A business group’s report that lambastes teachers’ contracts as major obstacles to school improvement has infuriated unions and gotten mixed reviews from others in the education community, but it’s also sparking new debate on the potential for a statewide teachers’ health plan and even a statewide labor contract.
The report, “Teacher Contracts: Restoring the Balance,” was issued last week by The Education Partnership, a business-led coalition in Providence that provides scholarships, runs special programs for educators and promotes school reform through policy analysis and advocacy.
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Based on an analysis of 10 districts’ teacher contracts, interviews with school leaders, and a look at potential models from other states, the report condemns the extent to which teacher contracts effectively control schools’ budgets, educational programs, even class schedules.
“Rhode Island contracts that approach nearly 100 pages are filled with the micromanagement of teachers, limitations to instructional time, generous paid time-off, incredible health and retirement packages, teacher transfer and assignment rights, limits to evaluation of teachers and numerous other stipulations,” the report says. “Many of these contract mandates limit the ability of teachers to perform as professionals and serve their students, and the authority of administrators to get the most out of the public’s education dollars.”
To correct the problem, the report recommends several major changes:
n Set up a statewide teacher salary scale, so pay is no longer negotiated at the district level, and in the process change the focus of the pay scale from seniority, to skill, with bonus pay for high performance and for pursuing extra training.
n Set up a statewide teacher health plan, and require teachers to pay part of the premiums.
n Create a statewide teacher evaluation system, and allow schools to fire teachers who repeatedly get bad performance reviews.
n Set the length of the school year and school day at the state level, including time for professional development, with no extra pay for teachers’ participation.
n Minimize, in general, what’s put in teacher contracts, replacing the current pacts – which can exceed 100 pages – with “thin” contracts that cover only the basics and give school leaders autonomy in hiring, setting up collaborative time, and deciding how children are taught.
Some of the ideas, such as statewide health insurance systems and state-defined school years, are in place elsewhere already. Others, such as a statewide teacher pay scale, are untried, unless you count Hawaii, which has a single school district.
But Rhode Island is the perfect place to try such ideas, report co-author Lisa Blais said.
“If anyone in this country has the opportunity to make changes – not to make pockets of improvement, but systemic improvement – it’s us, by virtue of our size,” she said.
State leaders have been discussing several of those issues, individually, for years. State Rep. Paul W. Crowley (D-Newport) has long argued for a statewide teacher health plan, for example, and The Education Partnership last year issued a report on the topic.
The state’s new contract with UnitedHealthcare of New England also includes a clause that would allow cities and towns to get the same deal, and the Rhode Island Association of School Committees is working on a project to take advantage of the opportunity.
And bills currently before the General Assembly would require statewide teacher evaluation standards and define certain management rights that a teacher contract can’t override.
Asked what he thought of the report, Education Commissioner Peter McWalters said he hadn’t been involved in its preparation and hadn’t had a chance to read it, but he would urge the Board of Regents for Elementary and Secondary Education to devote a meeting to it.
Jeff Neal, spokesman for Gov. Donald Carcieri, said the governor supports “a number of the study’s general recommendations,” including some form of health insurance pooling, statewide teacher evaluation standards, and consistent time allocations for teacher professional development.
Carcieri also supports “the concept of a statewide teacher contract,” Neal said.
When a reporter pointed out The Education Partnership only proposed a statewide pay scale, not a statewide contract, Neal said the governor “is certainly supportive of having that discussion.”
One of the biggest criticisms that Marcia Reback, president of the Rhode Island Federation of Teachers & Health Professionals, had of the report – besides objecting to its anti-union tone – was that it proposed to take out what she considers the heart of collective bargaining.
“The salaries would be established, the working hours would be established, the length of your work would be established. … I don’t know what’s left for a contract,” Reback said.
