Does Klein seriously believe that eliminating seniority rights would fix the maldistribution of experienced teachers? There is no question that low-performing schools have more inexperienced teachers. That’s been true for years, all over the country. But he’s made it a real sticking point in contract talks. And the solution he’s come up with is just so like him: “Give principals the power.” He wants to eliminate teachers’ ability to move within the system.
That is not going to happen, Chancellor. And for good reason, make that reasons.
- Teachers won’t go for it
- It won’t solve the problem
- It’s not the issue.
There were only 515 seniority transfers last year. (That’s 7/10ths of one percent of teachers, to be precise.) Of those, as we testified in the fact-finding hearing, exactly 47, net, transferred from low-performing to high-performing schools.
Many seniority transfers appear to be motivated by a desire for a better commute. Other reasons may include transfers to schools that are better fits for a teacher’s instructional style. At any rate, the transfers aren’t much of factor in distribution of experience.
But forcing teachers to stay in a school, or go to a school they don’t want to teach in, is obviously a recipe for disaster. Teachers have options, and I bet many would quit rather than be subject to such a policy.
What’s behind the uneven distribution of teacher experience is pretty plain. The weak schools have the least experienced teachers because their teachers keep quitting. They have to replace them with new hires, who then quit when they realize what a mess they’ve walked into–and so on.
Most teachers go into teaching to teach. If they have oversized classes, spend half their time breaking up fights, and get barraged by inane directives from administrators, they don’t stay. Most are too new to get into the most sought-after schools. They just leave.
Fix the schools and you fix the distribution problem. Voila. Now how about that contract….
26 Comments:
1 a-realist
· Aug 22, 2005 at 1:14 pm
Maisie,
Wonderfully expressed!
2 sjeffries
· Aug 22, 2005 at 5:33 pm
It strikes me as absurd to suggest that it’s a non-issue for principals to have the authority — seemingly basic to organizational management — to assign teachers to their highest and most productive use. Principals, as managers, need the flexibility to assign teachers on the basis of their skills and the extent to which their skill set coincides with the needs of a particular school. An over-arching, bureaucratic rule rigidly requiring one factor, by itself, to dictate personnel assignment, makes little sense. More importantly, it dis-serves the interests of children. And that criterion should be the sole benchmark by which we evaluate the entirety of how schools are managed.
3 curious2
· Aug 22, 2005 at 6:47 pm
Thanks sjeffries! I couldn’t agree more. Why do teachers think that their organizations are immune to the basic concepts of organizational management? What would happen to our society if every sector functioned based on seniority and tenure? Teachers ARE professionals, but like professionals in other sectors they should be accountable to a manager. If they don’t want that accountability, they should start their own school (analagous to a doctor running his own practice) or become a private tutor.
4 Maisie
· Aug 22, 2005 at 10:17 pm
You all ought to try working as a teacher in the NYC school system for a few years and then see if you still feel as you do now.
5 Wagga
· Aug 22, 2005 at 11:44 pm
Let me provide a little “reality rub” for curious2 and sjeffries. As a newly licensed JHS English teacher, I was assigned to teach arts and crafts, art and social studies in my first term of teaching. So let’s cut the crap: “Principals, as managers, need the flexibility to assign teachers on the basis of their skills and the extent to which their skill set coincides with the needs of a particular school.” It wasn’t until the union interceded and I could exercise my “seniority rights” that I finally got to teach my first English class in the following school year. The principal assigned me based on his desire to protect the job of his friend who was teaching English without the proper license.
6 Maisie
· Aug 23, 2005 at 10:50 am
See what I mean? Wagga’s story is unfortunately way too common.
7 curious2
· Aug 23, 2005 at 10:58 am
Maisie,
Yours is a typical argument that I hear: “You don’t teach here so you don’t know.” I know many, many teachers in the NYC system and I think I know enough to offer advice. Why should our public schools operate so differently than the rest of our society, especially given their failure to provide the level of service our communities demand? Look around, Maisie, and see how things work. Find a company whose product or services you admire and learn how they operate. You will see that they rely on managers to make judgments and decisions to guide an organization. I want to convince you, because I think you are part of the solution.
8 curious2
· Aug 23, 2005 at 11:10 am
Wagga,
That sounds awful. You may be the victim of a bad principal. An organization won’t perform well with bad leadership. People will quit or be fired. They will go to organizations with good management. Perhaps you should try to do the same.
No system is perfect, but almost every organization in the U.S. has discovered that success involves good management that is allowed to make judgments and decisions. The answer is NOT to take that power away from management to protect against the risk of a bad manager. Find a product or service that you admire, maybe Apple or Google or Starbucks or Whole Foods or whatever else, and find out how they operate. I would be surprised if managers there can’t make judgments about the people that report to them.
Two questions for you: 1. Why should you have “seniority rights”? These don’t exist in most modern organizations because they don’t necessarily reward the best people. Shouldn’t we choose our teachers based on how well they can teach our children? 2. Why should teachers need “proper licenses” if they are able to perform the role well without those licenses?
9 Maisie
· Aug 23, 2005 at 5:37 pm
Curious 2: I really appreciate your constructive approach, but I do think there is a big difference between running a school and running a microprocessor company, say, or another particularly entrepreneurial private-sector operation. Schools need stability, trust, and a professional teaching culture to work well. The managers in schools are too often not teachers, or they don’t have the trust and respect of their staffs. That’s one side of it. The other is that evaluating a teacher is a lot different than evaluating a product manager. The measures are completely slippery and unpredictable–kids. I get tired of hearing that we should just apply the lessons of private industry to the school system. It tends to romanticize the efficiencies of private industry, first off, and the management lessons of industry are just not perfectly transferrable to public school children. But please keep blogging.
10 curious2
· Aug 24, 2005 at 8:57 am
Hey Maisie,
Thanks for the reply. A few comments:
1. I think all service organizations require stability, trust, and talented, hard-working, knowledgable people to thrive — not just public schools. I don’t understand your distinction.
2. I am not sure how you explain the success of private schools that don’t have tenure, seniority, etc. I would be curious to hear your explanation.
3. You write “evaluating a teacher is a lot different than evaluating a product manager”. It is generally very difficult to evaluate anyone in any organization. This is not unique to the public schools. Generally, it requires someone to make imperfect judgments. This tends to be better than making no judgments at all. Most people with managers are somewhat concerned about those judgments, but they rarely argue that judgments shouldn’t be made. If they don’t want to be judged they usually try to find an opportunity in which they have no manager. And again, why are private schools able to succeed with conventional approaches to teacher evaluation, i.e. judgment, and without unusual work rules, tenure, seniority, etc.?
11 a-realist
· Aug 24, 2005 at 9:15 pm
Gee, I will respond to statement 2 in regard to why private schools succeed somewhat better than public schools.
Firstly, distruptive students are quickly eliminated in Catholic or private schools. Poor and disrespectful behavior is just not tolerated. In a Catholic school If a student becomes a regular behavioral challenge for the teacher and distrupts the learning process for all, the parents will be asked to remove the student permanently. I am trained to handle distruptive students and do the best I can using a mixture of rewards, penalties, parental phone calls, school counselors, and other avenues available to me. In the end, that student remains in the school only to continue to distrupt the learning process for the others. Now, I am not complaining because I consider this to be part of the “nature of the beast,”
but we teachers in the public school system are very tolerant souls, indeed. Secondly, private schools do have a selection process before a student is accepted within the school. The private schools gets the option of accepting or rejecting an applicant. Public schools have no such policy. We accept and work with ALL STUDENTS. Which is fine, we should. My point is that one cannot make a realistic comparison between private and public school success rates.
I must end this with the following example:
A new Academy was begun in a school. The students were hand selected before being a dmitted to the school. The most important criteria was that the applicant must have an excellent attendance record without exception. After the first year the principal declared the new small school a great success. It was announced at a large meeting that the school was a success and an example of what could be done within a small school atmosphere. The principal explained that the high attendance rate was proof that this school was a success for its students.
12 InstitutionalMemory
· Aug 24, 2005 at 10:33 pm
Was the school song “We’re here because we’re here because we’re here because we’re here?”
13 sixblindmen
· Aug 25, 2005 at 5:56 am
August 25, 2005 — The United Federation of Teachers isn’t big on accountability.
To say the least.
It doesn’t want incompetent teachers held accountable (i.e., fired) for failing at their jobs. And it doesn’t want to accept any blame for the way the UFT contract gums up the school system.
In fact, you could say the union’s entire mission boils down to a crusade against accountability.
Now it has taken its crusade into cyberspace, with a Web log (blog) dubbed EdWize (edwize.org).
Appropriately enough, the UFT not only refuses to be held accountable for the problems in the schools, it refuses to be held accountable for anything said on its own blog.
Just check out this notice, posted on the site’s front page:
“Disclaimer: EdWize is sponsored by the United Federation of Teachers (UFT) as a place where members, public education advocates and others can express opinions in an effort to establish an agora of informed commentary on public education and labor issues. The views expressed here are not necessarily the official views of the UFT, New York State United Teachers or the American Federation of Teachers. Anyone who claims otherwise is violating the spirit and purpose of this blog.”
So, the UFT can push its anti-Mayor-Bloomberg, anti-Chancellor-Joel-Klein, pro-giant-raise-for-no-extra-work agenda on a blog, but inferring that these are the UFT’s official views violates the blog’s “spirit and purpose”?
That’s an interesting concept.
So far, in the blog’s short life, it has posts: pointing to UFT President Randi Weingarten’s comments on the contract; blasting the idea of assigning more experienced teachers to tough schools; complaining about how teachers in the suburbs are paid more; opposing merit pay; attacking charter schools, and comparing Wal-Mart executives to “war criminals.”
But these aren’t necessarily the views of the union.
Right.
The UFT can certainly promote its views in any way it sees fit. Open debate can only be healthy.
But maybe the union should take a little responsibility — if only in cyberspace.
14 get_me_a_contract
· Aug 25, 2005 at 1:58 pm
I am so damned tired of the analogy that schools need to operate like corporate America—
Which corporation should I choose?
–Enron?
–Adelphia?
–World Com?
–Tyco?
–Arthur Andersen?
All this stuff about how well corporate America functions is such propaganda.
Think of all the “well-run” companies that ended up bankrupt–
–Pan Am…
–Polaroid?
–Kmart?
and the list can go on and on. I think even Quaker Oats has been in bankruptcy several times.
My point is this–stop making corporate America to be the role model. Do we want our schools to end up like Enron? Posters like curiosity2 may know a couple of teachers in the DOE, but they don’t really have much of a clue as to the abuses that take effect under our contract. Remove those protections and what you will find is that corruption will become rife. Doesn’t anyone remember what the community school boards were like?
Also, as for administrators being managers–why would an excellent teacher want to leave the classroom. I would say that some principals, AP’s and so on are excellent, but many are mean-spirited, petty people who only want to pass the buck.
Yes, we do need to get rid of ineffective teachers. It affects every teacher and every student in the system, but don’t ever think that treating the schools like corporate America will solve our problems.
Never forget that all those wonderful managers in the Roslyn SD had a blast stealing funds from the kids….and it took years to catch up with them…..
15 curious2
· Aug 25, 2005 at 3:58 pm
Hey get_me_a_contract,
Enron, Adelphia, Worldcom, Tyco, and Arthur Andersen are all either out of business, restructured, or under new management. The old management of several of these companies are on their way to jail. Capitalism doesn’t lead to a perfect world, but, when functioning effectively, it generally evolves to eliminate ineffective or corrupt enterprises.
We don’t want our schools to end up like Enron, a company that no longer exists — we want them to end up more like all of the tremendously effective organizations that provide everything from the shoes you are wearing on your feet to the computer you are using to read this posting.
Your arguments are common ones: point out failures in a capitalist system to prove the failure of capitalism. You have it backwards: failures in a capitalist system generally demonstrate the success of capitalism.
If public education allowed for more choice, fewer rules on how to operate a school, and allowed bad schools to fail more easily, over time we would get rid of the Enrons and have more Googles.
Meanwhile, I have never heard anyone say that ANYTHING should be run more like public schools.
Finally, I think we agree on the need to get rid of ineffective teachers. Are you OK with the idea of getting rid of tenure? It would be great to find some common ground.
16 curious2
· Aug 25, 2005 at 4:01 pm
Hey a-realist,
You discuss a significant difference between public schools and most private schools. Why does this difference argue for tenure and seniority in public schools? I would think it would argue against it: if the student populations at public schools are more difficult, don’t we need to focus even more on the merit, rather than age, of the teachers? Sounds to me like private schools would be better able to cope with the burdens of tenure and seniority since they don’t have the most challenging students.
17 get_me_a_contract
· Aug 25, 2005 at 6:38 pm
Curious2–
No, I am not for getting rid of tenure. You are stuck in a weird mindset. I am a capitalist and not even left-wing. You seem to think that the corporate model is the paragon of life. I pointed out all those failures because the corporate model is not an appropriate model for public school.
First–about tenure–without giving away too much (I wish to remain anonymous–I, like most NYC teachers, fear reprisals…the Klein/Bloomberg adminstration is very vindictive). Basically, I worked at a very racially charged school before I had a seniority transfer and went to another school (and then learned that not all schools are so volatile). In that school, there were locals from the community–and appointed administrators who wanted to purge the schools of those teachers who were not members of a minority group.
Tenure protects teachers from politics…and thus protects students. It allows us to speak up for our students…..it protects teachers from the arbitrary and sometimes vindictive actions of administrators and school boards.
Do I think that it should be easier to fire ineffective teachers? Yes. Do I think that it should be easier to fire incompetent chancellors? Absolutely.
Now–back to your dreams of a corporate America-like administration of schools. Schools don’t produce products. Teachers don’t deal with abstract objects or ideas. We deal with people…young people.
Do you know that I have had my tires slashed more than once (I am a popular teacher, too!)? I have had my car keyed, too. I have been threatened, cursed at, and even been pushed by a student (the administration of that school felt that I should have backed down and never reported it….and the chapter chair was incompetent). I know of teachers who have been sexually harassed by students, too–and of gay teachers (I am not gay, but know a few in my school) who have been threatened and more. Is your office air conditioned? My school (except for the principal’s office) is not. It is not fun to be there on a hot day. You know what it is like when the xerox machine in school is broken? This happens all the time. I keep a ream of paper in my car, too, because sometimes the school runs out of paper.
People who work in fancy offices in midtown (who are very generously compensated) face none of this….
And as for the 6 hour and 40 minute day–I spend another 4 – 5 hours doing lessons, correcting papers and I never leave work on time anyway (I am tutoring kids or what not).
And yes, I have mostly great students who I adore and love teaching.
And the physical conditions we work under– I have one file cabinet drawer to store all my belongings (and school supplies). Last year I taught in three different classrooms (all on different floors). I don’t have a desk. I don’t have a phone. I share one computer with 25 other teachers. I don’t have a place to hang my coat. Anything I leave behind in a classroom disappears the next day (night school!) I spend a fortune buying school supplies. I taught in a classroom with a whiteboard, and by April, the school had run out of money (pilfered by the chancellor) to buy supplies…so I had to buy my own whiteboard pens. I spent over $50 on pens from April to June…
You know we are now directed on how to teach (or how not to teach). We are required to use the workshop model. We only can give 5 minute mini-lessons. The students cannot learn under these circumstances but still we must do what we are told (thank God for tenure…I only use the workshop model when I know that the suits are in the building). We are even directed on how to seat our students (no rows!)…the students love rows. They hate group work every day.
So–management knows best? Top down management is a crock in the schools. Joel Klein has no idea about how to improve education…..and forcing all teachers to use the workshop model is appalling.
If I am ever caught teaching without the workshop model, I can get a “U”. I am willing to risk that for my students. WIthout tenure, my students wouldn’t have a chance.
Why don’t you join the NYC DOE and teach for a year? See what you think about the management of the schools. See what you think about tenure.
Waiting for your response.
18 curious2
· Aug 26, 2005 at 8:34 am
Thanks for the thoughtful reply, get_me_a_contract. I have several comments:
1. The solution to bad management is changing management, not preventing management from managing. The job of changing management flows up to the mayor who, in turn, is accountable to the voters. Bloomberg will easily win reelection in part because of his efforts with our public schools. You should work to publicize the incompetent job that you think the mayor is doing in running the schools. I am guessing that the union will try to do this, although to date they have been highly ineffective. I think they have been ineffective because, in truth, the mayor has done a very good job. I predict that those attacking the mayor will fail badly and the mayor will win in a landslide. Here is a NY Times article from today relevant to our discussion entitled “Democrats May Stress Schools but Can’t Attack the Mayor”. (The article offers test scores as the reason that the mayor has been resistant to attack, but I think this is an oversimplification: voters believe that the mayor is doing an overall good job.)
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/26/nyregion/metrocampaigns/26education.html
If management is bad in an organization and we react by making it impossible to fire and reposition teachers, it is going to be much more difficult for senior management (e.g. Bloomberg and Klein) to make changes. And it is not up to the teachers union to pick senior management — that is the job of the voters.
2. I am glad that you think it should be easier to fire incompetent teachers. How do you think we should accomplish this? Could you voice your opinion to your union? Could you rally support amongst fellow union teachers to make this change? That would be a tremendous help, get_me_a_contract.
3. There is a very easy way to fire incompetent chancellors — the mayor can do it any time he wants. If the voters think the mayor is doing a bad job, they can fire him through elections.
4. If you don’t like the way in which one or more school is being managed, the long-term answer is not to ignore management. You can confront management, you can try to transfer schools again, you can quit and find a job elsewhere, you can work through the political system to try to get a mayor elected that you think will do a better job, etc.
5. I know that schools don’t produce products. They provide a service just like thousands of other organizations in our country. They deal with kids, just like many other industries that don’t have tenure and seniority. You haven’t produced any arguments as to why public schools are different than other organizations that thrive without tenure and seniority.
6. In general, if you are a good teacher, management won’t want to fire you. You site their possibly vindictive nature as a reason that you need protection. Aren’t there vindictive people in other organizations? Should all organizations with the potential for vindictive management adopt tenure and seniority?
Basically, even though you think “top down management is a crock in the schools”, the vast majority of people (especially voters) think you are completely wrong. That is why Bloomberg likes to say “I was hired to make the schools better. Hold me accountable.” There is no large organization that I know of that works well without some form of “top down management”. Perhaps you can name one (although I can’t think of one), but certainly the vast majority use this organizational structure that you find to be a “crock”.
I know you want to help our kids, get_me_a_contract, but voters want management to be empowered to improve our schools and they want everyone involved, including teachers, to be accountable to someone. With tenure, to whom are you accountable?
19 divina
· Aug 26, 2005 at 8:48 am
If test scores are up, how can the Mayor take credit divorced of the teachers who taught the students? The mayor wasn’t the one teaching the students. The teachers were.
BTW – much of your arguments are based on the assumptions that public schools are a failure. Do you have statistics to back it up? There are many, many fantastic public schools in NYC.
20 get_me_a_contract
· Aug 26, 2005 at 9:09 am
You wrote: You site their possibly vindictive nature as a reason that you need protection…
The actual word is “CITE” as in citation.
Anyway, I don’t know what else I can say to you. You don’t seem to listen to what I am saying. Teaching is a special profession. When we are demeaned by management, the mayor and the press, it filters into the classroom. Students lose respect for us or have none at all.
There are many, many problems with the DOE, but teacher tenure is not one of them. I would say that there are only a few teachers who are incompetent in the system….
My sister is a physician and there are incompetent doctors where she works. They are not fired….they just plod on. There are incompetents everywhere. The DOE is not overrun with incompetent teachers. Moreover, there is accountability built into the system. The children. I mean you get to know the kids and the last thing you want to do is screw them over. Also, there is peer pressure in the schools. Those who are incompetent do feel the wrath of others. In the high school I work in there are about 150 teachers. Maybe 3 or 4 shouldn’t be there. I wouldn’t allow my children to be in their classes. They should be fired. However, that is not what is breaking the system. Do you know why so many teachers leave the system? The working conditions are atrocious. Address that! The pay is awful. Address that. The workshop model (in which teachers are forced not to teach , but to manage and have the students teach themselves) is horrible and counter to everything a teacher stands for.
Remember, a mind is like a parachute. It only works when it is open. Open your mind……
21 a-realist
· Aug 26, 2005 at 10:54 am
Perhaps it is time we teachers presented ourselves as the true professionals that we are. We could begin by eliminating the word “union” and replacing it with the word “association.” In addition, we teachers should get rid of the relaxed dresswear and dress as professionals. Then, we can demand hourly fees for our services similar to other professional associations. So, what I am advocating is a major move by our union to shift the way upper management and the public views teachers. We are professionals and need to present ourselves in that fashion. We are not a union, but a professional association.
22 curious2
· Aug 31, 2005 at 11:20 am
Hey get_me_a_contract,
Of course there are incompetent people in all fields. In most fields, though, there is an ability to fire them. Also, in most fields, management can choose to pay people differently based on their skills and abilities. They can choose to put people in positions that they think will lead to the best results for the organization. They can advance the best performers at a rapid rate. Wouldn’t this help our public schools? If you don’t think seniority and tenure are big issues, would you be OK in getting rid of them in order to get a contract, get_me_a_contract?
Also, thanks for the spelling correction. You are a full-service blogger, get_me_a_contract!
23 a-realist
· Aug 31, 2005 at 4:19 pm
Say, curious2, do you realize that tenure is awarded to a teacher after three years of close supervision and regular observations made within the classroom. So, when a teacher has EARNED tenure, it is only after supervisors and the school principal has given this teacher satisfactory observation ratings over the course of three years. I could even agree to tenure being awarded after four years of teaching service. But let’s face it our good buddy, curious2, if management can’t determine a dud the first three or four years that the employee is on the job, the fault lies not with the union (association) or the emplyee, but with the managers.
*******************************************
“Anything the human mind can concieve it can achieve.” Albert Einstein
24 a-realist
· Aug 31, 2005 at 4:32 pm
EDITED VERSION
Say, curious2, do you realize that tenure is awarded to a teacher after three years of close supervision and regular observations made within the classroom. So, when a teacher has EARNED tenure, it is only after supervisors and the school principal have given this teacher satisfactory observation ratings over the course of three years. I could even agree to tenure being awarded after four years of teaching service. But let’s face it our good buddy, curious2, if management can’t determine a dud the first three or four years that the employee is on the job, the fault lies not with the union (association) or the employee, but with the managers.
*******************************************
“Anything the human mind can concieve it can achieve.� Albert Einstein
25 Edwize » Staffing A High Needs, High Poverty Urban School
· Sep 14, 2005 at 5:30 pm
[...] Filed under: General — Leo Casey @ 5:29 pm "Compare and Contrast": this is a term of art for many a Social Studies teacher, as it is a common device used to stimulate analytical thinking in students. In the spirit of inquiry and investigation, students are asked to identify the similarities and the differences, the continuities and the breaks, and the parallels and the incongruities in the events and phenomena they are studying. It is a practice that can be just as useful in the field of educational policy. Take the issue of how to best staff low performing schools serving a large number of high academic needs students living in poverty. The educational literature tells us that one of the most significant features of low performing schools in such settings is an exceptionally high rate of teacher turnover. The faculties of such schools are disproportionately made up of novice, inexperienced teachers, often without the full certification and licensure other teachers possess and often teaching out of license they do have. Consequently, the school is never able to acquire a sufficient large corps of experienced, accomplished teachers to break out of a cycle of low performance and turnover, as the one feeds the other. For the full analysis, see here and here and here and here. It is instructive to compare and contrast the approaches of Chancellor Klein and the DOE, on the one hand, and Randi Weingarten and the UFT, on the other hand, to this problem. Klein has argued that the way to staff such schools is to end the seniority transfers that allow teachers to transfer from one school for another, and to give the DOE the unfettered authority of involuntary transfer to send teachers to schools without their consent. Klein’s solution does not even address the real problem. As Maisie pointed out here at Edwize, only 515 teachers — not even 1% of all the teachers in NYC public schools — took a seniority transfer last year. Even more significantly, only 47 teachers — a little more than .06% of the total — transferred from a low performing school to a high performing school. By way of contrast, consider that the DOE loses 1 in every 4 new teachers by their second year, and that 1 in every 2 new teachers are gone by the end of their fifth year. Remarkably, the attrition rate is even higher in the DOE’s flagship Teaching Fellows program, despite a first year price tag of over $20,000 per fellow. The Education Committee of the NYC City Council estimated the financial cost of this turnover, in lost investment in human capital, at $187 million a year. No one has even attempted to calculate the educational cost to students, who are taught year after year by novice, inexperienced teachers. Yet since the turnover is not evenly spread throughout the public school system, but concentrated in the high academic needs, high poverty schools, it is the students in those schools which bear the brunt of this problem. It is this massive hemorrhaging of new teachers, this perpetual turnover, and not the rather small numbers of transfers, that is the crux of the problem here. But when was the last time you heard Joel Klein talk about the retention crisis, for crisis it most certainly is, in NYC public schools? Perhaps the silence is so deafening at Tweed because of what the research tells us about the reasons for new teachers leaving the profession, nationally and in NYC. These teachers tell a story of being denied the most elementary forms of professional and material support from their school administrations and from the school district, of having their professional judgment and voice disregarded and ignored, and of struggling to work in chaotic, often violent school settings. And while they did not go into teaching to become teaching, they have found their meager salaries to bear little relationship to the immense difficulty of the job. [The DOE did its own research study on the retention crisis, Cohort 2001: A Study of the Comings and Goings of New Teachers in New York City Public Schools - February and July 2003, but you have almost certainly never heard of it, and you won’t find it anywhere on the DOE’s website; the conclusions did not fit Joel Klein’s ’seniority transfers are the problem’ spin on this question, and so it has been deep-sixed.] The other horn of the Joel Klein solution is to give the DOE authority of involuntary transfer to send any teacher to any school, especially those schools with autocratic principals that teachers want to leave. It is remarkable how advocates of an unfettered, laissez-faire market like Klein, who often waxes poetic about the virtues of competition and the vices of monopolies in other contexts, turn into little Commissars running the most top-down of command economies when it comes to the internal workings of public education. The problem that Klein has, however, is that the US is not generally a command economy, and the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution has outlawed involuntary servitude, so there is nothing that will keep teachers who are assigned to schools far from their home and run by autocratic principals, in which they do not want to teach, from retiring, from moving to another school district or from leaving teaching altogether. If Klein were successful in denying teachers in New York City public schools the ‘voice’ to have a say in where they work, and in the policies and practices of their school, they will exercise the ‘exit’ option in great numbers, and leave for employers which do provide such choices. The net result of such a command economy option would be to strip New York City of even more experienced teachers, as they flee to the suburbs, and to turn those who felt that they could not leave immediately into unhappy, dissatisfied teachers – hardly a formula for turning around a low-performing school. It is instructive to compare Randi Weingarten’s approach, laid out in some detail a year and a half ago at the UFT Spring Conference commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, to the one advocated by Klein. In order to close the achievement gap, Randi argues, we must build schools with the capacity to educate our neediest students. Consequently, we need to make changes in the organization and culture of the school. Randi takes a look at the positive accomplishments of programs like the UFT’s 1960s More Effective Schools initiative and the Chancellor’s District, and develops a proposal that would include their strongest components. She recognizes the importance of changing school culture by promoting a stable, experienced and collaborative school leadership, and by following closely a clear code of behavior, so the school becomes a safe and orderly place. Academically, she talks about the necessity of lowering class size, especially with at-risk students and especially in the early grades where the foundations are laid, and of providing proven curricula in the fundamental skills areas of English Language Arts and Mathematics. Randi discusses the need for meaningful, school based and classroom driven professional development for teachers. And she cites the need for a program of health, guidance and other social services to address the needs of students and their families, and for active parental involvement in the life of the school. These elements are essential to creating a school which teachers do not leave out of a sense of profound frustration and feelings of powerlessness. One of the reasons why the Campaign for Fiscal Equity lawsuit is so vital for the future of New York City public schools is that it would provide funds of the magnitude necessary to make these changes. That having been done, a program of incentives need to be put into place to attract a solid corps of experienced, accomplished teachers to teach in low-performing, high academic needs schools. Incentives, both material and professional, and not commands, are what work in a market economy such as we have in the United States. Randi proposes that there be a specific salary differential for teachers who choose to teach in a low-performing, high needs schools, on top of a competitive across the board salary for all teachers, to be matched with the efforts to make the school into a professional workplace described above. One program which would be pivotal in turning around low-performing schools is the idea of a lead teacher long advocated by the UFT, a version of which is now being implemented on an experimental basis in the Bronx. Lead teachers are accomplished, experienced teachers, expert in pedagogy and trained in professional development, who agree to work in high needs schools, some of the time as a professional development staff person and some of the time in the classroom, where they can be observed by novice teachers; in return, they receive a salary differential on top of their base salary. The UFT supports the expansion of the Bronx pilot program across the city. Last week, Congressman Charlie Rangel, a long standing Democrat from Harlem, and Teachers’ College President Arthur Levine issued a call for the DOE and the UFT to include salary differentials of up to $10,000 for work in low-performing schools. Since this has been a long-standing proposal of the UFT and Randi Weingarten, we welcomed the call. But those with some glaring edu-gaps in their knowledge about teacher unions seem to think that it is news that the UFT responded positively. So in the interests of learning and knowledge, we have performed this little exercise in “compare and contrast.” [...]
26 steadyeddieg
· Sep 30, 2005 at 11:28 am
What Joel Klein conveniently forgets is that most of our experienced teachers began their careers in the most difficult schools. Due to chaotic working conditions, they transferred out as soon as possible. Could you blame them?
Perhaps, Mr. Klein should be made to transfer back to the classroom from his chancellor’s position. This man taught for 6 months and is now a self-proclaimed expert.
Remember the scene from that great 1956 film THE TEN COMMANDMENTS? As the Hebrews worried, when Moses did not return from the mountain, Dathan said that he’d lead them back to Egypt, where there was food for them. Mr. Klein acts like Dathan. Don’t force people who fled from difficult schools to go back to them. It will not work.