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Makes no sense.  Teachers do half the work of teaching.  Parents and kids do the other half.  To evaluate teachers, the work done by parents and kids needs to be evaluated.

I would not only adjust for attendance, but also for homework done and not done.  Of course I would also want teachers to disclose the homework assigned and corrected, to see how much work they are doing.

BTW, when the parent coordinator position was announced I thought it’s purpose would be to aid and push parents in doing their part on education. That isn’t they way it worked out.

What about kids who come to class high?  I have one like that and don’t think I should be responsible for his lack of progress.

I’m not sure what Casey’s concern is regarding students’ being written off.  Students who are frequently absent don’t need extra support from teachers, they need extra support from counselors, social workers, and/or truant officers.

Furthermore, the progress reports, by awarding points for credit accumulation, already have us writing off students.  Years ago, I used to try to move every student forward.  That meant getting convincing truants to come to class more often even if they didn’t have much chance of passing, and getting the hardcore failures to do at least a little bit of homework or perform at least a little better in class.  In recent years, however, I’ve found myself putting all my extra effort into the kids on the border between passing and failing.  Those are the ones who need to pass if my school is to stay open.  Years ago I didn’t think it was a big deal if some of them had to learn their lesson by repeating the class. There’s no incentive to help the most difficult cases and way too much pressure to increase the number of passing grades.

I have to say; most government monopoly schools have a policy to reduce absenteeism that is quite active as well!

A true sign that the NYCDOE wants nothing to do with their own accountability, is a lack of a citywide attendance policy.

For all the high-paid superintendents, and deputy chancellors, and network consultants, they continue to hide behind teachers when it comes to taking some responsibility and come up with a productive educational plan.

End Mayoral Control.

 Hi Ken,

I work in a well-managed school. I don’t agree the rules preclude a good job being done. Said rules are negotiated by both parties. We need rules, Ken. Otherwise, we’d have anarchy. And also, we’d have nothing to complain about, and how would we employ our resident NYC cynics under such a scenario?

Counting   chronically   absent   students   would  be  detrimental  to  attracting  well  qualified  candidates  into  teaching.   This  new  evaluation  laws  is  already  too  punitive.  Having  teachers  held  responsible  for  a  students  who  do  not  attend   school   would  deviate  from  any  normal  component  in  employee  evaluations. 

Would  we  hold  a  cardiologist  responsible  for  his  patient’s  heart  attack  if  the  patient  fails  to  follow  the  cardiologist’s  advice  about  changing  their  diet,  medication,   and  exercise?  Would  an  airline  pilot  be   held  responsible  for  “on  time  arrival”  if  a  snowstorm  prevented  the  plane  for  taking  off?  These  comparisons   are  analogous  to  a  teacher  being  held  accountable  for  chronically  absent  students.  It’s  obvious  that  these  new  “Race  to  the  Top”  inspired  evaluation  laws  are  only  designed  to  fire  as  many  teachers,  as  quickly  as  possible.  They’re  certainly  not  designed  to  encourage  capable  people   to  enter   the   teaching   profession.

Ken Hirsch,

Please elaborate on how negotiating rules that prevent principals from committing “incompetent/unfair/corrupt actions” impedes able, fair and honest principals from doing their jobs. Without any specifics, it strikes me as a non-sequitur, and attempt to set up the UFT contract as a straw man for problems in the schools.

Hey Michael,

Here are some rules that I found back in October (in response to a similar query) by randomly selecting a few pages (pages 14 through 17 to be exact) from the 165-page contract.  Really, I’d get rid of almost the entire thing, so, for me, a better question is “Which rules would you keep?”  (I’m not sure I could answer that one.)

I’d also point out that charter schools and private schools with no contracts and unionized schools with thin contracts avoid anarchy despite the absence of a 165-page contract.  Also, I’m guessing that some schools thrive with the contract (or, as I imagine, despite the contract).  We should be thinking in terms of cost-benefit analyses, though, rather than proof by anecdote.  

I’ll leave you the last word on this subject! 

—————–

“The school day for teachers serving in the schools shall be six hours and 20 minutes…”"The parties agreed… to extend the teacher work day… by an additional 37.5 minutes per day, Monday through Thursday following student dismissal… the day will end no later than 3:45pm.”"Existing faculty and grade conference time should be used for professional development.”"On professional development days, the school day shall be 6 hours and 50 minutes.”"In order to ensure that the maximum number of students is not exceeded there will be an expedited arbitration procedure to allow the UFT to seek both a cease and desist order as well as monetary penalties for exceeding the small group instruction size limit.  The procedure is set forth in Article 22B6 and 22G.”

“No later than 60 days before the end of the term, program preference sheets should be distributed to all teachers.  Where advisable and feasible, preference with respect to subparagraphs a through g below will be honored to the extent consistent with the provisions of this Agreement relating to rotation and programming.”"The number of lesson preparations should be kept at the minimum consistent with the nature of the subject, the size of the department… and special requests of teachers.”"No later than the end of the next to the last school day of the term, teachers should receive their building programs for the following term, including the the periods and rooms where their teaching assignments occur.”

“In the matters of teaching, special, honor, and modified classes the policy of rotation of qualified persons should be followed insofar as possible.  It is understood, however, that requests by teachers of industrial arts/technology education, home economics/home and career skills, and trade subjects to retain their shop subjects and rooms should be honored when not inconsistent with the needs of the school.  The following procedures will apply to shop openings:…”"Each spring the principal and UFT chapter committee shall meet to review the compensatory time positions in the school with the goal of agreeing upon the number of, responsibilities, qualifications, basis for selection and term for compensatory time positions in their school.”

Ken Hirsch,

You include three paragraphs from the DOE/UFT contract, which you seem to feel prevent principals from doing a competent, fair and honest job. I’ll discuss them in order, after I address some points and assumptions embedded in your opening paragraphs.

First, your reference to the (horrors!) ” 165-page contract is a channeling of the propaganda line about how the union contract hurts students. The length of the contract is a reflection of the complexities of teaching and running a school, and is intended to protect teachers and students from the realities of administrative overreach. 

Second, charter and private schools avoid “anarchy” – a loaded term which implies that most public schools, as per the longstanding ed reform propaganda, are failing and chaotic –  by limiting enrollment to certain types of students, and removing those who cannot/will not conform to what in the most intensely hyped  and highly-capitalized chains (Success Academies, KIPP, Uncommon Schools) is a highly rigid, authoritarian school environment. Unlike charters, public schools do not have a (unwritten, but clear in practice) policy of keeping or weeding out the neediest kids. And on the labor relations front, charters fight assiduously (and sometimes viciously) to insure that they remain at-will workplaces, so that the realities of teachers lives do not create “anarchy,” aka an environment with some minimal restraints on administrative power.

Now, to the contract provisions you referred to:

1) This paragraph prevents principals from unilaterally extending the workday for teachers, and prevents them from turning extended time provisions into another full teaching class, with everything that follows from that (prepping, teaching, assessing, grading, etc.).

Does your highlighting this mean that teachers should not have a set work day – even though the overwhelming majority of teachers work well past the formal end of the day, and take work home – and should be compelled to stay because of a Principal’s whims? Should a Principal be able to unilaterally insist that a teacher teach an extra class at the end of an already-demanding workday? Do you honestly think the DOE would not turn the extended time into a full class if it could?

2) I’m glad you included the second provision, because it demonstrates how the union contract works in the interests of students, as well as teachers.

This provision refers to a school administration’s obligation to give teachers advance notification of the classes they will be teaching in the upcoming year or semester. Don’t you think it’s helpful to students that their teachers have some advance notice of what they’ll be teaching, so they can prepare? Or would you prefer that your child’s teacher be told what classes they’ll be teaching the day before students arrive?

It also attempts – and it’s only an attempt, because there are loopholes that allow principals to get around it – to limit how many preps a teacher will have. As a parent, which would you prefer for your high school-age child, all things being equal: that their English teacher have to write lessons and amass materials for a program that includes the teaching of four different levels (9-12), or is limited to two?

I think the answer is obvious, and that’s the issue this provision addresses. Remember, it’s all about the kids, right?

3) This provision is an attempt to give more opportunities for teachers to teach a variety of classes, and to prevent favoritism in the assigning of classes. It’s very simple and straightforward, and addresses a reality that contradicts the faith of market fundamentalists and those who insist on unlimited management authority: those in power sometimes play favorites, which has a demoralizing effect in a school, and can prevent students from 
encountering different teachers and teaching styles.

Please feel free to send along any other examples of how the evil teacher’s contract hurts kids; I’d be happy to refute them.

Finally, I have some questions for you: how many Wall Street deals are transacted without contracts, or with “thin contracts” that ignore the range of actions and outcomes that might have an impact on the parties? If it’s a substantial number, what are companies paying all those high-priced lawyers over at Cravath, Swain and Moore for? How can there be a need for contracts when you’re doing “God’s work?”

Or is it only teachers and other working people who should work without some (very basic) reciprocal rules?

Thanks Michael for the great reply.  I think you do a good (and helpful to me) job of explaining the things these rules are trying to accomplish.  What they don’t address is how they could interfere with a good school leaders ability to operate a school most effectively.  It’s pretty easy to read the original text along with your helpful commentary to see how these rules could disrupt reasonable efforts to make the best decisions in running a given school.   I’d guess that most or all of the high-performing charter schools are violating several or all of the rules I listed.  And, again, I selected these rules from just a few consecutive pages of the contract.  

Three other things:1. I took the “anarchy” word from a prior comment about the need for rules.  It wasn’t meant literally or to attack traditional public schools, but rather to point out that schools can do just fine without the contract.     2. Of course, I disagree with your generalizations about charter schools and (presumably?) unionized schools with thin contracts.  I see no compelling logic nor evidence that schools need the UFT contract to run effectively.3. With financial organizations, intra-firm transactions generally don’t have legal contracts and when they do they are generally designed to protect the firm.  I think you might be referring to inter-firm transactions which often have long contracts.   In fact, one major theory of why firms exist is to avoid the costs of contracts that typically exist between two parties in the market system.  Charter schools have a big efficiency edge (in theory at least) because they don’t have to negotiate and renegotiate contracts to deal with a myriad of potential interactions and situations.

Ken Hirsch,

Some points:

- You say these contract stipulations “… could interfere with a good school leader’s ability to operate most effectively.” Well, I suppose they could, though you don’t specify why. Then again, how could insisting that teachers be given reasonable notice about what grades or classes they will be teaching possibly make a school leader less effective? Isn’t it in fact compelling them to actually BE more effective, and isn’t it unreasonable to think the union would have initially proposed this unless too many principals were failing to “effectively” give teachers their programs in a timely fashion?

- You write that “… these rules could disrupt reasonable efforts efforts to make the best decisions in running a given school.” Again, please elaborate, with specifics. I suspect many of your “best decisions” would involve giving more power to administrators and less decision-making authority to teachers.

- Obviously, I was writing about contracts between firms, not within them. And my point remains: corporate ed reformers harp reflexively about the “165 page teacher contract,” as if that makes it illegitimate. Yet where’s their outrage at 30-page credit card contracts? How long is the legal contract between Facebook and Goldman Sachs for its upcoming initial public stock offering? Is that contract preventing either company from functioning effectively?

Really, Ken, I understand why grubby, only-caring-about-ourselves teachers like me insist on contract protections, but Lloyd Blankfein said that Goldman Sachs (which, like Mark Zuckerberg, is directly and indirectly involved in the corporate takeover of the schools) is doing “God’s work.” Why does he need contracts?

- You finish by saying that charters – which, of course, are not public schools despite receiving public funds – are more efficient, as if that is the highest end in education. I don’t share your assumptions. Public education serves many functions and needs, some of which are in conflict with efficiency (which is for the most part a euphemism for ever-increasing management control). Democracy, which public education both serves and is embodied in, is not efficient. Given human history, the just distribution of equity is not efficient.

The schools serve many purposes – and though their rhetoric mostly avoids that fact, don’t think for a second corporate reformers don’t know and act on that – for society, and efficiency should be far down the hierarchic scale (which of course is not to say that efficiencies are not possible or desirable). Rather than increased efficiency, we should be talking about increased equity and justice, and their distribution throughout society. Teachers having the collective power to achieve fair wages and benefits, decent working conditions (which are student learning conditions) and professional autonomy and dignity are part of that.

Finally, though I think this conversation has just about run its course, here’s a proposal: you said your three contract references were chosen randomly. I invite you to go over the current UFT contract with a fine-tooth comb and find what you think is the most egregious provision, and I’ll do my best to provide you and GS readers with a valid rationale for it.

I learned last year for the first time that my rating is affected by how many students are late or absent in my class.  The principal told me this in my evaluation meeting.  I was distressed, but kept it inside.  How can my evaluation be affected by students deciding to stay home?  What can I possibly do about that?  We have an attendance teacher who calls homes.  What do I have to do?  Go to their homes and wake them up, give them breakfast and drive them to school?  So unfair.