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the scoop
June 24, 2009
At long last, Bronx Green Dot finalizes (tenure-free) contract
Teachers union president Randi Weingarten today signed her name to a work contract free of the word “tenure” — and then heralded the contract as a model for American schools.
The contract is for a new charter high school in the Bronx run by Green Dot Public Schools, a California-based organization that manages charter schools. In a twist from most other charter school operators, Green Dot encourages its teachers to be represented by unions, and the United Federation of Teachers is representing teachers at the new Bronx school.
The agreement itself — all 29 pages plus appendices of which you can read here — is also a departure from typical practice. Charter school leaders often shun teachers unions’ involvement as hurting their schools’ ability to focus on students, while labor leaders fight against charter schools, accusing them of union-busting.
Weingarten and Steve Barr, the leader of Green Dot, said they came together because they both believe that students can only learn more if teachers are treated as professionals. They said that unions help make that possible. “We need to grow up politically,” Barr said, referring to charter school leaders. “If we’re going to actually … respect the idea that this is the civil rights issue of our time, we’ve got to get rid of this adult dysfunction.”
Weingarten said that while she supports the concept of tenure, it should never be mistaken for “lifetime job security.” She said the contract should become a “national model.” “I love signing this contract!” she said while penning her name to the document.
At 29 pages plus three short appendices, the contract differs from many traditional urban teacher contracts, including the New York City teachers’ contract. In addition to not guaranteeing teachers “tenure,” the contract does strictly mandate class sizes, and it does not set the length of the school work day. Instead, it promises that no teacher will be fired without a principal proving he or she has “just cause” to do so, and it sets a cap on what is known as “student load,” offering more flexibility on class size. It also raises teacher salaries to 14% above the city contract levels.
Teachers at the school, which opened last fall to ninth-graders and will expand to tenth-grade this fall, served on a committee that negotiated the contract.
Teachers on the committee said their professional lives would be improved by the lack of strict tenure protections. “Tenure was never ever on the table,” an eighth-year English teacher on the committee, Frances Sora, said. “I’ve worked at plenty of schools where tenure actually hurt the environment.”
Sora said that tenure allowed poor teachers to stay in the classroom, lowering the quality of the entire school. “Here, the teachers are part of a hiring committee, and they work on hiring other teachers,” she said. “I feel like our just cause in the contract is more than reasonable for any kind of employment.”
The New York City contract is based on the same principles behind contracts for Green Dot teachers in California. Barr said yesterday that in 10 years of operating, Green Dot has only fired two teachers and four principals.
The full contract:
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June 24th, 2009 5:16 am
My dream is a UFT and AFT free of the words, “Randi Weingarten”.
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June 24th, 2009 10:21 am
The fact is teaching, like life itself is a very subjective process. Teaching styles and concepts in education come and go just like fashion trends unfortunately. It is often not until years AFTER having a teacher, that you realize what a teacher tried to do or did do for you. It has so little to do with test scores and such very often. Without tenure, nepotism and other forms of favoritism, including literally who is sleeping with who, will just run more rampant. A 14% salary increase is nowhere near enough to compensate for losing tenure and a mature sagacious person would realize that. Teaching salaries will always be relatively low and job surety is simply a way to compensate for the lower salary. Meanwhile it reduces, if not eliminates politics in the system. You can speak your mind and rest assured you will still be able to pay your mortgage.
Teaching without tenure is just asking for trouble. Sooner or later the tide of public opinion will turn against you and you will be out of work. This has happened to many in elitist private schools for one reason or another. A couple of years ago a teacher at the Fieldstone school was dismissed simply because he wrote a succesful book. I wonder how many teachers on this negotiating team knew that? You can bet dollars to doughnuts Randi Weingarten did. Do you think she’d ever yield her lawyer’s license or the lifetime assurances that affords her?
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June 24th, 2009 11:03 am
Just to make sure readers don’t miss this point (which I made on a previous thread about Green Dot), when Green Dot took over an existing L.A. high school, they made all the teachers reapply for their jobs and hired fewer than half of them. This is generally viewed as anti-labor behavior, so it’s surprising that they get to maintain a reputation as labor-friendly.
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June 24th, 2009 11:50 am
[...] the report in GothamSchools, what was agreed upon between the UFT and Green Dot is a thin contract, meaning it doesn’t [...]
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June 24th, 2009 11:57 am
Tenured Teacher,
Tenure was not simply given away for a 14% raise. Rather, it was replaced with a different way to address your concerns. There includes progressive discipline, due process, a requirement for just cause, defined procedures and binding arbitration. This is combined with an agreed upon evalaution process.
There are good historical reasons for tenure. But that doesn’t mean that our current model of tenure is the response to current conditions. Before you attack the loss of “tenure,” look at what replaces it.
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June 24th, 2009 12:03 pm
All,
OK, we’ve got a brand new UFT/Randi Weingarten negotiated contract with a charter school. And it’s not that long, either. It’s free of the historical ditrius of the NYC BOE/DOE/UFT contracts, and free of the possibility of a central office trying to control school-level administrators.
Where are the work rules that are bad for kids? Where are the work rules that are incompatible with high quality education?
Here’s your chance! You can show how Weingarten and unions are not interested in children!
Can’t you?
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June 24th, 2009 4:24 pm
well, leaving aside the facts that the Teacher Evaluation System appendix is nearly as long as the contract, and that by my count there are now 7 joimt committees, the majorities of which are required to be bargaining unit members, plus mandatory monthly Principal-Chapter Leader consults, binding arbitration, voluntary mediation (can anyone say “process overload”?), um, Arts. 4.A., 9.E., and 10 are troubling.
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June 24th, 2009 4:46 pm
cloonmore,
Are you implying that the six things you refer to in the context of “leaving aside” are bad for kids or incompatible with high quality education? If so, can you explain how/why?
What is wrong with the 3 elements of the contract you reference? How are they bad for kids or incompatible with high quality education? Can you explain what you think the problem is? Why are they even troubling?
Art 4.A.Just Cause
“No Employees shall be disciplined without just cause. Discipline shall include discharges, terminations, suspensions with or without pay, and formal reprimands in writing. An Employee shall not be fined.”Art 9.E Hiring Committee
ceolaf summary: form a committee with principal & faculty; Try to reach consensus; Principal gets final say; primary criteria are qualifications/credentials, evaluations, expertise; Tie go by length of service; notify employees of openings, and they get preference over new hires.Art 10. Student-Teacher Ratio, Class Size and Teacher Load
“The School shall maintain a school-wide staffing ratio of no more than twenty (20) students to one (1) full-time classroom teacher. Unless otherwise approved by the Calendar Committee and ratified by a majority of Bargaining Unit Members and the Board, an individual class may not exceed thirty (30) students. Moreover, there must be a total of no more than one hundred thirty (130) students in all of a teacher’s classes excluding advisory.” -
June 24th, 2009 5:27 pm
ceolaf,
I don’t know how we’re to define “bad for kids” or “high quality education,” but process and committees typically beget more process and bureaucracy, slowing down and impeding decisionmaking in any organization. Art. 4: The strict just cause standard increases risk to the school and therefore inhibits decisionmaking in all but the clearest cases. It’s the same as in most union contracts, be they covering teamsters or teachers. It puts the burden on the school to prove to the satisfaction of an outside arbitrator any disciplinary action, including performance-related terminations. If the arb takes a different view than the school, then it’s stuck with the poor performing teacher and probably backpay, too.
Art. 9: The school’s ceded a good deal of latitude in hiring decisions.
Art. 10: Obviously limits the school’s flexibility going forward. (I’m not arguing or interested in whether small classes are good or bad, but simply that the school’s given up the ability to reconsider the issue of class size.) -
June 24th, 2009 8:00 pm
From today’s L.A. Times article on Green Dot’s Locke High School in Watts:
Green Dot replaced most of the old Locke faculty … Much of the staff is young, and only 15% have fully completed teacher credentialing requirements.
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June 24th, 2009 9:35 pm
Article 9 is plainly antidemocratic: A principal’s vote outweighs that of an entire committee of teachers.
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June 24th, 2009 10:16 pm
Is anyone REALLY surprised that the Greene Dot Locke faculty in Watts is primarily young? Youth will always win out in these things. Meanwhile I’d love a share of Google for everyone of those verdant neophytes who would not even know California was once part of Mexico, or couldn’t name five California governors. Funny this company hails from LA too. After all two of Hollywood’s greater classics, “All About Eve” and “Sunset Boulevard” deal with older people pushed aside in one form or another, not necessarily at all totally justly. Then again why should I even opine such erudite points? You can bet your bottom dollar the vast bulk of these tyros wouldn’t know Billy Wilder from Thornton Wilder and wouldn’t care to know. Ask a few of them what an op-ed piece is, if you would like a bit of entertainment for yourself.
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June 24th, 2009 10:43 pm
The article also mentions an eager 23-year-old teacher working 12-hour days. It also mentions high teacher turnover.
How often are we expected to swallow the notion that this is some kind of solution? Is there anyone who sincerely believes that we can run an educational system by hiring energetic youngsters, working them till they burn out (quickly), and coming up with new cycles of replacements in perpetuity?
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June 24th, 2009 11:07 pm
Dear Caroline,
But this is so the point here. Burn out the tyros. (Of course most of these newbees wouldn’t even have the word tyro in their ken.) They never stay long enough to make substantial claims for health or dental care, as those of us between 50 and death are prone to do. With a little bit of luck they’ll have the good sense not to die on the job and collect any entitlement that way. They don’t or can’t accrue the years for the largest monetary prize in teaching- a substantial pension. I mean this is a total win/win for management who will profit the pelf on the shelf for themselves while most of these dewey eyed idealists will be out the door before they know what hit them.
How people fall for this I don’t know. Anyone could see through this. Ray Charles could see through this. But then again as PT Barnum said there is a sucker born every minute.
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June 24th, 2009 11:48 pm
cloonmore- Art. 10 shouldn’t be disturbing, because it does say that it is possible for larger classes to be approved. I see what you’re saying for 9E and I agree that teachers should be approved by many people and not just one, but I think that Art. 4 is completely fair. I actually like the contract and what Green Dot is doing. From personal experience, I know that if you don’t hold teachers accountable, it is a possiblity that they will do nothing. Green Dot is just adopting a model that still provides some security to teachers while still making sure that teachers are really trying. Not all teachers need to be held accountable to really put an effort into their classrooms, but a suprising amount do.
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June 25th, 2009 12:36 am
I suggest ” a student” should definitely become a teacher without tenure. Do spend a fortune on college and a Master’s too as part of your dedication, of course. Then when you have taught without tenure for a good decade, if indeed you would last that long, re-read your comments here. That way you will better understand George Bernand Shaw’s immortal words “Youth is wasted on the young”. You might also understand the great author Alexander Pope who noted, ” Fools rush where angels fear to tread.”
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June 25th, 2009 9:52 am
[...] educational policy? Can she convince her disparate members to support Obama policies? Is the new NYC Green Dot contract the beginning of an epoch change in union negotiations? At the UFT the new president, [...]
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June 25th, 2009 5:06 pm
Taking tenure away for a 14% raise that will be so highly taxed in New York City anyway, truly is like stealing candy from a baby. Frankly any teachers so stupid as not to realize this is a raw deal is so moronic, I wouldn’t want them teaching my child, simply for their lack of good judgment.
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June 25th, 2009 6:19 pm
tenured teacher, how is it exactly that tenure was “taken away” from GDNYC teachers? You can’t take away what was never there. The teachers didn’t give up anything and got 14% anyway. Sounds like a pretty rich deal.
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June 25th, 2009 9:14 pm
Clonmore,
Ask a labor lawyer, if it is worth working more days, longer hours without tenure when the raise is only 14%. Don’t take my word for it. Ask someone highly knowledgeable in labor law, the moreknowledgeable the better. The barristers I have queried find this risible.
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June 25th, 2009 10:23 pm
TT: My point is that you keep bemoaning the fact that the GDNYC teachers gave something up, or that something was “taken” from them, namely, “tenure.” But in fact they didn’t give anything up because, like virtually all charter school teachers, they never had tenure in the first place. You can’t lose what you never had. And you can bet that there’s no way the UFT was going to get anything resembling the NYCDOE version of “tenure” from GreenDot in this contract. So the UFT had two choices: (1) hold out for NYCDOE “tenure” with no particular leverage to get it (other than GD’s apparent desire to make nice with the union in public), or (2) bargain for as much due process + money as they could reasonably hope to get. Looks like they wisely opted for the latter. So ask whatever labor lawyers you like, but what was the union supposed to do… try to convince GD teachers to strike? Haha. Now *that* would be risible!
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June 26th, 2009 2:13 am
Hi Cloonmore,
I do not mean to be churlish and your points are well taken ( and well made). I guess as I am concluding my 34th year of contractual teaching this June, I feel adamantly about tenure. My pension alone is worth an easy 1.5 million something I don’t delude myself for a minute I would have accrued without tenure. Tenure makes teaching a very respectable middle class job. A tenured teacher with a partner who is similarly employed, can typically plan a family, carry a mortgage, send children to college, etc. Hopefully they will even have some time to contribute to the community. (coach sports, etc.) Hence on some level the entire community benefits from the surety of the tenured teacher’s job. Now this is all being taken away by some for profit making company, that purports to be private, but of course is “private” with public funding. (Not totally unlike our banks and car companies these days I might add.) Put more bluntly they are simply private with our tax dollars when it is self-serving to be sol Personally, this just burns my derriere.
Teaching is inantely subjective, anyone who works without tenure is highly likely to run into significant trouble eventually. This goes on even in the most elite private schools where no one seriously doubts the students are achieving. A few years back Horace Mann or Fieldston School in Riverdale (I forget which one) fired a teache,r a Dr. Trees as I recall, because he published a book that was too successful. Huge protests from students and professionals accomplished nothing.
That’s right, getting in trouble for being successful is not unheard of at all in the competitive, vicious, cut throat, yet often petty world of work. Many years ago when Gwen Verdon, the woman who would go on to be the greatest musical dancer in the history of Broadway. was featured in her first musical (”Can-Can”) the woman who was actually starring in the show kept demanding that Gwen Verdon’s part be cut during rehearsals because she was just too good. Heartbroken and discouraged Ms. Verdon had given her notice, but a replacement could not be found. An opening night audience that refused to stop applauding when Gwen left the stage after her one truncated solo number saved her then still fleding career.
Obviously, the story of Gwen Verdon is special in the lore of Broadway and only recalled by bizarre theater fans like myself, but being too successful at work can be a real issue. Only a few years ago a tenured teacher at Columbia University died who had hid from colleauges the numerous successful murder mysteries she wrote under an alias. Anyone, who thinks the children are going to be the prime consideration is in la la land.
You can be sure when the young, comely neophyte has long, supple legs and/or perhaps a well formed bosum(buxom won’t hurt) her work will invariably be judged quite adequate indeed. I am not so sure about the middle aged school marm, her figure lost to her childbearing who really wishes students would understand the pluperfect. (the attractive tyro of course won’t have to know what the pluperfect is.)
Then too those who delude themselves into thinking profit, private organizations are a panacea for public functions, might look across the sea to Ireland. There for decades the government was in the habit of entrusting its wards to church operated institutions run ostensibly only for subsistence and charitable intent with religious scarcely paid personnel often doing the bulk of the work. The results to anyone who has bothered to read the reports ranges from disappointing to disastrous with millions of dollars in lawsuits in the offing.(This in spite of some decent or even good care not infrequently offered as well.)
To me it is all so sad. America is losing middle class jobs and this is just part of the trend continuing in that tragic direction. Meanwhile Green Dot will profiteer until they fail and the government will of course need to intervene again.
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June 26th, 2009 3:54 am
[...] At long last, Bronx Green Dot finalizes (tenure-free) contract … [...]
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June 26th, 2009 9:06 am
TT, I don’t doubt the depth of your feelings, but respectfully suggest that you wildly overstate both the fruits of “tenure” (while ignoring the negatives) as well as the implications of not having tenure. I don’t see how an individual teacher’s contributions to her community, church, little league, etc. can be attributable to the tenure system. Lots and lots of people in many walks of life make such contributions and sacrifices, and no one but teachers have tenure. Your Horace Mann (& Gwen Verdon) parable of the risk of “too much success” doesn’t wash for two reasons. First, the teacher in question wasn’t fired for being too successful, but because the book he wrote completely trashed Horace Mann. Quite a difference. Second, you don’t say whether he was covered by a labor contract with a just cause provision. Is Horace Mann unionized? Again, no small difference. The GreenDot contract has a just cause provision, with the same protections as most other union contracts have. Your fears of discrimination against old teachers is similarly misplaced. In addition to the just cause provision, there are manifest laws against age discrimination, as you surely know.
What’s most unfortunate in your comments, and quite revealing about your own biases, is your disdain for young teachers (or tyros, as you call them). You call them everything but morons. (Oh, wait, you called them that, too.) My 1st grader had a 25-yr teacher this year, while my 3rd grader had a teacher in her second or third year of teaching. Guess who was the better teacher? (Hint: it wasn’t the seasoned vet.) Experience ain’t everything.
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June 26th, 2009 9:54 am
In the comment thread, we’ve got both people complaining about the loss of tenure and people complaining about Art. 4, the just cause requirements for termination.
I ask those on both sides: How does the this contract differ from the solution you want on this issue? How are those differences problematic, in your view?
I think some are saying that this provision and the others on disciplinary procedures differ little from tenure, in practice. Can they explain that a bit more specifically, and explain more precisely what they would streamline and what elements the would jettison?
I think some are saying that the loss of tenure is a big deal. Can they explain the differences between this provisions combined with the procedural stuff and tenure, as they understand it? Can they explain how those differences undermine the good elements/principles of tenure?
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June 26th, 2009 10:46 am
Barr’s claim about how many principals and teachers Green Dot has fired is misleading, given that when Green Dot took over an existing high school (Locke in Los Angeles) it required all teachers to reapply for their jobs, and replaced most of them.
Here’s how the L.A. Times describes that situation:
“Green Dot replaced most of the old Locke faculty and split the school into eight smaller academies. Much of the staff is young, and only 15% have fully completed teacher credentialing requirements. Half have taught for three years or less. And half are 28 or younger.
But many make up in enthusiasm what they lack in years. [23-year-old teacher] Bridger regularly spends 12 hours a day on campus, typically arriving just after 6 a.m.”
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June 26th, 2009 10:56 am
“But many make up in enthusiasm what they lack in years.”
That’s the quote. That’s the principle at work, or at least the theory. And in it we the limits, too. Yes, more hard work and intelligence can make up for a great deal of experience and the judgement that comes with it. But it does *not* outstrip it.
Let’s give the enthusiastic hard workers — especially the smart ones — credit for all they do. But let’s *not* confuse the greater effort that they lack of experience requires of them with better results or better teaching. They do the best they can — something that few people in any field can honesty claim. Other can do better, though, and the best of them actually do.
Unfortunately, the vision of the relatively young adults working all those hours is quite enticing to those who don’t understand what the work of teaching really entails, and how what mastery of this particular profession looks like.
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June 26th, 2009 11:20 am
Well, yes, that quote about enthusiasm is just the L.A. Times being clueless. (I wonder how they would feel if there were a movement to disparage, attack and get rid of veteran reporters and editors and replace them with bright-eyed young beginners.)
Here’s what Rethinking Schools has written about the bright-eyed young beginner teachers:
“Reforms are bound to fail if they rely on the voluntarism of idealistic, overworked teachers who burn out and leave the school once they decide to have a family or want any semblance of a meaningful personal life.”
The quotes is rom the introduction to the March 2008 book Keeping the Promise? The debate over charter schools, a collection of essays published by Rethinking Schools in collaboration with the Center for Community Change. The introduction was written by education researcher/commentators Leigh Dingerson, Barbara Miner, Bob Peterson and Stephanie Walters.
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June 26th, 2009 1:09 pm
This thread has quickly devolved into a trashing of young teachers. (At least all the biases are out in the open!) But I’m curious about something… At what point exactly does the enthusiastic, green tyro earn his or her black belt in teaching mastery? How long does it take one to acquire the “judgment” that we’re told is far more valuable than plain ol’ “hard work and intelligence”?
It wouldn’t by any chance be a mere 3 years, would it?
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June 26th, 2009 1:44 pm
This is NOT about trashing young teachers. That’s absolutely not true. I’m making two points:
1. Denigrating experience and promoting the notion that inexperienced newcomers are inherently superior to experienced veterans is fallacious and harmful (and malicious).
2. It’s not workable to base a school system on the ability of energetic young adults to work superhuman hours and devote superhuman effort in perpetuity. -
June 26th, 2009 4:01 pm
cloonmore,
I think that that is a serious misreading of what I and others have written.
To say that experience allows teachers to develop mastery and judgment is not to trash those without it. Rather, it is to acknowledge what professions in every field know — that their earliest years are times of great learning and professional growth.
I actually pointed out that hard work and enthusiasm can help inexperienced teachers to make up much of the gap between them and their more experiences and less hard working colleagues. That doesn’t trash them.
I wonder if you understand why many feel that categorical claims that new teachers can do the job as well or better than experienced teacher trashes experienced teachers — and actually trashes the new teachers as well?
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June 26th, 2009 4:44 pm
ceolaf,
I don’t know that i’ve seen categorical claims that new teachers can do the job as well as or better than experienced teachers. I’d agree that such cannot be stated categorically. What I have seen are ardent defenses of tenure against any criticism or erosion of the system, which suggests a categorical claim that experienced teachers can always do the job better then new teachers. So, my question remains: what exactly occurs after 3 mere years that supposedly transforms the tyro into the sage? -
June 26th, 2009 4:52 pm
The pervasive attitude throughout the charter movement, and certainly at Green Dot, is clearly that veteran, experienced teachers are largely burned-out deadwood, and that it’s all-around ideal to replace them with young beginners. The fact that Locke replaced most of its staff (I haven’t seen the actual percentage) with young beginners is obviously a case in point, since those young beginners hadn’t proven themselves to be superior to the veterans.
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June 26th, 2009 5:03 pm
cloonmore,
1) Perhaps you don’t recognize such claims because they so often use the word “veteran.” I have seen many claims that it is better to fill a school with inexperienced teachers than with veterans.
2) Defense of job protections (e.g. tenure) constitute a form of trashing young teachers? Can you explain your reasoning on that a bit more. I don’t follow what you are saying.
3) I think you might be contracting yourself a little bit. If teachers get tenure after three year — or even two, as they do in some places — how is defense of tenure an attack on young teachers. If you can get tenure before you’re out of your mid-20’s, tenure seems available to young teachers.
4) Experienced teachers have a categorical advantage over inexperienced teachers. They have experience, and the opportunities to develop and refine their professional judgment that come with experienced. On the other hand, work ethic and enthusiasm of some inexperienced teachers are also also found among many experienced teachers.
5) Actually, as I understand it, the research generally shows that it takes 5 years to become a master teacher. But the logic of the tenure tenure is that by that point teachers have shown though all of their evaluations that they are not bad, and therefore merit some job protections. (A problem is that untenured teachers have none, so it’s kinda all or no nothing.)
6) We need to be clear here that youth and inexperience are not he same thing. Yes, they are correlated, but many tenured and experienced teachers are under 30. A 28 year old, 5 years in is both young *and* experienced.
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June 26th, 2009 6:07 pm
ceolaf:
where to begin? I’ll cover just a couple of the most erroneous statements that jump out at me in your last post.
“Experienced teachers have a categorical advantage over inexperienced teachers.”
I guess such sweeping generalizations are essential to defending such a reflexively seniority-based system as tenure, but you may as well say that experienced Presidents have a categorical advantage over inexperienced Presidents. (Just curious, did you vote for Bush over Kerry in ‘04?)
“by that point teachers have shown though all of their evaluations that they are not bad, and therefore merit some job protections. (A problem is that untenured teachers have none, so it’s kinda all or no nothing.)”
It’s a sorry state of affairs when a primary argument in defense of tenure is that tenured teachers are “not bad.” (Ask any kid whether they’d rather a good teacher or a “not bad” teacher.) And the all-or-nothing claim is utterly false, as demonstrated by the very contract that is under discussion on this thread — the GreenDot-UFT contract, which provides for “just cause” protection.
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June 26th, 2009 6:59 pm
cloonmore,
I’ll try to be more clear here.
* I did *not* write that all experienced teachers are better than all new teachers or all young teachers.
* I wrote that, as a category, experienced teachers have “an advantage” or inexperienced teachers. Are you suggesting that experience is not advantageous? Heck, I even defined what that advantage was. Let me quote myself, “the opportunities to develop and refine their professional judgment that come with experienced.” Is that not an advantage?
* Careful reading would reveal that I described it an “opportunity” to develop those things, not a guarantee. I did not write this explicitly, but I was intentionally implying that not all experienced teachers actually DO develop that those traits, thusly wasting their advantage.
* I’ve been quite clear that hard work and intelligence can make up for much of what is missing in an inexperienced teacher. Of course, that hard working and intelligent veteran teacher who *has* made good use of his/her experienced to develop professional judgment, etc. etc, is going to be better than the hard working and intelligent inexperienced teacher. That’s the categorical advantage at work.
* Not to get to political, but considering how many times in this thread I have written of hard work, intelligence and judgment, my decisions in presidential elections are kinda obvious. Of course, as the presidency is a position where most things are delegated, the ability to pick good advisors and appointees — and the ability take best advantage of their advice, of course — is of paramount importance. That’s where your comparison between presidents and teachers kinda breaks down. It happens that in that particular election, things all lined up — decisionwise — though.
* The tenure part really troubles me. What I wrote, the part you even quoted, points out a problem with tenure, “it’s kinda all or nothing.” What I wrote — and I’ve got to believe that understood this — is that once teachers have demonstrated for a few years, they do deserve SOME job protections. I have not defended tenure anywhere in this thread, nor said that I agree with it. In fact, I think that the fairest reading of what you quoted — though perhaps not quite an accurate reading of my thoughts on tenure — is as an attack on tenure, that it is given when only SOME job protections are warranted.
* The Green Dot contract does not have tenure. As you say, and as I have written in this thread, it has alternative protections. However, I think that the argument against the tenure system (i.e. the one I made above) can be made against this contract, only with more strength. It give the entire package of job protections to all teachers from day 1. I think that teachers should begin with some small amount of job protections, and earn more and more for a few years, until they’ve earned the entire complement available. As they show themselves more capable and productive, it should become harder to remove them (up to some level). I certainly hope that your wild distortion of my position was unintentional.
(I understand that what I am proposing here could make it quite hard for new principals. So long as the senior-most teachers are the hardest to remove, it will always be quite difficult for a new principal to change around the culture at a dysfunctional school. I understand that. However, I am uncertain about new principals, too. Perhaps they should gain greater abilities as they themselves demonstrate their ability and judgment? I have not worked this out.)
* Last, I have serious questions about whether the Green Dot contract provides more or less job protection for teachers than the NYC-DOE/UFT contract. It doesn’t have the word tenure, but a word does not a policy or set of procedures make. In practice, would experienced teachers really have less protections than in a DOE school? The fact that inexperienced (i.e. <3 years experience, for the purposes) have equal protection has got to be factored in, right? If a non-Green Dot principal followed all the things that a Green Dot principal must do to remove a teacher, would s/he be able to do it?
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June 26th, 2009 10:30 pm
ceolaf,
A “categorical advantage” would be a trait that is always and everywhere to be preferred over the contrary. I don’t believe “experience” can be so characterized. “Experience” in teaching is only an advantage if it translates into improvements in a teacher’s performance. So I don’t see how one can contend that “experience” is always and everywhere an advantage. Simply put, some people don’t learn from their experiences.
Your “all or nothing” comment was directed at untenured teachers and the claim that they have “no” job protections. Again, that’s untrue, not just in the unionized, “just cause” setting, but in non-unionized settings as well, in which many, many laws protect against adverse discriminatory and retaliatory job actions.
As for the problems of the ‘just cause’ standard, and whether it is really an improvement over tenure for those who are critical of the tenure system, it’s a worthwhile point (which is why I called it a “troubling” provision of the Green Dot contract way back near the start of this thread).
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June 27th, 2009 12:21 am
cloonmore,
1) “Categorical: unambiguously explicit and direct.”
All else being equal, one category has an advantage over the old, one that is unambiguous and direct. Not necessarily overwhelming.
If you want to discuss or argue about whether or not “experience, and the opportunities to develop and refine their professional judgment that come with experience” constitutes a categorical advantage or not, I could respect that. However, twisting that explanation of what I termed a “categorical advantage” to be a defense of tenure is not appropriate. Redefining a sentence of mine — by ignoring the immediate subsequent sentence — so that you position it as a straw man to argue against is not appropriate.
2) I just double-checked with the labor and employment attorney sitting to my left — a smart, hard worked, well-educated and highly experienced professional — and she confirmed that my description is accurate. Untenured teachers do not have any “job protections.” The kinds of legal protections against certain “adverse discriminatory and retaliatory job actions” that are available even in at-will employment environments are not, legally speaking, “job protections.” In fact, she explains that job protections can be thought of as the elements and/or agreement that make it differ from employment at-will.
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June 27th, 2009 12:28 am
Tenure is literally a constiutional protection, covered by the 14th amendment(not that too many pedagogues quite realize that) Legally it is known as the property and liberty interest of tenure. Consider it like owning your house as opposed to just renting from a nice person who promises to treat you family. An aggrieved tenured teacher can litigate all the way to the Supreme Court. Due process doesn’t provide for that at all. Furthermore, when someone is being railroaded, which happens all the time in the real world of work, due process needn’t be as fair as it sounds at all.
Folks who are confused here, don’t take my word for anything, just ask an experience labor lawyer, the more experienced the better
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June 28th, 2009 2:15 pm
ceolaf:
The term “categorical” is commonly used to mean unconditional and absolute. I don’t understand the sense in which you were using it, but debating it further is pointless. I accept that whatever you meant, it apparenly was *not* that the “experienced” teacher possesses an absolute advantage over the “inexperienced.”
I’m afraid your experienced labor lawyer overstates things by insisting that the “untenured” have “no job protections.” (Who are you consulting anyway — Randi Weingarten? ;)) It is axiomatic that anti-discrimination laws constitute job protections, whether or not one is employed at-will. Only by semantics can that be denied. Furthermore, the “untenured” GDNYC teachers will have additional contractual job protections, namely, the just cause standard. So it really beyond any reasonable dispute that the statement, “Untenured teachers do not have any ‘job protections’”, is false in general and false under the particular contract under discussion here.
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June 28th, 2009 3:49 pm
cloonmore,
1) Actually, she’s a management-side attorney.
2) It’s not semantics; it’s accuracy. “Job protections” is a legal term. When we are talking about contracts and their provisions, we need to be very careful. These are technical matters, and accuracy counts.
3) You really ought to stop twisting my words and taking me out of context. I was pointing that that a problem with the tenure system was that inexperienced teachers have no job protections, and then they suddenly get the full set. I was contrasting that with the Green Dot system of giving everyone the same protections from day one.
So, let’s be clear here. I was accurate in my use of a legal term, and you decided on your own definition of the term with which to tell me that I was wrong — a trick you used more than once, actually. You also have consistently misrepresented what I have written, painting it to be the opposite of what I have actually written. The steadfastness with which you continue to insist on that maneuver is beginning to convince that it is intentional, which is really too bad.
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June 28th, 2009 11:55 pm
The “rights” that non tenured teachers have are so few and far between as to be scary. I know non tenured teachers who have been afraid to take one sick day, coming to school jeopardizing their health and the health of others because they are so very intimidated.
By the way is anyone besides me just a little suspicious that only teachers’ job security is so on the line. No one seems to be after police officers who so often beat and harass our black and hispanic youngsters. (just ask them if those things are not true) What about our correction officers who never correct anyone with the criminal justice system’s notoriously high recidivisim rate?
When all is said and done taking away tenure just makes teaching that much less attractive as a middle class job at a time when a big problem in this country is that middle class jops are evaroparating no matter where one went to school. Meanwhile the funding here goes into the hands of a very few who don’t even have to have taken a single education course. How that is good public policy is beyond my ken.
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June 29th, 2009 8:15 am
Ceolaf, please. Really no need to impute bad intentions and make accusations of trickery. The limitations of this medium are evident, and you get no sympathy by insisting that all your statements are crystal clear. For example, “job protections” is not a “legal term” or a term of art. It’s a layman’s or a politician’s term. Lawyers speak more specifically about particular limitations on at-will employment, whether contractual or statutory.
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June 29th, 2009 9:20 am
cloonmore,
We are talking about a contract and tenure. Both of these are legal matters. Tenure is a legal construct. Contracts are legal documents. You yourself cited various legal protections (e.g. Title VII), even if you didn’t do so by name. This aspect of our discussion was a technical and legal discussion. And you may not like it, but, it is a legal term — at least according to the lawyer I know who work in the field.
Now, obviously, not everyone knows or understands what these legal terms means, and therefore they are often misused or misapplied. We shouldn’t jump down anyone’s throats for a simple mistake like that. However, you did not merely misuse the word. Rather, you looked at my correct use and told me that I was wrong, and that’s a bit different. You didn’t ask me if I was sure, or what I meant, or why I was not taking legals barriers discrimination based on age, sex, race or some other protected class into account. You weren’t looking for clarity, common ground or even trying to independently make your own point. Rather, you were simply calling out my statement as “untrue” — despite the fact that was entirely accurate.
Where I am not clear, I seek to clarify. Where others are not clear — at least not to me — I ask for clarification. I even wrote that I would try to me more clear. I have never claimed to “crystal clear.” I *did* claim to be “quite clear,” referring to when I wrote (at 10:56am on 6/26), “Yes, more hard work and intelligence can make up for a great deal of experience and the judgement that comes with it.”
I would only make accusations of trickery or ill intent of someone repeatedly makes the same false claims about another, despite repeated requests that they stop — with explanation of why they should, of course. Rather than accusing you of making of false accusations against me to protect yourself, I will simply ask you to clarify. What is your basis for implying that I claim that I claim that all my statements are crystal clear? What is your basis for claiming that “job protections” is not a legal term (i.e. have you consulted with practices lawyers, legal scholars, or linguists?)
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July 2nd, 2009 8:36 pm
[...] in L.A. have union contracts, but AFT (and soon to be former UFT) President Randi Weingarten just signed a union contract on June 24th agreeing to represent teachers at Barr’s new charter school opening this fall in the [...]
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July 3rd, 2009 3:44 pm
[...] time for the booing members in the audience to see the writing on the wall, and to realize that if AFT president Randi Weingarten can happily sign “tenure-free” union contracts with charter schoo…, then like it or not, the time for change has come. addthis_pub = ‘BlairGolson’; addthis_logo [...]
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Mapping the Budget Cuts
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