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Having been hired to replace a teacher who left after the first quarter, Susan Taylor began her career 30 years ago in less than ideal conditions. As a floating teacher in the Cincinnati Public Schools, she taught first period on an auditorium stage and then moved from one home economics classroom to another. And while her master's degree in history prepared her to teach eighth-grade American history, she also taught seventh-grade Ohio studies and a ninth-grade careers course-a class that had no established curriculum, not even a textbook.
Although her department chair and the district's social studies supervisor shared ideas and materials in response to her pleas for help, the school principal gave her a poor performance evaluation that focused more on the minutiae of classroom management, such as Taylor's failing to stop a child from tapping a pencil on the desk.
"It was very frustrating to get that evaluation report," recalls Taylor, now president of the Cincinnati Federation of Teachers (CFT). "I did struggle. I went to college to become a teacher, but I didn't learn what I needed to successfully reach the population of students that I had in these three classes. I really needed a mentor who knew my subject and who could offer some assistance on an ongoing basis, and the only person that I got that from was another teacher."
While her experience remains the norm in many districts across the country, first-year teachers in Taylor's district now receive meaningful evaluation and support, thanks to a peer assistance and evaluation program that the CFT successfully bargained for in the mid-1980s.
Like CFT, other teacher unions work to broaden the scope of bargaining in their contracts, moving beyond the typical salary and benefits negotiations to tackle issues that improve all aspects of the profession, from teacher quality to the school environment, in the name of children.
"Looking at the scope of bargaining is really important because we are focused on creating a great public school for every child," says William Raabe, director of collective bargaining and member advocacy for the National Education Association (NEA). "It's all about having our voice-the people who are working directly with the students-in the room when we're talking about issues that impact the quality of teaching and learning."
Negotiating in Nonbargaining States
Although most states have laws that permit teachers to collectively bargain aspects of their contracts, three states-North Carolina, Texas and Virginia-have laws that prohibit collective bargaining, and two states-Georgia and South Carolina-have no laws either way.
While the lack of an established collective bargaining system makes it harder to get the conversation started, teacher unions have found creative ways to negotiate in nonbargaining states. "We advocate for our members, but we just don't do it in the same way," says Gaye K. Shin, president of the Cobb County Association of Educators in Georgia.
To achieve their goals, the association's leaders focus on building strong relationships with legislators to gain their support for bills that will change the rules and provide a better working environment for educators. Plus, they meet with school board members privately to talk about where they stand on key issues and why, and they attend school board meetings to express their views. In addition, they work with key district-level representatives to influence policy, such as meeting with the director of human resources to implement changes to the transfer policy or the professional development policy.
While relationship building often occurs informally in nonbargaining states, some districts, like Arlington Public Schools in Virginia, have invented their own form of collective bargaining. Arlington created its collaborative problem-solving team to get and keep the conversation flowing between teachers and administrators.
Each month, seven teachers and seven administrators gather to discuss ongoing and upcoming teaching-related issues in the district, such as negotiating for site-based substitute teachers to receive the same benefits as other full-time employees or implementing new professional development requirements.
"Hostility doesn't get you anywhere," according to Gerry Collins, president of the Arlington Education Association. "Conflict and confrontation are good for showing feathers, but really, if the objectives are to improve instruction and to make working conditions and the working environment more positive for all employees, it's important to understand the other person's perspective."
Why a policy is in place, including the purpose and background that led to its wording, is important. Without good reason for it, it should probably be reconsidered. "It's a process that requires a lot of give as well as take," Collins says, "and it has worked quite well."
Peer Review and Assistance
School principals often initially resist peer assistance and evaluation programs. Not only are they skeptical that teachers will assess each other as objectively and critically as they themselves would, but they do not believe that teacher evaluators will be willing to recommend another teacher for dismissal, even if he or she has failed to perform the job satisfactorily.
In Toledo, principals managed to block three of the teachers' union's attempts to negotiate a peer evaluation program into its contract. In fact, it wasn't until the district hired a private-sector attorney to serve as its chief negotiator in 1981 that an agreement was reached. When the union explained that the peer evaluation program would enable teachers to develop the performance standards for both those within the profession and those being inducted into it and to take responsibility for that performance, the attorney, whose profession has similar peer-driven oversights in place, understood and supported their position.
Some principals, like those in Rochester (N.Y.) Public Schools, even go so far as to take the teacher unions and the superintendent to court after a peer review teacher evaluation program is negotiated into the contract, arguing that it encroaches upon the principal's responsibilities. In 1987, the New York Supreme Court rejected the Rochester principals' argument, declaring that the assessment of teachers is a proprietary right of the school boards, not administrators, and the board can delegate the task to whomever it sees fit. Although the program may initially meet with resistance, once districts implement it, the results go a long way toward allaying the principals' fears.
Before the peer review teacher evaluation system was created in Rochester, less than 1 percent of first-year teachers were asked not to return for a second year. After the program was implemented in 1987, that number jumped to about 12 percent, which strengthened the quality of teaching in the district. The Cincinnati union noticed a similar pattern in its district. In fact, the evaluation system is so effective that the same principals who fought the teacher peer review program in court have now negotiated a similar provision into their own contracts.
