May 18, 2007
Steve Barr, Welcome To Our World [Updated]
Filed under: Charter School by Leo Casey @ 2:32 pm
Barr, founder and director of the unionized Green Dot Charter Schools in Los Angeles, is meeting with UFT President Randi Weingarten later today, and so he has been drawn into the evidence free vortex that surrounds discussion of teacher unions in certain quarters of the blogosphere.
From the “make up whatever facts fit today’s rant” school of thought, there is the assertion that Barr has thrown tenure out the window. Ed Sector boss Andy Rotherham adds his two cents, that throwing out tenure is a good thing.
Someone might take the trouble to read the Green Dot contract, and compare it what is done in non-union charter schools, including those which Rotherham faithfully promotes in his capacity as a board member of the union-busting New York Charter School Association.
The management of anti-union charter schools insist that the only acceptable standard of employment is “at-will employment,” under which an employee can be dismissed at any time for any reason whatsoever – good, bad or indifferent. Such a standard comes in handy when anti-union charter school managements want to fire teachers for such high crimes and misdemeanors as sharing with their colleagues information on salaries in district public schools and supporting their student’s desire to read a poem about Emmett Till during Black History Month.
[At-will employment was a common law creation of American state courts at the end of the 19th century when the economic doctrine of laissez-faire capitalism was being read into the Constitution and law, with courts striking down child labor laws, minimum wage laws and laws restricting the length of the work day and week as violations of the 5th and 14th amendment rights to property.]
In unionized schools, the prevailing standard is just cause – there must be a good reason, such as the malfeasance in the performance of one’s job, for an employee to be dismissed. This is the general standard used in workplaces with union representation and in the civil service. Under the just cause standard, there are due process appeals for employees who believe that they have been dismissed without a good reason.
Tenure is the right to due process, under a just cause standard and before an impartial hearing body, when one is dismissed; it is granted after a period of probation during which the bearer of the right has demonstrated a mastery of the job. Since tenure is a protection of academic freedom which pre-dates collective bargaining in public education, it is generally written into education law.
Charter laws and education laws vary from state to state, but most jurisdictions [such as California and New York] do not include charter school teachers in the legal protections of the right of tenure. Consequently, unionized charter schools have to establish their own parallel system of due process for the protection of educator rights.
The Green Dot contract does precisely that. Article XVIII of the Green Dot contract reads: “No unit member shall be disciplined, non-renewed, dismissed, reduce in rank or compensation without just cause.” Article XIV lays out a procedure for complaints and grievances that culminates in a hearing before an independent arbitrator with the power to make decisions binding on the school management.
But why let the facts get in the way of a good rant?
UPDATE:
Over at the AFT’s NCLBlog, Ed Muir muses on the notorious case of that teacher Paul Whatshisname who couldn’t be fired because of that tenure clause in the union contract… He left his last job in disgrace, and he barely lasted a few months before leaving this one, so why couldn’t he be fired? In any case, since he resigned rather than being fired, this must be further proof that the system can’t fire teachers with union protection… or World Bank Presidents working under an “at will” contract.
UPDATE II:
Regarding Comment One, this case is an object lesson on why it is a good idea to actually read documents like contracts before one attacks them on one’s blog.
California charter school teachers start outside of the legal protections of tenure. The California Teachers Association local in the Green Dot Charter Schools negotiated a contract with the two essential elements of a tenure system: [a] a just cause standard, and [b] due process before an impartial arbitrator.
So what exactly don’t they have in terms of protection, in substantive terms, other than the law — which is not something you negotiate over a bargaining table?
It appears that the worst that can be said about their agreement, and their willingness to call it by a name other than tenure, is that it leaves them open to uninformed attacks in the blogosphere.
For educators who are under state tenure laws, the law — and thus the name — are important, because the law provides protection beyond the collective bargaining agreement. But for those who are not, it would seem rather straightforward that what they would want and need in their collective bargaining agreements would be a just cause standard and due process before an impartial arbitrator.
BTW, this is hardly unprecedented. Educators in most private post-secondary institutions have tenure of this very type, and in many cases, without it ever being memorialized in a collective bargaining agreement.
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As a matter of fact, Mr. Casey, it was not I who coined the notion of tossing tenure out the window. From the LA Times editorial yesterday:
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-ed-lausd17may17,0,4805989.story?coll=la-opinion-center
In fact, if you’d bothered to read the entire piece, you’d have noticed that I specifically said so.
Furthermore, Mr. Barr himself wrote, as a guest blogger for Rotherham, that teachers willingly give up tenure to work for him. I was very, very interested in learning about unionized charters until I read that.
I regret that you cannot be bothered to read carefully or do the most cursory research before making utterly baseless assertions.
Comment by NYC Educator — May 18, 2007 @ 4:30 pm
Leo,
Is Randi looking into a “partnership” with the mayor? The majority of teachers hope not.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank Richard Farkas for his fine article on the terrible treatment of excessed teachers and recognizing the fact that the Open Market is not serving our senior members as promised by many of the writers on this site.
Why was this article removed from the NYTeacher website??
Comment by Schoolgal — May 18, 2007 @ 6:03 pm
[...] Casey who posts on Edwize makes the union busting case pretty well. Someone might take the trouble to read the Green Dot [...]
Pingback by Green Dot as a union buster: making a case. « PREA Prez — May 18, 2007 @ 6:30 pm
[...] Leo Casey on Edwize. Read the comments and updates as well. [...]
Pingback by Green Dot? « JD2718 — May 19, 2007 @ 11:09 am
I’m highly amused by Leo Casey’s repeated inability to mention my name or address me directly. It’s reminiscent of Bill O’ Reilly’s approach to Al Franken, and his arguments, largely woven around baseless ad hominem nonsense, resemble those of Mr. O’Reilly as well:
While Casey criticizes Rotherham, he repeatedly makes essentially the same point–that Barr’s contract is fine as is. However, the statement about tenure, which Mr. Casey endlessly attributes to me, was actually from an LA Times editorial. Had Mr. Casey paid closer attention to the post he linked to, he’d know that. Here is exactly what they wrote:
It’s regrettable that Mr. Casey could not be bothered reading the post he criticized, let alone the referenced article.
What’s worse, Mr. Casey, despite his repeated explanations, is highly selective in his explanations.
Mr. Casey quotes a single passage from the Green Dot contract, stating no teacher could be fired without just cause, and implies I should have read the contract. Why he supposes I have access to it I have no idea.
However, the Green Dot website is freely available, and makes specific mention of the contract. What else does it say?
And that is precisely what Mr. Casey is welcoming to “our world.”
Perhaps there’s some nuance which eluded me in that clause, but it’s tough to discern. Does Mr. Casey suppose they make this very public declaration because they consider it meaningless? Is that why they specifically refer to it as a “reform?”
Does Mr. Casey expect us to believe they wrote it into the contract because they had a bit of empty space to fill?
Mr. Barr said, as a guest columnist for Eduwonk, that teachers gladly abandoned tenure to come work for him. Oddly, he said nothing of his teachers having equivalent rights, as Mr. Casey would have us believe.
Even if we were to take Mr. Casey’s word as gospel, there’s no mistaking that Mr. Barr rejects seniority rights as well. And giving up seniority rights is precisely why anti-union Rod Paige so admires the UFT. He thinks we do a heckuva job, and says so in his blatanly anti-union book. The LA Times, which deplores tenure, openly admires the UFT.
It does not appear they do so because they believe Green Dot teachers have the equivalent of tenure. Now I’ll grant that his schools sound better than the horrorshows that pass for charters in NYC.
Again, even if we take Leo Casey at his word, and do not question him at all, here he is, representing the UFT, embracing a person who openly rejects seniority rights.
And while it’s apparently heresy to question Mr. Casey on this forum, there’s ample evidence to suggest Mr. Barr rejects tenure as well. And make no mistake, it’s not simply a voice in the blogosphere—it’s the LA Times, it’s Mr. Barr himself, and according to the Green Dot website, it’s the Green Dot contract as well.
Comment by NYC Educator — May 19, 2007 @ 9:15 pm
In this comment reproduced at length from his blog, NYCEducator flatters himself, as is his habit, with comparisons to Al Franken. Indeed, he flatters himself so often, it must be second nature to him by now. But truth be told, if you look at what he actually says, it is he who has mastered Bill O’Reilly’s method.
He tells us that he has not read the very document on which he is issuing summary verdicts. He asks how he could have read it, as if his own lack of diligence is an excuse for making uninformed judgments. Why doesn’t he get off his rear end and ask the union in the Green Dot Charter Schools to send him a copy? With the wonders of email, he could have it in less than 24 hours. Or is it just more convenient to argue without having to refer to the document he is attacking?
He quotes news reports and editorials out of context. Whenever a teacher leaves one school district for another or for a charter school, they give up their seniority rights and their tenure. This is hardly unique to teachers who leave LAUSD for Green Dot charters, or news for that matter.
What he might bother to explain is why — if the Green Dot contract is even half as bad as he says — so many Los Angeles teachers would be prepared to give up the contract and their tenure and seniority with LAUSD and sign up to work under the Green Dot contract. Does he thinks they don’t understand their own interests?
It could be that these LA teachers feel quite protected by the union in the Green Dot schools and by their contract, and, BTW, that they feel like they have some real input into the important decisions in those schools. There is a lot more on the Green Dot web site about the role of teachers in setting policy in their schools than the one line NYCEducator is taking out of context.
And finally, it would be very interesting for those who have read through the miles of underbrush that NYCEducator has piled up around this issue, if he actually had an answer to the question posed in the original post:
what exactly is missing from the Green Dot contract, if it has a just cause standard and due process procedures?
Comment by SOC ST TEACHER — May 20, 2007 @ 2:04 pm
Leo Casey is protected by the strengths of his arguments,the honor of his character, and the fruits of objective research. He doesn’t need to fear “heresy” or avoid the arena of ideas. This sets him apart from his detractor NYC Educator, who bans people such as myself from having their comments appear on his blog because he is incapable of successfully engagin in civil debate.
Comment by redhog — May 20, 2007 @ 2:07 pm
Having looked at the Green Dot website and browsing through a couple of individual schools’ websites, I see no mention of special education students. I suppose it’s up to those teachers back in the LAUSD to educate them. This is so reminiscent of the Bloomberg/Klein public school/break the union model whereby senior teachers are harrassed into retirement via the closing of larger schools and smaller schools open with no special needs kids. Meanwhile, experienced expensive senior teachers become ATR’s with no classroom in any school. The new smaller schools have few senior teachers if any and no special needs kids or ELL kids to drive down testing statistics. The only teaching position addressing special needs I saw was on a Green Dot middle school website. It was a “math intervention” teacher. Wake up, Mr.Casey…..Rome is burning!!!!
Comment by Ellie — May 20, 2007 @ 2:09 pm
In this comment reproduced at length from his blog,
Actually, it’s heavily edited and revised for the purpose of this forum. It was a good fit, in my view, but I’m perfectly capable of writing more.
NYCEducator flatters himself, as is his habit, with comparisons to Al Franken.
Argumentum ad hominem. The comparison, in fact, rather clearly framed Mr. Casey as subject. And your mind reading skills, I’m afraid, are not what you think.
Indeed, he flatters himself so often, it must be second nature to him by now. Argumentum ad hominem. , But truth be told, if you look at what he actually says, it is he who has mastered Bill O’Reilly’s method.
How so? Kindly provide an example.
He tells us that he has not read the very document on which he is issuing summary verdicts.
No, actually, I report on what the LA Times says, as I’ve repeatedly stated here.
He asks how he could have read it, as if his own lack of diligence is an excuse for making uninformed judgments.
Pardon me. Is it necessary to read the Green Dot Contract in order to report on what the LA Times says? I wasn’t aware. Are you absolutely sure their judgment is uninformed? On what do you base this? How do you know they haven’t read the contract and come to a different conclusion than Mr. Casey?
Why doesn’t he get off his rear end and ask the union in the Green Dot Charter Schools to send him a copy?
Should I do that in order to report on what the LA Times says?
With the wonders of email, he could have it in less than 24 hours.
Really? Do you suppose Green Dot simply emails its contract to anyone who asks? I’m no expert, but that does not sound like a well-advised business practice. How did you find out about it?
Or is it just more convenient to argue without having to refer to the document he is attacking?
Actually, since it was not I, but the LA Times that made that statement about throwing tenure out the window (Have I mentioned that?), I suggest you take it up with them.
He quotes news reports and editorials out of context.
You’ve yet to provide a solitary example to back up a single one of your claims. In fact, I quote word for word, and provide links so that readers may check the articles in entirety.
Whenever a teacher leaves one school district for another or for a charter school, they give up their seniority rights and their tenure. This is hardly unique to teachers who leave LAUSD for Green Dot charters, or news for that matter.
Good point. I wonder, then, why Mr. Barr makes a point of mentioning it. Do you suppose he’s unaware of something?
What he might bother to explain is why — if the Green Dot contract is even half as bad as he says — so many Los Angeles teachers would be prepared to give up the contract and their tenure and seniority with LAUSD and sign up to work under the Green Dot contract. Does he thinks they don’t understand their own interests?
Now I’m wondering where I said the Green Dot contract was that bad. Unlike you, I try to be specific. If I recall correctly, what I said about it was that it lacked tenure and seniority rights. Unless I’m mistaken, I provided a quote and a link to substantiate that. Kindly correct me if I’m mistaken.
Many teachers also choose to work for charters in NYC. I don’t suppose anything about them, and I don’t suppose anything about LA teachers either, as I lack the capacity to read minds. Many teachers choose not to join Green Dot schools, and as it happens, I have not read their minds either.
It could be that these LA teachers feel quite protected by the union in the Green Dot schools and by their contract, and, BTW, that they feel like they have some real input into the important decisions in those schools. There is a lot more on the Green Dot web site about the role of teachers in setting policy in their schools than the one line NYCEducator is taking out of context.
Actually, I quoted a part about them having input. It’s right there. Unsurprisingly, the Green Dot website says what they consider to be positive about Green Dot schools. That’s why they boast of having no tenure. If what they have is, as Mr. Casey claims, equivalent to tenure, they’d appear to be deliberately misleading the public.Nothing I wrote is out of context. It’s word for word, and as I said, there is a link provided for anyone who wishes to check the rest.
And finally, it would be very interesting for those who have read through the miles of underbrush that NYCEducator has piled up around this issue, Where are those miles, by the way?
Since you, like Mr. Casey, put the words of others in my mouth, since you make accusations without remotely substantiating them, I regret I fail to see them. Perhaps they exist in some nether region, along with tenure and seniority at Green Dot schools. if he actually had an answer to the question posed in the original post:Incorrect. The question was not posed in the original post, but one of the updates so graciously provided by Mr. Casey in lieu of a response.
You remember the original post?That was the post where Mr. Casey attributed the words of the LA Times to me, and accused me of inventing things in order to post rants on the internet.That claim was ill-informed, completely baseless, and directed against a working teacher. Clearly , though, you’re fine with that.It’s OK to libel those who disagree with the party line, right? Why not?
what exactly is missing from the Green Dot contract, if it has a just cause standard and due process procedures?
Now don’t you think, to know that, you’d have to specifically compare what tenure entails in Los Angeles? Haven’t you emailed LA to request a copy of their contract to do so? It seems to me you’re clearly remiss, by your own standards.
I am a working teacher, and unlike Mr. Casey, and unlike many on this forum, I am not paid to believe whatever the UFT tells me.
Perhaps it’s true that the Green Dot Contract provides protections as good as tenure. But you’ve failed to demonstrate it.
Perhaps the LA Times, which I remind you again made the claim in question, is deluded in thinking that tenure, which it specifically condemns in the editorial (the one you baselessly claim I quote out of context) is no part of the Green Dot contract.
Of course, you’ve failed to demonstrate it.
Perhaps Green Dot’s boast (the one I quoted and linked to), that there is no tenure, and its very clear contention that this constitutes a reform, is a vicious lie. I don’t know.
Perhaps they did indeed add it to the contract to trick the LA Times into thinking they didn’t have tenure. I don’t know.
There’s no question, of course, that there are no seniority preferences at Green Dot. There’s also no question that the virulently anti-union, anti-tenure LA Times http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-ed-lausd17may17,0,4805989.story?coll=la-opinion-center” target=”_blank” onclick=”return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)”>admires the UFT:
Unions don’t have to be dinosaurs, and not all are. The New York City teachers union supported mayoral control of the schools there, and it is calling for new ways to draw good teachers to troubled schools. On Friday, the New York union’s president, Randi Weingarten, will be visiting Green Dot charter schools with an eye to possible partnerships. There can be no more important job for the new L.A. board and the mayor than to push UTLA in the same direction.
Perhaps you feel mayoral control has been a resounding success. If so, I’m afraid I can’t share your opinion. My school, under mayoral control, has exceeded 250% capacity, and I teach out back in a trailer. You’ll find this editorial has some very harsh things to say about tenure, and is very happy that some teachers choose to, as they say, toss it out the classroom window.
In case that was not clear, I’m not the one saying these things. Both you and Mr. Casey insist on putting words in my mouth. However, despite your assurances, I’m not willing to simply disregard the claims of (Please note, I’m providing a full list here):
1. The LA Times
2. http://www.eduwonk.com/2006/09/charter-schools-of-world-unite.html” target=”_blank” onclick=”return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)”>Steve Barr, President of Green Dot Schools, and
3. The Green Dot Website
Please note that none of the three referenced sources are me. I regret that you, like Mr. Casey, have thus far failed to understand this. I have pointed you to my sources, and you’re free to check them as much as you wish. However, despite your repeated claims, you’ve failed to demonstrate that I said them, or even that I’ve quoted anyone or anything out of context. Social studies teachers of my acquaintance are very big on examples. As a writing teacher, I’m fond of them too.
That’s why I provide many. As opposed to none.
I regret that those who represent my union cannot do better than ad hominem nonsense, baseless innuendo, and repeatedly incorrect assumptions.
Comment by NYC Educator — May 20, 2007 @ 5:30 pm
NYCEducator writes:
I regret that those who represent my union cannot do better than ad hominem nonsense, baseless innuendo, and repeatedly incorrect assumptions.
Do you think that if you accuse everyone else of doing the very things you have just done at great tiresome length, no one will notice?
Comment by HS SHOP TEACHER — May 20, 2007 @ 8:43 pm
[...] NYC Educator doesn’t like the Green Dot Public Schools’ teacher contract, which UFT’s Leo Casey now seems to really like. But I like it, too, and somehow that makes me very bad in Leo’s eyes even though as NYC Educator [...]
Pingback by Eduwonk.com: The Casey Case... — May 21, 2007 @ 11:10 am
[...] crazy around here as we get closer to June 6th. But I totally misread Leo Casey’s post on EdWize about Green [...]
Pingback by I had to read Edwize again. I sure misread it the first time. « PREA Prez — May 21, 2007 @ 3:23 pm
I see now that responses from Leo are now in the form of Updates or answered by others. Interesting that a post on another blog reporting on an article in a major newspaper would cause such consternation from this union.
But isn’t the real issue here about Randi looking into partnerships where seniority and tenure rights are forfeited to work in an environment where teachers are respected and have the right to collaborate? That’s great!
There is only one major problem. It would NOT work under this mayor. This is the same mayor who set up the Leadership Academy that follows a business model rather than a professional learning community. Edwize has dozens of posts on Tweed’s inability to do the job correctly under this administration.
We know that our present governor and mayor would like to end tenure and seniority. We cannot and should not even consider such partnerships until the system as a whole changes. We already know how contracts can be interpreted by this mayor leaving us with the short end of the stick.
We need to end mayoral control totally. Any idea of a partnership will not benefit NYC students, teachers or parents. To believe anything Bloomberg/Klein will do, or say, to get the UFT to even consider such a partnership means Randi is sailing on a ship of fools.
Comment by Schoolgal — May 21, 2007 @ 6:18 pm
Thank you for sharing your concerns, redhog. Actually, I’ve banned two people since starting the blog. And the second, in fact,was not you, but someone calling himself Harold Spinner. Mr. Spinner took the liberty of using my real name on my blog, an option I’m reserving for myself. Oddly, when I banned Harold Spinner, it had the effect of banning you as well, since, for some inexplicable reason, you share the same IP numbers. If you click on the screenshots on this post, they’ll become very clear, and you’ll see that to be the case. However, I’m certain it wasn’t you, since you said, “I have never used the Harold Spinner name. You did not match IP numbers. Let me state unequivocally that I’m absolutely certain you maintain the high standards of journalistic integrity demanded of UFT employees. In fact, when Leo Casey attributed a statement from the LA Times to me and suggested I made it up, I’m certain he was maintaining those very same standards. I certainly appreciate your need to defend them, and wish you the best of luck in continuing to do so.
Comment by NYC Educator — May 22, 2007 @ 6:36 am
So the first word on Edwize about Green Dot is that they haven’t taken away tenure. No news stories. No background. Nothing about teachers leaving one teachers union for another.
The choice of opening topic, Leo, seems to indicate support.
But perhaps I’ve read too much into this. Can you tell us a little about the problems with Green Dot?
Jonathan
Comment by jd2718 — May 22, 2007 @ 5:49 pm
Jonathan:
I agree with you that it wasn’t news, but as you can see, restating simple facts can be the grounds for quite a reaction in the educational blogosphere.
I am reluctant to talk about the Green Dot schools at great length, simply because I haven’t had a chance to visit them yet. I am old school in the regard: I need to do the real investigation, first hand, before I start talking in an authoritative way. I have done my homework in terms of reading the contract and the materials available in print and on the web, I have met Steve Barr and he seemed like a decent chap, but I would still like to see the schools themselves. That is why I restricted my comments here to correcting the clearly inaccurate claims being made.
Randi Weingarten and my colleague Jonathan Gyurko did have a chance to see the Green Dot schools — that was the point of their trip that set this all off, among other things. What I can tell you was that they were favorably impressed by, among other things, the real professional voice of Green Dot teachers in the schools’ decision making. I have great respect for both of their judgments, and they are more than enough to make me want to visit myself.
Comment by Leo Casey — May 22, 2007 @ 6:11 pm
Some of the reaction was to the technically narrow issue of tenure, but most was to the pro- Green Dot tone of your piece.
This was the first public item on Green Dot written by a UFT leader (right?). And it’s a positive piece (apparently) in anticipation of the union taking a positive attitude
The reaction is understandable.
Comment by jd2718 — May 24, 2007 @ 4:39 am
Jonathan:
I think that if you go back and read what I actually wrote, you will see that it addresses two issues: [1] what is the substance of tenure rights, and [2] whether or not the Green Dot contract has them. A great deal of speculation has been based on those comments, and like most speculation, it has been off target much more than on.
Randi and Jonathan visited the Green Dot Charter Schools to see them in action, and to explore how the UFT and Green Dot might work together. And as I stated here, they both came away with quite positive impressions.
I know that you are opposed to charter schools on principle, so we may differ on this question. This is an issue, however, that the UFT discussed thoroughly when we started our own charter schools. As the Delegate Assembly decided, our position is one of engagement and of organizing unorganized charter schools — not of seeking to eliminate charter schools.
Comment by Leo Casey — May 24, 2007 @ 1:23 pm
In mathematics class I am quite used to hearing mistakes and correcting them (or getting the student to correct himself, or other students to help correct…) anyway, mistakes are corrected swiftly.
I understand perfectly well that correcting mistaken policies is much more of a process.
In the meantime, you might reread my comments. I know where you stand on charters in a general way. But since your first post on Green Dot was friendly, I (and clearly some other readers) now wonder what pro Green Dot policy (not pro charter, but specifically pro Green Dot) you are about to propose.
Jonathan
Comment by jd2718 — May 26, 2007 @ 10:30 am