Natalie Missakian Photo
As the city prepares to turn over a high school to the teachers union, a statewide parent leader raised a question: Who will police the teachers?
Gwen Samuel (pictured), head of the Connecticut Parent’s Union, raised that question last week.
In a press statement, Samuel announced her group’s opposition to the district’s plan to hand over High School in the Community (HSC) to the city teachers union as a “turnaround” school. The school has already been teacher-run since its inception three decades ago; the school district agreed to let the union directly manage the school, freeing HSC to follow its own curricula and tests. The state has invited HSC to apply for up to $2 million in state money to fund an overhaul at the 300-student school, which has suffered low test scores and is ranked in the district’s bottom-level “Tier III” category.
Samuel raised several objections to the move, including that the city is in her opinion removing a key check to teacher quality.
“There needs to be oversight,” Samuel argued.
“I just can’t see it — a provider that gets paid for the service, overseeing themselves?”
HSC has landed on the federal “In Need of Improvement” list of failing schools for three years. It was the only school to sink in its district ranking last year, falling from Tier II to Tier III.
Samuel said as the school launches a reform effort, parents need to know there are quality teachers in the classroom.
“If you’re just shuffling the chairs on the deck, you’re going to get the same result,” she said.
Samuel said she’s skeptical that a teachers union would get rid of a teacher who’s performing poorly in the classroom.
“What’s going to ensure that the teachers are performing? Are they really going to get rid of themselves?”
Melissa Bailey Photo
“I’m surprised she would have that concern,” responded city teachers union President Dave Cicarella (pictured). “We have taken the lead in saying every teacher has to be effective or better, tenured or non-tenured.”
The teachers union gained national plaudits for overwhelmingly ratifying a 2009 labor contract that paved the way for teachers to be graded on student performance — and fired if they don’t improve.
At the end of the first year of the new teacher evaluation system, 34 teachers were pushed out.
“Tenured teachers have been dismissed,” as a result of that process, Cicarella said. The union found that the evaluations were done properly and did not fight the removals: “We didn’t take those to arbitration.”
When it transitions to a turnaround, HSC will keep the same leadership it has had for the past two years. Teacher Erik Good will continue to perform the duties of principal; he’s technically the “facilitator” at the school. School leaders have already been performing teacher evaluations for the past two years.
Cicarella said he understands why someone might think that a union would protect a poor-performing teacher instead of holding the teacher accountable in the classroom.
“The public is right — for a long time we didn’t do a good enough job,” he said. But “we’ve done a pretty good job saying we can’t do that any more.
“We’ve said — most teachers do a good job, and what we can’t let happen is for a small percentage to drag [the rest] down.”
As part of the turnaround, all 31 teachers at the school had to reapply for their jobs. They were interviewed by a panel that included school leadership, district administration, union leadership and parents from the school.
As a result, a third of the teachers are out the door — “three or four” chose to retire, Cicarella said, and “five or six” were not asked back. Departing teachers are guaranteed jobs elsewhere in the district.
In making those decisions, Cicarella said, the union did what was best for the school, even if it meant making the hard decision of pushing a teacher out.
Samuel also said parents will be denied the opportunity to air a grievance to management, since labor will be managing itself.
If the union runs the school, whom would a parent turn to with a complaint about a teacher? she asked.
Samuel does “make a good point,” Cicarella replied.
However, he said the union is committed to hearing feedback from parents and ensuring that they don’t have complaints.
“We have so much at stake here. We’re going to make sure we do things properly,” he said. Cicarella said he knows of eight or nine union-run schools nationwide, including in Denver and New York City. New Haven Federation of Teachers would be the first union to take over management of a school in Connecticut.
HSC will be overseen by a seven- to eight-person advisory board including a parent, teacher, union official, and central office staff, Cicarella said.
Parents with concerns about the school can still talk to the district’s central office, he added.
School reform czar Garth Harries likened the arrangement at HSC to the one at the other two turnarounds run by outside operators. Domus Academy is run by Domus, a not-for-profit social services agency in Stamford; Roberto Clemente is run by Renaissance Services LLC, a New Jersey-based charter company.
While Renaissance charges a management fee of $800 per student, the teachers union will do the job for free.
Samuel pushed for access to the teacher evaluations of teachers at HSC; the school district denied her Freedom of Information request.
Harries said parents will have access to other types of public information to monitor the school.
Every year, the school district polls teachers, staff, parents and students on what they think of their school. The results of the surveys are made public each year.
Every summer, the state releases the results of statewide standardized tests. For high schools, parents can look at how sophomores fared on the Connecticut Academic Performance Test.
“As with all of our turnarounds, there remains an intense focus on delivering results for kids, including academic learning results as well as school climate surveys,” he said.
The fact that a third of teachers are leaving HSC “says something about creating opportunities for the teachers to police themselves,” Harries added.
Samuel also charged that parents were not kept in the loop about the turnaround.
Harries replied that parents on the School Planning and Management Team were included in turnaround discussions for “several weeks” before the formal announcement. Four parents were involved in interviewing teachers for the new school, he said.
In letting teachers helm the turnaround, “we’re respecting and honoring the profession and saying that given the right tools, the profession can police itself,” Harries said, “but we’re not at all stepping down from the commitment to bottom-line performance results, including parent satisfaction.”