In the past, when school boards and teacher unions sat down to bargain over a new contract, they were negotiating with one another.
A new Tacoma coalition wants to change that. It wants the board and the union to negotiate with the community as well.
Vibrant Schools Tacoma is a coalition of education reformers, businesses, religious organizations, and groups representing minority parents and communities.
Patterned after a similar effort in Seattle last year, the coalition wants to influence not just the topics that are bargained but the result as well. Anecdotal evidence says it influenced a Seattle contract that took beginning steps toward significant reforms.
Vibrant Schools includes groups such as the Black Education Strategy Roundtable, Peace Community Center, the Asia Pacific Cultural Center and the Cross Cultural Collaborative of Pierce County. But like the Seattle effort, it is anchored by state organizations that have led the battle for school reform. They are the League of Education Voters, Stand for Children and the business-led Partnership for Learning.
Peace Community Center received a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for polling, consultants and website creation.
How unusual is an intervention like this?
Union-district bargaining has been a closed-door affair. The residents, parents and taxpayers of the district are brought in only when bargaining breaks down. By then, positions are hardened and we’re left to choose sides and lay blame.
Education policy may be set in Washington, D.C., and Olympia, but it often is implemented via local contracts. But most of those bargaining agreements reward seniority and degrees, not performance. Student achievement is rarely a factor in pay and promotion. Teachers with tougher assignments, or those with hard-to-find specialties in math, science and special education, don’t get rewarded financially. Evaluations have too often been pass-fail, with only the worst of the worst graded unsatisfactory. Even the removal of those poor-performing teachers is so burdensome that few administrators try.
This remains true, even though opinion polling shows strong support for performance pay, for more meaningful evaluations of teachers and principals, and for layoff systems that take into account teacher quality, not just longevity.
The Tacoma coalition doesn’t expect a seat at the table. But it is urging the parties to be more transparent during the process, including posting bargaining positions and updates on the district’s website.
TEA president Andy Coons attended the announcement of the coalition. Coons didn’t exactly embrace all aspects of the coalition’s agenda, but he did engage.
In return, the coalition is careful not to appear hostile toward the union and the School District. In addition to more accountability, the coalition supports higher pay for good teachers and starting teachers, as well as expanded mentoring programs to help promising-but-struggling teachers improve their skills.
“This is in no way an opportunity to put down, to criticize what we’ve done in the past,” said Cheryl Jones of Allen Renaissance, a Hilltop community-development group. “We all know what’s not working. What this coalition is about is what does work.”
While there may not be hostility, there is tension. The Washington Education Association has resisted many of the issues important to the coalition. This year, the conflict has been over how to lay off teachers should budget cuts require it. There is continued tension over evaluations, with many teachers skeptical of how test scores can fairly be used to decide vital issues such as pay, promotion and layoffs.
But those are details that will be subject to bargaining. Here are the numbers that make the results so vital: one-quarter of Tacoma kids drop out; of those who finish high school, just 44 percent meet college admission requirements; just 38 percent even try a two- or four-year college.
Why does it matter? When a new employer comes to town looking for workers, said Miguel Blanco, the president of the Pierce County Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, “our kids are not going to be the ones to get those jobs.”
Peter Callaghan: 253-597-8657 peter.callaghan@thenewstribune.com blog.thenewstribune.com/politics
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