More on teacher retention
NYC Educator points out here that the Department of Education benefits from lousy teacher retention. And he makes a whole pile of good points.
But he misses one vitally important point, and is quite wrong on another one. (The criticism may sound harsh, but make no mistake, NYC Educator is a serious partisan of our union and of NY teachers. To not answer, that would be a sign of disrespect. And believe me, there are plenty of people who are not worth answering).
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I will deal only briefly with the wrong point. Unity is in a contradictory position. If the chapters get too strong, their hold on the union might be challenged. But if the union grows weak, their strength vis a vis NY politics also weakens. And if the union is broken, they are finished. Also, UFT leaders are not getting rich off their salaries (though there is bad symbolism in accepting the recent raises). And the perks are, well, perks.
Whatever. It does not make sense to consider them in the same breath as the Department of Education.
High turnover provides economic benefits to the employer. NYCEd explains this well. But there are far more important political benefits. The danger bad retention poses to our union needs to be underlined.
Temporary workers are incredibly hard to organize. Many come in to the job with anti-union sentiments. As short-term workers, they are not likely to care about the people who follow them. Many could care less about transfers and (forget about it) sabbaticals… they will not be around long enough. Load up the system with these guys, and we will accept whatever contract Bloomberg pushes at us. You think we did not have a serious strike threat last year? Just look out.
So, if we can do nothing about retention, we are in some deep shit.
What can we do?
The question is as serious as it is frustrating. I would welcome some real discussion.
JD2718 
On this point:
“But if the union grows weak, their strength vis a vis NY politics also weakens. And if the union is broken, they are finished.”
Klein is not out to break the union at the top, only at the bottom (which is happening with attacks by principals on chapter leaders.) The UFT leadership perform many functions of control, etc. Imagine if there were no UFT. Teamsters might come in and try to organize a union and that could be worse for the DOE.
So the illusion of a strong union works for both the DOE and Unity.
As to gettting rich. That is not the issue. The perks take them too far from the reality of teaching.
On the main point of retention: There are arguments that people always leave. In the late 60’s we had an enormous influx of VietNam avoiders (including Klein who never ever speaks about that experience which I would bet was horrible for him) and I would say many left as soon as they could. Others staid a few years beyond.
There is no answer other than to make schools good places to work. And that is so much in the control of principals. As they get more power the prospects are bleaker. We should be fighting as a union for more say in the workplace but the union has not made that a real issue other than lip service. Even in places where teacher coordinators were running programs ended uo having to have a licensed principal due to pressure from the CSA. The UFT did not oppose that. Supposedly we are strong in influencing the legislature yet we never see proposed bills directed at these issues.
But isn’t that the place that we are really most able to organize? (not that we are doing it today). I don’t know how many activists ran and won in chapter leader elections. Some. Not enough. But while some people see chapter elections as determining who will be in charge, I think they go further in determining what sort of activism, if any, will take place in the chapter.
IOW, don’t bother me with which caucus won; tell me how many members attend meetings, and how (in)frequently they are held.
And then, big question. What kind of chapter activity will make the schools better places to work? I think enforcing the current contract would be a nice start in most places, but there has to be more. Of course there are schools where forming a chapter is still the first step.
Did Klein teach? I thought he had zero educational background?
Thanks for writing.
Some rambling thoughts on your comments:
We can’t just start an analasis at the actions of one party- the DOE. They don’t act in a vacuum. The UFT/Unity leadership has been around for 45 years and their actions and inactions have consequences on what the DOE can and will do. Example: massive loopholes were allowed to exist in the contract during all the years when they were in a much better bargaining position than they are now.
Klein did what many of us did when grad military deferments were ended in the late 60’s – he got a deferment by getting a teaching job. I hear it was math in a JHS in the Bronx. He taught for 6 months, ironically the same amount of time Randi taught full-time (the 6 years on her resume were mostly very part-time — teach one or 2 periods and then off to the union – she negotiated the 1995 contract that was rejected by the members while she was “teaching.”) Who knows? Maybe with the Iraq war going the way it is we’ll all get called up.
I met a lawyer a few years ago who taught in the Bronx for 2 years to escape the draft and he was surprised I did not leave. He said it was the hardest thing he ever did.
I find it hard to believe Klein didn’t have a similar hard time and he got out as soon as he could. There is not one word from him or understanding about what that experience meant. Look at today’s letter in the Times in which he makes the “no excuses” argument about all kids learning. Sure. Give schools the resources so that the kids who are tough to teach get class sizes of 15 and we can talk. He full well knows from even his 6 months teaching that his position is bull and comes down to blaming the schools and teachers and our contract. But there he goes making excuses for his own failure.
I had no intention of staying in teaching when I started but got caught up in the excitement. I had control of my classroom and could make most decisions. Even when my supervisors were unhappy when I took lots of trips I would fight them and get my way. But a new principal came in in ’79 and pushed the reading scores over education philosophy down our throats and I began to see the handwriting on the wall and ended up setting up a computer program where I had freedom to teach. A lot of upper grade teachers in my school under pressure to do test practice began to gravitate down to early grades where there was no testing. They were not trying to avoid accountability; they wanted to teach the way they believed in. Some left to find “better” schools. I mean better in the sense of more flex teaching.
In today’s world of micromanagment there is no way I would stay and would have probably become a sleazeball lawyer like some others we know.
I’m sorry ( I know you bend over backwards to be fair), but I have to place a major responsibilty for this state of affairs on the part of the union.
On working conditions: I’m not talking about the chapter level but more of an aggressive campaign on the part of the union to give teachers more of a say in how schools are run. But the DOE has made concentrating power in the hands of principals a top priority.
The UFT is basically silent on this — what a cozy relationship they have with the CSA, which seems to take priority.
On chapter leaders: Which caucus “won” is not the important thing I agree. There are some great Unity CL I know. But because there are so many of them, they are more likely to be in the pocket of principals. I knew of entire districts that were that way. Dist 24 and 14 were well-known. That has changed to some extent in 14, though 24 shows lots of remnants.
Activist CL will be left hanging without the backing of the union. When I came under attack by my principal who went after my computer program in retaliation for my being an aggressive CL we began to propose protections for CL at DA’s but Unity rejected all attempts. Just take the number of CL that were placed in rubber rooms last year. A few were Unity but most were not. When UFT Dist 24 rep came under attack by a vicious principal a quick transfer was arranged by the UFT. How did they do that? When one of their own high level people is under attack they react.
Until Jeff Kaufman’s case went public last year they did nothing despite the fact he warned them months before that the rules at Rikers forbidding teacher to have any contact with prisoners’ families were a basic violation such an important part of the teacher student relationship. The Maria Colon case at JFK HS over her exposure of the admin cheating on the regents is another outrage. And when Sam Lazarus, CL at Bryant was put in the RR (and exonerated 6 weeks later but had his kids miss their regular teacher from Easter till June) it was ho hum again. (All 3 were associated at some point with ICE.) There are lots more stories, but another time.
There’s a lot here, and it’s well worth talking about. I am sure that we will continue over time.
But let me pick up from here: “massive loopholes were allowed to exist in the contract during all the years when they were in a much better bargaining position than they are now”
I’ve been working on my response to the Questionaire. What bothers me the most, I’ve already posted (It’s the wrong way to gather information. Unions should behave like unions – our members should gather and discuss, not fill in an opinion survey). And the criticism is important: our leaders don’t seem to understand what makes a union a union.
Next, and here’s your ‘loopholes’ connection. As many as there are, the biggest loopholes aren’t in the contract, they are in enforcement. If we held the DoE to the letter of thing, in every district, in every school, the quality of life in our schools would be far different. I regret these words as I write them, I am exaggerating, but why negotiate new rights if we are not defending the ones we have? (of course we negotiate new ones, but….)
And a final word. Something you said, and others say, bothers me. Assuming Unity is responsible for tons of looholes, still people who screwed up a contract are not the same people who abuse teachers. I worry sometimes when I am talking with teachers, and much more in this blogging business, I worry that people confuse the UFT leadership with the DoE, and treat them as a single enemy.
I’m not in the business of defending Unity as a caucus (though they do have some very good chapter leaders), but I speak up when teachers attack Unity and the DoE in the same breath. It’s a mistake.
I understand your point about Unity and the DOE and there’s some distinction. I responded with the comment below at NYC Educator.
“It’s important not to confuse Unity with the DoE”
I’ve heard this said often at ICE meetings. I agree that they are not the same and there are issues that Unity deserves to have our support.
Who is the real enemy and shouldn’t we focus our attention on them – the DOE – instead of criticizing the union leadership?
This requires a more complex response than I can add here. Just a few points:
We can affect the UFT by creating a movement for change. That means replacing Unity (very unlikley) or forcing them to change in response to a real threat – the reason it is important to build a progressive opposition that is taken seriously. There are some signs that the 40% anti-contract vote has had an impact as Unity tries to prevent these people from moving toward a more activist opposition. The question is whether these changes are real or just PR. I take the latter position because they do not include any fundamental change — they emanate from the power of one person, unchecked power.
So the short answer is that it is easy to criticize the DOE (and UNity doesn’t go far enough because I believe they have a bunch of deals going with them – ie. free charter school space, control of teacher center jobs and who knows what behind the scenes) but that is just spitting in the wind. We can effect change in the UFT and that would lead to changes at the DOE.
Imagine if BloomKlein were faced with a more militant oppostiion that really went after them on how much money they are wasting on bullshit and stood the ground in schools where principals are attacking teachers (nary a word in the feel-good NY Teacher)?
Some people in ICE go further and believe that there is a real collaboration going on between Unity and the DOE and that they are not far off as Unity becomes the agent of control of the teacher movement allowing both the DOE and Unity to accomplish their aims.