Make student performance -- not teacher protectionism -- the top priority

Amber Arellano is an insightful education columnist for the Detroit News. It's purely conincidental that I'm writing two consecutive posts about her work; this post is actually about a rebuttal written to one of her articles.

She wrote a great article in early September:

Detroit News: Unionism needs to get rid of the stupid and get more the smart (09/08/09)

Arellano writes about ongoing teacher contract negotiations between Robert Bobb (the State Appointed Emergency Financial Manager assigned to sort out the Detroit Public Schools mess) and the Detroit Federation of Teachers (a unit of the AFT – American Federation of Teachers).

Arellano begins by discussing why she believe unions have been – and remain – an important element, and stresses the premise that “together we are stronger than we are individually”.

She then goes on to say, “The Bobb administration must get a contract that makes student performance -- not teacher protectionism -- its top priority. Bobb's team needs flexibility to staff classrooms with the best educators available. Poor children who have already fallen behind in school need better or just as good teachers as Birmingham and Ann Arbor have yet so often, research shows, they get the worst.

Can anyone, really, defend that morally unacceptable status quo?”

Keith Johnson, President of the Detroit Federation of Teachers, can and does.

Detroit News: Rebuttal: Don't eliminate teacher seniority (09/22/09)

I wanted to include this exchange because it shows the tremendous challenges facing anyone who attempts improve schools. I don’t share Arellano’s perspective on unions and their role, but I absolutely believe her piece was respectful and professional, and it covered a topic that merits reasonable discussion.

A defensive and bitter Keith Johnson stands in stark contrast.

If he is comfortable launching such a virulent public response towards someone offering an opinion, can you imagine what it must be like at negotiating sessions?

In his response, Johnson takes aim at the Arellano, jumping from point to point, sniping, without offering a rebuttal of the issues.

He appears to acknowledge that “poor proficiency of our students on standardized tests, the exaggerated dropout rate, the less-than-stellar graduation rate and other factors that plague Detroit schools” is a problem. Yet it’s a problem he attributes entirely to parents and the students themselves, with the schools sharing none of the blame.

He is disturbed by the comment, “Poor children who have already fallen behind in school need better or just as good teachers as Birmingham and Ann Arbor have yet so often, research shows, they get the worst.”

Yet Johnson doesn’t question the research on which Arellano based her comment. He doesn’t cite statistics – or any information for that matter – which refutes her statements.

Regarding teacher quality, he doesn’t even offer the traditional, dismissive brush-off that “there might be a few bad apples”.

And therein lies the problem. I’ve heard the arguments supporting seniority and tenure plenty of times, and they’re generally based on the premise that every teacher is equally great, and every administrator/principal is an idiot.

None are better teachers than others, and certainly none are worse.

Union supporters argue that they too believe bad teachers should be dismissed, but if they aren’t, then it’s the lazy principal’s fault. Perhaps.

But in their effort to ensure “due process”, union contracts and tenure laws go too far. Don’t believe me? Check out the blog post I made last year about a teacher that gave students test answers – BEFORE THE TEST – and the subsequent hoops that district had to jump through, in order to remove the teacher from the classroom.

Arellano was not trying to attack teachers in any way whatsoever. Her point is that Detroit – like every school district for that matter – requires greater flexibility in order to assign, hire, and yes even dismiss teachers based on proven skills, in order to best meet children’s instructional needs.

Sadly, this is a non-starter for teacher unions, who believe that the number of times a teacher has punched the time clock is a better criterion for classroom assignments, and is a perfectly acceptable measurement of quality.

Johnson adds that seniority is necessary because teachers need protection from racist principals who cannot make competent decisions, nor tolerate reasonable and constructive criticism.

Even playing the race-card doesn’t bolster his arguments. Johnson fails to consider the likelihood that Arrellano would probably agree that incompetent, egomaniacal, racist principals should also be weeded-out.

Johnson could’ve used this opportunity to make a stronger point about the need to make parents a partner in education. He could’ve found a better way to support the notion that principals must also be held accountable. But by completely dodging the discussion about teacher quality, he shows that he is part of the problem, not part of the solution.

==> Mike.

I've pasted the articles below, in case the links don't work.




Unionism needs to get rid of the stupid and get more of the smart

AMBER ARELLANO

I grew up in an union town where good people understood that they were stronger together than they were as individuals when it came to affecting change in the American political arena and elsewhere.

The United Auto Workers gave many in my family, mostly first-generation Mexican-Americans who worked in Pontiac's auto plants, a stake in America, a sense of belonging and a movement through which their aspirations and experiences could be struggled for and heard as a collective voice in Washington, D.C., and elsewhere.

Those roots, of which I am proud, make me incredibly grateful for unionism and the progress it's made for so many Americans.

But I cannot take any more stupid unionism.

When I say stupid, I mean unionism led by fear and selfish interests living in the past.

This fall some of Michigan's most powerful unionists have the opportunity to stop practicing stupid unionism.

I refer to the Detroit Federation of Teachers union, which is in heated negotiations with the Detroit Public Schools' Emergency Financial Manager Robert Bobb over the future of thousands of underserved Detroit students.

Detroit children are some of the poorest, most vulnerable children in North America. It is gut-wrenching to watch as the school district squanders their lives by providing them substandard schools.

To be sure, teachers are not the heart of this district's problems. Just take a look at the dysfunctional school board and its predatory practices, and that is clear.

However, the teachers are the heart of the district's way forward. Teacher quality is the No. 1 predictor of student achievement. Southeastern Michigan's future is partly tied to Detroit's educational success -- and teachers will lead it or take us down with them and their failing district.

That's why no one should underestimate this teacher contract's importance. The Bobb administration must get a contract that makes student performance -- not teacher protectionism -- its top priority.

Bobb's team needs flexibility to staff classrooms with the best educators available. Poor children who have already fallen behind in school need better or just as good teachers as Birmingham and Ann Arbor have yet so often, research shows, they get the worst.

Can anyone, really, defend that morally unacceptable status quo?

Smart unionism

Now some will defend all unions. More will attack unions, arguing that the U.S. should kill them off.

An America without unions is a scary idea. Just ask anyone whose company is hemorrhaging jobs and whose child is sick and needs health care. The only reason why many Americans still have things such as health insurance, eight-hour work days and unemployment is because of unions. And globalization challenges us to consider these issues anew.

Consider a new report, released appropriately on Labor Day, by the Michigan League for Human Services. It found that one in every five Michigan jobs do not pay enough to keep a family of four out of poverty -- about $22,000 a year.

Four of the six occupations with the most jobs fall into that category. Those are retail sales, cashiers, waiters and waitresses, and fast food or food prep workers.

"We know that many of these jobs are held by breadwinners -- not just students or teen-agers. A parent working full-time, year-round should be able to meet basic needs, but these very common jobs do not allow that," said Sharon Parks, the league's president and CEO.

The standard argument -- with which I agree -- is that in a new era of globalization, such lower-wage service workers have to retrain and retool for higher-skilled jobs.

There is another, darker side to the globalization story, however: The U.S. isn't creating enough good jobs to replace its faltering middle class. And many of the jobs we do create have lousy wages.

For that reason, we need a smart unionism that will help our country enact public policies that rebuild the middle class and people who want to be in it -- and kill off the old unionism that is dragging down so many good workers and school children with it.

Amber Arellano is a Detroit News editorial writer who writes a weekly online column. Contact her at aarellano@detnews.com">aarellano@detnews.com




Rebuttal: Don't eliminate teacher seniority


Just as sure as schoolchildren return to class the day after Labor Day, The Detroit News can be counted on to launch an unwarranted attack upon Detroit's teachers and their union, the Detroit Federation of Teachers. In her Sept. 8 column ("Unionism needs to get rid of the stupid and get more of the smart"), Amber Arellano wrote that "Detroit's children should get the best teachers like Ann Arbor and Birmingham, yet research shows they get the worst."

It is fashionable to attack the ability and competency of teachers in Detroit because of the poor proficiency of our students on standardized tests, the exaggerated dropout rate, the less-than-stellar graduation rate and other factors that plague Detroit schools.

However, it seems to be taboo to hold students responsible for coming to school and parents accountable for getting them there. Why don't people like Arellano speak out against the violence rendered by students against their peers and their teachers? Why isn't there an outcry about the high level of student transiency and truancy and their adverse effect upon student achievement?

Instead, Arellano calls Detroit's teachers the worst and criticizes the DFT for protecting the rights (not the jobs) of teachers. She attacks the DFT for protecting the seniority rights of teachers, not knowing or caring why seniority is such a sensitive issue.

Perhaps she is not aware that if seniority were eliminated, some teachers would be released because they have the audacity to stand up for children and themselves. They will criticize a principal who does not support the staff on matters of discipline, who plays favorites and misuses valuable district funds, or is never in the building.

Teachers who serve as building representatives or who are active with the union are often vilified by administrators as being obstructionists because they won't do a principal's bidding and be subservient.

Without seniority protection, some teachers would be eliminated, not because they are not doing the job, but because they are white. Yes, in 2009 we have some black administrators who do not believe white teachers should teach black children. Imagine the uproar if a white principal in Howell didn't believe white students should be taught by black teachers.

For Arellano's information, 87 percent of Detroit's teachers have a master's degree or above. Seventy-two percent (more than any other district in the state) have national board certification, and the vast majority of our teachers do more with less and make endless sacrifices on behalf of their students.

The DFT has made a commitment to embrace and implement innovative reform initiatives to drive student achievement. We will not, however, lie down and die so our members can be run over and run out.

Keith Johnson ,
President, Detroit Federation of Teachers