New Haven’s breakthrough teachers contract helped New York City reach a new schools settlement Thursday.
So said press accounts about a last-minute settlement between New York’s Board of Ed and the American Federation of Teachers, which also represents New Haven teachers.
The two sides couldn’t agree on how to use standardized tests in evaluating teachers and how to make sure teachers have a fair appeals process. People involved in the process later said the two sides agreed to model a plan based on the one the AFT struck with New Haven.
Click here and here to read two accounts about that.
The shout-out occurred on the same day that New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof proclaimed New Haven’s contract a national model, making the city “ground zero” for school reform that involves teachers in change rather than stigmatizing and alienating them.
Read Melissa Bailey’s stories about how the New Haven contract works here, here, here, and here.
The contract news Thursday is reminiscent of the way New Haven proved the laboratory for policy change in New York two decades ago. The Elm City pioneered a needle exchange as way to fight AIDS in the early ‘90s, when such ideas were in their infancy and controversial. A Yale Medical School study showed that the program succeeded in saving lives in New Haven among addicts. Advocates trumpeted the New Haven study, paving the way for New York’s then-Mayor David Dinkins to reverse a previous position and support a similar plan in the Big Apple. Read about New Haven’s role in that here.