Introduction

“The Firing Squad: An Examination of Teacher Termination practices in Urban Public

Schools,” is a wiki-project created by Steven Ballantyne, Mallory Stark, Robert Street, and

Bruce Villineau for A-100: Introduction to Educational Policy at the Harvard of

Education. Through this project, we endeavor to analyze the history, policy, and politics that influence the teacher process in United States urban school districts. The project incorporates in-depth research, links to media resources, and source interviews with experts ranging from school district personnel to policy wonks to union leadership.

The scope of this project is framed within our researched context of the Boston community, adding additional information supported through an examination of district-union relationships of Chicago, New York, and Washington, DC. It is the authors’ hope that this study can help to further frame the scope and conversation of this multi-dimensional education policy as our public school systems continue to grapple with this often-contentious policy area.

History

The history of teacher dismissal in the American public school system is deeply enmeshed within the history of teacher unionism. This section provides a chronological account of teacher dismissal, beginning with arbitrary dismissal of teachers and continuing through assessment using the Toledo Plan of Peer Review. Al Shanker, then president of the United

Federation of Teachers (an American Federation of Teachers affiliate), led New Yorker city public school teachers in their fight to bargain collectively in 1961. Shanker would become an icon for teacher unionism. He led the largest strike of public school teachers in American history in 1968 when 18 teachers were dismissed in the neighborhood of Ocean Hill-

Brownsville without due process. In the 1980s, as the nation experienced a conservative shift of political power and as unions came under attack, Shanker supported a new strain of teacher unionism supporting the Toledo Plan of Peer Review. This event marked a shift from industrial bargaining to reform bargaining.

Although teacher unions have existed in this country from as early as the mid 19th

Century (the National Education Association [NEA] was founded in 1857 and the American

Federation of Teachers [AFT] in 1916), teachers did not achieve the power to bargain collectively until 1961. Through collective bargaining, teachers garnered greater protection in many different aspects of . Collective bargaining helped decrease the instances and prevalence of unfair practices, poor working conditions, unfair class assignments, and arbitrary dismissal. (Kahlenberg, 2006, p.7). Prior to collective bargaining, many teachers faced the prospect of losing their position for a variety of reasons, sometimes even at the whim of school administrators. Teachers could be dismissed if parents objected to a grade that a child received, if they did not adhere to the policies of an authoritarian principal, or if they questioned a trendy educational theory. Without the added protection that accompanied unions with collective bargaining power, teachers could be let go if they voted for the wrong politician, were of a different race, or if the teacher had seniority and could replaced by a cheaper, less experienced teacher. (Kahlenberg, 2007, p.8).

Throughout the first half of the 20th Century, up to 1960, states pressed for tenure laws for teachers and unions bargained for “ ‘due process’: the right to have charges laid out when dismissal was sought and the opportunity to defend oneself against the allegations.” (Kahlenberg,

2007, p.8). In the history of teacher unionism, New York City and its famous liberal leader,

Albert Shanker play prominent roles in the achievement of collective bargaining for teachers and the protection of due process rights. Up to this time, there had been only small and, in general, isolated instances of collective bargaining agreements reached in Montana, Illinois, and Rhode

Island in the 1930s - 1950s. The defining moment for collective bargaining occurred in

December of 1961 when the United Federation of Teachers, the New York affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers, waged a strike. While only 5,000 of 50,000 teachers struck, it was enough for Mayor Robert Wagner to take notice. Wagner formed a committee of labor leaders who recommended a collective bargaining election. Teachers voted 27,000 to 7,000 for collective bargaining, and an election was held between the UFT and the NEA affiliate, Teacher

Bargaining Organization (TBO), with the UFT dominating in a vote of 20,045 to 9,770.

(Kahlenberg, 2006, p.12). The vote was significant on several levels. It was meaningful for teachers because of the large concentration of teachers in New York City. (At the time, New

York City had more teachers than the smallest 11 states combined.) Perhaps more importantly, the vote had a major impact on the overall labor movement in America. It had a direct influence on the signing and implementation of Executive Order 10988, which allowed all federal employees to bargain collectively, dismissing the notion that it was beneath federal employees to belong to a union with collective bargaining powers. (Kahlenberg, 2006, p.13).

Continuing to the lead the way for teachers’ rights, Shanker and New York City found themselves in the middle of another breakthrough moment in 1968 that established the precedence and power of due process rights for teachers in the event of arbitrary dismissal. In

May of that year, the local school board in the Brooklyn ghetto of Ocean Hill-Brownsville sent telegrams of dismissal to 19 unionized teachers, 18 of whom were white. The one black teacher on the list had been included by mistake. The school board quickly reinstated the black teacher once the mistake was realized. Formed as the result of efforts by a surprising alliance of Black

Power activists, including Sonny Carson, and white aristocratic liberals, such as Mayor John

Lindsay and McGeorge Bundy, President of the Ford Foundation, the school board in the Ocean

Hill-Brownsville neighborhood was intent on giving impoverished communities power and voice over management of their schools. The liberal ideal of school integration had faced the crushing defeat of white flight, and this unlikely coalition supported the idea of giving community control to de facto segregated schools. (Kahlenberg, 2008, p.7). Proponents of community control believed that students of color would achieve higher outcomes in school if the school board hired minority teachers who could serve as motivating role models. Bundy’s report for the Ford Foundation, “Reconnection for Learning: A

Community School System for New York City,” became the intellectual and political framework to support the argument for community control. The report pointed out that only 9 percent of the

New York City’s Public School System’s staff members were Black or Puerto Rican. The report called for the formation of a highly decentralized system of governance with the creation of 30 -

60 community school boards, instead of the single school board that existed in New York up to that time. The report also advocated that school boards be empowered with the authority to consider race as a factor in hiring and promotion. A precursor to race-conscious , the report specifically stated that Black and Puerto Rican teachers had particular “

‘knowledge of, and sensitivity to, the environment of pupils.’ ” (Kahlenberg, 2008, p.7).

The situation at Ocean Hill-Brownsville in 1968 represented a dilemma for Al Shanker, who was by then, president of the UFT, and it fostered a division among New York City liberals.

Shanker, the son of Jewish immigrants whose father delivered newspapers and whose mother worked as a seamstress, was a longtime civil rights activist. Shanker had embraced the civil rights movement and had led a coalition of teachers to hear Martin Luther King’s March on

Washington address in 1963, and he understood the need for more black teachers. However, he also believed that firing on the basis of race was contradictory to the entire meaning of the civil rights movement. For Shanker, the universality of King’s message was essential to its moral grounding, “that people be judged not ‘by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.’ ” (Kahlenberg, 2008, p.7). Shanker believed in an inclusive version of affirmative action and argued for a policy that supported the economically disadvantaged of all races, similar to what Martin Luther King had advocated in his 1964 book, Why We Can’t Wait. In contrast,

Rhody McCoy, the local superintendent, was more influenced by the ideas of Malcolm X rather than King. Mr. McCoy insisted on achieving a teaching force comprised of only black teachers.

Shanker led the UFT members in Ocean Hill-Brownsville in a strike against the arbitrary dismissal of the white teachers. When teachers were not reinstated, Shanker led a series of three strikes for a total of 36 days from September through November of 1968, representing the longest set of school strikes to ever occur in the United States. (Kahlenberg, 2008, p.7).

The Ocean Hill-Brownsville strikes had a lasting effect on the concept of liberalism and its relationship to unions. It represented an early example of the liberal attack against organized labor. The strikes were significant for two key reasons. First, they were carried out to support the traditional liberal ideas that unions should protect individuals from dismissal without due process and that race should not matter in hiring and firing decisions. Second, the overall situation saw those same principles relinquished by many people who self-identified as liberals. The concerns of racism, community control, and definitions of liberalism raised by the strikes were important in influencing future discourse over school reform in the years to come. (Kahlenberg, 2007, p.111).

During the late 1970s, the conservative movement began to gain power, and this momentum culminated with the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980, causing unions to come under attack. Reagan’s policies appeared hostile to unions; he supported private school vouchers and far more conservative-leaning initiatives than his predecessors. When the National

Commission on Excellence released A Nation at Risk in 1983, cautioning against the “rising tide of mediocrity,” Shanker, unlike many teachers in the union movement, affected a surprising turn in his views. Instead of disputing and countering the positions and viewpoints of the report, he accepted them and advocated for teachers to support the recommendations. The tenure system became the object of heated criticism following the publication of the Commission’s report. The tenure system was condemned via claims that it had become almost impossible to fire inept or incompetent teachers. Shanker and a cadre of teacher’s union leaders gradually realized that the right of due process was being distorted in some school districts, and they threw their support behind a provocative plan to eliminate incompetent teachers. (Kahlenberg,

2006, p.19). Shanker was open and blunt about his beliefs that bad teachers should be removed from the teaching force. He wrote a newspaper column attacking incompetent teachers after a Baltimore report was published concluding that many teachers were unable to write a simple letter and failed math and writing tests. Shanker’s colleagues in the union movement - as well as a number of teachers (including his wife, Eadie) - were uncomfortable with his public criticism about teachers while representing them as union president.

(Kahlenberg, 2007, p.164, 282-284).

For Shanker, the controversy over teacher tenure was a dilemma. On the one hand, he did not want to eliminate tenure. On the other hand, he did not want to ignore or defend teacher incompetence, viewing that stance as unacceptable and politically unviable. The compromise was a system of peer review. The concept of peer review originated in Toledo, Ohio. The plan was based on the idea that designated expert teachers would review new and veteran teachers, provide assistance, and in some instances, suggest dismissal of colleagues. Ironically, this concept was at odds with the essence of what unionism represented – “solidarity and security.”(Kahlenberg, 2007, p. 284)

Dal Lawrence, the union president of the Toledo AFT affiliate, originated the peer review plan. Lawrence had strong union credentials, which helped him push through innovations that he felt union members might support. Committed to enhancing the professionalism of teachers,

Lawrence advocated the notion of expert teachers mentoring new teachers, analogous to the way doctors mentor interns. After conducting a referendum, Lawrence received vast support from union members. However, administrators in Toledo rejected the idea, arguing that it was the job of the principal to review and train new teachers. Despite this rejection, in March of 1981, the school district and the union reached an agreement emphasizing the use of expert teachers to work with senior teachers in trouble in the classroom. Commenting on the irony of this event

Lawrence recalled, “ ‘Here we were, a teachers union, and we were evaluating and even recommending the non-renewal and terminations of teachers.’ ” (Kahlenberg, 2007, p.285).

Shanker made a forceful speech at the 1984 Convention of the AFT in Washington D.C. supporting the Toledo plan. He acknowledged that peer review was unpopular with teachers, but he said that it was time to accept the fact “ ‘that some teachers are excellent, some are very good, some are good and some are terrible.’ ” (Kahlenberg, 2007, p.287.) For Shanker, peer review was a way to protect tenure rights for teachers while at the same time providing a system for weeding out the bad. Shanker even went on to say, “ ‘Either we are going to have to say that we are willing to improve the ourselves or the governors are going to act for us.’ ”

(Kahlenberg, 2007, p.287.) The plan signified an important divergence from the established fiduciary responsibility of unions to represent members equally. (Kahlenberg, 2006, p.20.) It also marked the shift from industrial bargaining to reform bargaining (Johnson, 2000, p.8.), which would have lasting impact to the present day.

Policy Analysis

There has been much discussion about the merits of the tenure system. The debate has revealed that no clear general definition exists…and rightfully so, as each state differs in what it offers teachers under the system. This section hopes to provide a clearer understanding of what tenure is: the teacher hiring, and dismissal process and the policies surrounding it.

Roughly 2.3 million US public school teachers have tenure (Stephey, 2008). The tenure system, as it applies to school teachers, ensures due protection against unjust firing and establishes the process for teacher dismissal. While each state details its own course of action, generally tenure establishes a trial period for teachers, criteria for dismissal as well as the actual discharge process, which includes hearings and appeals (Scott, 1986). Many critics assume tenure gives carte blanche to instructors allowing them to teach whatever they want. However, while tenure does provide academic protection, it is only within the confines of the public school lexicon. Educators must follow the teaching guidelines and cannot teach controversial matters such as creationism. Tenure does allow teachers to speak out against unfair school policies and procedures and administration without the threat of being terminated.

Before tenure is granted, state policy dictates that teachers must undergo a probationary period. This is an evaluative process whereby candidates give instruction in the classroom.

Some are evaluated during this period while some teachers are granted tenure automatically after satisfying the requirement. Concerning the provisional period, different states have different policies about the length and what is required during this time. Currently, 44 states grant tenure in three years or less. Three states award teachers permanent status after just one year (National Council of Teacher Quality, 2008, p. 3-6). This is worrisome as it presents the problem of having life-long placements without a proven track record of effectiveness or sustainability. But, while the short length of the probationary period is troublesome, determining teacher effectiveness presents an even bigger problem.

Given how important tenure is in the teacher system, one would believe that more emphasis would be placed on teacher effectiveness. However, in

2008, The National Council for Teacher Quality found that: Source: Gallup Poll, 2005 • Only 29 states required districts to include classroom observation as part of the teacher Proposition 74. In 2005, for granting tenure California presented a • Only 15 states required districts to include proposition that would extend objective measures of student learning as part of teacher’s probationary period from two years to five before the evaluation they were offered tenure. The • Only two states require any evidence of proposition failed with 55% of effectiveness to be considered part of tenure voters rejecting it (California decision (National Council on Teacher Quality, Secretary of State, 2005). 2008, p. 3-6).

States seem to have set a low bar for granting tenure considering the impact that each instructor will have in the classroom. Critics have pointed out that this is one of the detrimental aspects of the tenure system….it allows poor teachers access to tenure without proven success. And, once granted, it is hard for a district to revoke it.

The process of removal is long and expensive. Although states stipulate what constitutes grounds for dismissal, the appeals process and union intervention often makes it more cost effective for a district to continue to employ the teacher than fire them. An article by the

Associated Press states that “In New York City, it often costs taxpayers $250,000 just to fire one incompetent teacher. Some teachers remain on the payroll even after being convicted of serious felonies, requiring districts to hold disciplinary hearings behind prison walls (Associated Press,

2008).” Teacher unions reply that these are the costs of due process and they are justified in the system. However, there must be a better way to ease the process for dismissing ineffective teachers while giving them the right to due process.

Each state outlines objectives for dismissal; however the strength of the policy is in its ability to be clear. In Connecticut, teachers can be dismissed for:

1. inefficiency or incompetence based on evaluations that comply with State Board of Education guidelines for evaluations; 2. insubordination against reasonable board of education rules; 3. moral misconduct; 4. disability proven by medical evidence; 5. elimination of the position to which he was appointed or loss of a position another teacher, as long as there is no other position for which the teacher is qualified and subject to the applicable provisions of a collective bargaining agreement or school board policy; or 6. other due and sufficient cause (Lohman, 2002).

While seemingly unambiguous, teacher unions accuse this type of criterion as being “too loose” because it leaves leeway for schools to interpret what is inefficient or incompetence.

Recognizing this, teacher unions have pushed for more stringent policy regarding the dismissal and appeal process. On the school’s part, proving these somewhat subjective claims of ineffectiveness is often a burden.

The rules of the system imply that once a teacher is notified that they have not upheld certain standards they must then enter into the hearing process, during which the teacher has the right to counsel. Normally, the union is intricately involved in the hearing process, attending the hearing and providing counsel for the teacher. The committee that hears the case must be impartial and the state tenure bylaws outline who sits on the board. In Georgia, the hearing panel consists of not less than three and no more than five impartial persons with academic experience.

In California the hearing is before a Commission of Professional Competence (Colasanti, 2007, p. 2-9).

The teacher dismissal process is further extended if the teacher decides to appeal the board’s decision. This varies by state with some states allowing appeals up to the Superior Court and others allowing for appeals to other bodies such as the Board of Education. This not only extends the period of time it takes to dismiss a teacher but also adds to the total cost. Ultimately, this deters districts from undertaking action to release teachers.

The tenure system has been called antiquated. The most notable critic has been Michelle

Rhee, the DC Chancellor. She is currently pushing the DC public school system to change its teacher contract. Some states have already made strides in reforming their own teacher tenure policy. In 1997, Oregon replaced the tenure system with two-year renewable contract and a rehabilitation program for those teachers who were deemed as not effective (Stephey, 2008). This seems to correctly align the motivations of both the instructors and the school administrators. Teachers are motivated to sustain high caliber instruction to remain in their and school administrators are able to filter out ineffective teachers once their contracts have expired. But, the district has also taken the extra step to implement a rehabilitation system for teachers who are not offered a new contract and has offered to reimburse districts for expenses incurred during the removal process (Clowes, 1997).

Other states have implemented different measures to ease the dismissal process. In 2008,

The National Council for Teacher Quality issued their annual State Teacher Policy Yearbook, which ranks states for their efforts to policies regarding teacher retention. No one state, ranked highly in their measures, however, South Carolina received the overall highest score of “B-“, with a high score of “A” for dismissing ineffective teachers (National Council for Teacher

Quality, 2008, p. 50).

“South Carolina’s policies regarding the exiting of ineffective teachers are stronger than many states. Commendably, the state requires two annual evaluations of new teachers, with the first occurring in the fall. South Carolina also requires that teachers, regardless of employment status, who receive an unsatisfactory evaluation be placed on an improvement plan; however, only annual contract teachers are made eligible for dismissal if they do not improve. The state also commendably requires that all teachers of core subject areas pass subject-matter tests before entering the classroom (National Council for Teacher Quality, 2008, p. 50)

States continue to improve their leverage regarding teacher tenure and seek to find the balance between ensuring teacher quality and job security. Now more than ever there is focus and momentum to change the current tenure and dismissal process. Contemporary politics surrounding teacher dismissal is forcing a closer examination of procedure and policy in urban districts.

Contemporary Politics While impossible to cover all aspects of the contemporary politics surrounding teacher dismissal via wiki-project, this section attempts to focus on the most prominent current issues through the lens of three high-profile urban districts, New York City (NYCDOE), Washington,

DC (DCPS), and Chicago (CPS). These districts are at the forefront of reform with regard to teacher dismissal, and all have different approaches for dealing with instructional staff that are deemed less-than-adequate by their superiors. In the most direct opposition to these urban districts’ approaches are the teacher unions, specifically the American Federation of Teachers

(AFT) and its local union ‘shops.’

The most glaring representation of the disconnect between teacher dismissal and district policy is found in New York City and has been recently highlighted via multiple national media outlets. The NYCDOE Temporary Reassignment Centers, or “Rubber Rooms,” are now infamous, due in large part to highly public national media pieces by Chicago Public Radio’s

This American Life: “Human Resources” and The New Yorker, as well as “The Rubber Room,” a soon-to-be-completed film from Five Boroughs Productions. In these pieces, the so-called

Rubber Rooms are described alternately as holding rooms within district-owned buildings or something akin to Kafka-esque prisons with the culture to match. The Reassignment Centers are not only designed to keep teachers out of actual school buildings but also to require them to ‘put in their time’ at a district-operated location day after day – as opposed to remaining at home and collecting a paycheck (as is the case in Boston) or even collecting two paychecks by securing additional employment while technically still a displaced NYCDOE employee.

As The New Yorker details, “The teachers have been in the Rubber Room for an average of about three years, doing the same thing every day – which is pretty much nothing at all…The city’s contract with their union, the United Federation of Teachers, requires that charges against them be heard by an arbitrator, and until the charges are resolved – the process is often endless – they will continue to draw their and accrue and other benefits.” (Brill, 2009) An interviewee from “Human Resources” goes on to add, “It’s kind of like an indelicate question, ask somebody how long they’ve been there. It’s a bit like asking someone what they’re in for.

It’s embarrassing. It’s humiliating.” (“This American Life: Human Resources,” 2008)

Although unspoken, it seems that a side purpose behind Rubber Rooms is to actually wear down individuals removed from the classroom in the expectation that at some point many may personally just ‘give up’ prior to being removed from the system once given due process.

Thus, the Rubber Rooms have become a tremendous exercise in NYCDOE bureaucratic work- arounds, with the question becoming, ‘At what cost?’ – both emotionally and monetarily

(estimated in excess of thirty-five million dollars each year) for the teachers and the NYCDOE as a whole.

Another example of prominent teacher dismissal politics at-play between union and district is currently found in Washington, DC, where Chancellor Michelle Rhee continues a heated battle with the local chapter of the AFT over tenure and dismissal as it relates to her proposed pay-for-performance plan. According to a 2008 Time profile, “Rhee is convinced that the answer to the U.S.'s education catastrophe is talent, in the form of outstanding teachers and principals. She wants to make Washington teachers the highest paid in the country, and in exchange she wants to get rid of the weakest teachers. Where she and the teachers' union disagree most is on her ability to measure the quality of teachers. Like about half the states,

Washington is now tracking whether students' test scores improve over time under a given teacher. Rhee wants to use that data to decide who gets paid more--and, in combination with classroom evaluation, who keeps the job. But many teachers do not trust her to do this fairly, and the union bristles at the idea of giving up tenure, the exceptional job security that teachers enjoy.” (Ripley, 2008)

As a result of a stagnated collective bargaining agreement, Rhee and her staff are now also being accused of using ‘work-arounds’ in order to rid DCPS of its weakest teachers at every level (new, experienced, un-licensed). The dismissals have come in two stages, the first of which started on June 16, 2009 with the dismissal of about 250 new and experienced teachers.

Some of these dismissals were accomplished through enactment of a rarely used ‘90-day’

Mechanism. According to The Washington Post, “The dismissal of 80 tenured teachers is a landmark of sorts for the school system, which historically has fired only a handful of instructors each year for poor performance. The 90-day mechanism has been on the books for years but seldom used because it was considered cumbersome and time-consuming. Instructors can be placed on the plan if a principal's classroom observation finds them deficient in at least six of 17 categories, including content knowledge and classroom management. Teachers on the plan are supposed to be assigned a “helping teacher” for a program of improvement, which also requires a series of conferences and scheduled and unscheduled classroom visits by administrators.

Last fall, Rhee promised aggressive use of the plan after she was unable to secure concessions from the union in contract talks to give her wider latitude in reassigning or firing educators. Rhee told the D.C. Council late last year that 157 teachers were placed on the plan.”

(Turque, 2009)

Despite the dismissals – or perhaps because of some, DCPS then went on to hire a new crop of almost 900 teachers during the summer of 2009. However, a second stage of dismissals then came to fruition through the recent DCPS announcement that it would need to dismiss over

266 of its teachers due to budget cuts. This move has been challenged in court by the AFT, led by its president and well-acknowledged Rhee opponent, Randi Weingarten, and a decision is to be made on its legality within the next few weeks. A source close to these discussions and maneuverings who was interviewed for this project has indicated that the judge in the case is on- track to rule in favor of DCPS, which will then finally clear the way for collective bargaining to proceed, providing a new collective bargaining agreement which should be ready for ratification by Thanksgiving. This comes on the heels of increased verbal pressure from those at a high- level at the USDOE, who are hoping for more Washington, DC ‘airtime’ for the newly announced “Race to the Top” proceedings (Anonymous, personal communication, November 18,

2009).

In response to a Bill Turque report on DCPS/AFT contract negotiations in The

Washington Post, Frederick Hess notes on The Enterprise Blog that there will be one of two results from any DC movement on collective bargaining with regard to teacher dismissal, especially as it relates to initial plans for a drastically revised salary scale based on an opt-in assessment of teachers without restriction for one-year. The first: “The Rhee-friendly interpretation will be that winning new authority to remove ineffective educators, along the lines that Turque addresses, would itself constitute a dramatic change. Turque has reported that the new contract language would allow DCPS to remove teachers due to “closure, consolidation, declining enrollment, budgets cuts or takeover by an outside organization” with little attention to seniority. It would also give principals much more leeway to decide whether to hire these

“excessed” teachers.” (Hess, 2009) The second, likely from reformers: “They will say that changing the rules on seniority and on the reassignment of excessed teachers are constructive steps but much less than they had hoped for in this heavily publicized showdown.” (Hess, 2009)

With either solution, the DCPS administration and the AFT have continued relationship work to figure out - regardless of the impending outcome on teacher dismissal, pay-for-performance, and teacher tenure.

In another alternate and far more reform-oriented control over teacher dismissal, Chicago

Public Schools has managed to wrangle early assessment of teachers away from the

Chicago teachers Union through an unlikely concession. The ‘click,’ as it is commonly known by CPS principals and Human Resources personnel, enables principals on a once-yearly basis to dismiss recent teacher hires (called a Probationary Appointed Teacher, or ‘PAT’ for short) online from year to year without even a conversation about the reason for dismissal. Each February, principals are sent notification of whom on their teaching roster is still within the three-year cycle of ‘click’ assessment. The principals are then given the option of going online through the

Human Resources website and ‘clicking’ the names of those teachers whom they do not want to retuned to their schools in the following year. Principals have until the first Friday in March to act on this non-renewal option. According to a CPS official close to the process who was interviewed, principals are told not to discuss reasons for dismissal with the teacher for legality reasons; however, they are required to have ‘observed’ (not ‘rate’) the teacher at least twice in- person. Once clicked, each PAT receives a letter from the CPS Human Resources department explaining that they have been non-renewed and should begin searching for a new position.

Principals are encouraged to err on the side of caution and ‘click’ teachers about whom they have any doubts. If something changes in performance, they do have the option to hire that same person back with no issue to fill the same position.

The interviewed CPS staffer was also quick to mention that not all PATs are horrible teachers (about 60%-65% are rehired at another school in any given year); sometimes, it is just a

‘fit’ issue with a given school/principal or an issue with budgeted enrollment. However, the

‘click’ does create much more of a free-market system among hires within their first three years in the district – before they have reached an eligibility litmus for tenure (year four in a CPS school). According to the CPS source, “This was a negotiated thing that, I think, ultimately cost the union president her job, and I’m sure that the CTU has rued the day ever since it came about.

But principals love it, and it really is related to quality hiring in the district’s teacher force”

(Anonymous, personal communication, November 16, 2009).

For clarity purposes, it should be noted that Chicago must still contend with the poor performance of teachers who possess more than three years of experience in the district’s classrooms, and this contention is a tougher, much more traditional battle – similar to that of

New York and Washington, DC. However, even here the basic process for the dismissal of tenured teachers tends toward a checklist approach with a few innovations. If everything proceeds correctly, beginning with the filing of a form E-03 and notification sent to the teacher, the process can be completed in roughly six months. Despite this being a short(er) process by comparison with other districts, on average, only five or six tenured teachers are processed for dismissal per year. The one exception to this is a recent CPS/CTU partnership designed around ten underperforming schools. Called “Fresh Start,” this partnership is starting to see some movement in combined assessment from both sides, resulting in the dismissal of two tenured teachers in the past year with union consent.

Overall, the common denominator between all three of these districts is their ability to find ‘work-arounds’ to deal with issues of collective bargaining as they impede teacher dismissal. In short, the process has become to find a ‘stop-gap’ for what Frederick Hess cites as the “dance of the lemons,” where “the simplest way for administrators to remove bad teachers is to encourage them to transfer to another school. In return, principals provide these teachers with positive evaluations” (Hess, 2004). Up to and including present-day, there have been plenty of options for dismissing teachers new to the profession and new to districts, but underperforming veteran teachers prove much harder to release.

In addition to the concessions mentioned above, there is also one additional high-profile case that speaks to union/district solidarity that is being jointly heralded as the path forward by an urban district and the AFT, as well as the United States Department of Education (an organization traditionally quiet on the politics of contract negotiations). In October, New Haven,

Connecticut, passed a collective bargaining agreement that “opens the door to inclusion of student performance in teacher evaluations, grants new flexibility to schools, establishes a peer mentoring program for low-performing teachers, and includes a framework for school-based bonuses. The agreement also provides a more streamlined process for removal of teachers deemed incompetent, establishing a 120-day improvement plan period that can result in a determination of incompetence. The contract grants the district the ability to shut down a low- performing school and reconstitute it under new staff and leadership, possibly as a charter school” (Benton, 2009). Pressure is now being applied in Washington, DC to make similar passage a priority. Will other urban districts and local union affiliates follow suit? Only time will tell.

Policy Analysis

While approaches vary, our interviews and research conclude one thing in common: something needs to be done to improve the overall quality of the teacher workforce. There are a myriad approaches for changing dismissal practices to ensure that more quality teachers can be recruited and retained and to replace teachers that are not proving to change the academic achievement of their students and thus proving their effectiveness. In this section, we highlight areas where reform is needed by providing key research on teacher dismissal practices and by advocating areas in which change can allow for inadequate teachers to be supplanted with promising talent.

One of the biggest assumptions around teacher dismissal is that unions get in the way of teacher removal, preventing bad teachers from being let go. According to leading researcher and

Harvard Graduate School of Education Professor Susan Moore Johnson, this is a misleading conception. Johnson states that unions are present to make sure that principals follow rules and procedures so that teachers are safeguarded against unfairness. In reality, if principals were to follow proper procedures, the union would have no reason to keep bad teachers in classrooms.

However, for a variety of reasons, principals are not always properly equipped to follow dismissal procedures, leading to too few dismissals. Steeped in the contractual language of collective bargaining agreements, teacher dismissal is a very tough requirement of principals.

First, many districts do not have proper evaluation techniques for the proper evaluation of teacher performance. Indeed a senior-level Boston Public Schools administrator confirms, “A lot of the formative evaluations that we’re doing and spending time on are intended to move towards termination.” (Anonymous, personal communication, November 13, 2009) In short, the old method of ‘checking yes or no’ on performance evaluation documents does little to prove effectiveness of teachers (S. M. Johnson, personal communication, November 5, 2009). Boston

Public Schools has moved away from the traditional ‘check yes or no’ system by creating a multi-leveled system that more and more districts are moving toward as a way to reform the traditional mechanisms of evaluation. “The performance evaluation document has eight areas, and teachers are evaluated in each of these eight areas. It’s all input driven. Rather than providing teachers at various levels on the spectrum of good to bad – or great to bad – honest feedback in helping them improve needs to be a part of the evaluation process.” (Anonymous, personal communication, November 13, 2009) Principals traditionally lack the training and support necessary to properly evaluate teachers across the multiple subjects and grade levels found in any given school, according to Johnson. She also adds that principals simply do not have enough time to properly evaluate teachers on top of their many other job responsibilities.

This lack of knowledge and lack of time, coupled with fear of changing school climate and culture, seems to breed fear into principals from properly moving forward with dismissing ineffective teachers.

Policy analysts and education practitioners suggest multiple ways to change the system so that the dismissal of those who are ineffective can become a more common and less confusing practice. One area of suggested reform is in changing the evaluation process of teachers so that it is more fair and useful, giving failing teachers proper support so that they have the opportunity to grow and change before dismissal review is needed or ever occurs. Cincinnati, according to both

Johnson and the source from Boston Public Schools, has a peer system in place where ‘master’ teachers evaluate other teachers in their field. This system rids principals of being the soul evaluators of a teacher’s performance as well as allows a teacher to be fairly evaluated by a professional with expertise in the same content area.

In terms of the teacher evaluation process itself, The New Teacher Project’s (TNTP) recent report, entitled “The Widget Effect,” criticizes the most common type of district evaluation model that rates teachers on a two-level scale, either “Satisfactory” or

“Unsatisfactory”. TNTP argues that this model does not provide any incentive to deeply assess an individual beyond “satisfactory” and likewise, that it does not highlight areas in which the assessed teacher is doing well and areas in which the teacher needs to grow. Therefore, a vast majority of teachers are given “satisfactory” ratings when they are not necessarily effective in the classroom (The New Teacher Project, 2009).

Likewise, in its “Unintended Consequences” report, TNTP states that five areas of reform are necessary in order for more low performing teachers to be replaced. The first area of recommended reform is to change transfer and “excess” timelines. “Excess” referring to teachers whom are typically cut from a school due to budget or student enrollment (The New Teacher

Project, 2005). According to TNTP, urban schools are forced to hire large numbers of teachers whom they do not necessarily want due to seniority regulations. Principals must hire voluntary transfers and “excess” teachers before they can look at hiring outside applicants. In light of this hiring discrepancy, the report advocated a mutual consent process by which the transferring, or

“excessed,” teacher and the principal interview and agree on the placement at the school site. In short, principals should be given the right to decide who teaches as a member of their school team.

In addition, the report recommends that the teacher transfer period should happen much earlier than the summer prior to the impending school year in order that the school leader is able to recruit the strongest candidates. TNTP recommends that voluntary transfer teachers be given a two-week period for preferential review before schools are allowed to look at other candidates. In addition, they propose change in eliminating voluntary transfers a guaranteed job at another school. If a school leader does not wish to hire a teacher that voluntarily leaves his/her campus, that teacher should not be guaranteed a job elsewhere.

Finally, The New Teacher Project’s “Unintended Consequences” report, completed while current Washington, DC Chancellor Michelle Rhee was at the helm of the organization, recommends that more protections be placed on newly hired, novice teachers. Traditionally, if there must be a cut in teaching staff, the most recent teachers that have been hired are the first to be released. This is problematic. New teachers should not be treated as “expendable” and their jobs should be protected. TNTP suggests that “…the right of a senior teacher who already has a job to take another job should never trump the interest of a school in holding on to an existing teacher if the school wants to keep the teacher and the teacher wants to stay” (The New Teacher

Project, 2005, p.35).

Given the reform proposals and the challenges to systemic change presented above, it should be noted that many states are in the process of reforming the age-old tenure structures of

U.S. public school districts. Overall, our research and interviews support the case for increased tenure reform that ensures more quality teachers are retained while those that prove unsuccessful be released from their positions. As mentioned earlier in our research on current policy, Oregon,

Georgia, and New York are leading the way in changes to existing tenure system so that failing teachers are not protected from performance evaluations and possible removal for not proving success. Oregon’s system, which replaces tenure with two-year contracts, allows schools to dismiss a teacher after two years with sufficient proof and reason for not renewing the contract.

This system allows principals to choose who is on their staff and forces teachers to continuously prove that their performance is worthy of job security.

If our country is committed to improving educational outcomes for its children, then we have to focus on the quality of the profession. We must take an active stance now to change the way we review and dismiss teachers who fail to show performance that leads to academic achievement for their students. The quality of America’s teaching force is in direct correlation to the success of children that most employers, economists, policy makers, and politicians can agree is not up to the standard of other developed countries in the world.

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