I see only one advantage of having teachers become state employees: the state could move teachers from good school systems to bad school systems. Urban school systems like Springfield tend to experience brain drain as teachers get fed up and move to the suburbs. This might benefit urban school systems, if indeed the root problems of urban schools can be addressed by shifting personnel.
But are affluent communities with good school systems going to want to lose their teachers? Would Wayland want to see their teachers suddenly transferred to Dorchester?
Whatever time is spent negotiating teacher contracts, at least in smaller school systems, doesn’t affect instruction. Local unions form negotiating teams which meet after school. Superintendents and other administrators are salaried so their extra time cost anything. School committee members are elected, and at least in small towns, work for free. What’s the big deal?
Does the state really want a more unified teacher union? Right now, local unions belong to either the Massachusetts Teacher Assocation, which belongs to the National Educator Assocation. Other unions belong to the American Federation of Teachers. Contracts are made between local unions and individual school systems, not the state. Would it be easier to negotiate with teachers statewide? Wouldn’t such a system increase the power of teacher unions?
fdr08 says
I don’t think there is anything “nutty” at all in the Gov’s proposal. Some ideas may be impractical, but certainly worth looking at.
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p>1. Statewide teacher contract. 300+ districts negotiating vs one. Should be some economies of scale there. I do wonder about district assignments. If I live in Natick and am qualified and want to teach in Natick I sure don’t want to be shipped to Great Barrington!
2. Different pay scales for certain subjects or locales. Also makes sense. Short of math teachers, pay more. Incentives to teach in the inner city, why not.
3. Merger of Districts. In western Mass there are some real small districts that should be regionalized. Locals will hate to give up control however.
4. Free tuition at CCs. This might be too expensive. I would imagine that fees would remain. I know in the state Univ. system tuition amounts to only 10% of the full cost.
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p>Devil will be in the details but I hope the Governor follows thru better than on the police detail issue. It is sure to be just as controversial.
sabutai says
…mainly because I haven’t found it either on the parallel government page, or on the official site of the Massachusetts government. I’m hoping I can see the report itself, and move on from reading press releases and rumors. Between the enthusiasm for charter schools and this union busting proposal, thus far it sounds to the right of anything Bush dreamed up. Hopefully the leaks are wrong.
yellow-dog says
are supposed to be available in their entirety on Wednesday.
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p>I can’t for the life of me see anyone going for the state as the employer of all teachers. Those of us in Western Mass do the same job as people in Boston, but we make less because it’s cheaper to live out here. Would our salaries go up? Would theirs go down?
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p>Also teachers, I think, would become a more unified block of influence. Imagine if the entire state went “work to rule”! Or on strike? Teachers rarely strike; it’s against the law, but it happens. But it doesn’t affect other school systems. Imagine a state-wide teachers strike.
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p>It’s strange that no one on the Readiness Project has contradicted these leaks. If leaks are what they are, I’m doubly interested in the management of this project.
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p>Mark
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p>
sabutai says
In my eyes, the union does its best work not in contract negotiations, but addresses the occasional administrator who acts in an unprofessional or incompetent way (oh, the stories we all have…). It’s bad enough getting Local School Committee to take seriously such problems, but I can’t imagine petitioning Education Central in Boston about a principal back in the hinterland who is crippling his/her school.
fdr08 says
School Committees only hire & fire the Superintendent. The Supt. would hire & fire other adminstrators.
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p>I didn’t see any info on doing away with School Committees. The local Supt. and Principals should be the ones to hire teachers, not Boston.
sabutai says
While it is true that the superintendent is the only person empowered to hire and fire administration, experience says that is done usually under pressure from the school committee. I have a lot of sympathy for superintendents…it’s one of the rottenest jobs in government, but part of the usual mo is to “not make waves”. It too often takes involvement by the school committee for change to happen.
lolorb says
will be counting on both you and Mark for teacher perspectives. I know I look forward to both of your assessments. At this point, I’m afraid this is going to become the next casino proposal. When administrators (or lobbyists) offer the majority of input, we’re in big trouble.
fdr08 says
Please explain.
sabutai says
Three things that have slipped out thus far:
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p>
Unionbusting…breaking up innumerable unions and forcing them into one statewide organization.<
p>
Charter schools…a new kind of effort to work against local control of schools, and communitybased education.<
p>-New paperwork, a “readiness passport” to increase bureacratic assessment, er, accountability.
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p>When the right wing looks at education, busting unions, adding paperwork in order to fail more schools, and increasing “school choice” are three of their favorite avenues.
historian says
Patrick is making some excellent proposals. In particular his suggestion for offering incentives for consolidating school districts makes a lot of sense. There is no reason why Massachusetts should have so many more school districts than Maryland. In practice carving up school districts along town lines often functions in part as means to prop up real-estate values in the wealthiest communites.
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p>The proposal for reconsidering the role of property taxes as a major means for funding education also has merit.
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p>I hope the Speaker of the House is willing to consider these ideas as well.
sabutai says
Multi-town regional school districts can often be a good idea, dealing with economies of scale…particularly in the western part of the state. Whitman-Hanson and Dighton-Rehoboth, to name two in my neck of the woods, function better as a region in my opinion than they would separate. Economies of scale not only touch on physical buildings on supplies, but a certain critical mass of students enables a school to offer more academics (advanced placement), enrichment (particularly media arts), and athletics (ice hockey) than would either school on its own.
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p>However, regional districts are a big commitment, and one that is for the long haul. There are notable cases where different towns have different policy and funding approaches that can cause friction. Take Bridgewater-Raynham, for example…Ranyham regularly steps up to the plate in terms of funding, whereas the residents of Bridgewater remain serenely unconcerned about their unaccredited library, perilous public safety, and bare-bones public schools. This is a source of great frustration to people in Raynham, many of whom feel their students held hostage by their larger, cheaper cousin. This people who pay these property taxes move out of the towns are pay more to send their child to private school. Pembroke pulled out of Silver Lake a couple years ago due to concerns over educational policy directions.
fdr08 says
If the State negotiates the teachers contract could it be that the State will pick up the costs. Then the property tax levels could drop. It will be interesting to see what the Governor has in mind for funding this.
ryepower12 says
Picking up the costs of teacher salary would be infinitely more expensive than 2 years free CC. Magnitudes upon magnitudes. I wouldn’t be shocked if it were the single biggest expense in the state. There is simply no way this can happen, save agreeing to raise income taxes by probably more than 1%.
stomv says
There’s about 100,000 public school teachers in Massachusetts, according to BLS. That seems startlingly high, but the Mass Teachers Assn has 108,000 members [see the Globe article].
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p>Lets say that the average salary and benefits is $100,000. I doubt it’s that high, but it’s certainly higher than simply salary.
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p>Total cost: $10,000,000,000 annually: $10 billion. The total state budget is roughly $30 billion.
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p>Rye’s right on this one: even if the state got rid of all Chapter 70 and non-70 K-12 funding, that’s only $4 billion. Where would the other $6 billion come from? Towns would be flush, but the state would be in the red big time.
syphax says
From (often regressive) property taxes to (more progressive) state income taxes. In a zero-sum situation, this would benefit fixed-income home-owners in high-tax-burden communities and nail people with relatively high incomes (at least the ones not in super-mega-mansions).
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p>It would shift around where tax revenues come from and go. Local taxes (naturally) stay in the community, but towns are often either net exporters or importers of state taxes. My town is a net exporter (we pay more in taxes than we get cumulatively from the state), so we’d be less well off, judged strictly by dollars and cents.
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p>Net net, I think such a redistribution would probably be more “fair”, but don’t expect those who’d shoulder a larger tax bill or receive less total tax revenue to go along willingly.
gary says
To make the teachers state employee would require nearly 3 percentage point increase to the income tax rate.
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p>Dovetail the two Patrick ideas: 1) reduce reliance on property tax and 2) centralize teachers salary and benefits.
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p>The result would be loss of town/city revenues. Loss of property tax revenue equals loss of local control. Loss of purse equals loss of purse strings.
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p>And what a disaster. How could anyone, with any respect for local control over schooling support such an outcome. Yet, that’s what the two (2) proposals (property tax relief and teachers as state employees) taken to the extreme appear to suggest.
syphax says
but of preference. I tend to prefer local control, but there are plenty of valid reasons not to prefer it (inconsistency in quality/competency of teachers and administration, etc.).
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p>Another way to reduce reliance on the property tax without ceding local control would be to increase the flexibility for towns and cities in generating their revenue. A local income tax as a supplement or replacement of a property tax would arguably be more “fair”, but is presently illegal.
yellow-dog says
yellow-dog says
there are fewer school districts in Maryland is the use of counties as a meaningful form of organization. We don’t have that in Massachusetts.
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p>Property taxes are a problem with funding, but I don’t think there will ever be equity. If the state were able to cut aid to affluent communities and redistribute it to those with a lower property tax base, the affluent communites would likely raise property taxes to keep the desired level of service.
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p>Mark
ryepower12 says
Even Newton rejected a recent prop override.
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p>Chapter 70 already does what you’re suggesting, but by what formula do you define “affluent.”
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p>What happens is that towns like Swampscott and Gloucester receive less than their fair share. These are working and middle class towns that happen to have a few, nice houses on the beach that skew everything else. My precinct’s median family income is significantly less than the city of Lynn, which is deemed as poor by many in this state, yet Swampscott was shortchanged over $500,000 last year because we’re deemed “affluent,” even though we’re really not. Furthermore, while the state penalizes these kinds of towns for a few property owners, it’s not like the town can penalize them to the same degree, forcing them to pay higher tax rates… so, until we have a better way of deciding what towns are “affluent” in Massachusetts, I don’t think taking more money away from those towns is the solution, especially on the vane hope that they’d raise taxes to compensate when I can tell you without a doubt in my body that most of these towns won’t, because even people in the wealthiest communities are sick of it at this point.
yellow-dog says
More affluent communities are sick of overrides as well, but they have had overrides. Our more working class communities haven’t even had those.
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p>You’re right about the formula. The problem is that every formula shafts someone. That’s what Sen. Stan Rosenberg explained to one of my grad classes when he visited. In my area, the community most shafted by the Chapter 70 formula is Northampton.
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p>My main point, however, is that too much “wealth redistribution” is politically untenable.
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p>Mark
heartlanddem says
Is perpetually screwed shoveling a boatload of dough to Boston and getting squat….just another side of an imperfect formula.
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p>You make good points that the working class communities haven’t been able to raise and appropriate over 2 1/2, throw in lower property values and less commercial property west of Worcester and the municipalities are porked.
ryepower12 says
Here we go again with another bold policy agenda that’s so wide sweeping and variant that it’s never. going. to. happen.
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p>And, you know what? I’m kind of thankful.
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p>We don’t need a huge overhaul of the state’s educational system, thank you very much. We have the nation’s best.
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p>However, under the current finances of this state and its many towns and cities, that’s not going to stay the best for long. We simply can’t afford to keep our schools open. Until the State House addresses the core financial problems this state is facing, we’re going no where fast: Special Education, Transportation, Oil, Health Care and Pension costs are all big expenses local towns can’t collectively keep up with. Chapter 70 is not only woefully inadequate, but a murky formula that’s disproportionately hurt a lot of towns that have serious needs, but a few nice houses on the ocean.
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p>I know it’s not the politically sexy thing to do, but couldn’t we focus on those problems – you know, the real ones – before moving to wide sweeping changes? I get it, we all want to be the person who delivers wide revolution, but you don’t buy a Mercedes when you can’t pay the mortgage. Not only do I fail to see where any of the money is going to come from to pay for the good and bad ideas amongst the “Readiness Project,” but we don’t even have enough money to maintain even a fraction of the status quo.
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p>Each year it’s slipping away and the Readiness Project is going to do nothing to help it. Where’s the base of support that’s going to pass it, when we have so many other demanding needs? This project, like a whole host of others coming out of the Governor’s Office (both good and bad), seems primed for failure. We’re just not “ready” for it.
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p>I voted for the Governor that was going to fix our real problems, not try to create a whole bunch of new ones. Deval, come on! Let’s get at the nuts and bolts, please.
randolph says
I agree that those underlying cost drivers pose a huge threat to our public education and must be dealt with. Last Spring’s teacher strike in Quincy is a prime example of how rising health care costs undermine public education.
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p>However, the problems are far, far greater than money alone and proposals like these are badly needed. For example, tomorrow the Board of Ed will decide the fate of my hometown’s public schools, which they declared underperforming several months ago. Blame goes all around for Randolph’s problems, but I believe the key is governance. Years of incompetence, infighting, and inattentiveness at all levels of town government and school administration brought the system to its knees. Also, teacher staffing problems, massive failings in curriculum, low expectations and cultural gaps hurt instruction. The list goes on. Poor funding contributed to some of these problems, but it is equally true that these problems bear some responsibility for the financial crisis.
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p>Finances are a critical piece of the public education puzzle, but spending money effectively and efficiently is just as important. I haven’t gotten a chance to read through most of the proposals yet, but achieving economies of scale, improving teacher staffing, and utilizing effective programs like Reading Recovery point in the right direction.
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p>Also, food for thought on the state-wide bargaining proposal. It is just my observation, but I have noticed there is often a large difference between the locals and the state associations. The MTA and MFT have worked tirelessly to improve public education in the state and are pretty progressive institutions. Some (not all!) of the locals fit more with the stereotype of obstructionist municipal unions. I wonder if that consideration played into this proposal?
ryepower12 says
I’m not saying that we shouldn’t be making big proposals.
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p>However, we need to a) fix the big problems first
<
p>and b) plug in the important holes for now. We don’t need an education revolution to say that we should have universal pre-k.
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p>Furthermore, so many of the school-related problems are actually socio-economic problems. There may be other ways to address than than through the educational system: universal health care, drug prevention and rehab services, welfare, etc.
johnd says
We often point at various aspects of education and try to assign blame for underperformance. I recently read an article about Newton High School (North or South?) and how it was a very old school in very bad condition. They went on to say how the students from this school were always performing at the very top of the state every single year. So, does the actual school building condition matter. I know the excuse is used often at underperforming schools that the school condition is a big factor. Then there is the teachers. I just don’t believe the teachers in the worst performing school are the worst teachers. As a matter of fact, I’ll bet you could take the students from my old neighborhood (Dorchester High School) and transplant them to Newton (leaving the Newton teachers in Newton) and then move the Newton kids to Dot High and the results of both groups would not change.
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p>So, if the problem is not the actual school buildings or the teachers, how are these changes going to help?
jimcaralis says
I would think parental involvement has something to do with it. Low income parents may have less time and immigrant parents in some cases don’t have the language skills to help their children.
johnd says
Anyone who has kids in school will tell you it is far and few times that you will have an exceptional student who doesn’t have parental support and guidance. Many have made a big deal about the success of children of Asian origins in public school. Is there some innate skills that these children possess? NO, they have parents who care strongly about their education and cultures which put a strong emphasis on education.
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p>The teachers and the schools are almost meaningless when the parents care. The bad news is all the money in the world (most coming out of working people’s pockets) will not fix the school system.
jimcaralis says
I don’t agree that teachers and schools are meaningless when you have an involved parent. The solution lies in a combination of money, parental involvement and teaching excellence.
peter-porcupine says
And don’t stigmatize low and working clss parents – they are probably MORE likely to help a kid with homework at he kitchen table than two Type-A corporate parents, used to outsourcing such tasks.
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p>Problem is – you can’t legislate parental involvement. You can’t even reliably predict who the good parents are.
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p>So, they spin webs attempting to replicate parental involvement – which can’t be done – and maybe provide some jobs for the boys along the way.
jimcaralis says
Your aspersions on my statement are BS and out of line – though I still like you…
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p>I was a low income child of an immigrant growing up. I gave an example from personal experience. My dad didn’t have a great command of the language and couldn’t offer a lot of help, not to mention he was working all the time. Now if I had two Type-A corporate parents I might have used that example. Parental involvement is in issue for all groups, but low income students from immigrant families have distinct disadvantages.
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p>
peter-porcupine says
I was deliberately NOT given an ethnic name, but one which was chosen from a radio soap as ‘elegant’. I always heard, when a relation lapsed into their native tongue, we are in the new land so we speak the new language…albeit with a heavy, comical accent, I admit.
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p>So we really ARE coming from the same place! :~)
heartlanddem says
Can we just start with a few tools that might make changes happen, like eliminating the union approval for cities and towns to join the GIC? There is little success with that initiative because it has a built-in defeater.
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p>The older I get the less impressed I am with anything grandiose.
yellow-dog says
the GIC, which incidentally has my health care plan. Aside from the City of Springfield, where the teachers union agreed to it, I don’t know of other school systems that have looked at the issue.
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p>Mark
heartlanddem says
Did Springfield unions vote to approve or was it a Control Board decision?
yellow-dog says
I think the union had to agree to it, but I can’t find any information on that.
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p>As it stands, only retired teachers from participating towns can participate in the Group Insurance Plan.
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p>Mark
heartlanddem says
Receive 90% coverage through the GIC. Other municipal retirees who worked at much lower wages (the real blue collar folks) pay 50%. The inequity is very problematic. The inequity with private sector wages and benefits is even greater. Each incremental jump in the retired teachers health insurance comes out of the heart of education budgets (Chapter 70) and teachers are laid-off to continue the current unsustainable benefit structure.
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p>Bringing all of the unions in line (even with concessions and grandfathering) is a daunting task. Meanwhile municipalites go down the drain and the quality of education and infrastructure in our communities diminish. This is the lens through which I see the issue and the backstory to my post above that suggests tools to make the process work.
peter-porcupine says
Some are at 50, some 40, some 10 – some pay full freight. THAT’S why there hasn’t been a huge exodus to GIC – many towns don’t want to change the contribution rate.
yellow-dog says
the GIC, which incidentally has my health care plan. Aside from the City of Springfield, where the teachers union agreed to it, I don’t know of other school systems that have looked at the issue.
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p>Mark
ryepower12 says
it would be an insult to teachers to get rid of it.
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p>There are some real problems with both the policy and the process: fix those problems and the teachers will join. After all, human nature dictates that people will usually do what’s in their best monetary interest. If the GIC was as good as some people like to rave about, don’t you think the teachers would be jumping to join it? They’re not.
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p>Like any other thing in life, there has to be negotiation there. Except, in this case, the state thrust it on local communities and their unions so fast, with such short deadlines, that there was no time for those negotiations to take place in earnest. There wasn’t even really enough time for union members to educate themselves.
dca-bos says
They’d only be jumping at the chance to get into it if it was significantly better than what they currently have. The lack of interest in joining the GIC by any municipal union is most likely due to the fact that they have negotiated a much sweeter deal — better benefits, lower co-pays, etc — with the individual city/town.
ryepower12 says
As I said, I think one of the biggest obstacles was that the state tried to force it on town employees so quickly that few had time to really educate themselves, and even fewer towns had the opportunity to really negotiate.
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p>One of the main points brought up in my town was that the GIC was certainly better for families that were healthy, but tended to have higher deductibles which made it dangerous for those who were sick. By the way, this isn’t some town with a super sweet deal – they pay 40% of their insurance costs, which is almost unheard of in any other town across this state. So it isn’t as if there was a “sweet” deal, just not enough information and time to get a compromise on the GIC done.
dca-bos says
Not knowing every town’s specific situation, but yours sounds somewhat unique — 40 percent is a lot.
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p>But that wasn’t really my point. I don’t think your town is representative of the deals elsewhere. Sure, in some cases there probably wasn’t enough time to analyze all the data, but in some they probably saw the basic numbers and said, “our deal is better than this.” That’s what the unions are supposed to do for their members. They’re not in business to look out for anybody else’s interest when it comes to negotiating contracts, that’s supposed to be the job of the city and town governments.
greg says
A question for you, Mark. The paragraph you cited from the Globe (as a side note, I would recommend you put it in <blockquote></blockquote> tags) listed several potential benefits to the Governor’s proposal. Then you followed that by saying you only see “one advantage”. Do you think that those other purported benefits won’t materialize, or do you think if they materialize, that they’re not actually benefits? Just curious.
yellow-dog says
From where I sit in Western Mass, I don’t see a lot of time “wasted” on negotiations. The process takes time, but it doesn’t take time away from instruction, which is where the rubber meets the road.
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p>Time is often equated with money, but those involved in negotiations, except perhaps the attorney hired by the systems, are salaried, not hourly. It’s possible, but doubtful that the those involved on the management side would see a corresponding decrease in pay.
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p>Public school teachers are already vested in the Massachusetts Teacher Retirement System. Maybe state employees get a better retirement, I don’t know, but 80% of my top three years is good enough for me.
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p>Aside from anti-unionism, I think the real reason for this suggestion is that someone on the Readiness Project would like the power to shift teachers into needy school districts. As I’ve said before, in my last round of interviews as department head, 5 out of 6 of those I interviewed came from the Springfield school system. With 5 or 6 years of experience, they were just beginning to reach the first peak of their effectiveness. With the power to move teachers, they could take someone with 15 years of experience and move them to Springfield. Get enough of those people in there might create some change, though it’s likely the administration and the system would be an impediment to learning.
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p>Moving teachers from the suburbs to the urban schools would likely encounter serious opposition from the suburbs, which have built school systems and communities around actually teachers, not teacher positions. It’s almost like a version of forced busing, students stay in their schools, but the people who make the school what it is are shipped out.
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p>Mark
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p>Sorry about the lack of quotes. I have problems converting my blogger posts into SoapBlox, which doesn’t accept justification. I lost the blockquotes when trying to edit.)
syphax says
But I don’t think forcing the shift of teachers from strong districts to weak ones will fly. Although my wife the public school teacher intends to work in more challenging districts once our kids our older, there is no way in hell she’d accept having someone else make the decision about where she goes. She’s taught in relatively weak districts before; it’s a frustrating enough job that you really have to want to be there. If she was forced into a bad situation, good-bye talented public school teacher- she’d find something else. She’s dealt with enough BS already.
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p>Second, there’s no way parents in strong districts are going to allow the forced export of their best teachers. If a sub-standard teacher was imported into a school district like mine, it would get ugly quick.
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p>The way to improve education, I think, is to improve the overall quality of the pool of public school teachers, not average out the quality that’s currently there by moving teachers around.
michaeljc4 says
Not only would you have legions of angry teachers and parents, but new teachers–a group we already lose at a stunning 50% in the first three years–would leave even faster.
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p>Creating incentives to go to struggling schools, namely $$$, is one thing. Forcing people to move is another. This isn’t the Soviet Union. A statewide teaching contract that controls pay and benefits and things makes sense (or at least, is worth talking about). State wide assingments do not.
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p>It won’t happen.
dweir says
Starting with the standard disclaimer that I have not read the report… 🙂
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p>I agree that moving teachers across the state is not realistic without additional outlay for relocation expenses. However, it may be reasonable to move a teacher cross-district, for example in a 15 mile radius.
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p>That might be enough to couple most urban districts with several suburban ones, a structure which I think could bring advantages to all involved. Urban and suburban districts each have their advantages and disadvantages.
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p>Statewide teacher contracts are rare, but not unheard of. They exist in HI and I believe WA. One dynamic that we have now is that the state union pits one district against another. When setting salaries, both the unions and the district look at comparable salaries referred to as their “market basket”.
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p>Regardless of the criteria used to determine the market basket, the size is about 10-15 communities. This makes it drive up the average or median of the market basket, by getting a minority of communities to move up. In other industries, salaries are set by looking at a broader set of comparables, providing a more accurate sense of market rate.
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p>So, there is potential that if salaries are set at the state level, a truer market rate can be established. However, this assumes that negotiations at the state level are handled better than at the local level. From what I’ve observed both on the board I served on for 3 years and from analysis and observation of other district’s contracts, there is ample room for improvement.
michaeljc4 says
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p>I live north of Boston. 15 miles as the crow flies is a hell of a lot different than 15 miles on Rt.93 or 128. No thanks.
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p>Standardizing the salary schedule might make sense…unless you are a teacher who is currently making more than what the state will offer (like those in Boston). Raising salaries to match the higher paying districts sounds good to me…but is that affordable?
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p>A lot of questions.
lightiris says
As a public school teacher, my interest is piqued. Then again, I’m not afraid to think outside the box and am not a reflexive union supporter or apologist. The devil’s in the details. Let’s see what it looks like before we get hysterical. Besides, if past experience is any indication of future experience, the MTA and AFT will put a stake through the heart of anything that rocks their worlds. IOW, this isn’t going anywhere.
syarzhuk says
lightiris says
As a public school teacher, I am known to make mistakes.
kyllacon says
Make the same Money as a first year teacher in Dorchester? If so, Would you give the teacher from Cambridge a pay cut or the teacher from Dorchester a pay raise? Why?
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p>I can see a lot of problems with this Idea.
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p> Want to save money on education let the teachers union administer the Health Insurance Plans and make them negotiate for the funds as a part of their pay.
michaeljc4 says
and I’ll wait to see the details, but I don’t think the governor is going to get much traction trying to make interdistrict transfers (like, you work in Concord but the state is going to move you to Dorchester). Intradistrict is a different story: if you are a good teacher at Boston Latin, they may try to move you to Charlestonwn High against your will, for example.
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p>If the state is going to force me to move to a different city, they are going to have to pay for my gas, and for my extended child care needs. Actually…I’d just leave the field, as would many others. I chose the district where I work. I don’t need Big Daddy Deval to tell me where to go.
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p>We’ll see how this all plays out. I was very pleased to see that the MCAS was left in place.
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p>It’s good that our state is taking on the acheivement gap. It’s serious stuff, but I have to agree with some of the posters above: it’s a lot more about family than it is about school. Even in good schools, minority kids tend to do less well than their peers.
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p>Good luck, Deval.
nopolitician says
I didn’t see anything there about transfers. In my opinion, the current system pits towns against each other by the virtue of them offering competing salaries. It sounds like Patrick’s plan would have one contract, from one single negotiation, and the salaries would be the same across the state, probably with “adders” for communities and disciplines that the state wants to focus on (i.e. pay math/science more, pay the Boston area more, pay districts with low demand more).
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p>This could represent a shift in leverage for teachers/unions; right now the union in one town says, to the public “hey, our town is getting less money than X, Y, and Z towns, we run the risk of falling behind, remember, we’re supposed to be a leader in education, we need to pay our teachers more money”. This might fuel an override, or a shift in town resources towards education.
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p>That was a primary tactic of the Springfield Education Association in the last round of (bitter) negotiations. They showed the teachers in the system how much more they could make by going to other districts; many did, since many slots have opened in those districts due to retirements. The point from the union was “pay us as much as elsewhere or we’ll be stuck with the bottom of the barrel”. It was a true point, though I’m disappointed that the union chose to drive away their membership to make the point.
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p>I’m not a teacher so I don’t know what makes for a good teaching gig. Is it more rewarding to work in a wealthy district with great facilities and a population largely prepared at home? Or is it more rewarding to work in a poor district with poor facilities and a population who are starting out at the very bottom rung?
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p>Chapter 70 dictates how much state aid is given to certain communities, and does equalize the poorer communities to a certain extent, but considering that the wealthier communities still seem to pay better than the poorer communities, I think that indicates that disparity still exists.
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p>I suppose a fundamental question here is, “who should get the best teachers”? Should they go to districts who have a dire need to get their kids proficient, but whose students may not appreciate the education, or should they go to the districts where they can turn an excellent student into an outstanding student? Tough question to ask.