Money managers around the globe are focused today on Congress, as it weighs the $700 billion bailout of their descent into greed; meanwhile, educators across the U.S. are equally mesmerized by the battle unfolding between Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee and the Washington Teachers’ Union.
For Washingtonians, the Rhee v. WTU skirmish might have more lasting effect. The financial markets will recover; the teachers’ union might not.
Would that be good or bad for students?
Yesterday morning Rhee dropped the bomb on the teachers. In her parlance, it was “Plan B,” short for her proposal if negotiations with the union failed. Sources tell me the two sides were close to an agreement last week, but union chief George Parker failed to line up enough support. Rhee lost patience.
“Kids can’t wait,” Rhee told me.
Mayor Adrian Fenty stepped to the microphone first in a conference room on the school system’s North Capital Street offices. He vowed to make sure that students had the best teachers, and he turned the session over the Rhee.
“Negotiations are stalled,” Rhee said.
What’s holding up talks, which have been going on for close to a year, are tenure and seniority. Teachers who have been working in the D.C. schools for decades are loath to give up their seniority rights, even though Rhee’s contract would offer them fat raises and cash for raising test scores.
On this point, the teachers are going to lose. Without question, the system is jammed with incredibly fine teachers. I can reel off dozens who have taught my kids. To name a few: Jackie Snowden and math wizard Bob Thurston at Lafayette; star history teacher Cynthia Mosteller at Alice Deal; bio master Art Siebens at Wilson.
But for decades, lousy teachers littered the schools. My kids have had teachers who asked them to put their heads down and sleep during class. Drunks tried to teach math. They were shuffled from school to school and classroom to classroom.
Rhee’s Plan B would immediately create a new evaluation system based on test scores to “allow for the removal of poor performers regardless of tenure.” Teachers with seniority could no longer bump younger ones if their jobs were abolished. She vowed: “Vigorous pursuit of teacher discipline issues including absenteeism and corporal punishment.”
What confuses me is that Rhee’s proposal, which I actually have read cover to cover, does try for balance. It rewards successful teachers. It requires a lengthy process for removing a teacher. It includes generous raises. But it does erase seniority rights.
Now the carrot is gone, leaving only the stick.
Two things are crucial in evaluating this conflict:
First, Rhee already has the power to fire teachers, regardless of seniority. The Federal Control Board bestowed that a decade ago.
Second, at the end of the day, the union’s only weapon is to strike. Given the fractured state of the WTU, I doubt it could muster a strike vote.
If it did, my guess is parents and students would back Rhee and Fenty, and WTU might disappear.
