Families

When Teachers Strike

Dianna Terrell Leave a comment
Photo by Ben Sutherland

I am torn on teachers’ unions.

As a first year teacher in Connecticut, I resented being compelled to pay over $700 in yearly union dues, but within two years I was the building representative for our districts’ teaching association. Even as a rep, I still felt torn on two union mainstays: teacher tenure and the threat of strikes.

On reflection, I realize my distrust of unions stems from two things. First, teachers unions do sometimes defend pretty lackluster teaching. Frankly, I find that deplorable. Second, my knee-jerk response is to buy the anti-union rhetoric. I suspect the standard anti-union zingers resonate with many other Americans as well.

Yet, as I watch a contract dispute unfold in my state’s biggest public school district, it is clear that, though intuitively easy to buy into, the anti-union rhetoric is based on some seriously misguided perceptions of teachers’ work.

These misperceptions must be considered before any parent or community member can meaningfully comment on union activity.

Misguided Perceptions of Teaching

It doesn’t take much to find examples of wrong-headed beliefs about teaching. If you follow any headline story about teachers’ union activity, a quick scroll through the “comments” sections will yield some pretty consistent messaging.

  • Teachers’ salaries are already bloated. How dare they negotiate for raises?
  • Our district just negotiated a new contract. Why are teachers asking for more?
  • Teachers should be there for our children, and not there to “line their pockets.”
  • Teachers should only get raises if their students perform well.
  • The teachers’ union is threatening to strike when our children need them most. Why did the teachers wait until the eleventh hour to make this an issue?

And the most seriously misguided sentiment:

  • Teachers get several vacations throughout the school year. They have a two-month break over the summer, and work six hours a day. Part-time pay for part-time work is fair.

On first blush, it would be easy to buy into all of these popular sentiments. Though, all of them are mostly wrong.

An 8 o’clock to 2 o’clock workday? Yes, I’ll have what they’re having.

My suspicion is that most of the American public bases their understanding of the work of teachers on their experiences with teachers when they were children in school. Beyond this first hand experience with teachers, many Americans don’t think very hard about the true work of teaching unless they live with a teacher or they are one.

For example, if my students’ perceptions about what I did during the school day were true, I would be sleeping on a cot in the broom closet in my classroom, and my life would be sustained through a steady diet of apples and chalk dust.

Okay, that’s overstating it, but students were always shocked when they saw me eating real food in the cafeteria, and let’s not even mention what happened when they saw me in public. All this is to say students give little thought to what goes into teaching, especially when they are not sitting in a classroom.

I liken assumptions about “knowing what it means to teach” to going to your favorite restaurant, ordering your favorite dish and deciding – as you wait for then devour your meal – that you know what it means to be chef.

Clearly, when that dish is presented to you, you know very little about the ingredients, the preparation, the cook time, the training or the thought that went into that dish. The same can be said for students in a classroom. You are only consuming the finished product of teaching.

Teachers work much longer than six hours a day. Six hours a day is the amount of time teachers spend with your children. Six hours a day is the amount of time it takes for teachers to present their fully-cooked dishes to students.

The six-hours-a-day calculation leaves out the “cook time” that went into lesson planning, their assessment of students’ performance and feedback, the continuous training and professional development, the committee work and communication with parents. Let us also consider the constant preparation, clean-up and organization of materials that classroom teachers manage every day, all day. (Those lima beans didn’t count themselves into those twenty-five little plastic Dixie cups, kid!)

Teachers’ work day starts well before the school day begins (which is earlier and earlier every year). Teachers’ calendar year also starts well before the school year begins as teachers prepare the classroom for the school year, and they’re there well after the school year ends writing reports, debriefing and unpacking the school year, and making plans for the next one to come. That two-month summer vacation is something your children enjoy, not their teachers.

Work to Rule

Union activity doesn’t happen out of nowhere, either. There are many activities a union might engage in well before they resort to a strike. Before a teachers’ union strikes, they might call for a “work to rule.” In a nutshell, “work to rule” means that the teachers voice their grievances by refusing to work beyond the terms and conditions outlined by the previous contract.

This means teachers may be asked by the union not to return to the classroom earlier than they are required to set up for the school year. Teachers might be asked to be at the school and in the classroom the minimum required time of the school day. They will be asked to refrain from purchasing equipment for the classroom with their own money (about $500 per teacher amounting to billions of dollars a year across the nation). 

In other words, work to rule means the community gets what they’re paying for, which is far less than the bargain many communities usually get out of teachers.

For teachers who typically work far and above the terms of their contract, a work to rule order represents a significant change in their pre-school-year practice, and is emotionally difficult for many dedicated teachers. When you think of the things that these teachers are not doing to prepare for and serve their students, it is clear a work to rule order makes their workday much more difficult.

The truth is that it is hard to know how many teachers actually carry out the work to rule even if they say they will.

For example, that same school district that is now embroiled in the contract dispute I spoke of earlier has experienced work to rule orders before. During a work to rule order a few years back, the district changed busing companies to cut costs. As an outcome of serious mismanagement, the busing company failed to pickup children on time from school to be bussed home. Several teachers told me that they violated the work to rule order by waiting in their classroom with the children for the bus to come until after four o’clock pm.

You ask, “Yes, but what cruel and heartless teacher could leave a group of scared and abandoned 8-year-olds in the classroom unattended to comply with a work to rule order?”

The answer is very few if any of them.

So, a work to rule order in a district that is regularly mismanaging funds and contracting mediocre services for children isn’t a very effective tactic.

The Long and Winding Path of a Failed Teaching Contract

Teaches strike out of desperation when all other avenues have failed, but even then their efforts are often in vain. This is because teachers can’t win the media war when they’re out of their classrooms and picketing in the streets. When there is even the threat of such an activity, the anti-union rhetoric and false assumptions quickly kick in.

The irony as I see it is that the media glare focuses only on the teachers’ actions and spares not even a second to consider the role played by community leaders, like mayors, who may share responsibility for failed union contracts.

So, I’ll offer a bit here on the anatomy of contract negotiations, but with the caveat that my experience is limited.

Teachers typically negotiate a “master contract” with the municipality or the district every few years. This is known as collective bargaining and it happens again and again because, written in the terms of the contract is the contract’s own expiration date.

There are many people involved in contract negotiations including the mayor, the board of education, aldermen or local representatives as well as the teachers. The contract involves much more than annual salary. Rather, negotiations often focus on things like health insurance, retirement and minimum work safety standards.

These contract negotiations typically happen in the springtime for the upcoming fiscal year, and are usually settled in time for districts to predict staffing needs, post advertisements, and fill open positions by the late spring.

Contracts often reach a stalemate when any of these moving pieces or players gets hung up. Often it has nothing to do with teachers’ salary. Sometimes contract negotiations fail because of complex municipal spending and investment guidelines, like determining what percentage of healthcare costs the teachers will cover and what the municipality will cover.

Sometimes, a contract fails because teachers don’t want riders in their contracts that allow municipal governments to divest earnings from teachers’ pension plans to offset other costs in the district with a promise to replenish the pension funds at a later, indeterminate date (go figure).

To be honest, these are the types of nuts and bolts of contract negotiation that make my eyes glaze over, but it can never be said that these are trifling details.

In the largest district in New Hampshire, the contract dispute is a perfect storm involving an impoverished district, an impatient electorate and the reelection aspirations of the city’s mayor.

First, their budget timeline and decision making seems to happen three months later than other districts in New Hampshire. This results in critical contract questions being made late in the summer months. One summer, the last-minute budget shortfall led to the district firing 137 teachers (about a sixth of the teaching force) two weeks before the school year began. The results were chaotic, with children looking forward to meeting their assigned classroom teacher (who had been fired) and classrooms of over 30 children assigned to one teacher.

In the current contract dispute, 7 out of 10 members of the Board of Alderman and all elected Board of School Committee members supported the contract. Regardless, at the eleventh hour and with little warning the mayor vetoed the contract.

In a complete denial of his role in the contract negotiation breakdown and his role as leader of the city and the Board of School Committee, the Mayor called on the teachers “to iron out” the details of a new contract. Meanwhile, it should be noted the mayor is up for reelection on September 15th, and many citizens turn the other cheek while the mayor distances himself from the contract negotiation failure and focus instead on his claims of fiscal responsibility.

Questions to Ask when Teachers Strike

While I’m still torn about unions, including some of their goals and their tactics, and while the research on unions is far from a consensus, it’s clear to me that these contests raise more questions than community members and parents are often willing to ask.

As with everything in education politics the story is much more complex than the headline.

Work strikes seem to me like an outdated tactic that yields only negative and unintended consequences. Meanwhile, teachers themselves have difficulty following through with a work to rule. Teachers don’t seem to have a winning strategy or tactics. This is especially true when teachers are hung out to dry for political gain. In this case teachers are being blamed for mismanaging city revenue and being asked to find a solution on their own.

Who wants to be a teacher, kids?! Can I get a show of hands?

When teachers threaten to engage in union activity, rather than spinning out the same wrongheaded one-liners, community members and parents might question where their city leadership went wrong.

  • How long have negotiations been going on?
  • Where are the sticking points in the negotiation?
  • What does the school board say?
  • What does the superintendent of schools in the district say?
  • How are teachers being treated in my community’s schools?

Most importantly, they might ask what role their community’s elected officials have played in the stalemate, and what those same political leaders stand to gain from selling the teachers in their district down the river.

The Shocking Truth about American Schools

Dianna Terrell Leave a comment
Rafiq Sarlie "Shocked That I am Quitting Facebook"

We are bombarded by constant messages about the many failures of our nation’s schools, and how poorly America is doing in comparison to other nations.

I am not impervious to the allure of an outrageous headline. Sometimes I resist. Generally, I am a sucker for click-bait.

It’s old hat that people are instinctually drawn to these stories. There are few things more human than our desire to rubber-neck at the scene of an accident or obsess over people’s unchecked base instincts gone awry.

In studying these stories of the human condition, we tell ourselves we are learning what not to do and behaviors, people and scenarios to avoid.

We are also learning to be afraid … very, very afraid.

And so it goes with American public schools. Our nation appears to love stories about the failure of schools to the point where no other narrative can take hold.

I get lulled into the abyss of mediocrity and filth just as much as the next person by following headlines about teachers who show up drunk and pantless to the first day of school. I’m simultaneously repulsed by – and engrossed in – the endless deluge of stories about teachers who have abused their power and authority with children.

The shocking truth is that most American schools in most American states are actually doing very well. Even though it’s true, this message consistently falls on deaf ears. Decent and even exceptional performance in American schools simply doesn’t make for a good headline.

Headline News: American Public Schools do Shockingly Well

Your gut response to this headline might be skepticism or, even worse, boredom.

Let’s examine the evidence. Take a hard look at the information conveyed by this image:

b0f123c41This image is just a sliver of data consolidated by the National Center on Education Statistics (NCES). For more detailed information on international performance on math and science, check out the TIMSS data here. For more details on international tests of reading, take a look at PIRLS results here.

In a nutshell, international tests of eighth-graders’ math skills on the TIMSS test reveal:

  • American students in 34 states outperform students in Australia.
  • American students in 27 states outperform students in England.
  • American students in 25 states outperform students in Hong Kong.
  • American students in six states outperform students in Finland (the holy grail of school reform).
  • American students in two states (Massachusetts and Vermont) outperform students in Korea and Japan.

Here’s a question, why don’t the headlines read, “8th graders in Massachusetts and Vermont top all but two countries in the world at math?” or better yet “Six of Top-Ten Performing Education Systems in the World are in the U.S.?”

The news is even better for American students’ performance in reading on the PIRLS test. American students typically do better on reading assessments than they do on math assessments, and the stark differences between states and socioeconomic classes that appear in the TIMSS dataset are slightly less pronounced with reading.

Other good news is that our nation’s performance on reading assessments is on an upward trajectory, and the enormous achievement gaps revealed forty years ago are slowly shrinking.

Meanwhile, we’re all still drinking the “sucky schools Kool-aid.”

Parents in Poorly-Performing Schools Can Improve Children’s Outcomes in School

One thing that these results highlight is the stark inequality between states. This vast inequality is unappealing for many Americans. While we’re okay with unequal wealth, we are most certainly not okay with unequal opportunities to get wealth(y). So how can parents help level the playing field for their kids?

In an earlier post I mentioned that, knowing schools generally aren’t equal, many parents shop around for school districts that perform well. Parents who are able to shop around might also consider moving to a state that performs well by using this tool.

Even when a parent is not in the market for a new home, and even when a parent is living in state that is performing below the United States average (e.g. Mississippi or Alabama – sorry folks), parents should know that most of the inequality between schools is driven by poverty.

PIRLS results show that some strategies parents engage in to improve students’ scores are related to income. For example, children do better in reading when their parents read to and in front of their children. Meanwhile, we know that families living in poverty are disproportionately illiterate.

Parents are also encouraged to send well-rested children to schools, yet we know that in many cases, children living in poverty are housing-insecure or reside in multi-family households where it’s harder, for obvious reasons, to get good sleep. Two other income-dependent, parenting practices are:

  • sending children to schools that have safe and orderly environments
  • sending children who are well-fed to school

On the other hand, we also know that parents, regardless of income-level, can exercise a lot of influence. Variables deflating math and reading scores can be offset by proactive, income-independent parenting strategies. When the data is distilled down to just a handful of critical parenting practices, it turns out that all parents, regardless of income, can engage in these two high-leverage, research-proven strategies:

  • engender in their children a positive attitude toward reading.
  • stock the home with high quality books (borrowed or bought).

Confounding the Trend

American parents are largely distrustful of American public schools. In fact, in a recent poll 84% of parents gave American public schools the grade of “C” or worse. One thing is for sure, the media knows that distrust exists, and they play into it. The public eats it right up because it confirms our suspicions and fears. It’s a vicious cycle.

Would it be interesting to know the drunk and pantless “teacher” in that national story was a last-second hire, and was actually a substitute teacher not a full-time classroom teacher? Should we be appalled by her behavior? Yes. Does she exemplify the 3.5 million teachers who are generally well-qualified and who always remember to wear their pants when they go to work? Definitely not.

Professor Emeritus David Berliner of Arizona State University regularly argues that the “bad schools” narrative is manufactured crisis. Others, like Valerie Strauss from the Answer Sheet, and Diane Ravitch claim the “bad schools” message is strategically encouraged by wealthy, small-government political activists with the aim of encouraging Americans to divest from government-run public schools and invest in for-profit charter schools, private schools and vouchers programs to save our supposedly “failing system.”

To digest this data, and to understand that things are going pretty well in schools requires an understanding of the nuance behind the headline. Nuance doesn’t play well at the water cooler or in a 140-character Tweet.

The next time someone quips, “Gosh, our nation’s schools suck.” Your informed response could include that nuance. Just in case, here are some new soundbites for your witty retort.

  • Many American students are still outperforming their international peers.
  • American schools are educating a more diverse and global population than the “good ole days.”
  • 3,499,999 out of 3,500,000 teachers show up to school fully-dressed.
  • American schools are building a largely-literate nation through a publicly-funded initiative.

Scholars would call this “interrupting the narrative.” I might just call it “conveying truth.”

My only hope in countering this message is that parents begin to understand how much power they have in improving their children’s education. And, you don’t have to live in the wealthiest, highest-performing district in a top-performing state to support you children’s education either.

 

**I am inclined to advocate for BOTH structural adjustments our nation can make to offset the effects of poverty in schools AND local or individual adjustments we can make to offset those effects.

Improving your child’s academic performance – a question a day

Dianna Terrell Leave a comment

In a recent post, “Where are the good schools?” I joked that you can tell a lot about the quality of a school by noting “parent lingering” at pick up and drop-off, but did you know that schools often gather data on the amount of parent volunteerism in their district?

This is for the simple reason that parent engagement is linked to student achievement. So, the number of hours logged by parent volunteers can quickly become a bragging right.

Parent Engagement Boosts Student Achievement

Consider these findings about parent engagement highlighted by the NEA:

Regardless of family income or background, students with involved parents are more likely to:

  • Earn higher grades and test scores, and enroll in higher-level programs
  • Be promoted to the next grade, pass their classes, and earn credits
  • Attend school regularly
  • Have better social skills, show improved behavior, and adapt well to school
  • Graduate and go on to postsecondary education

These findings are hard to dismiss, and many state governments, national agencies and foundations are working to improve parent engagement in schools.

Meanwhile, studies exploring the relationship between parent engagement and student achievement are gaining prominence. Take, for example, this study that points to specific behaviors of parents (“monitoring, warmth, and autonomy support”) as assets in preparing adolescents for career and college.

Parent Involvement Doesn’t Take Much More Time

Being an “involved” parent can mean many different things, and I know what you’re probably thinking: How can I find any more time to do that? You might also worry that you don’t have much to offer a classroom full of ten-year-olds.

Trust me, volunteering in schools doesn’t have to be an on-going major commitment to reap the benefits. In fact, things you’re probably already doing – like staying on top of all of the paperwork that comes home from your children’s teachers, or consistently monitoring your child’s homework habits – both constitute very important types of parental engagement.

In other words, simply showing an interest in what they do during the school day, from kindergarten through high school, leads to gains in achievement. Knowing details about what goes on during your child’s school day, and learning some of the “language of the school” leads to higher quality questions and conversations during the school year.

With a quick skim of a teacher’s communications home, you can replace your standard questioning attempt, “How was your day?” with a better developed question that will lead to more information from your child like, “I read that you’re learning about compound words. I thought of one… ICE-CREAM! Is that a compound word?” Better yet, provide an incorrect example and see if your child can correct you and explain why you’re wrong – that will really get the gears going!

Similar to giving your children good, high quality feedback on what they do well and what they need work on – as I addressed in this post – knowing details about what your kids are doing in school lead to higher quality conversation and point to clear avenues for you to engage in your children’s education. You’re creating a situation where you’re helping your kids practice their skills, you’re showing them your intellectual curiosity, and you’re subtly letting them know that you actually communicate with your kid’s teacher! It’s clear how all of this effort leads to the type of academic improvement we typically see with the children of engaged parents.

So perhaps you don’t want to download and read EduTopia’s full guide for parents on engaging in schools, and maybe you don’t want to sign up with the PTA or PTG for something that requires your attention once a week for the whole school year. Rest assured knowing if this type of thing is the best you can do then you’re already doing pretty well.

More Ways to Connect and Engage

If you’re at a loss for how you can contribute to your children’s school as a volunteer, Larry Ferrlazzo posts bi-monthly or more frequent updates that consolidate information on boosting parent engagement in school here. Many of these posts center on what groups of dedicated parents are doing together to create change in high need districts, as is the case in Baltimore, Maryland. If you’re not on board with the group effort, the National Department of Education released a “Parent Checklist” outlining questions and resources that parents can use as their children head back into the classrooms in August. Some questions parents might ask their children’s teachers include:

Quality: Is my child getting a great education?

  • How will you keep me informed about how my child is doing on a regular basis? How can we work together if my child falls behind?
  • Is my child on grade level, and on track to be ready for college and a career? How do I know?

Ready for Success: Will my child be prepared to succeed in whatever comes next?

  • How will you measure my child’s progress and ability in subjects including reading, math, science, the arts, social and emotional development, and other activities?
  • How much time will my child spend preparing for and taking state and district tests? How will my child’s teacher and I know how to use the results to help my child make progress?
  • Are the meals and snacks provided healthy? How much time is there for recess and/or exercise?

Great Teachers: Is my child engaged and learning every day?

  • How do I know my child’s teachers are effective?
  • How much time do teachers get to collaborate with one another?
  • What kind of professional development is available to teachers here?

Equity and Fairness: Does my child, and every child at my child’s school or program, have the opportunity to succeed and be treated fairly?

  • How does the school make sure that all students are treated fairly? (For example, are there any differences in suspension/expulsion rates by race or gender?)
  • Does the school offer all students access to the classes they need to prepare them for success, including English language learners and students with special needs (for example, Algebra I and II, gifted and talented classes, science labs, AP or IB classes, art, music)?

One thing that I would add to this list for parents of adolescents is to acknowledge your “trouble threshold” grade. Many students, when asked, can probably point to a specific grade (for my parents it seemed to be around a B) anything below which triggers parent involvement… you know, the troubling kind (according to your kid). Studies have found that parents’ “trouble threshold grades” become their children’s threshold grade, and that “threshold grades” differ among families based on cultural and ethnic traditions.

So while a parent must strike a balance between becoming that helicopter parent, by over-protecting and over-directing their children through school, there are plenty of good conversations to have with your child’s teacher this year and plenty of ways to be involved. You’ll note that most good conversations begin with a question.