D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee is insisting on a contract with teachers like no other in the nation?and the head of the local teachers? union has bucked others in his organization to put it before the membership.
The proposed plan for the contract would wipe away the last of teachers? seniority rights and stiffen the requirements for tenure. In exchange, it promises to boost teacher salaries--even for those teachers who elect to stick with the traditional plan, but especially for those teachers who agree to link their pay to their classroom effectiveness.
If members of the Washington Teachers Union approve a contract with these measures, the school system will never be the same--and a good thing say we. The draft on the table establishes two pay ?tiers.??? In the red or traditional tier, teachers would get a 28 percent raise over the five years of the contract and $10,000 in bonuses for sticking it out through the transition. Further, the district is promising to soften the blow should layoffs occur, offering generous early retirement or buy outs.
In the green performance tier, teachers would be placed on a new, more lucrative salary ladder, topping out at an eye-popping $136,000. Tenured teachers would also, no matter how much experience they already have, revert to probationary status for a year. During that year, they would need to be evaluated favorably by their principals, whose judgment is subject to central office review.
The new green pay scale would continue to reward teachers for their experience, but it would no longer pay them for earning advanced degrees (which we know don?t add value). Green tier teachers would get the same raises and bonuses as their red tier counterparts, but green teachers would also be eligible for an additional $20,000 maximum in bonuses if they raise student achievement.
Only teachers already employed by the schools would get the choice of red or green. Any teacher hired from this point forward would automatically be assigned to the green tier. Further, new teachers? probationary periods would be extended from the current three years to four, during which time they would have to earn high marks to leave the probationary track. Rhee has made it clear that their evaluations would be more than pro forma.
Among the touches that make the proposal a reformer?s dream is the policy that all hiring must be by mutual agreement of teacher and principal, compared to the more customary practices that include the district HR office assigning teachers to schools or giving principals? only limited choices or giving the teacher virtually no say in where he or she works.
How likely is it that teachers will agree to such a contract? No one really knows. The head of the union, George Parker, and Rhee have done a joint road show this summer, showing the advantages of the plan to teachers. Both players recognize that they?re moving at a breakneck speed that may give pause to many, especially when the lucrative terms of the new contract turn on big foundations forking over millions of dollars, as yet unrealized in spite of a Washington Post report that asserted otherwise. It?s not yet clear that the most likely donors such as the Gates Foundation are lining up, though they?re publicly backing Rhee 100 percent. Finding the money--public or private--to keep the plan going when the contract runs out in four years may be even more daunting, but it would be a mistake to underestimate Rhee?s determination.
Meanwhile, there are D.C. politics to contend with. Control of the school system was an early victory for D.C. home-rule advocates back in the 1960s and it helped build the Black middle class as teachers brought home decent pay checks. With her knack for calling ?em like she sees ?em, Rhee might appear to be insensitive to those achievements. She has also closed schools, a move that inevitably makes enemies. And as the founding head of The New Teacher Project, her sympathies are assumed to be with hot-shot recruits, not home-grown veterans. There are already feelings that the chancellor wants to clean house, continuing what she started in the central office and among principals.
Parker has gone along with Rhee's proposal in a publicly modulated way, while the union's leadership as a whole is messily split over it. At the risk of losing the support of his own union, Parker seems determined to bring big changes to D.C. Raising student achievement will save D.C.'s traditional schools--now competing fiercely with charters--and spare teacher's jobs, he says. Whether his reformist tendencies run deeper is anyone's guess. Though there were murmurings that the AFT would try to put the brakes on, the national union so far seems to be keeping its distance, publicly at least, having only raised questions such as whether the increased pay can be sustained and how test scores will be used.
Those who oppose the contract Rhee wants have a variety of possible rallying cries. If the chancellor pays heed to legitimate concerns, her bold move has a chance to take root and improve outcomes for the District's students.