Believing in Ourselves: Urban Middle School Reform

Believing in Ourselves

Part II - Chapter 8

THE UNION STORY

The five years' of the Clark initiative witnessed dramatic changes in the status of unions and their priorities, both at the local and national levels. As has been true for several decades, principals continued to chafe at their lack of control over selection of personnel because of union contracts. Tenure and seniority are inviolable tenets of unionism; yet, education reforms require some flexibility on these issues.

During the project years, national teachers' unions were trying to understand how to adjust. Both major unions -- the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers -- mounted their own reform programs, although AFT disbanded its restructuring center and began to focus strongly on higher standards and high-stakes testing during the years of the Clark grants. The AFT units operate very independently of the national office, but a common theme of both the national AFT and its locals has been the union's opposition to privately run public schools and some choice initiatives. This controversy was most evident in Baltimore.

As organizations that reached their zenith by following the industrial model of standardization of policies across the board, the current character of education reform is threatening to unions. When schools are organized to do their own thing, as they are under decentralization, or put into the hands of people who are not part of a hierarchy of power, as with charter schools, the very heart of organized labor is challenged. School-site decisionmaking and charter schools empower teachers -- a union goal -- but they also blur the line between teaching and administration, a distinction important for unions to maintain.

Yet, like so many other factors in the Clark cities, these struggles over redefining power relationships between union policies and reform objectives in the Clark cities were couched in the local context.

The influence of teachers' unions on school reform depends greatly
on the extent to which unions adapt to reform agendas or remain inflexible -- often because they function in a "union town."

The five Clark sites represented a full spectrum of the power of teachers' unions. In every school, certainly, there are teachers who define their own professionalism beyond the spirit of the contract, but when trying to change policies and practices, most administrators must cope with how carefully the contract is read.

For example, Parkman Middle School in Milwaukee ventured ahead of the rest of the district on using portfolio assessments and wanted them to be graded by teachers from other schools. Because stipends were paid to the graders, the task could be assigned only to senior teachers, according to the union contract. Looking ahead to districtwide portfolio assessments, Deputy Superintendent Robert Jasna (later acting superintendent), worried that "I don't have enough senior people to do it right."

Superintendent Howard Fuller, who came from the social services arena, supported wider parental choice in Milwaukee, such as through charters or vouchers limited to public schools. Choice was anathema to union leadership, and its support for three successful school board candidates opposed to choice led to Fuller's resignation. Because of its industrial base and working-class population, Milwaukee is a "union town," and strict interpretation of union contracts often inhibits the kind of flexibility needed for school reforms.

On the other hand, San Diego is a conservative, non-union community that is quick to criticize unions and teachers. The financially strapped district was unable to raise teachers' salaries during most of the Clark project (its only new investment was to reduce class size for the primary grades), but district officials are using outside funds to bring union leadership into the development of programs under different grants. "We are trying to include the union in non-union dialogues around reforms," says Deputy Superintendent Till, who also is coordinator of the Clark project in San Diego. (Nonetheless, in 1995, teachers took a strong negotiations stand, asking for large salary increases.)

Louisville administrators rarely mention union problems in carrying out reforms. Most reforms there have been non-union issues, except for a change that project coordinator Howard Hardin wanted to introduce in the middle schools. Troubled by the number of teachers who benefitted from extensive professional development because of the Clark initiative and then moved on to schools not serving low-income students, he proposed that teachers in the Clark schools agree to stay a minimum number of years. This violated seniority policies in the contract, the union pointed out.

Hardin acknowledges that teachers should not be
forced to work where they don't want to be, but the talent drain from needy schools is a problem.

Hardin acknowledges that teachers should not be forced to work where they don't want to be, but the talent drain from needy schools is a problem. Still, he now rationalizes, "perhaps it is a good idea to spread the talent around. That other schools want to recruit from the Clark sites is flattering to them." Moreover, Western is now getting requests from teachers to be transferred in, unheard of before.

As in most districts with collective bargaining, seniority rules hamper Oakland principals from building the staff they would like to have, according to Lynn Dodd, principal of King Estates Junior High School. Principals must take into account credentials, seniority, and affirmative action in that order when adding or cutting staff. No mention of skills and abilities. "We don't have much flexibility," she says. On the other hand, the teachers' union has supported the conversion of all remaining junior high schools to middle schools, despite the disruption to current positions that would cause. The union even "told us we were taking too much time planning and not acting," says Yolanda Peeks, deputy superintendent.

The Baltimore district's flirtation with all sorts of reforms, especially the schools run by the outside for-profit Educational Alternatives, Inc. (including one middle school) created defiance toward district initiatives on the part of the union. Both local and national union leadership opposition to the EAI agreement distracted everyone from reasoned discussion about other reforms, such as the Clark initiative. Teachers went their own way, drawing up a petition to get a public vote on smaller class sizes, which was their priority. Principals, it should be added, acted on their own priority, too, drawing up a plan to deal with troublemaking students in alternative centers away from their schools because they considered the central office insensitive to the problems principals faced.

Even though the whole school system changed to school-site decisionmaking, Clark principals in Baltimore felt hindered in carrying it out because of traditional union contract language. At Calverton, the problem was one of persuading good teachers to stay if they had the seniority to move on elsewhere. At West Baltimore, the principal's desire to persuade some teachers to transfer or be evaluated out of teaching was hampered by tenure, seniority, and other union contract protections.

THE SINS OF OMISSION

The extent of work-to-the-contract behavior often depends on how much teachers and their unions are included in the design and implementation of reforms. In Baltimore, says Jerry Baum, president of the Fund for Educational Excellence, "very few leaders in the community see teachers as being important, as needing to be empowered to take responsibility."

The Baltimore Teachers' Union feels the same way about district policies. Irene Dandridge, co-president, says the district "makes no effort to use ideas and experiences of those in the classrooms." The lack of a consistent vision, she adds, was one reason why the district did not give support to changing the curriculum or other factors at the Clark schools.

Schools where an informed, skilled core of teachers wants to move forward on reforms should not be held back by teachers who do not want to change -- and are protected from doing so by union contracts.

All of the Clark sites have bought into school-based decisionmaking in some form. It seems inevitable that much of the traditional division between teachers and administrators in these districts, divisions embodied in union contracts, will give way to what researchers Julia Koppich and Charles Kerchner term "professional unionism." This means accepting change and moving toward greater professional roles for teachers while still protecting collective bargaining. Schools where an informed, skilled core of teachers wants to move forward on reforms should not be held back by teachers who do not want to change -- and are protected from doing so by union contracts.

The idea that professionalism and unionism can co-exist certainly was evident in most of the Clark schools able to wrestle flexibility out of union contracts -- and to support those teachers committed to change.

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from Believing in Ourselves: Progress and Struggle in Middle School Reform. By Anne C. Lewis. Published in 1995 by the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation.