of the “disheartened” is much larger in New York City. An unintended consequence of the Joel Klein “reform” agenda has been to alienate teachers, create toxic school cultures and empower the teacher union both at the school and the city-wide level. Randi Weingarten’s brilliance has been to seize upon the discontent of her members and build strong, adversarial union chapters in schools and a powerful force on the city stage.

 

School culture is the behind-the-scenes context that reflects the values, beliefs, norms, traditions, and rituals that build up over time as people in a school work together.

It influences not only the actions of the school population, but also its motivations and spirit (Peterson, 1999).

One of the ironies is that union activism and collegial school cultures are an inverse function. A highly effective school with a totally collaborative culture has a school secretary as the chapter leader, whose sole role is to post union notices on the bulletin board.  Another school that uses lead teachers instead of assistant principals, a school in which teachers design and run the professional development, elects a chapter leader with little actual function. Schools with vibrant active chapters are frequently schools with toxic school cultures.

School cultures are thought to be located on a continuum, ranging from bureaucratic to collegial culture. And there is one type of school culture known as the “toxic culture” that is a death knell for longevity of teaching careers and an instigator of high teacher turnover in a school. The toxic culture is evident in a negative ambience where dissatisfaction is highly palpable.

Beginners in isolated settings soon abandon their initial humanistic notions about tending to students’ individual needs in favor of a routine technical culture characterized by a more custodial view, where order is stressed over learning, and where students are treated more impersonally, punitively and distrustfully. (Rosentholtz, 1991, p 73)

The Klein model lauds their increases in standardized test scores and graduation rates and points to an emphasis on accountability, the empowerment of principals and a focus on data through the Inquiry Team approach. In reality they have created toxic school cultures.

The disastrous NAEP math scores in New York State have deflated the claims of success by the chancellor. The widespread use of highly suspect unregulated credit recovery school-based programs question graduation rate figures. The State Ed Department has proposals before it to “tighten up” credit recovery.

Only 57% of 8th graders, as per Department data, with a score of 3.0 (proficient) on the State ELA test graduate within four years. Dropout rates in the City University (CUNY) system among NYC high school graduates are staggering.  The phasing out of the local diploma and replacement by the Regents diploma has NOT prepared students for college and especially for the highly competitive world of work.

Thomas Friedman in his NY Times column, quoting author Daniel Pink hits the “nail on the head,”

In a world in which more and more average work can be done by a computer, robot or talented foreigner faster, cheaper “and just as well,” vanilla doesn’t cut it anymore. It’s all about what chocolate sauce, whipped cream and cherry you can put on top. So our schools have a doubly hard task now — not just improving reading, writing and arithmetic but entrepreneurship, innovation and creativity.

Bottom line: We’re not going back to the good old days without fixing our schools as well as our banks.

Principals are empowered by their staffs not by the Leadership Academy. Highly effective schools are schools in which the line between supervisor and teacher, between leaders and the lead are blurred. School cultures cannot be imposed. Angry, disheartened teachers close their doors and go through the motions. They may produce adequate scores on standardized tests, but, are they creating educated students? Students prepared to compete in this new economy?

“Accountable” schools and data-driven classroom instruction is not antithetical to a collegial school culture. Raising the bar so that the advanced eight Regents diploma is the standard requires schools in which the entire staff, from school leader, to teachers, to support staff, all have a voice and a vested interest in the success of all students.

Tom Friedman is absolutely right, we must produce “innovative and creative” students, that can only be done in school with an “innovative and creative” staff.

UFT Contract Negotiations, the Mayoral Election and NAEP Scores: Can Conflicting Interests Create Lemonade Out of Lemons?

Chris Cerf, the politics guy for Klein, and now for the Mayor must have been chortling. At a crucial time in negotiations he places the Steve Brill hatchet job, “Rubber Room” article ripping the UFT in the New Yorker, and now a scathing Nick Kristof op ed in the NY Times. His blackberry is jumping off the table, not with praise and adulation for his political acumen, but about the above the fold article on the front page of the Times highlighting spiraling NAEP Math scores in New York State sinking the Klein-Bloomberg house of cards.

 

The so far $65 million in campaign spending has primarily focused on improvements in education, can you imagine how the Thompson campaign will respond to the NAEP scores (“liar, liar, pants on fire”)?

 

Will a scant 8% point edge in the polls and an expected historic low turnout still result in a Bloomberg victory? No one has any idea. Will the UFT and Working Family Party voters, as they did in the run-off dominate the turnout?  The Bloomberg brain trust has to be squirming, by now, the sages all figured he would have a dominant double digit lead.

 

All this in the midst of a teacher contract negotiations, a contract that ends 10/31/09 (although under the Public Employee Relations Act the current contract remains in full force and effect after expiration).

 

Will Mulgrew, Bloomberg and Klein standing on the steps of City Hall on the Thursday before the November 3rd election day, haggard after an around the clock session, announcing a settlement, be a plus or a minus for Bloomberg?

 

Bloomberg: Any contract that does not eviscerate the union would normally be trashed by the NY Post and the Daily News op ed-ers and editorial writers, but, if they just endorsed Mike can they trash him and risk chasing votes to Thompson? A contract could attract some teacher and parent voters and remove “education” from the first few years of his third term agenda.

 

Mulgrew: The Stimulus package has a year to go and then the City and the State face a fiscal abyss. Locking in a two year salary increase and resolving some other thorny issues would give the union breathing space and assure Mulgrew of a win in his first voting test with the membership.

 

Klein: A contract would be a major loss, he’s on a roll, attacks on tenure, linking evaluation to pupil progress, the ATR pool, principal as CEO, Fair Student Funding are all moving forward, a lengthy, acrimonious contract negotiations would highlight the struggle and push these weighty issues to the national scene.

 

And let’s not forget that the UFT contract has repercussions beyond the environs of the five boroughs.

 

Meryl Tisch and David Steiner: The NAEP scores are a major embarrassment, somebody decided to give retired Commissioner Rick Mills a “gift,” dumbed down standardized tests and Regents exams, it is a scandal. A lengthy conflict-ridden contract fight in NYC is the last thing Tisch-Steiner need, they need cooperation from everyone, especially the teacher unions to ratchet up the state testing system and restore credibility.

 

Duncan: The reauthorization of No Child Left Behind (undoubtedly with a new name) is a major plank in the Obama-Duncan legacy, and he needs the national unions on board. A lingering battle in the largest city in the nation would be a disaster.

 

With only two weeks till election day is a settlement possible/inevitable?

 

A new contract in New Haven, lauded by Randi Weingarten, and, surprisingly, the Wall Street Journal, includes pupil achievement data in a teacher evaluation plan,

 

The contract sets out a new teacher evaluation system, one that will include student progress as a component. Only part of that component will be student test results, both parties agree, and the new contract establishes a labor-management committee to determine what constitutes “student progress” and how much weight it should be given in evaluations. The new contract also establishes high-quality intervention through a peer assistance and review program staffed by full-time, union-selected educators, and reaffirms tenure and the principle of fair dismissal for educators.

  

Is a form of the New Haven contract possible in NYC?

  

One of the 2009 UFT “Bargaining Goals” calls for the assignment of four mediators to assist in the resolution of 3020a (discharge) cases. With forty years of case law both sides can predict the outcome of cases. Well over half of the teachers in rubber rooms will eventually resolve cases before the trial, now they wait many months, sometimes more than a year before the case is resolved. The Klein administration has been willing to absorb the costs for the political benefits, maybe Bloomberg won’t.

 

The ATR pool, driven by the decision not to permanently place excessed teachers has created a “pool” of over a thousand teachers serving temporarily in schools and costing over $100 million a year. The 2007 District 79 Reorganization Agreement, currently embedded in the contract, might offer guidance for a plan to reduce the numbers in the ATR pool. 

 

It is not uncommon for contracts to create the frameworks for the settlement of difficult or complex issues (see Article 17 F of the UFT Contract, “Voluntary Severance for Excessed Personnel”), even if time runs out before the details can be hammered out.

 

Ultimately it’s Mike Bloomberg’s decision: a timely contract that includes a salary increase and moves toward the settlement of ATR pool,  ”rubber room” and Fair Student Funding could garner Bloomberg votes in the short run and create the beginnings of an alliance … perhaps Bloomberg/Mulgrew leading and engaging Tisch/Steiner and Duncan on a state and national stage.

Ouchi v Senge: Which Management Guru Should Guide NYC School Reform? Are There Lessons from the Just-Announced Nobel Prize Winners?

 Urban school systems are complex organizations, in NYC almost fifteen hundreds schools, separate quasi-independent organizations that have had innumerable management systems imposed by superintendents and chancellors.

 

The current iteration, for lack of a better term let’s call them the “Klein Years” began with the folding of the thirty-two community districts and the high school districts into ten mega pre-k-12 regions. A few years later, strongly influenced by the writings of William Ouchi the Department recast itself into the current format. Klein has frequently referred to the influence of Professor Ouchi , a professor of management at UCLA and his 2003 book “Making Schools Work.”

 

His research finds that the schools that consistently performed best also had the most decentralized management systems, in which individual principals — and not administrators in a central office — controlled school budgets and personnel.

  

A problem with the Klein-Ouchi model is the chimera, the illusion of the “bad, old centralized” bureaucracy versus the sleek, new decentralized school system. By my calculation, under the “old” system,  85-90% of teachers were hired by principals or school-based SBO committees, not assigned by the bureaucracy or by the union transfer plan. The thirty-two school districts varied greatly as far as central office controls over curricula. As far as budgets are concerned principals have “controlled their budgets” for as long as I can remember. There aren’t too many choices!!  Over 90% of  a school’s budget is used to pay teachers.

 

In reality Ouchi has been used as “cover” for a school management system that is more controlling then any in memory. While principals can select from among 14 school support organizations the differences among the organizations are meager.

 

Teachers are collectors of student achievement data, consumers of periodic assessments and in most schools required to use the “workshop” model in classroom instruction. All is driven toward achieving higher standardized test scores, measured by the School Progress Report, and guided by the Quality Review. The system has stripped schools of art and music and physical education, and, teacher after teacher describes “joyless” classrooms, using proprietary packages all geared to “the test.”

 

The network leaders within the support organizations and the superintendents, actually drivers of the Inquiry Team process, work with principals to ”support” a rigid, top-down management system, in reality antithetical to the essence of Ouchi.

 

Teachers have no “ownership” of their work, teacher collaboration is not encouraged or appreciated, in too many schools principals manage by edict trying to impose a set of core principals imposed by “on high.”

 

In the huge system that is NYC some principals manage to operate under the radar and involve staff in the myriad decisions that schools face. Chancellors invent, the few circumvent.

 

While principals generally bask in the illusion of power teachers sullenly plod under the yoke of a system, that unfortunately is not preparing students for post secondary education. By the Department’s own data only 57% of students with an 8th grade ELA score of 3.0 (proficient) graduate in four years. The college dropout rates in the NYC CUNY colleges among NYC public school graduates are appalling. The standards for entry into a four year CUNY school is the advanced diploma, earned, after excluding the entry-exam high schools, by students numbering in the single digits!!

 

Joel selected the wrong guru! Perhaps he would have been better served had he selected Peter Senge, author is the 1990 classic, The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization, followed by The Dance of Change: The Challenge to Sustaining Momentum in Learning Organizations, and Schools That Learn: A Fifth Discipline Field Book for Educators, Parents and Everyone Who Cares About Education.

 

Senge’s vision,

 

Our traditional views of leaders – as special people who set the direction, make key decisions, energize the troops – are deeply rooted in an individualistic and non systemic world view … great men (and occasionally women) who “rise to the fore” in the times of crises … they reinforce a focus on short-term events and charismatic heroes rather than on systemic forces and collective learning.

 

The new view of leadership in learning organizations centers on subtler and more important tasks. In a learning organization, leaders are designers, stewards, and teachers. They are responsible for building organizations where people continually expand their capabilities to understand complexity, clarify vision, and improve shared mental models – that is – they are responsible for learning. (5th Discipline, p. 340).

 

The just-announced Nobel Prize winners in Economics, again erodes the philosophical underpinning of the “Klein Years,” a school system that has created another parallel system of charter schools, in direct competition with public schools. A Milton Friedman model of the marketplace as the determiner of success or failure. Closing “failing” schools, opening new “small” schools with the threat of faux highly successful, unrestrained by the limitations of union contracts, charter schools haunting public schools.

 

The two Nobel Prize winners in Economics, Elinor Ostrom and Oliver E. Williamson provide an interesting counterpoint. Summarizing their findings the award announcement said:

 

Rules that are imposed from the outside or unilaterally dictated by powerful insiders have less legitimacy and are more likely to be violated. Likewise monitoring and enforcement work better when conducted by insiders than by outsiders. These principles are in stark contrast to the common view that monitoring and sanctions are the responsibility of the state and should be conducted by public employees.

 

Talking with an experienced teacher she told me,

 

Adults come up to me in the street, and recite a poem we learned in the fifth grade, or tell me I took them to art museum for the first time and they still go. I had them create a work of art, write essays reviewing other students work, our music teacher taught them to read music. Now our Leadership Academy principal has eliminated art and music and joy from classrooms. I don’t expect an adult to run up to me in the street and praise the McGraw-Hill test prep book. I’m optimistic that this too will pass … I just can’t wait to much longer and neither can my students.

Collaboration and Justice Potter Stewart: Can the Department of Education “Principal As CEO Model” and the Union “Defend Contract Rights Model” Be Reconciled?

 

There is general agreement that principals, parents and teachers working together is desirable, State Ed Department regulations establish School and District Leadership Teams and the regulations are now embedded in the new governance law.

 

Management supports collaboration within the Jack Welch/Bill Ouchi accountability framework, working together with parents and teachers as long as the arrow of accountability does not detract from the ultimate responsibility of the principal.

 

The union sees collaboration as the elected union chapter leader sitting at the table as an equal partner.

 

So, how do we define collaboration?

 

Perhaps the same definition as Judge Potter Stewart used to define pornography,

  

I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that. [Emphasis added.] Justice Potter Stewart concurring in Jacobellis v. Ohio (1964)   The “I know it when I see it” test.   I’ve visited Eric Nadelstern’s former school many times, a truly collaborative environment, a staff, supervisors and teachers, working together to drive an effective educational team approach to teaching and learning.   I was a guest at an SLT meeting at JHS 234, the principal, Jeff Lotto told the team, “I really don’t think it’ll work, but everyone else feels strongly about it, let’s give it a try and monitor progress.” The issue has faded in my memory, but the attitude of the principal made an impression. Trust in the opinions of teachers and parents: a true collaborative spirit.   On the other hand, a principal at an SLT meeting spending the entire meeting surreptitiously texting and not participating in any discussion.   The union can be equally at fault: the principal at a middle school and the staff agreed that the kids were too disruptive moving from classroom to classroom. The principal asked the teachers to spend a few minutes during passing in the hallway chasing the kids into their classroom. About a third actively participated, about a third intermittently and the final third complained to the UFT Chapter Leader, the suggestion was “hall patrol” and prohibited by the contract. The Chapter Leader, with the support of the union middle management vehemently complained to the principal. The Chapter Leader told the staff if anyone went into the hallways they were undercutting the union. When the principal asked for other ideas the Chapter Leader responded that wasn’t the job of the union, the union simply enforced the contract.   An accountability driven school system in which 97% of school received grades of “A” and “B” is laughable, the true Lake Woebegon effect. While some are critical of “testing,” let’s remember, we have been testing kids for as long as I can remember, Diane, when did city-wide testing begin in NYC? We argued over norm versus criterion-based tests, the accountability function was at the district level. Schools purchased “test sophistication” materials and practice, practice, practice for the months before “the test.”   Now, goals, objectives, printouts, interim assessments, predictors, inquiry teams, all designed to improve scores on tests, and, effectively discouraging any innovative thinking and any collaboration.   While collaboration may be a tool in achieving a goal I have never seen such enmity toward  principals and the Department leadership from teachers.   In an excellent article in the AFT magazine American Educator collaboration is described,   When teachers advise each other, consult with experts, think deeply about new ways to teach the material, and examine in a systematic way …. They are working in schools that have the structure and systems in place that make collaboration meaningful.   Randi Weingarten and Eric Nadelstern agree on more than they disagree. How do we free Eric from some of the misguided policies of Joel Klein and free Randi from decades of a tough, defend the contract, conflict driven culture of the teacher union? How to we get Randi and Eric, and Michael, to collaborate?   The easiest road would be to negotiate salary increases and nothing else, the pitted, twisting, road would be to take on the issues that divide management and labor and use the contract to move a system closer to the culture that Eric established as a principal with his staff.   It will take courage and is risky for management and labor. Too many principals lack collaborative skills and use the threat of U-ratings to impose their ideas and too many teachers fear anyone peeking into their classrooms.   Real leaders are risk takers and I hope that Randi and Michael and Eric take this window to leap across the abyss and move a school system in a different direction.