While firm in his support for the national teachers unions, PDK’s Joshua Starr argues that local chapter leaders often stand in the way of positive changes to the teaching profession.
On a Friday night in October 2008, I found myself in a conference room in the Stamford City government building, which housed our school system’s central office. Typically, I left the district before 5 on Friday to try to beat the traffic back to Brooklyn to see my kids (since, from Monday through Thursday, I usually got home after their bedtime). But this night was different. We were in arbitration with the Stamford Education Association (SEA) over Project Opening Doors, a $500,000 grant from the National Math Science Initiative (NMSI) to increase participation in Advanced Placement classes among students of color. The bulk of the funding was meant to pay for professional development and support services for students, but the grant also specified that a small portion of the money would go to teachers whose students scored above a 3 on the AP exam — and the SEA simply wasn’t having it.
Since 2005, when I arrived in Stamford, we had been working to undo the rigid academic tracking system that had been in place there for 40 years and that severely limited access to upper-level courses, especially for students of color. Our efforts focused mainly on course-taking in the middle grades, but a group of teachers at one of the high schools, Westhill, had embraced the work, too. With the full support of their principal, they were eager to remove barriers to advanced coursework and find ways to help all students succeed in those classes. Of course, I was thrilled. My strategy for de-tracking depended on teacher leadership, and here was a group of equity warriors willing to step up, take a risk, and challenge their peers to do the same. What more could a superintendent ask for?
Seniority shouldn’t be the sole factor in deciding who should be protected from layoffs.
The SEA, however, stood firmly opposed to the idea that Westhill’s math teachers might be rewarded based on students’ performance on AP exams. I, too, was a staunch opponent of merit pay schemes and the over-testing of students. Yet, the opportunity at hand seemed too good to pass up. Not only did the NMSI grant address one of our own priorities — improving access to and success in high-level classes — but the Westhill teachers had made it clear that they didn’t care about the monetary incentives included in the grant. They simply wanted to do the right thing by kids and improve their own teaching practices. Still, the leadership of the SEA wasn’t willing to take the lead from their own members. They were standing their ground, refusing to allow a merit pay system (as they perceived it) to take root in the district.
Fortunately, we won the arbitration and were able to go forward with the grant. It set a precedent in the state of Connecticut, and many other superintendents thanked me for being the first one to take on the SEA, as it then gave them cover to implement Project Opening Doors in their districts. More important, AP participation and success went up at Westhill.
The union paradox
So, why tell this story now, during such an incredibly tumultuous and uncertain time for public education? To overcome the challenges we face today, our school systems will have to create a new and more productive relationship between labor and management.
Let me be clear that I am a firm supporter of unions in general and the AFT and NEA in particular, and I respect Randi Weingarten and Lily Eskelsen Garcîa as effective national advocates for high-quality public education. My reading of American history persuades me that strong labor unions — in education and many other sectors — have helped make this country a better place to live and work, and I despise the Waiting for Superman narrative that would have you blame unions for all that ails our public schools.
However (and you knew there was a “but” coming), the divide between the rhetoric of the national union leaders and the actions of some local chapters could not be more stark.
For example, both Weingarten and Eskelsen Garcîa have spoken out countless times on the urgent need to diversify the nation’s teaching force. But that sense of urgency isn’t necessarily shared by local chapter leaders, whose advocacy on behalf of veteran teachers often comes at the expense of newer hires, including many recently recruited teachers of color. This dynamic was brought home to me a few weeks ago when talking with Dr. Susan Enfield, school superintendent for Highline, Washington. I’ve known Susan for years and watched her ascend from the Harvard Urban Superintendents Program to the No. 2 position in the Seattle schools and then to Highline, where for eight years she has shown herself to be one of the smartest and most capable system leaders in the country. Nobody’s perfect, and I’m sure those who work for her could find something to complain about. But suffice it to say that Susan is the real deal and has moved her district forward in some powerful ways, not least through the steps she’s taken to hire and retain teachers of color.
Like a number of other superintendents I’ve heard from (but who prefer not to be named), Susan worries that due to pandemic-related budget cuts, her district could soon lose the gains it has made in diversifying its teaching staff. Highline’s collective bargaining agreement includes a LIFO (last in, first out) clause, which means that if Susan is forced to lay people off, then the system’s newer hires — including most of its teachers of color — will be the first to go.
As the Black Lives Matter protests swept the country, Susan, as she is wont to do, spoke out forcefully, pledging to pursue anti-racist policies and practices in her district, especially to continue working to increase teacher diversity. Highline’s school board, too, has endorsed her agenda, supporting efforts to recruit more teachers of color and ensure that the schools practice equitable and unbiased procedures related to hiring and promotion. However, the local union, the Highline Education Association, has declined to modify its position on LIFO. Rather, it has chosen to protect its own, no matter the cost to teacher diversity.
That’s not unusual. Most local unions treat seniority rules as nonnegotiable. And to be sure, it’s important to protect older teachers from being fired due to ageism or the cynical desire to replace effective (but relatively well-paid) veterans with lower-paid novices. Even so, seniority shouldn’t be the sole factor in deciding who should be protected from layoffs. The situation also demands careful consideration of teachers’ skills and the needs of their students.
In response, union leaders typically argue that if the goal is to remove weak teachers, then seniority rules pose no obstacle; so long as principals follow the contractually agreed evaluation process, they can dismiss chronically underperforming teachers no matter how much seniority they have. Realistically, however, it’s not that easy. It can take many months to remove even a demonstrably unfit teacher, and few principals have the time to go through that process more than once in a blue moon. In truth, when it comes time to lay people off, most principals have no trouble identifying at least a few veterans who should have left (or been pushed out of) the classroom years ago, as well as some fantastic young teachers they wish they could keep. Alas, the union stands in the way.
To Susan and many other superintendents, the most galling part of all this has to do with the moral inconsistency it puts on display. For instance, consider the many local teacher union officials who have called out their counterparts in the police unions who choose to protect their own even when they commit violent and racist acts against members of the community. Surely, if teachers committed such acts toward students of color, it would be hypocritical for those union leaders to shield them from accountability.
In fact, though, many of those teacher union leaders have also spoken out in support of the Black Lives Matter movement, and many have called for their school systems to hire, promote, and retain greater numbers of teachers of color. But in that case, why do they hold fast to rigid seniority rules that cost those same teachers their jobs?
Whether in response to the current health crisis or in pursuit of long-term movements for social justice, educators — including their unions — must live up to their own principles. But that will require local leaders to practice what they, and their own national organizations, have preached. Otherwise, and as the late James Brown once put it, we’ll be “talking a lot, but saying nothing.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Joshua P. Starr
Joshua P. Starr is the managing partner at the International Center for Leadership in Education, a division of HMH, based in Boston, MA. He is the author of Equity-based Leadership: Leveraging Complexity to Transform School Systems.
