Reform is a loaded word.When I speak of union reform, I am thinking of efforts to democratize unions and make them more responsive to membership.Others however may be attaching union reform efforts to specific neo-liberal "reforms."Some, such as Rick Hess, even suggest Labor Management Collaboration (LMC) as a way to get unions to participate in their own demise.A good friend of mine on the labor left referred to the Teacher Union Reform Network (TURN), a group with which I’ve been active, as “astroturfy.”
We must separate LMC as a public good from specific policy prescriptions.If a local or state affiliate decides for some unknown reason that merit pay, privatization, or exotic flavors of teacher evaluation is good for its members, I can’t speak for those people.But there is no reason that LMC can’t lead boards, administrators and unions into deeper and more refined work on conventional collective bargaining agreements, featuring single salary schedules and considerable opportunities for teacher leadership and autonomy.
The term "Comprehensive Unionism" can better denote efforts to create a type of unionism responsive to the unique characteristics of education.In TURN, we use Three Frames as a lens analyze and improve our work.
Industrial Unionism refers to the war fighting capability of the union, its capacity to use adversarial methods to promote bread and butter issues and enforce the collective bargaining agreement.A robust capacity is the foundation for the other two frames.
Professional Unionism speaks to our capacity to be the arbiters of quality in the profession, to improve instruction for the betterment of teachers and students.
Social Justice Unionism demands that we see the big picture: unions exist not just for the betterment of members, but for the betterment of all.The recent Chicago Teachers Union strike was a shining example of Social Justice Unionism in action.
My work as a local president has focused on the Professional Unionism lens.In my 20 year career, I’ve lived through 16 principals and 7 superintendents in 5 schools located in 3 different Vermont supervisory unions.This experience has taught me that the quality of teachers’ (and therefore students’) lives on a day to day basis is profoundly affected by the quality of administrative work.
I have sat through endless union meetings that focus on administrative failure, where administrators and boards are trashed, where eyes roll and sarcasm abounds.This culture encourages a type of defensive bargaining, where participants lead by asking, “What would happen if the worst administrator in the world got a hold of this contract language?”And on the other side they lead by asking, “What would happen if the worst teacher in the world received this benefit?”
As teachers, we ought to know through our experience with students that if you treat people like idiots, you get….idiocy.
What if we flipped this and used collective bargaining as a tool to promote excellence rather than to eliminate incompetence?What if we gave flexibility to administrators to administer schools with the expectation that along with this assistance comes a high bar.And what if boards and administrators took a risk, and gave teachers autonomy and leadership opportunities, along with an expanded definition of what it is to be a professional educator, with the expectation that we would provide evidence of improved professional practice and student learning, evidence which could be readily seen by reasonable citizens?
In such a system incompetence would be noise.When you have to hire millions of teachers and administrators a certain amount of noise is inevitable.We should focus on the music, so that it drowns out the noise.
Professional success promotes the happiness of teachers.When students are learning and growing, it improves the quality of educators’ lives through a profound sense of professional accomplishment. In my world view, unions are great American institutions which exist to promote well-being.See the connection? Let's raise the bar.
The role of teacher leader is fraught
with challenges. In my union work, it became apparent to me that there
are at least two different mutually exclusive definitions. First, is the
definition some superintendents have: a teacher leader is a sort of
non-commissioned officer in the chain of command of a district, with a role of
carrying out policies determined by higher-ups. This traditional role
includes roles like department chair, and service on district committees, the
latter because in a top-down hierarchy administrators merely use committees for
cover, so they can lend a sort of pretend legitimacy to their decisions.
The second definition is exciting and
cutting edge: teachers having an actual voice in making local, state or
national policy. This idea might seem self evident to those of us who are
practitioners, but in reality it is quite alien to the policy process in many
places.
The traditional venue for this role,
and the one in which I cut my teeth, is the union. Negotiating and
administering a collective bargaining agreement gives one a voice in local
policy. Joining with others in state and national organizations which
lobby for wider policy and legislation creates a collective voice. In the
current environment, with public sector unions under serious and sustained
attack, union activism is fluid and challenging.
One thing which school districts and
unions share is that they are hierarchical organizations. The bureaucrats
who live farther up the hierarchical food chain have a significant advantage
when it comes to policy: they can spend all their time working on it.
Those of us with classrooms live with the joy and challenge that the best hours
of our day are spent with students. Any time or thought that we have for
policy or politics comes out of our hides or out of the hides of our families
and relationships. I can say this from personal experience – my union
work is unpaid. Each cycle of negotiations comes at a personal cost of
200-300 hours of my personal, unpaid time. That doesn’t count grievances,
trainings, rep and executive council meetings, Regional Bargaining Councils (I
have 3 to attend), meetings with the superintendent, or, now, my work on the
VT-NEA Board of directors, which requires a Saturday each month.
I’m not saying this so that anybody
feels sorry for me – I love the challenge of this work. But it does give
me a clear eyed view of the very real impediments to the development of effective
teacher leadership in the best sense. People go into teaching because
they want to work with kids. This we all know is an all -consuming
passion. On top of this teachers, legitimately, need to tend to families
and relationships. We are human, and we cannot sustain ourselves without
love from friends and family.
When I challenge a colleague to step
up to a leadership role in our local, I do this with trepidation because no one
knows better than me the human cost of what I am asking them to do. On the
other hand no one knows better than me the absolute necessity of accomplished
practitioners taking a role in the governance of the educational
enterprise. As a leader, I am stuck between human empathy for my
colleagues, and the enormous peril of my own empathy.
And this brings me to another thing
that I learned: the three meanings of leadership. So far I’ve
spoken in detail of just one: the ability to influence followers, the rank and
file of an organization. Influencing their behavior, inspiring them to
try some little bit of activism – this is encapsulated by the term
organizing. I think this is what most people think of when they consider
the word leadership. But there are two other equally important aspects of
leadership: influencing peer leaders, and influencing those leaders above you
in the hierarchy of an organization or government. These two aspects
require different skill sets than organizing
Influencing peer leaders is the sort
of thing I’ve done on the VT-NEA board, in regional bargaining councils, and in
our discussions on the Teacher Leader Network Forum. It was the bulk of
the work in our debates on the New Business Items and resolutions at NEA
Representative Assembly. In a friendly environment like this it is about
developing consensus around the best course of action, and it involves building
relationships, and ability to be persuasive.
It takes place in adversarial contexts
as well, such as negotiations and grievance hearings. Insofar as a local
president is the peer of the superintendent, there is an art here of refusal,
of parrying, and of persuasion, each of which one deploys according to the
problem.
Finally there is influencing top level
leaders in an organization, those “above you” so to speak. While a
premium is placed on the “elevator speech”, I think top leaders are bombarded
with these and probably have filters. My own approach is two fold.
First I like to identify the people who advise the leader in question and seek
to influence those people. Second, I like to identify those places I
agree with the approach and send a positive message, in part by working for and
actively supporting initiatives.
This second point is very important in
my estimation. In the present environment, the messages tend to be negative
– opposed to what various policy makers are doing. I believe however,
that the policy landscape is subtler than that, and that people need to hear
what they are doing right as well as what they are doing wrong. Without
positive feedback when they get it right, policy makers are flying on
instruments.
As a Teaching Ambassador Fellow, and a
Bernie Sanders style socialist, it was a challenge for me to find a point of
contact with the Department where I could support their efforts with freedom
and integrity. Yet I did find one: The Department under
the current administration works to build the capacity of teachers to lead in
the best sense of the word. An example of
concrete action that support teachers as real leaders was the Denver Labor-Management Conference, a high profile event designed to help teachers and their
unions deal creatively and pro-actively with the current political and
policy environment. Unfortunately this event was over-shadowed by
events in Wisconsin.
I would be the last to say that
efforts of this sort are perfect, or that the outcomes are satisfactory to all
parties. But I take it as evidence of positive
disposition towards teacher leaders, and a willingness to build the capacity of
teachers to participate in the policy conversation. Encouraging
engagement is in the spirit of democracy and helps to overcome the very real
impediments to teacher engagement that I outlined earlier.
In my work, I’ve done my best to
encourage the Department to build the capacity of teacher leaders and
unions. I think many people want immediate results, an impatience which
is the result of the uncertainty of the political cycle. Taking a longer
view, an empowered and policy savvy teaching profession is the best route to
better education policy, because policy will be rooted in the wisdom that is
the product of actual practice.
That said, I tend to be shocked and
saddened by the dearth of our most accomplished teachers in union leadership. I was shocked at the antipathy of NEA delegates to NBCTs at
the recent NEA Representative Assembly in Chicago. I was saddened that of
124 NBCTs in the State of Vermont, only three of us were at VT-NEA
Representative Assembly in March. Taken together, these indicate to me
that most union members have not experienced NBCTs as people who use their
achievement as a tool to help others. I find this very disappointing.
Those of us who are high achieving and
have excess capacity have an obligation to our colleagues as well as to our
students and families to lighten their burden. At the same time, the rank
and file of the profession needs to see that policy and engagement is simply
far too critical to be left to “the other.” Federal, state and local
policies that encourage all varieties of genuine practitioner leadership and
engagement are in the long term best interest of our profession, of grounded
education policy, and, ultimately, fantastic student learning.
This is a cross posting from my friend Patrick Ledesma's Leading from the Classroom on Ed Week Teacher Magazine. He was kind enough to let me guest blog. I'm putting it here for readers who normally read my stuff on Education Worker.
Back in Vermont, in 2011 I was entering my fourth cycle as a negotiator and second as local president. Our negotiations had always been protracted and contentious, requiring thousands of hours of teacher and school board member time. The traditional process goes through a predictable sequence: bargaining, impasse, mediation, fact finding, crisis buildup, and, in rare instances, imposition and strike. Mediation and fact finding employ private consultants costing thousands of dollars. Boards often call on private attorneys to negotiate, the costs of which often exceed the amount needed to settle the economic issues.
This scenario is repeated dozens of times all over Vermont. Each negotiation is for a small number of teachers by national standards, resulting in minor changes to “mature contracts.” It is a time consuming and costly way to preserve the status quo.
Our previous negotiation had required at least 200 hours of each of the ten teachers on our team. The board commitment was similar. Rancor adds no value. Unions, boards and administration should be partners in the cause of student learning, but are instead trapped in a ritualistic process.
I returned from Denver determined that our pending negotiation would be collaborative, and facilitated by FMCS. It took months of persuasion – one board member could not believe that FMCS services were free. Finally, a pair of skilled FMCS mediators trained both teams together in the techniques of Interest Based Bargaining.
We invested in success. The results?
·Zero dollars spent on a board attorney, mediators or fact finders
·Settlement was achieved in 6 months rather than 18
·Respect between board and teachers, a result of “tough minded collaboration.”
Is this process reform sustainable? Can it become a template for our state? An innovation of this year’s LMC is critically important in answering these questions: the presence of state leadership teams, both as presenters and participants. Three states, Delaware, Kentucky and Massachusetts, presented. Their teams highlighted work they have done to support local collaboration.
Vermont sent a team of statewide leaders. We need structures and supports at the state level to sustain and expand the collaborative work already happening at the local level. I am confident that our state leaders found inspiration and practical ideas at the conference.
Process reform is not enough. Sustainability depends on connecting to a greater goal: excellent student learning. In Vermont, dealing proactively with contemporary policy challenges requires this focus. Collective bargaining agreements must shift away from emphasis on salary and working conditions, management prerogative and taxation, and become education improvement plans in which the traditional concerns become tools.
The tremendous civic engagement which goes into our teacher negotiations in Vermont is a gold mine of effort and commitment which could be harnessed to the cause of great student learning. Our children deserve no less.
The second United States Department of Education Labor
Management Collaboration Conference (LMC) is convening in Cincinnati this
week. The theme is harnessing the power
of labor management collaboration in the interest of student achievement. I attended the last
conference in Denver fifteen months ago as a researcher, part of a team of Teaching
Ambassador Fellows. In addition to
becoming steeped in the theory and practice of labor management collaboration,
I had the opportunity to network with several leaders from the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service
(FMCS), which is an extraordinary organization that provides free technical
assistance to improve negotiations outcomes at the local level. That learning has proven very influential in
changing the tenor of our local negotiations during the last year.
There is an innovation of this year’s LMC that is critically
important: the presence of state leadership teams, both as presenters and
participants. Three states, Delaware,
Kentucky and Massachusetts, are presenting.
These states will highlight work they have done to support districts in
collaborative work. Vermont is sending a
team of statewide leaders, which I find tremendously encouraging. We need structures and supports at the state
level to sustain and expand the good work in our state which is already
happening at the local level. I am
confident that our state leaders will find inspiration and practical ideas at
the conference to help us move forward.
Mere process reform, however is not enough. Sustainability of our work ultimately depends
on connecting to a greater goal: great student learning. Leaders at ED already get this; it is a theme
of both labor management conferences. In
Vermont, for us to take it to the next level, and to be able to deal creatively
and proactively with 21st century education policy challenges,
stakeholders need to refocus on this goal.
Thinking about collective bargaining agreements must shift away from
emphasis on salary and working conditions, management prerogative and
taxation. Our CBA’s must become
education improvement plans in which the traditional concerns become tools. When I think of the tremendous civic
engagement which goes into our teacher negotiations in Vermont, I see a gold
mine of effort and commitment which could be harnessed to our common enterprise
of great student learning. Our children
deserve no less.
Mapping State Proficiency Standards Onto the NAEP Scales: Variation and
Change in State Standards for Reading and Mathematics, 2005–2009
I remember seeing Jesse Jackson
on TV many years ago. He said something
about language which has always stuck with me, “Don’t say ‘prevaricate’ when
what you mean is ‘lie’.” What he was
getting at is the virtue of simplicity and directness in the choice of words.
The word collaborate has been all
the rage in education, whether we are designing “collaboration time” among
teachers at a school, or achieving “labor-management collaboration” between
boards, unions and administrators. It’s
easy to lose track, when using a fancy term like collaboration, of the human
dimension of collaboration, in all its simplicity and directness: people
working together towards a common goal.
In education, there is only one
goal that matters: great student learning.
All other subsidiary goals must be paths to that single thing. Without that, you can collaborate all you
want, but the result will be vestigial.
Probably not a good use of anybody’s time.
In my experience there are two
paths to labor-management collaboration, meaning leaders working together to
advance student learning,
The first is charismatic
individuals. There are extraordinary
people out there who “get it” and can draw others into a home cooked approach
to working together that works tolerably well.
But there are three disadvantages to relying on charismatic leadership:
1.There
aren’t enough charismatic leaders
2.Charismatic
leaders retire
3.Charismatic
leaders can block the development of other leaders
The second approach is to create
collaborative structures and techniques within which normal people can operate. The Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service
is in the business of promoting this body of knowledge. Techniques include Interest Based Bargaining
(IBB), labor-management committees, contract language which permits flexibility
at the site level, and salary benchmarking.
I’ll use IBB for a moment,
because it is probably the best known (if most misunderstood) technique. IBB is not a panacea. Rather, it provides a civil platform upon
which other types of work can occur. It
is virtually impossible to advance the cause of student learning when, as one
of our veteran WCEA negotiators put it, “The two sides are shouting at each
other through their spokespersons.”
Luckily IBB has a well
articulated body of theory and practice, which makes it accessible to those of
us who are mere mortals. People can
learn to do this – it’s not a matter of talent.
The danger of this sort of
structure is that it will ossify into something ritualistic, that people will
value the process itself more than overall end goal of the enterprise. But, providing this detour can be avoided
with a little “big picture” thinking (something that seems to annoy a lot of
folks when pulling weeds) having a structure for ongoing conversations about
local policy and progressive education reform creates sustainability.
Of course the ideal would be to
have both the charismatic leadership and sustainability of structures to
support meaningful reform. But if I had
to choose, I’d choose sustainability.
This isn’t a sprint; it’s a marathon.
And there is an essential human dimension to the work which is not
captured by a term like collaboration.
Let’s remember, as flawed human beings, the advantage of structures that
support us in working together.
I was invited by Larry Ferlazzo to comment on his Ed Week blog Classroom
Q&A on “Transforming
Teaching” along with Dennis Van Roekel and Renee Moore. Here are my
remarks; I urge folks to read the
original.
In "Transforming
Teaching," the NEA recognized one incontrovertible fact: you cannot coerce
reform. There is reform done to teachers (we've seen a lot of that lately),
reform done by teachers (think NBPTS, CTQ or TURN), and reform done with teachers.
"Transforming Teaching" calls for the latter: deep organic reform
rising from within the profession with meaningful and realistic cooperation
from other stakeholders.
Good reform is ultimately about
changing teaching practice in order to achieve better student learning. Without
the full force and participation of the teaching profession this simply cannot
be done.
A couple of settlements ago, our
school board demanded and got a 7.5 minimum hour day. Administration
immediately designated that the time before and after school as
"collaboration time" and created uniform start and end times at all
schools. In my school there was widespread resentment over what one teacher called
"forced collaboration." People watched the clock. The minimum became
the maximum. The scheme backfired, producing far less collaboration than might
have occurred by creating a great climate where people want to stay and
collaborate because they love their jobs.
This story illustrates principles
of human psychology and group dynamics. Multiply that by three million, the
size of the teaching profession in the United States. You can't do it to us, as
satisfying as that might seem at times; you have to do it with us.
The NEA recognized the psychology
of the teaching profession by forming the Commission on Effective Teachers and
Teaching, a group of master teachers charged, among other things, to tell NEA a
few things it did not want to hear. What emerged is a picture of systemic
reform by and for teachers to elevate teaching into a true profession.
"Transforming Teaching"
calls for real reform by demanding the conditions that create great teachers:
professional responsibility and collaborative autonomy. Notice that I said
responsibility. Much has been made lately of that fact that there is no word in
the Finnish language for accountability in the sense that we use it in American
education. If we aspire to the level of the best performing systems we need to embrace
an essential principle that drives these systems: collective responsibility.
Yes, "Transforming
Teaching" makes demands on other stakeholders: on the unions and their
professional staffs, on the US Department of Education, on legislatures, and on
school districts. But read the document closely - given professional
responsibility, we teachers are far harder on ourselves than any outside
entity. Why? Because we work for and with kids and our lives are better when
their lives are better. Teachers live reform and are the ones who must
ultimately create it.
I really appreciate the phrase “student
learning.” Unlike “student achievement”
or “student outcomes” it has not yet become a euphemism for bubble test
scores. I appreciate student learning
because it enables me to imagine a range of indicators for success in the
classroom: true multiple measures.
What can student learning look
like? When you leave my classroom after
music class, I hope there is something you can do, think or remember, something that
you couldn’t before you walked in.
Perhaps you can perform a song, or you can play a simple rhythmically
independent accompaniment; perhaps you made a connection to prior knowledge, or
have deepened your understanding of some concept, such as tempo or dynamics,
and demonstrated that deepening by using that concept to create a short musical
piece. Perhaps you can finger a new
note, or have just acquired some fluency between fingerings that leaves you
feeling successful. In any event, my
aspiration as a teacher is that you leave my classroom having grown in some
small way as a creative person, as a human being.
I acquired this focus on student
learning by going through the National Board
Certification process. This
demanding process requires around 300 hours of work at minimum. You produce a video portfolio and take a
tough six part exam on your knowledge of content and pedagogy. It was in the portfolio process that my brain
got reprogrammed to focus on student learning.
I had a candidate support provider who helped me go over my portfolio
with a fine tooth comb. At each stage Dan
would ask, “What does that have to do with student learning?” Eventually it became my mantra. It has an annoying tendency to slip from my
mouth during faculty meetings. Even if
it doesn’t slip out, it certainly echoes around the inside of my brain.
As a union activist, I experience
a similar echo effect inside my head as we operate the levers of union
influence: negotiations, grievances and so forth. Our
recent foray into Interest Based Bargaining is hobbled by the fact that we
are not yet focused on student learning.
Unlike districts
that truly achieve Labor Management Collaboration, our contract talks still
focus on adult issues, and not student learning. In the most progressive districts, the adults
strive to make the collective bargaining agreement into an education
improvement plan. In my district we have
yet to cross that threshold.
In this sort of context, things
like behavior and climate become ends in themselves. We do not want good behavior in our
classrooms or great school climate because it’s nice to be nice to each other;
we want it because behavior and climate are necessary preconditions to great
student learning. We do not want great
working conditions and competitive pay because teachers “deserve it;” again, we
need these things to the extent that they promote conditions of maximum growth
for students by creating supports for the best teaching and by removing
distractions. Without that focus on the
learning as the most vital institutional goal, the school drifts, and climate and
behavior, working conditions and pay, deteriorate anyway.
Why is a laser-like focus on
student learning beneficial to children?
It is the best way that educators can express that they care for the
students. If we expect that our
classrooms will be incubators of intellectual, artistic and ethical growth,
this indicates that we want the students reach their potential. We all arrive at school with baggage. To focus on behavior or pay as an end is to
get mired in the baggage – all the reasons that we can’t treat each other
well. To put the learning at the center
of the institution is to put the student at the center in a truly profound way.
How does this express itself in
actual classroom practice? In the
planning process the teacher keeps standards and curriculum in mind. Not that binder on the shelf, but living
curriculum which has been internalized.
I strive to make the constant connection between the activities I select,
and the things that are appropriate for a particular cohort of students to
master. For example, I might look at a
group of sixth graders and see that they need some conscious experience of 6/8
time, so I plan a series of lessons culminating in an opportunity for them to
improvise and/or compose a piece of music in 6/8 time. I love using a creative act for assessment –
to me, it demonstrates true understanding.
Without a focus on standards and
curriculum, the focus becomes the activities themselves, and the question
becomes not what the students will learn, but what the teacher will do to entertain
in order to get through the day. An
activity centered classroom is a teacher centered classroom.
It may seem ironic that the
direction of institutional attention to student learning, seemingly external to
the self, can have such a salutary effect.
To lose that focus, however, is to lose the soul of the school, and
cripple us in the muck of the psychic baggage we carry. To lift one’s eyes, to see that we can be
better than we are, is to express faith in ourselves and in our students. From time to time we may fail, but it is in
the relentless movement towards growth that the members of a school community
best express their humanity. This is why
we need to focus on the learning.
The following post is from an interview with Brad Jupp by James
Liou, a 2008 Teaching Ambassador
Fellow from Boston.James’ excellent
blog The Teaching Pulse gives unofficial
voice to the aspirations of members of the Boston Teachers Union.I selected excerpts which follow the broad
themes of Education Worker, and urge
readers to check out the
original interview, which is much longer - a rich and profound essay on the
contemporary education policy scene.
Brad Jupp is Senior Program Advisor
for Teacher Quality Initiatives in the U.S.
Department of Education. He has the ear of Secretary of Education
Arne Duncan and has considerable, if not central, influence on any federal
policies that relate to teacher quality and effectiveness.
As a former middle school English
teacher and union activist in the Denver public schools, he is most known for
his role in the development of Denver’s
ProComp teacher compensation system—one which ties teacher incentives to
both school and student performance and growth.
JL: How has being an accomplished
unionist affected how you do your work now?
BJ: I think what I bring from my
background as a union leader, first and foremost, is the sentiment that working
people want first and foremost, good, fruitful jobs; not the political struggle
that they often find themselves in. And then second, I bring a really three-dimensional
understanding of the psychology that [often] occurs in the relationship between
unions and school districts, [and between] unions and state legislatures…
Frankly, I’ve been on all sides of the table. And I have an insight into
what’s in people’s heads on all sides of the table at this point. And
that’s because [like I mentioned earlier], I pay attention to [connecting
evidence to shifts in understanding with] whomever I’m working. Over the
years, [I’ve gathered] an experience base in thinking like a leader of a local,
of thinking like a leader of a state affiliate, or thinking like a
superintendent or thinking like a governor’s education policy aide.
So the union experience is
double. I understand the aspirations of the people that unions represent
and I also understand the motivations and sentiments of people who represent
large numbers of teachers.
JL: Can you think of some practical
ways and avenues that you might suggest for teachers to understand, influence
and implement policies….in our school districts at the local level? How
do we make policy less abstract and how do we understand it, influence it and
implement it?
BJ: Be a building rep for your union,
be on your building faculty senate or building committee, partner with people
in the central office so that you are a practitioner [figuring out] the
difficult problems of execution with administrators, because just like teachers
don’t want reform to be done to them, they want it to be done with them,
administrators want policy implementation to be done with them, not policy
implementation arguments done to them. And we should assume that no one
wants to be part of that kind of loud argument.
And don’t hesitate to use those
opportunities to be building reps and union leaders and district leaders as
vehicles for career advancement. The ambitions of teachers to be
successful and efficacious are the things that actually animate the best things
about their career. And we should always be encouraging teachers to act
on those aspirations.
JL: What can we do, as teachers and as
members of our teachers union, to make this happen more often in general?
BJ: In a sentence, navigate towards
your best hopes and away from your worst fears.
Too much of the adversarial discourse
in public education is discourse buttressed by worst fears. ‘What if the
worst principal in the world were in charge of that school?’ We need a
rule to protect all teachers against the possibility of the worst principal in
the world.
It’s the wrong way to be
organized. [We] should be organizing instead on ‘how do we get the best
principal in the world in as many schools as we’ve got? That means that
we’re going to need really great incentive packages for principals, and by
golly they might need to be paid more than teachers and as maybe as a teacher
union leader, I need to advocate that we accelerate the pay for high school
principals so that the working conditions in my high schools get better.
It’s a simple example, but if you
begin to think like that, then you can begin to proliferate other examples.
JL: So is it up to the individual
teachers in our buildings as building reps, as partners with district
officials, to talk and frame the conversation in that way? Because
sometimes a lot of the rhetoric out there is very negative, as you’re probably
already aware….how do we break through that?
BJ: We didn’t say, when we negotiated
ProComp, ‘let’s embrace the arbitrary and capricious.’ We said instead,
‘let’s embrace the reasonable, the consistent, the credible…’ and then we said,
‘let’s make sure we’re protecting against the arbitrary and capricious by
embracing [the] reasonable and consistent and credible.’ We never said
anything about getting it all right. We always said though, we want to
keep our antennae up and avoid treating people badly. And what’s more, we
made a commitment to use data as a way to inform our future decisions so that
we were not being arbitrary and capricious.
