Teachers union could block public school change
Sacramento Bee 3/22/07
And based on a conversation with the union's leaders this week, it sounds as if the CTA is going to be very skeptical, to put it mildly, about major changes in the way the schools do business.
The research is the product of more than 20 separate papers sponsored by a group of private donors on behalf of state leaders. Taken together, it suggests that the schools need more flexibility to spend their money as they wish, that principals need more freedom to hire and fire their own staffs, and that the state needs to collect better data on how students perform and which teachers make a difference.
The research also suggests that the schools need more money, but says more cash won't do any good if it is poured into the existing system without reform.
CTA President Barbara Kerr said her 335,000-member union will fight any attempt to overhaul the schools that does not also provide more money at the same time. Kerr said she is "concerned" that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger suggested last week that the reforms should come first, then the money.
"Efficacy and adequacy have to go together," Kerr said, using the education community's terms for better performance and more money. "What we have now is not adequate."
Kerr said the union is open to the idea of change, but she added: "Agreeing to what that change should be ... may be more difficult."
The researchers didn't make any specific recommendations. But they reported that the No. 1 complaint they heard from principals is that they don't have the power to fire bad teachers. Most said they had only one or two teachers they would dismiss if they could. But they seemed to think that simply having the authority to manage their own payroll would be enough to change the way their schools work.
Another key point: information. The researchers said there is an appalling lack of data about what works and what doesn't in California schools, and they suggested that individual student performance be tracked in a way that allows teachers to be evaluated on how much impact they have on a child's mastery of the material.
The CTA isn't likely to entertain such changes any time soon. Kerr said this week that any move to change the way teachers are evaluated would have to be bargained separately in each of the state's thousand-plus districts as part of their union agreements. And any attempt to pay teachers based on performance would have to wait until all teachers are paid what she described as an "adequate" salary.
Instead, the union is promoting legislation it helped craft last year as an example of the kind of reform the schools need. Senate Bill 1133, drafted to settle a lawsuit over funding that the CTA filed against Schwarzenegger, commits $2.9 billion over seven years to 500 schools with some of the lowest-performing students in the state.
The money -- $500 per student in elementary schools and $1,000 per student in high schools -- will go largely toward reducing class size.
It will also add more high school counselors (one for every 300 students) and training for teachers and administrators. Any school that enters the program will also be free to spend its other state and federal money largely as it sees fit.
"We are putting our money where our heart is," Kerr said. "These are the things teachers have been saying make a difference. Now we are going to prove it."
Kerr and David Sanchez, who will soon succeed her as president of the powerful union, said they do support increased flexibility -- as long as it does not endanger job security for teachers.
For starters, they would like to start by getting rid of the requirements of No Child Left Behind, the federal education bill sponsored by President Bush and leading Democrats that requires schools to improve results for all students, including minorities, and penalizes them if they fall short.
"For 7 percent of the funding of education in this state, the federal government has decided that they are going to control the whole thing," Kerr said.
Some state mandates could also be jettisoned, Kerr suggested.
Currently, about one-third of school spending is dictated by more than 100 separate programs, known as "categoricals," that are controlled from Sacramento. The union has a big incentive to see some of those strings cut because doing so would leave more money available for teacher salaries.
Maybe there is some common ground in there somewhere, a grand deal that largely deregulates the schools to do as they wish as long as their students are making progress toward meeting state standards. Local officials, in consultation with their unions, would decide how much to pay their teachers and how they should be evaluated or, if necessary, dismissed.
Leave the state out of it.