Unions dumping ‘old ways’?

Local teachers unions are growing more accepting of initiatives that link pay to performance and reduce the influence of teacher seniority in transfer and staffing decisions, according to a report out today from the Citizens' Commission on Civil Rights. Among other examples, the report cites union-backed performance-pay plans in Denver and Minneapolis.

It also gives a nod to a provision in Pinellas County that "gives principals more flexibility in picking their staff and creating a school culture conducive to improvement." Such moves will ultimately help disadvantaged kids, says the report, which was funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. "In many of these places, organization by community leaders, educators and parents served as the catalyst for change," it says. "In the end, however, change was made possible by the willingness of union leaders to abandon old ways and advocate reform." Read more here.

- Ron Matus, state education reporter

Comments

[terminator]

as an old union guy myself, I agree the unions have to be adaptable and change with the times.
However, there are alot of incompetent lilly-livered principals out there who are afraid (scared to death) of intelligent teachers who aren't sheep and won't be easily "led".
Many of these principals want lackeys, brown nosers and yes men who won't think, won't challenge, won't criticize and will just go along with their agenda.
So don't believe them when they blame failing schools on teachers.
It's more like failing families, parents, kids and corrupt administrators who got their job because they were the "friend of a friend" who worked downtown.
In many instances, "change was made by the willingness of union leaders to abandon old ways" merely means working more for less and giving up hard won rights that were negotiated in previous contracts.

[JoePublic]

I wonder how the functional parents and the successful kids feel when they keep hearing that the educational woes are because of dysfunctional parents and kids.
But functional parents and successful kids are also blamed for the public school woes if they try to take responsibility for themselves (ie make functional decisions) and try to change the status quo (change teachers, change schools, go to private school).

If they take responsibility and write a letter, like real businesses do, then they are branded troublemakers and collaborative communication ends, while the problem no one addressed before now can't be fixed because to fix it would admit there was a problem.

Functional parents and successful parents who have legititmate reasons to bring their concerns to the school usually face a litany of defenses from the District personnel.
"The classroom is the teacher's realm".
""They" are the professionals.
"we are here for all of the kids and if we do if for you......"
"all of our teachers are highly trained professionals"

The going cost for firing a teacher is around $350,000 the last time I heard. Everyone knows who the bad apples are.

Now we have a song and dance fiasco to buy off 25% of the teachers, and the question is, how many of the bad apples got a MAP?

If we took all of the good teachers and kids out of the system -what would you be left with and how would you deal with it?

[terminator]

Joe:
the principals know who the "bad apples" are but most are too intimidated or too lazy to go after them.
It would take mounds of evaluative assessments, then of course teachers would be entitled to due process.
Blame it on the administrators who don't want to do their job.
The tools are there, they just don't want to use them because it's too much work.
After thirty years working in one of the nations largest school districts and now with the union, I can unequivocally say, the bad apples are far and few in between. 97% of all teachers are good teachers who work against insurmountable odds on a daily basis.
Unfortunately due to laws like NCLB, FCAT, A+, school grades, etc. our schools have become testing factories where we churn em up and spit em out.
50% all public school teachers in the state of Florida quit within their first five years.
Couple that with the thousands of baby boom teachers who will soon be retiring or entering DROP and you've got a catastrophic event on the horizon.
What will we do when all the teachers are gone?

[JoePublic]

Terminator- Looks like the only difference between our hypothectical question is I used the word "good" and included students.

I am sure there must be some honest information of why so many teachers quit so soon. Apparently the system does not want to deal with this information.

Maybe it's because of a "take it or leave it" mentality.