Why I support Unions.

The Union will block spurious, petty and mean administrators from firing the competent as well as the incompetent. This is good because the administrator usually has no real idea which is which.

The Union will ensure that teachers get a fair shake when they are dealing with someone who has no real need to be fair.  This is not the owner of a company who is watching every dollar out of his own pocket -- this is a transient employee who has too much power and not enough knowledge.

They float through once, twice a year in a choreographed display of feigned interest in what I am doing. Three weeks before, I get a note saying when they'll arrive and which class they'll be observing - get a lesson plan ready and do the pre-observation meeting. Then they'll watch the class, make a few notes. In the case of the more recent attendees at admin training workshops, they'll attempt to record my speech verbatim in the vain hope that recording every word spoken will somehow tell them more than just listening attentively. This is real?

We meet for the post-op and I'll be given a letter that specifies what they observed. Some of the more insightful comments were "Good lesson" and "knows the material." One of the less insightful was "Separates the kids into two groups by gender." I taught algebra in the chorus room -- apparently Mr. HIP didn't notice that the aisle down the middle separated the kids into two groups and that they took the same places as they normally did during chorus -- I don't do seating charts and usually pay no attention to where students sit. No, he thought I was being discriminatory.

I went 6 years before I was observed again. How was that principal supposed to know anything about me or anyone else in the building? How were they (five in six years) supposed to determine that X should go?

When an admin played games, got in the face of someone improperly, tried to ruin a teacher, there was always the Union stepping in to make sure that things were proper. That is its best role, to act as a buffer, to make sure that each i is dotted and t crossed. I was lucky (knock on wood). I had developed a CYA model and kept tons of paperwork and evidence. When parents complained or school boards took a closer interest, I always had a defense. What if I weren't paranoid?

The Union negotiates a contract. The contract is held up as a object of derision by many on the right - "Look at this egregious waste of taxpayer money. Look at this contract. We shouldn't allow teachers to quote the contract when they might get into trouble!" What an incredible thought, that a contract shouldn't be followed by both sides. "Gullible Boards sign outrageous contracts!" Actually, they sign a contract that both sides agreed to.

Show me any industry that breaks contracts at a whim. I'll wait.

Everybody complains about the LIFO, salary schedule, no merit pay clauses in the contract. When the dust settles, these clauses are seen as the most manageable. Since the admins are rarely around long enough to figure out the names of the teachers in the building, how are they supposed to know which one is worth keeping? The one who has been there for ten years or the kid just out of college who has no idea of what she's getting into? If you eliminate the salary schedule, then you'll have people like me getting $15,000 signing bonuses and thousands more than the English teachers. Really? Same job. Same experience. Think there won't be any bad feelings? Think the school will run just fine anyway? If you don't have a contract, then I'll demand more money and different working conditions because I know the school is desperate. Maybe I'll train for six weeks and be a dilettante TFA who does the school a favor by my presence and leaves when a real job is available.

The Union works for that contract and makes sure that both sides abide by it.

As for merit pay, this is a fantasy dreamed up by a billionaire. If I get a bonus every year because I suck up to the principal, how long do you think there will cooperation in the department? If I don't trust him to know his ass from a hole in the ground when it comes to hiring and firing, I sure don't want a large fraction of my income held over my head - "maybe you will and maybe you won't."

Far from being the leech on the blood veins of education, unions are the force that makes education work as smoothly as it does.

Negotiating, Union-style

No Choice

"Teachers initially requested a 6 percent increase on the base every year for three years, but have since requested a 4 percent increase on the base for one year, followed by a 0 percent increase on the base for one year as part of a multiyear contract. All the while the board has held their position to of freezing teachers' salaries for one year." -- Herald

How exactly does this constitute "negotiating" and what inescapable moron thought that this kind of demand was a good idea in the middle of this economy, for a group of teachers that has typically been well-compensated (compared to other similar schools within 25 miles)?  Asking for the moon is insulting; it is not a "tactic."

This left the teachers with no choice but "to strike in the fall." One teacher: "I understand that times are tough for some. But there are plenty of people getting raises."

Priceless. And the NEA wonders why people feel it to be out of touch.

Some Teachers should really just shut up.

The teacher who went foot to mouth against Gov. Christie really should just shut up. If the reports are true that she actually said she'd "love to earn $83kpy" and in fact makes $86kpy with benefits on top of that, then she has done much more damage to the teachers' cause than she probably realizes.

It does no one any good if the most visible spokesman whines hypocritically and gives the Gov enough ammunition to shoot down her argument. It does no one any good because lots of NY teachers make less with bigger courseloads. I don't make anywhere near that, even after nearly 30 years of teaching, but I don't have nearly the student load or the administrative hassle either of my readers do.

Lady, for all of us, please shut up.

Because it does matter. It matters in the court of public opinion. It matters in the court of John and Mary Smith when they go off to pay their local property taxes. It matters in the zeitgeist.

How much? The same post had this from NJ.com:

In an astonishing fall from grace that has taken only months, teachers have gone from respected and beloved members of the community to some of the most reviled. In a blink, they have trashed years of good will.
Once the patient darlings who nurtured our kids, teachers now look like insensitive, out-of-touch, can’t-think-for-themselves union robots who, when forced to face economic realities, clung to an insulting sense of entitlement, heartlessly sacrificed the jobs of colleagues, called the governor naughty names and used students as political pawns.
All while blaming everyone else.

It matters.

Innovation and Teacher Pay

In my wandering, I came across this little gem on how to fix edumacation:

Instead, a better solution would be:
- Get rid of the unions. Pay for performance, fire the incompetent
- Give teachers the independence to try new things and tailor to individual classrooms. Reward success.

The list continued but I particularly liked the juxtaposition of "pay for performance, fire the incompetent" and "Give teachers the independence to try new things. Reward success." Beyond the obvious (to me, at least) problem of determining teacher competence, how much do you suppose a teacher will innovate and try new things if his paycheck is based on performance, with firing being a instant option for a moronic administrator if that new idea fails?

In all of the pay-for-performance schools I have studied, the one constant factor is that the teachers all retreat into "safe" zones of teaching. Most teachers would rather be assured of a job, thus follow the demands of the administration, teach to the test and be nothing special, rather than go out on a limb and risk it all on a double or nothing bet. The feeling seems to be that it is better to be good than take a wild and unproven chance with your students' education, risking your job. It's sad, really.

There is usually a maverick who bucks this trend but he merely proves the rule - he is unmarried or for some reason doesn't need to be employed at that school. Perhaps he's a certified TIG welder or has an engineering degree with experience.

Unions and union rules allow teachers to innovate, try new things and then adjust them to work better next time. You get "The Creative Feedback Loop Of Teaching"(Thanks to Dan Meyer for the expression, in this post, near the end.), but only if you have the freedom to innovate and aren't locked into a scripted curriculum or stuck in a repressive, vindictive or moronic administrative system.

True innovation comes from those who can afford to try. Trying implies failing occasionally. If you punish failure, you stifle innovation.