UNITY'S ED IN THE APPLE ON THE UFT CONTRACT

Retired Unity Caucus leader Peter Goodman writes the Ed in the Apple blog. It is sometimes useful to read Ed in the Apple to see what the union hierarchy is thinking.

Goodman wrote a long piece on Saturday explaining the contract negotiating process. He does provide some detail but not much will be unfamiliar to the readers here. Goodman understands that our contract's financial parameters are set through pattern bargaining. ICEUFT has reported on how DC 37 set a pattern for the civilian municipal labor force of 7.25% salary increases over 44 months. The UFT is not beating the basic pattern without givebacks.

Where Goodman's piece becomes interesting is when he delves into the non-financial parts of the contract.

He writes:

Managerial Prerogatives : The most difficult section of the contract will be the issue of managerial prerogatives; how far is the Department of Education (DoE) willing to go in the area of distributive leadership, for example, the number of lesson observations, including the union in day to day operation of schools, “cultural” disputes at the school level, etc. The current contract allows schools to modify sections of the contract and section of DoE regulations.

 Of all the breakthrough ideas in the 2014 contract, none has more potential to empower teachers and their school communities than the PROSE initiative. PROSE stands for Progressive Redesign Opportunity Schools for Excellence, and the opportunities for redesign at the heart of this program are predicated on the UFT’s core belief that the solutions for schools are to be found within school communities, in the expertise of those who practice our profession.

I’m sure the union wants to expand the PROSE concept.

Would the Department agree to “carve out” an autonomy district?  A remnant of the Bloomberg structure remains, there are 150 or so schools that work with not-for-profit organizations (The Internationals Network, New Visions for Public Schools, The Urban Assembly) these schools are called affinity schools and operate under the same superintendents and have some autonomy. They are mostly small high schools.

Since arriving in the spring the chancellor has not addressed questions of autonomy and accountability. He is adding another layer of accountability by adding executive superintendents above the traditional local superintendents (See presser describing new structure here)

On one hand the Department appears to be moving in the accountability direction and away from the autonomy direction, on the other hand the union clearly wants to move towards more distributive leadership in schools, more towards autonomy.

I really don't believe that having more schools that agree to waive parts of the UFT contract is right now the key to expanding learning as the contract is to a large extent a useless piece of paper in too many schools. Goodman, on the other hand, cites Eric Nadelstern, a Joel Klein era Deputy Chancellor, to make his point.

I thought having a faculty govern the school was important because if you give teachers agency, they will do everything they can to make sure kids succeed. In an urban area like New York, that’s the only way you’re going to get teachers to work hard enough to be successful. You can’t pay them enough, you can’t cajole them enough, you can’t scare them enough. You just give them more ownership of effort and then they will do it.

So, we will only do everything we can to make sure kids succeed if we are running the school. Otherwise, teachers won't work hard enough for kids to be successful. Am I reading this properly? I once had a conversation with NY Post reporter Yoav Gonen in which he asked me how much merit pay would it take to make a difference in student learning outcomes? I laughed and said most of us don't do this job for more money but do it because we truly care about helping the kids. Any teacher who is motivated only by some extra bucks probably isn't the best teacher in the world. 

For the record, I fully support teachers being involved in governing schools. It can be very helpful but I personally toiled just as diligently for the students at Jamaica High School over 18 years as Chapter Leader when there were principals who hated me as when there were others who wanted to work collegially with the UFT Chapter. Middle College High School, where I worked for my final 3.5 years, has a bit of that collaborative atmosphere. It is a PROSE school in the Affinity district. This model has great potential but most teachers I worked with over the decades went the extra mile or two for the kids no matter how the school was run. 

Yes, we want ownership but sane administrators in every school who adhere to the contract would be a giant leap forward in creating a healthy learning environment in NYC schools. Setting up decent teaching and learning conditions would include lower class size, lower guidance caseloads, a realistic and enforceable school safety plan in each school, placing teachers in schools where they want to work, fewer observations and an end to the anti-teacher gotcha mentality many administrators have. Our collective judgement  needs to be respected again as it was somewhat when I started 32 years ago. Some of this would cost no money. Just making more PROSE schools I don't think will do much.