The War of Three Turnips

Hard times test friendships.  That was never more the case than in Chicago, where a liberal mayor and the teachers union are going to court over their inability to agree on teachers’ contract terms.  On the face of it, each has right on their side, and that of course is the problem.  Sometimes, two rights can create a wrong.  The press is, during this election cycle particularly, trying to make a federal case of a local issue.  In a way, they too are both right and wrong.  It’s become a mishmash of traded claims, challenges and obfuscations.  That the principal victims are the school children is obvious; the opponents are all, in their way, good guys, but the villains remain lurking behind the curtains.  As I write, the good guys have agreed on at least a temporary truce (it still may not hold) for the benefit of the children, but the villains remain unidentified.  Long term solutions will require their being fingerprinted and brought to justice.

The Chicago conflict, narrowly considered, is centered on two main issues.  First, the teachers are being asked to work longer hours with no increase in pay, and refuse to do so.  Second, the teachers refuse to be evaluated, and paid, and risk tenure, based on student performance when they believe many factors in that performance are beyond their control as teachers.  The school system’s, and city’s, goal obviously is to improve performance in a period of extremely tight finance at no additional cost.  A longer school day would most likely benefit the kids, but, as my mother would say, money is tight and you can’t squeeze blood out of a turnip.  The teachers’ goal is to be treated fairly.  They too are struggling in a tight economy, and some may be “moonlighting” or at least babysitting while their spouse works two jobs; they also are turnips.  Anyone who has been married to, or has children who are teachers knows that teachers’ workloads extend beyond the classroom.  There are undoubtedly also some “process” issues involving dominance struggles between city leaders and union officials, but they are common to all negotiations, and skilled negotiators get past them.

The first issue is one of fair compensation for increased workload; the villain of course is our own desire to get something for nothing.  We want the best for our kids, but are unwilling to pay for it, especially in tight times.  We are the third turnip in this war.  The taxpayer reluctance to properly fund education means both mayor and teachers are strapped for funds.  Times will undoubtedly improve, and so must taxpayer willingness to pay fairly for necessary services, but in the meantime other ways must be sought.  The teachers are being asked, in effect, to work required unpaid overtime.  A narrow solution commonly used by other types of organizations in such situations is payment of compensatory time, creating a balance for each teacher of “unpaid” hours which can, in future years, be converted into personal leave or vacation time or longevity calculations at retirement.  The “really real” villain is our tendency to load onto the school system the unpaid burden of correcting problems from outside the system. A wise old boss of mine maintained that the need for "overtime" usually indicated some deeper problem.  In schools, too long a day may simply compensate for too short a school year, or a need to compensate for out-of-control deficiencies. A longer school year would probably be a better goal than a longer day, but that too would cost money the taxpayer is unwilling to pay, or politicians to ask for. But it is a goal this country needs to work toward. Our current school year is a vestige of a rural past this nation can no longer afford.

  It so happens that the same villain, along with summer, social inequality and absolute testing standards, complete the gang behind the second Chicago issue, that of fair evaluation, pay and security of teachers. And an already recognized educational innovation is available to generate a solution. Studies have shown that much of the difference in grade-level performance of public school students arises because children from more affluent homes continue to advance during the summer while the schools are out, through camps, summer courses, etc., that poorer children cannot afford.  A major grade-level attainment gap between rich and poor children in high-school is actually the product of the many summers when the well-off advanced while the poor slid back a little. Testing children at both the beginning and end of the school year reveals their actual progress during the school year, when the teacher is in fact a responsible party, which turns out to be much the same between rich and poor.  Other inequality factors intervene as well, like poorer nutrition, lack of home support, etc., but they are apt to be distributed fairly equally across a school district, or a large region within a metropolitan school district.  A teacher is much more likely to be fairly evaluated if the progress of students is measured against the average progress, measured at the beginning and end of the school year, of same grade-level students in the same school district.  A goal of increasing the average progress during the year of students in the class generates a workable standard for evaluating teacher performance.  It also clearly defines educational issues for the community that lie outside the control of the teacher and the school system.  That may in turn sensitize the taxpayer to where the real issues lie.  Chicago’s problems are not unique to Chicago.