Dayton Daily News education reporter Scott Elliott writes about schools, kids, teaching and learning.
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Ryan: Seniority killing school change
Terry Ryan
On the editorial page in today’s DDN, Fordham Foundation Vice Presient Terry Ryan sees a parallel between auto industry upheaval and public school change.
Mostly, Ryan’s piece is an argument against seniority in labor contracts. And he’s right that looser seniority rules would give schools more flexibility to assign teachers where administrators believe they are most needed, and to hold together teaching staffs that are working, such as at the Dayton Early College Academy. In fact, Ryan notes, DECA had to convert to a charter school to protect its effective program from being devastated by seniority rules.
But if seniority were to go away, would it really make a wide impact on educational quality? Unions don’t think so. And without seniority, is there any fair, objective way to decide who stays and who goes in a time of layoff, such as the one Dayton Public Schools has just been through?
Not everyone is convinced.
A key purpose of seniority is to take subjectivity out of make-or-break decisions about people’s livelihoods. In most employment situations, most of the workers are competent and reliable. A few are very stellar and a few underperform. Many employers do a poor job of dealing with the low performers. They tend to ignore them rather than try to help them improve or “counsel them out” of the profession. This especialy is true of school distircts.
So at a time of layoff, even for a company that does not have to follow seniority rules, the hard decisions about who to let go and keep often come down to a choice between two similarly good employees. Seniority rules make the choice easy, if not less painful, by simply asking who has been working here longer? That simple question is not the least bit subjective. And therefore, unions argue, there is an inherent fairness in the logic of seniority.
Any other method is going to require subjective tests and, therfore, be driven by people’s opinions. The big problem that arises is the resulting unevenness of the results. Why did they fire a well-liked 25-year employee with a family and keep a recent college graduate hire that hardly anybody knows and has no workplace track record yet? Those sorts of questions torture people.
Even “work quality” —which some argue should be the only basis on which workers are judged — can be hard to define. Union leaders have lots of stories about employees who recieved stellar reviews for years only to receive a dreadful review under a new boss. So what reviews to you believe in such a case? A decade of good reviews or just the most recent report from a boss that is, perhaps, showing off to someone above them or maybe just dislikes the employee on a personal level?
Seniority is such a basic labor tenent that its hard to imagine unions giving in on this. In fact, I should note that even the auto industry unions, which Ryan notes have made huge concessions in the face of bitter economic realities in that industry, have not given in on seniority.
Level headed union leaders will admit that seniority has its problems. But they argue it is still the most fair system. If you don’t like seniority rules, propose a new system here that is similary objective but, you believe, better in a time of layoff.
Permalink | Comments (18) | Categories: Schools and Politics
Comments
By a teacher
July 12, 2007 1:05 PM | Link to this
As a first year teacher I was cut because of low enrollment. I was the youngest teacher in the district and was one of many looking for a job, and one of few to find another quickly. There are so many flaws to the union system in school districts that slight change in seniority isn’t going to fix it. If you are looking for a “fair” system to evaluate a teacher’s ability, efficacy, pedagogy, and content area expertise there is a system that has been devised and is used to evaluate all first year teachers in the state. It is called Pathwise. This is a system where an objective evaluator comes into the classroom and rates your lesson based on given criteria. Ask any new college graduate and they can tell you all about the Pathwise/Praxis domains and what is needed to be an effective/good teacher. These are graded on a rubric scale with feedback provided. I believe that seniority should be a part of the consideration for who stays and who goes, but the objective standards based evaluations of employees should also be given consideration. These evaluations should not stop after the first year of service to a district but should be required for teachers to continue to renew their licensure. Proving that you are still using “best teaching” practices in your classroom is better than saying you sat through four workshops to get your CEUs. I will forever be grateful to my mentor teacher and the other veteran teachers that really worked hard in my former district. I was lucky to have worked with them. However, I will also always remember the teachers that sat at their desks and checked email rather than working with their kids, while their kids fill out worksheet after worksheet. Someone mentioned that veteran teachers “train” new teachers. This can be bad or good—what practices are we truly passing along? I have heard many negative comments about some of the methods I chose to use in my classroom because it wasn’t what they were used to seeing and/or doing. New isn’t always bad or good, just as old isn’t always bad or good. Open communication and the willingness to compromise and really discuss what needs to be done to better our kids will get us a lot further than arguing over who should stay and who should go. In the end when the state comes in to take over a district because of poor performance on state testing they don’t care who has been there the longest—they look for who was effective and who was not.By Eric
July 9, 2007 8:03 AM | Link to this
All of your concerns, David, would be handled by the pre/post-testing because you are NOT judging the end result of the kids knowledge but the rate they learned. If the majority of kids are 4 years behind, and the teacher works hard to even get them to advance 2 years (still a -2 year final) then the test result differences would still be higher than a teacher that only advanced their kids 1 year’s worth. So that very hard working teacher will gain more bonus than the other one. And yes a principal could stack a teacher with the riff-raff…but if the teacher works hard….they would make more money than those that get the honor kids because it’s about % change upward….not final test scores. It would give true incentive for teachers to tackle the remedial classes because they would be the easiest to increase and therefore more cash for the teacher. Now charterschoolhater, totally agree with you. The administration should not get a pass…they are equally, if not more, to blame. But to say that they are totally to blame is incorrect. They are totally to blame for misplacing $30 million. But educating the kids….the teachers, administration, parents, and KIDS (yes the kids should be blamed as well) are at fault equally. We can change two of the four without ripping apart the Bill of Rights. However both are stubborn in their efforts to miantain status quo in their little bubble and caste blame on the other. I say, irrelevant. I don’t care who is to blame….get it fixed….NOW! If neither side wishes to put our kids first and take concessions….fire them all.By charterschoolhater
July 7, 2007 6:57 PM | Link to this
The comment that public education is being destroyed by seniority is total bull. The schools are being destroyed by administrators too lazy or incompetent to do their real job. That is running their schools. Unions and seniority are not what ails the schools. Bad managers are. Union contracts contain language that allows for termination of ineffective teachers after progressive discipline. The problem is that the administrators do not want to do the job of documentation and conducting hearings that the contracts call for. What really irks me is the fact the a contract is a two way street. Both management and labor made an agreement. Unions do not want ineffective workers anymore than supervision does. Just as incompetent workers make more work for administrators, they do for union leadership as well. For those who cry about union contracts and the seniority language that they falsely claim that protects them, I say do the work and enforce your contracts and you will be long on the way to ridding yourself of bad teachers. The problem is that the Dayton Public Schools have many building administrators that are too lazy or incompetent to do the job of a managing. I am sorry to say but teachers as a whole make lousy school administrators. They just do not get enough class work or hands on in the supervision part that say a Business major does. As a group, they do a great job at what they are trained to do. That is teach children. Just ask the folks at the transportation department about what a bad manager some teachers make. There is a manager over there name Shull who is a former superintendent of a school district east of here. I believe he was fired from his job as superintendent there. Now he is a manager of a department. And a really poor one at that. I have heard that many parents complain about his real lack of people skills. I hear that most of the people who work for him really hold him in low esteem. But enough of that. I would think that to get a superintendents license, you would have some course work in supervision. Maybe Shull was asleep when they taught that.By TRS
July 7, 2007 11:59 AM | Link to this
David indicates that it is easy to weed out the sub standard teachers if done right..perhaps he or someone in the DPS schools could help me understand something. Some years ago there was a teacher (name escapes me) who was suspended multiple times, documented as having some emotional issues, and was considered to be a very poor performer; yet, she continued to be reinstated, given back pay and placed in the classroom. To the general public the perception was this was wrong. Were we wrong? Perhaps this was an isolated case, but it is what creates perceptions. Other comments create perceptions as well. The truth is most only want the most bang for there buck - a good student at a reasonable cost. Comments such as David’s only blame others and seems to be saying that more of the same, only with unlimited funding, would solve the problem. Perhaps it isn’t fair to compare business and Education; but, it is a reality that people will do so and make their decisions accordingly. Blame all the old folks, politics, people of faith and greedy people you want, but that will not win over the consumer, in the school’s case parents and the taxpayer. Rather, it only divides. Consumers see something they perceive is broken and don’t want more of the same; rather, they want it fixed. As a consumer, I have voted for every school levy which ever came down the pike which might amaze David considering I’m a Republican, retired, Christian and we never had children, although we did have nieces and nephews in the system. Why? I live in a school dist which has consistently produced good result. It is not rich nor does it have a big industrial base, but it provides a good education at one of the lower costs per student in the area. Provide that and gosh, you can even convince a greedy old guy like me to pony up.By David
July 6, 2007 8:02 PM | Link to this
The idea of pretesting and posttesting doesn’t work because there are too many variables at work, not just the teacher’s pedagogical expertise and efficacy. Read up on controlled experiments. If the group of kids in the class is not equal to the next class there’s no way to determine a teacher is more or less effective with that grade level in that school than the next teacher. Kids vary. So do their parents and parenting skills. Principals have biases and deficiencies; in too many cases it’s the Peter Principle at work. I could give you an ineffective teacher who has kids learn a little in her class while the effective teacher has a few kids learn a lot and others are being prepped for learning increases later on but may not show much if any at the time. The other factor is the test itself. How do you make a test to measure all kinds of improvement in the classroom? Do you want a test that measures only the State of Ohio mandated skills in each subject at each grade level? Or do you want a test that measures and overall learning beyond those skills and hopefully a gain in love of learning for the student. Do you want a test that measures that the teacher spent the year teaching what previous teachers didn’t teach (but the kids loved them because they had so much fun in those classrooms!) or do you want the teacher to skip what was missed and just teach from there on. I have heard of teachers with kids that were 4 years behind in their subject due to poor previous teachers and buildings.By RAC
July 6, 2007 6:33 PM | Link to this
The problem as I see it is two fold. If you use the scores of the children that are earned by taking the different state exams and their accomplishments in the class room, how do you ensure that the class rooms are balanced with the equal amount of high and low students? How do you place students that have learnng disabilities, there are teachers who refuse to teach those children and just place them at the back of the room. Second, how do you determine the accomplishments the teacher has made during the year. Your other readers are right in the subjectivity of employee evaluations. Also school districts would be able to reduce their medical insurance cost by laying off teachers (family members) who have serious illnesses, they also could reduce the cost of payroll, as I understand teachers are paid by years of service and the amount of education they have. Private schools do not follow the same guide lines for hiring and firing their employees, and they do not pay the teachers the same as public schools. Each school district could then lay off teachers citing low student enrollment at the that school and then choosing the most senior teacher at that school and laying them off, thus cutting back on payroll and insurance cost. In my opinion their is no fair way to evaluate a teacher or an employee by any employer. Your seniority at that school district or place of business should count for something. I know that there are good and bad teachers/employees up and down the seniority line. However, if the administration would do their job properly and establish a “paper trial” on the teachers/employees that have caused them problems and have fail over the years to educate the children or have fail to do their job properly and have established “just grounds” for the termination/dismissalof the employee when times demand cut backs that would be great. However, many administrators/employers fail to proper evaluate their staff properly and usually fail to provide written documentation for dismissal of employees. Why? Because it would cause friction in the work place and not establish good employee/employer relationships. Then when it comes time to lay off personnel there is no evidnce as to why you are laying off a teacher/employee that has senority over another teacher/employee. So, now you are stuck with a very difficult choice.By Barb
July 6, 2007 4:50 PM | Link to this
Eric, I think the state has just come up with a measure for that. This measure is Value Added and probably still has flaws in it. Up until now you compared your class year to year and there was not measure of a student. Another problem is the state tests are not consistant. What about if you get a couple of students that make a class almost unteachable. I know those who are not in a classroom will believe it is not possible but it truly is. It would be great if we could say that student will be dealt with but our district needs body count it really does not matter what the student is doing to the rest of the class. As anyone who teachers in DPS says on a regular basis before you form your opinion join a teacher for a couple of days and then form your opinion. We will be glad to have you.By Eric
July 6, 2007 12:50 PM | Link to this
B-U-L-L! Any test besides seniority is subjective? Well then, I guess all of the students are being graded subjectively, eh? Now is that what the teachers truly wish to say? I doubt it. There are fair ways to test teachers based on accomplishments they have done with their students. A simple pre-class taken in the fall and a post-class taken in the spring could very easily show which students are improving and which aren’t along with who is teaching the best in that subject based on the % of kids gaining knowledge. This is simply the old boys network except it deals with union boys instead of administrative boys. If these tenured teachers truly are a god-send to the profession, then these tests shouldn’t be an issue, right? So why fight it unless they fear it’s true. Instead of very badly arguing against the objectivity of tests (still kills me….teachers arguing that all tests are not acceptable means of judgement), why doesn’t the union help create these tests so that they are fair? I know…horridly logical and logic has no place in school.By David
July 6, 2007 8:37 AM | Link to this
The Republicans, religious right, and older property taxpayers all have wanted the same thing for decades: schools that cost less to run. Each has a different reason for wanting it but they each have their own personal, self-righteous reason and method. They feel if they can get rid of the older teachers and tenure the young ones will be putty in their hands. Look at the lack of certification and the type of teachers in the charter schools, and even private/parochial schools in some cases. Ryan and the Republicans are so transparent in their methods. He has his paycheck, Fordham, to protect. Husted has his party power (not for long) to protect. Tenure and older teachers is not the problem; it’s the administration’s lack of using the current laws to find when any teacher is not doing their job and use the rules and the process to remove them. The administration usually is sloppy and lazy about evaluation or they can do that IF there’s an ineffective teacher with tenure. Tenure protects teachers from such lazy and sloppy and vindictive principals and administrators. In some schools the fact they have older, tenured teachers with experience means the building runs well—the administrator is a bomb and would have things even worse without them. They usually don’t get credit for holding the school together, but they do it. The older teachers train the new ones, as mentors, as next door helpers, as shoulders to listen during prep times and lunch as well as before and after school. The older teachers are there with advice and helop. As for the know-it-alls like Fordham’s Ryan, Husted, and Republicans in government their usual experience is that they were in school once, or they taught a class in college, or some similar lame experience is given. Just keep in mind the goal of the three groups, Republicans, religious, and taxpayers to keep money for themselves rather than educate our children or that they just want to spend the state money on other perks like nursing home costs as mentioned in today’s paper so that the nursing home administration will keep on donating… . . Speaking of replacing older, highly paid people, has anyone looked into replacing Mack and many of the administration with younger folk at lower pay? That would save a lot of money for taxpayers… And if we replaced legislature people with newer people and changed the rules for the retirement Ohio legislators get, we could save LOTS of money. After all term limits just shuffles the politician riff-raff around rather than getting rid of them. It’s like they have tenure. Some even come back to local government to ruin the area’s future with incompetence…By Rebecca
July 6, 2007 7:30 AM | Link to this
In eduation, the administrators have the ability to move their personnel anywhere that is appropriate. Teachers must have the proper licensure for a move to be appropriate. The education system is complicated and imperfect. It is not simplistic, as you would suggest. Do your research: Charter schools in Ohio have not done as well as public schools, yet politicians continually want more money channeled into them. DUH … get a grip. Public schools aren’t perfect, but they are improving. Public schools also do not get to have perfect raw materials as business/industry.By Barb
July 5, 2007 11:02 PM | Link to this
One of the things that TRS might not be taking into consideration is that we can not negotiate our raw product. We have students that come to school in need of much more than an education. Charter schools and private schools can negotiate. They may choose to keep the raw product that is better made, has more support at home, much like Toyota but DPS has to take all raw material and then we are expected to build a luxury car out of this. It is a little unfair to compare students with human emotions, and situations that are beyond the control of one individual to a part made of metal. It is easy to make these comparisons but they really do not make sense in a school district.By TRS
July 5, 2007 9:10 PM | Link to this
I know many fine teachers and I have no children in school so I have no dog in this fight other than the fact that I pay property taxes; but, here are a few thoughts from the outside looking in. It appears that there is more interest in perserving the old union system than developing a strategy to produce a better product - good students. One point Mr Ryan seems to be trying to make is flexibility. We are in a society that requires it. The auto industry declined because they did not exhibit flexibility until it was to late. Schools seem to be where the auto industry was in the 70s - in need of change, but held back by inflexible management and labor attitudes. In the 70s the imports were just beginning to come into the marketplace and the American auto industry had a chance to adjust and compete, but because of the arrogance of the automobile executives and the inflexibility of labor, they did not. Rather they continued producing a poor product assuming the consumer would continue to buy it just because they were the American auto industry. Didn’t turn out that way. The public school unions may fight and curse private schools, charters, etc but they are your competition (just like Toyota was to GM) and they are not going to go away. Matter of fact, if they continue to produce a better product all the excuses in the world will not keep parents from taking their children to the best school. Soon thereafter the funding will follow and like GM, Ford and Chrysler you will have a higher priced product for purchase which no one wants to buy. Think this is far fetched? Think back - did you ever think the American auto industry would be in the condition it is today? Most teachers are absolutely great at what they do, but it is hard for the general public to understand why they would support a system that protects the mediocre or even sub standard performers, in essence harming the good teacher’s reputation. Unless labor flexes and change, at some point in the near future, teachers could meet the same fate as the American auto worker, only without the large severence package. You see, even though you want to keep business out of education you can’t for business is the marketplace and the marketplace reflects what consumers want. It always looks for the best product at the best price and the marketplace always prevails.By Caroline
July 5, 2007 7:57 PM | Link to this
This is a difficult topic. I know how the DPS administration works. If you are “buddies” with the boss, then you get all kinds of special perks. Heaven forbid you actually get on the bad side of your principal. They will make you wish that you could get fired. Ha ha. On the other hand, I have seen wonderful teachers laid off when not so wonderful ones stayed because of seniority. I guess I’ll have to vote on the side of seniority. I don’t trust the administration to make decisions based on the right reasons.By Beth
July 5, 2007 6:15 PM | Link to this
I don’t believe Mr. Ryan is implying that older teachers are incompetent. He seems to be saying that seniority is not the only indicator of a good teacher. Yes, experience is a great help to teachers - the longer they are in the classroom, the more they learn. However, experience is not the only thing that makes a teacher great. I’ve seen some first- and second-year teachers who are incredible, and some first- and second-year teachers who are terrible. Same goes for those with 25+ years in the classroom. I do tend to agree with Mr. Elliot though: if we don’t use seniority as a gauge, then any other “test” will be subjective.By Mark
July 5, 2007 5:35 PM | Link to this
“Skeptic” has a point: The fundamental assumption of Ryan’s piece is that more experienced teachers are ineffective (or lazy or worse), and that younger equals better. As the husband of a teacher and the son of a former Dayton Public Schools teacher, I can tell you that’s simply not true.By teachermom
July 5, 2007 5:16 PM | Link to this
Again, another union-busting tactic generated by Big-Business. Sounds like age discrimination to me. Isn’t it ENOUGH that teachers have to frequently further their own educations for licensure renewals and pay raises (and at their own expense, I might add). One reason we are required to do this is to keep “current” on best teaching practices. He makes the elder teachers sound inflexible and incompetent.Most often they carry out administrative duties as favors and are the most reliable employees in the buildings. More experienced teachers have a lot to offer any teaching staff, and are quite often very helpful in mentoring new teachers. The fact that Mr. Ryan is dancing around is that older teachers are more expensive to pay, and rightly so. They should be compensated for their many years of service and higher levels of education. A lot of the companies that USED to be worth working for are also going to two-tired wages or locking out employees they made promises to until they can break those promises. If you read between the lines, Mr. Ryan is saying “YOUNGER TEACHERS ARE MUCH CHEAPER TO PAY, AND EASIER TO MANIPULATE.” It is the business upper-management greed and top-heavy school administation parallels that Mr. Ryan needs to be studying instead. Mr. Ryan and Mr. Husted are working for companies like Wal-Mart who are profit-motivated. They don’t care about their employees, insurance benefits, or retirement funds. What makes you think they really care about your child’s education ? If it were up to them, all of the school staffs would be brought in illegally from other countries and paid less than minimum wage. Don’t think for one minute that these people have the students’ best interest in mind. Older teachers deserve respect, and they deserve their promised pensions. The fact of the matter is that DPS is failing under a board and leadership that would have been fired in the business community, yet somehow the SAME people are going to get us out of this mess ! Wrong ! Preserve our country’s unions and keep Big Business OUT of education.By Barb
July 5, 2007 5:01 PM | Link to this
I think it is important to realize Mr. Ryan has a very real agenda, the Fordham Foundation is a backer of Charter schools. I would be interested to see the background in education the people at this foundation have. While he has some valid points about the problems with keeping teachers just based on senority he does not offer any way to determine a fair way to evaluate teachers. I have never seen this foundation offer clear, concise alternatives they just say public schools do not work, unions do not work. I think if you talked to a lot of teachers in DPS they wished there was a better way but not to many trust an administration that is a network of friends. I am so surprised he did not address the need for less administrators, smaller class sizes or many of the issues that have been proven to work for students. Mr. Ryan would lead me to believe that he and the foundation are just another “Good Old Boy” network wanting to send out propaganda with no concern for the effects it have on these young children who are going to become our future. I hope people are very wary of this Foundation. I know with children in DPS I have always been very skeptical of what they propagate.By Skeptic
July 5, 2007 2:15 PM | Link to this
Mr. Ryan did not provide any facts. Who are these unsuccessful teachers? How much would DPS save by giving their jobs to younger workers? In fact, isn’t he assuming that older workers are ineffective by the very definition of being old? ……………………………….. Delphi’s goal was to cut costs, not to increase effectiveness. They leveraged the union’s demands by offering generous buy-outs. DPS cannot afford to do so. Perhaps Mr. Ryan could better spend his time raising money so teachers can get buy-outs too.