More evidence of teachers’ union interference with low-achieving school turn-arounds in Jefferson County
Over the weekend the Courier-Journal ran an article with more evidence of teachers’ union interference with the expensive effort to turn around some of Jefferson County Public Schools’ (JCPS) Persistently Low-Achieving Schools (PLA).After first pointing out that PLAs in a number of areas around the state are making progress, the Louisville paper then points out that good news does not extend to most of the PLAs in JCPS.
And, there is a major reason why that is so.
Under the heading “Union singled out,” the paper lists several ways the Jefferson County Teachers Association (JCTA) contract has been used to block reforms in PLAs. Those examples include:
• “JCPS already has educational specialists at its 18 persistently low-achieving schools, but some have not been given the access they need because some teachers say their union contract doesn’t allow it.” Those specialists are supposed to get into individual classrooms to help teachers with coaching and lesson plan development. It happened elsewhere, but unionistas, perhaps without even support of their union leadership, successfully blocked this effort in JCPS.
• Principals being told to do certain things claiming they can’t do it because the union says they can’t do it.
• Not providing additional support during the day and not changing schedules to help struggling students because the contract does not allow that, either.
Things degenerate further when the head of the Jefferson County Teachers’ Association, Brent McKim, tries to make excuses. McKim just adds more evidence that the union is not really supporting the attempt to reform the PLAs.
McKim claims, “We have talked to the teachers in these buildings multiple times, telling them that when you are in a PLA (persistently low-achieving) school, the rules are different and that they have to check the school’s improvement plan in order to determine what their rights are.”
If McKim’s claim is true, it looks like the education union isn’t so hot at educating its own members. McKim’s union members continued throwing up roadblocks to reform actions, citing the union contract as their defense. The union had a responsibility to be sure its members were correctly informed, and it didn’t meet it.
McKim also claims, “The truth is that we were not aware of these problems until he blasted us publicly,” referring to recent comments from Kentucky Commissioner of Education Terry Holliday that what is going on in JCPS amounts to “academic genocide.”
That’s not a very credible excuse. McKim’s union is the sole collective bargaining agent for every teacher in Louisville and the union’s leadership has a duty to know what is going on in every school.
Furthermore, the PLAs are very high profile schools. How can McKim excuse being unaware of problems in them?
McKim also says, “It’s essential to ask the educators in the buildings what they really need in order to be successful with their students.”
Well, you can’t ask teachers anything if you are not allowed to talk to them. Commissioner Holliday reported that his special teams of education experts were allowed almost no contact – just one hour a week – with the teachers in some of Jefferson County’s lowest-achieving schools. That wasn’t nearly enough time to get a real dialog going.
I must note that thanks to union contract interference, many of the teachers who were assigned to these very low performing schools were first year, probationary teachers just out of Ed school. They had no experience. That severely limits their ability to really understand what they need. In fact, one thing these new teachers needed was a lot of help, not insulation from that help under the guise of the union’s contract not permitting such activity.
The truth is, if the JCTA were really functioning as an association for professionals – not just a wage and benefits bargaining outfit – the union would be aggressively moving out as a positive part of, perhaps even a leader in, the change process. Comments in the Courier’s article show this has not occurred. At best, the union’s leaders have largely been sideline observers, if not an actual impediment, to school improvement efforts. Worse, union leadership stood by while its members incorrectly citied the contract as an excuse to avoid meaningful activity to turn schools around. Such union action is hard to excuse.
To date the taxpayer has put up more than $28 million to try to turn around PLAs in Kentucky. It is indeed sad that a significant portion of that money has apparently been largely wasted in Jefferson County schools because the unionized school staff there didn’t want to admit they had serious problems and were not even willing to really work with people who might have been able to help them.
The union still has an opportunity here to come out with its own ideas to make real change in the PLAs. They say we are not listening. I suggest they really need to try us.