Teachers Unions: A Modest Proposal

If you believe a student's success or failure depends entirely on their teachers, and teaching effectiveness can be easily measured, your cure for ailing schools would be simply to  "hire the best, and fire the rest." You'd be celebrating the recent court decision ruling current state laws governing teacher tenure, dismissals, and layoffs are unconstitutional. I'm also guessing you're not a big fan of public employee unions.

California's teachers unions have announced their plan to appeal the court's decision. And they may very well prevail. There's a lot to criticize about it. Evidence cited was based on testimony that student test scores alone were accurate measures of a teacher's effectiveness, and that students with low test scores had far lower lifetime earnings. Factors outside the classroom that affect learning were not considered at all. An expert's estimate that only 1% to 3% of teachers do not belong in the classroom led the judge to use arithmetic and a gross generalization to estimate as many as 8,000 teachers in California were "grossly ineffective," creating unconstitutionally unequal education in our public schools.

While they have just cause to appeal, the teachers unions should take heed of the court of public opinion. Last December's Field Poll reported only 40 percent of California's registered voters say teachers unions do more good than harm. Rather than simply defend the status quo, the unions should look for ways to gain the public's trust.

In an early sign they may be listening, the California Teachers Association's website carries a story praising Gov. Jerry Brown's signing of AB 215, which streamlines teacher dismissals. Dean E. Vogel, president of the CTA promised, “Our students deserve a safe learning environment and to be taught by educators who are committed and qualified.” That's a step in the right direction. Whatever your opinion of unions, we can all agree grossly ineffective teachers do harm in the classroom.

After 30 years in education, including teaching high school English, my own experience is that measuring a teacher's effectiveness is a very complicated matter. Test scores alone cannot measure the impact a teacher has on student lives. As I think about the teachers who had the greatest influence on my life, I don't remember what they taught me. Some were personable, some were grumpy, some simply unreasonably demanding. What I do remember about all of them is how they inspired me to learn stuff on my own.

The CTA website carries a research paper on teacher effectiveness. It acknowledges that value-added measures, such as test scores, can and should be used as one of three measures of teacher effectiveness. The other two include regular classroom observation by peers and administrators to assess a teacher's classroom performance, as well as a review of the teacher's documented practices addressing student learning needs. The research paper cites a model teacher evaluation program in the Denver Public schools.

So here's my slogan for a modest proposal of policies unions should promote:  Hire and reward the best, nurture the rest, and fire the worst. That will require collective bargaining that puts in place multiple measures of teacher effectiveness, extending the time to tenure from two years to three, and allowing measures of teacher effectiveness to be included, together with seniority in layoff decisions.

To win public support, teacher unions need to show more of their commitment to teacher quality and student learning than to pay, job security, and defensiveness about failing public schools.

Richard J. Riehl is a former university administrator and high school teacher. Contact him at richard_riehl@yahoo.com