CAT Tracks for October 22, 2009 MODEL CONTRACT?

High hopes in the real world...

I wish them well...too bad it will never come to Cairo, IL. Again reason and logic - and collaboration - will NEVER come to Cairo School District Number One.

Oh, it made a brief appearance with Dr. Sam Harbin...might well have gained traction if the Cairo BOE had hired Bill Rogers as Superintendent. Instead, the BOE opted for the unknown (Out-Of-Towner Leotis Swopes) rather than a tried-and-true veteran with experience in all District buildings.

NO...as long as Cairo School District Number One is content to allow Psychic Lawyers to call the shots - billing the District to oblivion - there is NO HOPE!

CAT Tracks Editor's Note:

For those of you who are new or have (tried desperately) to forget...

The "catty comment" about "Psychic Lawyers" refers to the defense penned by the District's attorneys to justify the District's actions against James Gibson...a case to be heard next week (October 27, 28, and 29. CHA-CHING for Robbins et al, the District's attorneys...those folks who charged $4,451.62 for a one-hour deposition! Three effing days???!!! And CSD #1 officials keep crying "broke". It is the rest of us who should be crying...)

Again, I don't make this stuff up...the proof lies in documents filed by said attorneys with the judge! I have seen them with my own eyes. However, to make sure that I don't violate any court procedures, I am imposing self-censorship and not publishing the documents. After a final decision is rendered, I will do so, unless the court dictates otherwise.

I can and will paraphrase what the District's attorney said, however...

In May of 2005, the Cairo Board of Education voted to hire James Gibson as a teacher's aide rather than a teacher because two-months later - in JULY of 2005 - the Illinois State Board of Education would surprisingly fail to renew our 5-year waiver to hire substitute teachers for an entire year.

Teacher Contract Called Potential Model for Nation

By Stephen Sawchuk

A teacher contract approved in New Haven that lays the groundwork for changes to the way teachers in the Connecticut city are paid, supported, and evaluated, has been hailed by union and district leaders alike—as well as federal education officials—as a potential model for the country.

“This is an incredibly progressive contract,” said Joan Devlin, a senior associate director in the American Federation of Teachers’ educational-issues department. “It addresses teacher voice, and it gives the district the flexibility to make the changes they need to make [these reforms] work.”

Ratified by teachers earlier this month, the contract awaits only the approval of the city’s Board of Alderman. It is set to go into effect in July.

AFT President Randi Weingarten called the pact a template that could be replicated elsewhere. U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, meanwhile, praised the union for agreeing to address changes to areas that have been traditionally sensitive for teachers.

Since assuming the AFT presidency, Ms. Weingarten has sought to show that the collective bargaining process can be a vehicle for collaboration on school improvement initiatives, while Mr. Duncan, in addresses to both the AFT and the National Education Association last summer, called on unions to be partners in devising new ways of paying, evaluating, and supporting teachers.

Officials from both the union and district said an unusual bargaining model in which reform issues were discussed apart from bread-and-butter ones helped get the pact finalized before a tight deadline under the state’s collective bargaining law sent it into arbitration.

The contract outlines a number of areas that would be settled by two committees of union officials, district representatives, and parents. A reform committee would make recommendations on the best ways to measure student growth. It would consider growth in test scores, as well as other measures of achievement, said Ms. Devlin, who provided help to the New Haven Federation of Teachers during the bargaining process.

Those recommendations would be used by a separate teacher-evaluation committee charged with determining how to weight the student-growth data as part of an overall teacher-evaluation system capable of distinguishing among four levels of performance.

The committees’ work would also take place transparently, with progress reported to the board of education and the public, New Haven Mayor John DeStefano Jr. said in an interview.

The contract is expected to help move along Mr. DeStefano’s ambitious education reform agenda. A centerpiece of his campaign for this year’s election is closing the achievement gap in six years by addressing teacher effectiveness and overhauling low-performing schools. But those pending changes now bear the union’s fingerprints, too. For instance, as part of teacher evaluations, the parties plan to establish a peer-assistance and -review program for veteran teachers.

Such programs, in which struggling veterans receive assistance from other teachers before facing dismissal, have long been promoted by the AFT.

The New Haven reform committee would also work to create a schoolwide performance-pay program and a career ladder for teachers who take on additional responsibilities. Under the contract terms, the pay program would reward schools whose students made “substantial” progress, and it would charge a committee of teachers and principals in those schools with determining how to divvy up bonus funds. The model closely resembles the performance-pay program Ms. Weingarten bargained in New York City in 2007 as president of the United Federation of Teachers.

‘Turnaround’ Schools

Student-growth information would also be used to rank schools, beginning in the 2010-11 school year, into three performance tiers. Tier I and II schools would be allowed to waive certain contract provisions with the approval of teachers and principals in those schools. Schools in Tier III would be subject to greater programmatic intervention by the board of education.

A subset of the Tier III schools, deemed “turnarounds,” would be reconstituted with new leadership and staff members. Teachers would have to reapply for their jobs, and principals would select the teachers to be hired. These schools would also be freed up from most contract provisions and could be operated by third-party management organizations, including charter school operators. Issues such as the length of the school day, working hours, and even additional compensation programs would be set by teachers and administrators.

The teachers in turnaround schools would be unionized and retain transfer and layoff rights, but they would be expected to commit to working in the turnaround schools for a minimum of two years.

Mr. DeStefano said that one or two Tier III schools would initially be designated turnarounds.

Much of the contract’s ultimate success appears to lie in the hands of the committees charged with fleshing out the contract language. “We’re really excited, but we know that this is just the beginning of the hard work,” Ms. Devlin said.

“Everyone’s got a lot at stake to find an agreement here,” Mr. DeStefano added. “We don’t want to have the board of education unilaterally implement something.”