September 27, 2012
CER president Jeanne Allen discusses school choice, education reform, and the new film “Won’t Back Down” with Rod Arquette on Salt Lake City’s KNRS.
New Chicago Contract Ends Lawsuits
September 26, 2012 By
“CPS, teachers end legal battles in new contract”
by Noreen S. Ahmed-Ullah
Chicago Tribune
September 26, 2012
A tentative contract between the Chicago Teachers Union and Chicago Public Schools brings with it closure on lawsuits and labor grievances filed by both sides before and during the seven-day strike, according to a copy of the agreement posted online by the union.
With teachers ending their walkout last week, the union agreed to give up its fight over the 4 percent raise that was eliminated by the district last year because of financial problems. The union also said it would end a protracted legal battle over the layoffs of 1,300 teachers in 2010.
The latter case was before a federal judge after many twists and turns. The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals had sided with the union; then the Illinois Supreme Court backed the district’s position that the laid-off teachers did not have a right to be rehired when jobs opened up. The union has now agreed to drop the lawsuit after reaching a pact that allows eligible laid-off teachers, including those dismissed in 2010, to be put into a hiring pool. Fifty percent of new positions must go to laid-off teachers.
Contract language, which apparently was still being hammered out as late as Monday, also details the order of layoffs. With a new evaluation system not rating teachers until the end of the school year, most layoffs of tenured teachers will continue to be based on seniority this year. Reformers have long fought for those decisions to be based on teacher performance.
Other matters, such as the union’s Sept. 5 complaint about unfair labor practices and the city’s bid for an injunction ending the strike, were dropped after being addressed by the agreement.
But even as teachers are preparing to vote on the contract Tuesday, concerns persist over the district possibly closing up to 120 underenrolled and low-performing schools in coming years.
At a Board of Education meeting Tuesday, teachers union recording secretary Michael Brunson called for an end to “saber rattling” and called on CPS to release its school closing plans.
“You need to release that information to the CTU and the public so we can openly debate the merits of this proposal,” Brunson said.
Board President David Vitale denied there was any such plan but reiterated the district position as stated at the negotiating table. “We’ve said we know there’s excess capacity in the system, and over time we need to reduce it,” Vitale said.
Tuesday’s meeting was the first for the CPS board since the contract agreement was reached. Board members will not vote on the contract until Oct. 24, and CPS has yet to say how it will pay for the new teacher contract. The district must modify its budget to take into account the new raises.
The contract calls for base salary increases of 3 percent this year and 2 percent in each of the following two years, as well as some lucrative raises for experience and advanced education. While some teachers will earn raises worth about 25 percent over three years, the average teacher, who has 14 years of experience and a master’s degree or higher, will get 7.5 to 9.6 percent gains over the length of the contract.
The union has touted its success in fighting off Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s attempts to institute merit pay and more stringent requirements in a new teacher evaluation system, as well as securing a recall policy for top-performing teachers.
The mayor, in turn, has boasted of the district’s success in limiting teacher raises, maintaining a principal’s right to determine which teachers to hire, instituting a state-required teacher evaluation system that takes into account student performance, and adding a longer school day and year.
With the tentative agreement now calling for 175 full school days and six half-days starting with this school year, the board on Tuesday also gave schools chief Jean-Claude Brizard the authority to change the calendar this year and work with teachers to determine the seven makeup days from the strike.
Candidate Views At Education Nation
September 26, 2012 By
“Romney, Obama Clash Over Education”
by Laura Meckler
Wall Street Journal
September 25, 2012
The presidential candidates offered clashing views on education, with Republican Mitt Romney delivering some of his harshest judgments on teacher unions and President Barack Obama defending them.
Mr. Obama attacked Mr. Romney for wanting to cut education spending, while Mr. Romney said it’s wrong to saddle young people with more federal debt. The conflicting views came in separate interviews for NBC’s Education Nation summit, which covered a range of education topics.
“The teachers union has a responsibility to care for the interests of the teachers. And the head of the national teachers’ union said at one point, ‘We don’t care about kids. We care about the teachers.’ That’s their right,” Mr. Romney said.
He was referring to a 2009 speech by the National Education Association’s former general counsel, Bob Chanin, who was making a different point. He wasn’t suggesting that the union doesn’t care about children, but arguing that the NEA is an effective advocate for its point of view “not because we care about children” but because of the union’s political power.
Mr. Obama, in his interview taped over the weekend, said, “I think Gov. Romney and a number of folks try to politicize the issue and do a lot of teacher bashing.”
“When I meet teachers all across the country, they are so devoted, so dedicated to their kids,” he said.
The Obama administration has taken some heat from unions by pushing for more charter schools and seeking to tie compensation to student achievement. Mr. Obama described that as trying to “break through this left-right, conservative-liberal gridlock.”
Mr. Obama said that education reform isn’t enough, though, and must be accompanied by adequate public spending. On the campaign trail, he often mentions education as one of the areas where the nation should spend more to build for the future.
“This is a big argument and a big difference that I’ve got with Gov. Romney in this election, because they talk a good game about reform, but when you actually look at their budgets, they’re talking about slashing our investment in education by 20, 25%,” he said.
Mr. Romney didn’t dispute that he wants to limit government spending.
“I’m not looking for more federal spending. I mean, I know it is the nature of politics for someone in my position to promise more free stuff,” he said. But “I care so much about our kids that I don’t want to saddle them with trillions on trillions of dollars of debt.”
Charter Moratorium End In Sight?
September 26, 2012 By
“Charter school moratorium could be lifted”
by Garry Rayno
Union Leader
September 25, 2012
The charter school moratorium could be lifted as soon as November if legislative budget writers approve an additional $5 million next month.
State Board of Education Chair Tom Raffio told key lawmakers that the board would consider applications again if there was some assurance additional state money would be forthcoming.
“If there is some demonstration the money will be there, we could move forward with the applications,” Raffio told members of the House finance and education committees Tuesday.
Several lawmakers chastised the state school board for its action, saying it put a damper on enthusiasm for charter schools.
“This is a flat moratorium. It’s very disappointing the way this was handled,” said education committee member Rep. Rick Ladd, R-Haverhill. “Someone let the ball drop and that is too bad for the children.”
Raffio said communications could have been handled better, but there was no intent to hurt the children.
In fact, he said, the decision was made to protect children and their parents from charter schools opening and then having to close because the state did not provide adequate funding.
Charter schools receive $5,450 in state aid for each pupil and most depend on that money for financial viability.
The board voted last week to institute the moratorium after members learned there would be a $5 million shortfall in state aid for charter schools this fiscal year. With additional charter schools approved and ready to open beginning next September, the board decided to deny any new applications until additional state money is available.
The action upset plans for several charter schools waiting for final approval and expecting to open next fall. It also upset lawmakers who believed they provided a process to increase charter school funding in the event of a shortfall.
Budget writers included a provision that allowed the Department of Education to request more money if a shortfall were to occur in charter school funding.
Joint Legislative Fiscal Committee chair Rep. Ken Weyler, R-Kingston, said he had discussions with Department of Education officials about the shortfall and expected to see a request for the additional $5 million, but had not.
Department of Education Deputy Commissioner Paul Leather said the request would be made for the Fiscal Committee’s next meeting. Weyler said he believes the committee will approve it.
Lawmakers lamented the effect the moratorium has had on the growing charter school community and several called the decision arbitrary.
“All of a sudden there’s no more charter schools,” said Karen Umberger, R-Kearsarge. The existing charter schools “say ‘What is going to happen to me in 2013?’”
Leather said existing charter schools are asking the department if their state aid will be pro rated, so they would be receiving less money, but the intent is for the state to move forward with charter schools.
House Deputy Speaker Pamela Tucker, R-Greenland, noted several planned charter schools were close to final approval and added there is an economic impact to the board’s moratorium. “Hundreds of hours of work have gone into these proposals,” she said. “The impact of your decision has far reaching affects.”
Raffio said the work will not be lost if the financial question is the only remaining issue. He said those applications can come back before the board as early as its November meeting once the fiscal committee votes to approve the additional $5 million.
House Education Committee chairman Rep. Michael Balboni, R-Nashua, agreed finances is one criteria for the board to decide on a charter school application, but noted a blanket moratorium may not follow the law.
He said each application has to be either approved or denied and if it is denied an explanation of why it was rejected.
Both Raffio and Leather said that each of the 15 applicants will be informed of the board’s decisions.
Weyler said the fiscal committee meets Oct. 26, and he hoped Raffio and the board would make an announcement at its October meeting that the moratorium would be lifted to relieve the parents of charter school children who have been ill-served by what has happened.
Weyler noted that both the Senate and House finance committees and leadership support charter schools.
House Finance Committee member Rep. Will Smith, R-New Castle, urged the state board to rescind its moratorium at its October meeting.
“That’s fairly important to the whole charter school process,” he said.
Raffio said he did not want to move forward until the fiscal committee had acted, but agreed there could be some kind of conditional approval dependent on future state funding of charter schools.
NAEP Writing Results
September 25, 2012 By
National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) released the 2011 writing results mid-September 2012. The test is given to 24,000 8th graders and 28,000 12th graders in both public and private schools. This is the first computer based test NAEP has done, so for that reason, there are no comparisons to past writing tests.
The results are unfortunately substandard as usual. For both 8th grade and 12th grade, only 27% scored proficient or above. It is depressing to report that this means only about half of the nation’s student population only has a basic knowledge and understanding of writing. Basic achievement is defined as “partial mastery of prerequisite knowledge and skills that are fundamental for proficient work at each grade,” which, in other words, means not at grade level. What’s worse is that about 20% of students scored below this basic level.
The results also indicate a gap between economic groups, as measured by the federal standard of free and reduced lunch participants. Students participating in federal program scored 27 points lower than those that did not.
See results in greater detail and a statement from NCES Commissioner Jack Buckley on the NCES website.
A Tale of Two Cincinnati’s
September 24, 2012 By
Special Briefing from Education Nation
September 24, 2012
Cincinnati’s public school system is featured as an Education Nation case study because of its holistic approach to education, beginning with wraparound services before children have even entered kindergarten.
But while the achievement claims made by the superintendent sound promising, there is still a lot of work to be done to ensure that all of Cincinnati’s students are achieving at grade level.
The data touted says the percentage of children deemed ready for kindergarten, has increased nine percentage points since 2005 based on a standardized kindergarten readiness test. However, the total number of students deemed ready is still a very low 50 percent.
Eighth-grade math scores for Cincinnati public school students have increased 24 percentage points over the same period. It’s hard to know if that is a direct correlation to the wraparound services provided by these organizations, such as Strive, which estimates that around 100,000 children and students participate in the partnership in some fashion.
It’s clear from reviewing the Ohio Department of Education school district level report cards that at least over three years (2008-09 through 2010-11), proficiency in Cincinnati has increased modestly in most grades and in both math and reading. Third graders increased their proficiency in reading and math by ten percent over a three-year period, and tenth graders increased their proficiency by eight points in reading and seven points in math. However there is no record of scores over the last five years and tests have changed — dramatically. The question is how is this being measured?
More importantly, the urban district has affluent schools and poor schools. What is the disaggregated data for poor and wealthy schools? Education Trust did a path breaking report on this issue several years ago and found that many overall district’s progress actually masked static or declining scores and progress at some of the less advantaged schools. To truly understand Cincy’s progress we must look at school by school level data, understand the definition of proficiency, and whether or not the tests students are taking are the same or different.
Last year there were 31 charter schools in Cincinnati serving nearly 10,000 students, clearly showing the need for educational options. The Cincinnati school district’s website has one vague sentence about their achievement: “Cincinnati Public Schools’ students score higher on state tests than students in charter schools.” However, looking further this statement does not necessarily reflect what is really happening on the ground. Value-added data analysis by the OAPCS show that Cincinnati charter schools outperformed district schools on 4 of the past 5 years, and more charter schools than public schools exceeded their expected amount of growth. Forty-one percent of charter schools exceeded their growth targets, compared to only 30 percent of district schools.
Ohio does afford parents more power than most states and many have chosen to attend charters and private schools with publicly sanctioned programs that allow them to pick schools that best meet the needs of their children. In addition to students who attend charter schools, about 3,000 kids have chosen to leave Cincinnati public schools through an Ed Choice Scholarship and those who left are more likely to have been struggling, not succeeding. The new special needs scholarship had 199 applications from Cincinnati, the most of any Ohio school district. Parents in Cincy are clamoring for options because the public schools clearly are lacking.
Kudos to those advancing the education mission in Cincinnati but let’s be sure we know the real scoop before saying we’re on the right trajectory.
Chicago schools strike incites teachers unions
September 23, 2012 By
by Ben Wolfgang
Washington Times
September 23, 2012
With Chicago’s ugly strike behind them, teachers unions are regrouping with a public relations blitz, meant to both repair a tarnished image and rally members who are under more fire than ever.
The American Federation of Teachers (AFT), the parent organization of the Chicago Teachers Union, will hold town halls, workshops and other events in the coming weeks in New York, Philadelphia and nearly a dozen other major cities, the labor group announced Friday.
The move, analysts say, shows that unions aren’t backing down after the Chicago strike, which lasted more than a week and grew out of a bitter battle with Mayor Rahm Emanuel over teacher evaluations, salaries and other issues.
Rather than unions’ Waterloo, the Chicago walkout likely was a precursor of things to come.
“Unless the balance of power changes, there will be another strike,” said Jeanne Allen, president of the Center for Education Reform and critic of teachers unions. “Just because [Chicago] was the first strike in a while does not mean they’re less interested in sticking to their guns. It’s not yet to the point where there’s outrage [among the public] to spark a revolution against this.”
The strike was first time in more than 25 years that Windy City teachers walked off the job. The standoff with Mr. Emanuel, a former chief of staff for President Obama, was resolved with concessions from both sides.
Teachers will get an average 17.6 percent pay raise, significantly less than the 30 percent hike initially sought, over the next four years. The union successfully fought off Mr. Emanuel’s efforts to have student test scores count for as much as 45 percent of teacher evaluations, negotiating the number down to no higher than 30 percent, according to terms of the deal.
Teachers also succeeded in resisting merit pay and maintaining seniority systems, while Mr. Emanuel pushed through an extended school day and year.
Labor may not have gotten all it wanted in the deal, but it still views the outcome in Chicago as a victory and an opportunity to reinforce its control over public education.
“What’s happened in Chicago has changed the conversation and shown that, by communities uniting and acting collectively, we can transform our schools and guarantee every child the high-quality public education he or she deserves,” said AFT President Randi Weingarten. “Now let’s hope this turns the page to a new chapter in education reform.”
Building public support is crucial to teachers unions’ long-term strategy for two reasons. One, states and local governments simply can’t afford to push through controversial reforms — such as Mr. Emanuel’s teacher evaluation effort, backed by the Obama administration — by offering lucrative pay increases.
Two, the Democratic Party now includes a number of voices openly opposed to the power of unions.
“People have short memories. Everybody will get over [the Chicago strike]. The problem is, this is just a terrible time for unions,” said Terry M. Moe, an educational policy scholar and senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. “The financial crisis has made life very difficult for them because districts and states are strapped. But the deeper thing is a reformist movement within the Democratic Party. The fact is, there are a number of Democrats who are increasingly willing to stand up to these unions.”
Los Angeles Mayor and Democrat Antonio Villaraigosa, for example, offered strong words of support for Mr. Emanuel during the strike. Former D.C. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty, also a Democrat, did the same.
At the federal level, President Obama, while still relying on the AFT and the National Education Association for grass-roots political support and organization, has taken steps opposed by labor.
The president’s signature Race to the Top initiative promoted teacher evaluation methods tied to student test scores. Unions have vehemently opposed such efforts.
Groups such as Democrats for Education Reform continue to grow in stature and influence, and are among the loudest critics of the power that teachers unions have over education policy in the U.S.
Public-sector labor groups also have come under attack by governors, most notably Wisconsin’s Scott Walker, a Republican. He successfully eliminated most of the collective-bargaining rights for teachers, though a judge has thrown out most of those changes. Mr. Walker has vowed to appeal.
As a place to make a stand against that tide, labor saw Chicago as a natural choice, said Justin Wilson, managing director of the Center for Union Facts.
“You’ve got a different set of facts on the ground there. Chicago was the best place for this to happen because there’s an expectation that unions are treated well in that town,” he said. “There are a lot of other cities where it’s unclear if unions could gain the upper hand.”
But whether it be in Chicago or elsewhere, reform efforts will continue — and will continue to meet stiff resistance from labor, Mr. Moe said.
“Moving forward, they will continue to resist reform and undermine it to the extent that they can,” he said. “Then the question becomes, how powerful can the reformers be?”
Did the Chicago Teachers Union Win?
September 20, 2012 By
Choice Media
September 20, 2012
The great Chicago teacher strike of 2012 has ended, and it’s time for Ed Reformers to look back and decide what really happened. We know kids didn’t go to school for 7 days. We know the union extracted a 17.6% raise from Mayor Rahm Emanuel and succeeded in getting merit pay dropped from consideration.
The Chicago Sun-Times today said the Union President Karen Lewis won congratulatory messages from the likes of Gloria Steinem, as well as supporters in Australia, France, Italy & Canada. It also says she basked yesterday in what some say is her new status as a union rock star.
With all this, how are prominent education reformers summing up the results of the Chicago strike?
Jeanne Allen is with the Center for Education Reform.
“Sure the Chicago unions won. They got even more that wasn’t on the table to begin with. They threw an additional time off for professional development days. There were some healthcare benefits they had. I mean they loaded this thing, and yet at the end of the day, Rahm Emanuel still declared victory. Strange how he can declare victory when 350,000 kids were out of school for more than a week and the unions won.”
“Yeah, I think one of the more interesting and quieter points that was covered in the media was when they reported that AFT President, Randi Weingarten, was on the phone with Secretary Duncan over the weekend, discussing how they could have an end to the strike, and yet at the same time she kept distancing herself and saying, ‘This is a local issue.’ So this was absolutely about politics. At the end of the day, just deal with it. Make it go away. ‘Make it go away Rahm,’ is I’m sure what happened. Plus, ‘Rahm, don’t you want to be something some day?’ It was political.”
Chicago Teachers Strike Highlights ‘Societal Problem’
September 19, 2012 By
by Fawn Johnson
National Journal
September 19, 2012
There is a bright spot to the Chicago Teachers Union strike that ended Tuesday after keeping the city’s kids at home and its public-school teachers picketing the streets: People are actually talking about education.
They are saying things like this: “When you have two-thirds of our children not college- and/or career-ready and we spend more per student than any country in the world, that is a societal problem. What’s going on in Chicago is sort of a leading indicator of things to come.” That’s Florida’s former Republican Gov. Jeb Bush on MSNBC. Bush is an advocate of student assessments who occasionally clashes with teachers unions.
Or this: “The more difficult task is to make sure the right people are getting into the classroom. I think it is the wrong mental model to let anybody in and then make it easier to fire our hiring mistakes.” That’s National Education Association President Dennis Van Roekel on C-Span. NEA is not involved in the specifics of the strike, but it is supporting the Chicago union in principle.
Voters care greatly about education. In a Pew Research poll earlier this year, 72 percent of respondents rated education as “very important” to their vote. Yet both presidential candidates have largely ignored the concept in their campaigns. For whatever reason, education isn’t the kind of winner that moves the dial for a candidate in the electorate.
“People typically put education in their top three, or at worst, top six issues. But I believe they don’t know how to vote on education. They are so convinced that schools are local,” said Jeanne Allen, president of the Center for Education Reform, a group that is critical of teachers unions.
Allen says the Obama administration isn’t weighing in on the Chicago dispute because it is afraid of offending the unions. Education Secretary Arne Duncan issued a brief statement last week saying he hopes the parties can “settle this quickly.”
Union officials say it would be inappropriate for a president or a presidential candidate to weigh in. They say the national conversation with Obama is settled. The unions have by and large made peace with President Obama about his Race to the Top competitive grant program, which rewards states for teacher evaluations and turning around or closing failing schools. Both of those issues are at the heart of the Chicago dispute. Still, American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten is one of many union officials who say that the issues in Chicago are “very localized.”
Meanwhile, the presidential campaigns have not touched the thorniest of education issues that are also raised by the strike—student assessments, teacher evaluations, and failing schools. President Obama has chosen to focus on higher education, highlighting student loans and the high cost of college as part of his narrative on jobs. Republican nominee Mitt Romney’s few mentions about education have been about school choice, proposing vouchers and state-wide open enrollment for disadvantaged kids.
The advantage of the public attention raised by the Chicago strike is that it gives educators and policymakers the chance to publicly grapple with the genuine qualitative issues that affect all schools. How much do you hold teachers responsible for? What employment guarantees are teachers entitled to? Should the answers to those two questions impact teachers’ pay?
A poll conducted last week for the Chicago Sun-Times showed that 47 percent of Chicago’s registered voters support the teachers union, and less than 20 percent think that Mayor Rahm Emanuel is doing a “good” or “excellent” job in handling it. The approval of the union may slide as the strike drags on, however. No matter what happens in the talks, the union will be able to declare victory in the end if they win any concessions.
Pay attention now that it’s over. Center for Education Reform’s Allen thinks that a perceived victory on the part of the unions in Chicago will cause Democratic mayors in other cities to pause before pushing for anything that looks like merit pay or other teacher-employment decisions based on performance.
Timid Democrats in schools can only strengthen Republicans’ position with the public, at least the half who dislike unions. “It will bolster the case and cause of the accountability-minded reformers, who are often Republicans,” Allen predicted. Included on that list is Jeb Bush, Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, and Idaho Superintendent Tom Luna, who wrote the Republican National Committee’s education platform.
Democrats who have pushed for accountability—Emanuel, Duncan, and House Education and the Workforce ranking member George Miller, D-Calif., to name a few—will need to recalibrate their approach. It will remind everyone of what the education-policy community has been saying all along: The only way to dramatically improve public education is through bipartisan collaboration. If that seems an anathema now, perhaps the Chicago negotiations can make it seem a possibility.
Unfortunately, the talk about the strike has degenerated quickly into accusatory statements like these from Weingarten and former District of Columbia schools chancellor Michelle Rhee—former adversaries in the scuffle over Washington public schools’ teacher layoffs in 2009.
Here’s Weingarten on Bloomberg TV: “What you’re seeing play itself out in Chicago is this fixation on accountability, top-down sanctions, and fear.”
Here’s Rhee’s statement on the second week of the strike: “If it were about the kids, 350,000 students would be in class tomorrow morning instead of at home or on the streets.”
The blame game continues, which eventually will cause voters to tune out. Steve Peha, and education consultant and founder of the nonprofit Teaching That Makes Sense, recently spent a week in two elementary schools in Chicago’s Englewood neighborhood. “Tough place to be a kid. Tough place to be a teacher. Tough place to be alive,” he observed on National Journal’s Education Experts blog. “What I can’t see is the value for management in squeezing labor, or the value for labor in holding out.”
To Russia (or Chicago), With Love?
September 19, 2012 By
Dear Friend,
Are we in Russia??
I thought the strike was bad enough. Thousands of children out of school who are already 2-3 years behind on average, if not 5 or 6! Parents with no power, staff at failing schools who continue to get paid in spite of it all.
But the contract outline prepared by the Chicago Teachers Union really takes the cake:
“Our brothers and sisters throughout the country have been told that corporate ‘school reform’ was unstoppable, that merit pay had to be accepted and that the public would never support us if we decided to fight. Cities everywhere have been forced to adopt performance pay. Not here in Chicago! Months ago, CTU members won a strike authorization vote that our enemies thought would be impossible-now we have stopped the Board from imposing merit pay! We preserved our lanes and steps when the politicians and press predicted they were history. We held the line on healthcare costs. We have tremendous victories in this contract; however, it is by no means perfect. While we did not win on every front and will need to continue our struggle into the future.”
Their struggle? For what? To ensure that they always come first over kids? That they control the education system and not the results?
They might as well have said “Dear Comrades!”
Pity the highly successful teacher who was on the picket line due to no fault of her own. Becoming a teacher in most public school systems today comes with mandatory membership in the union. Oh sure, technically you can choose not to join the union, but making that choice will mean getting harassed by the leadership and still paying agency fees for the bargaining they do on your behalf.
That bargaining resulted in the strike that ended last night. Not only did the union not want to accept some very basic, and hardly substantive evaluation components, but they were aghast at the notion that their members should work longer days or weeks and accept more professional development. You can read it for yourself, as well as background on the strike and various opinions on our Unions & Education Establishment page. I just wanted to touch base with each and every one of our followers directly on this issue and remind you of three key things that should guide your every decision on education reform going forward:
• You can’t work with the unions. Anyone who tells you otherwise – be they Secretary Duncan, President Obama or Governor Christie – is either wrong or misinformed. Besides the modest gains made in Washington, DC, there is no current law or contract today that, across the board, treats teachers like professionals and ensures that children come first.
• The unions have co-opted the language of reform. Too many reformers have bought into the notion that the union leaders are finally coming around. When they speak on Morning Joe or at conferences and express agreement with teacher evaluations, they always qualify their remarks. Still, some reformers get giddy and think they’ve succeeded when they exact such “concessions” from union representatives. They haven’t.
• The national leadership walks in lockstep with the locals and vice versa. Sure the language may be different and the locals may be less sophisticated, but whether the nationals agreed a Chicago strike was a good idea or not, there is no union leadership in this nation that would work to ensure that student success be the leading factor in their evaluations. That, my friends, is the truth.
Best Regards,
Jeanne Allen