"Loretta Johnson, executive vice president of the AFT and longtime city schools union rep, told us today that the union is fully aware that the contract has spurred more anxiety than relief as teachers try to sift out the details. But Johnson said that the union wants as many questions answered as possible."

This statement encompasses my gripe with the BTU. The union office sees itself as "the union" and the teachers as the group they represent. A union should be comprised of the workers who experience the job first hand. The union office is full of out of touch representatives who (clearly) aren't connected to the needs, wants, and demands of their workers. Most teachers already feel an "us vs. them" attitude from North Ave. Now many are starting to feel the same way about the BTU office. Either union leadership needs to change how they look at teachers or the leadership itself needs an extreme overhaul. (And to those who would say "get involved", I was an active building rep for four years and only stopped when I transfered to a school with a current rep).

As a union employee, I want to ensure you that as your representative, I will do my best to hide the fact that I make 150,000 and there's nothing that you can do to dictate my salary.

With this new evaluation system, I fully intend to give myself a raise, since now I will work 20 hours a week rather than 10 and I'll be sure to hire on some friends or relatives and raise your dues.

Please sign this contract since it will result in my raise, ultimately.

Will BTU members at specific schools be informed of the dates and times that field representatives will be available to answer questions? We have heard nothing of this in my school and I know that many teachers would like to plan to have their questions answered. Also, when will the union decide if the vote will be delayed? I would say that it is clearly necessary since the vote is a week away and they are acknowledging that there are still many questions that need answered. As members of the BTU, we have heard nothing about any of this from the union we pay to represent us.

I have looked over all the documents (the summary, the tentative contract, the powerpoint, the various documents about the pay scale, the letter from Marietta English. The pay actually looks really good. Raises all around. It's understandable why so much of the powerpoint presentation and the explanatory documents focus on the money.

But the biggest question-- the absolute most important one-- is left glaringly unanswered. How are we going to be evaluated?

The AU thing seems very complicated to me and really pretty vague-- as I understand it, there will be a team made up of 4 North Ave people and 4 BTU people (Marietta English and her appointees) set up to decide a rubric for teacher evaluations. It really doesn't make me feel any better that there are Union reps on the committee-- this doesn't preclude the possibility that the evaluation method they decide on might be terrible. The reason merit-pay has been so controversial nationwide is because no one has yet come up with an equitable system by which to do it. Do you really think Baltimore is going to suddenly have that Aha! moment? (After we have already decided to go with whatever evaluation system the committee comes up with?)

And that is the problem: the exact method by which we will be evaluated is what decides whether this is a good contract.

Here are a few things that concern me: According to the new contract, to get a raise you must get 12 AUs, meaning a proficient rating OR a Satisfactory rating plus an education class. We need to know the percentage of teachers who receive Proficient Ratings. In my estimation, even now this percentage is pretty small. Which means that under the new system, most of us must take a class every year in perpetuity in order to qualify for a raise.

That's a big workload if it is true.
I've worked very hard to get a Masters Degree and am looking forward to being able to focus on teaching without attending classes at the same time. Going to school and teaching at the same time is a strain on my family and on me, and I can't say the extra work is good for my teaching even though the ideas I get are great. There is just not enough time in the day to grade papers, do after-school activities with my students, spend quality time with my family, run a household with all its myriad mow-the-lawn-shop-for-groceries-fix-the-leaky-toilet type chores, and also drive off to a class in the evening for which I have to write research papers and study.

Can AUs carry over to the next year? Are they cumulative? What if you got 1 credit one year and 2 the next. Could you add them to your AUs?

The other big unknown is student achievement and how that is going to link in. This is supposed to happen a convenient 3 years from now-- when the ink on these decisions is so dry we won't know who to blame when they go wrong. Some of this is out of Baltimore's hands, as Maryland has decided to link 50% of teacher evaluations to student achievement. But which achievement? On tests? On projects? On those blasted Bridge Projects? How do music and (ahem) drama teachers measure achievement? Or for that matter, eleventh grade English teachers, whose kids don't take the HSA or ninth grade English teachers whose benchmark answer keys list 11 wrong answers? (this has happened, actually. More than once. Several times. And believe me, it's going to happen again.)

In an English class, would writing count? Currently, it doesn't count on the HSA at all. But isn't writing fully HALF of what we are trying to teach in English?

The current English HSA consists of lots of grammar and lots of long passages meant to test reading comprehension. Writing used to be part of the HSA, but Maryland just didn't have the money to pay for people to grade all those HSA essays. Do we really care? I always thought English was supposed to be more about great ideas and less about mechanics, but a bubble test is not a very good medium for assessing a student's ability to engage great ideas. Should the bubble test be given such complete deference?

And what about students who never come to class, or who transferred in 10 days before they took the test? Transiency and Absenteeism is a HUGE problem in Baltimore. In some schools and grades, absenteeism is as high as 50%. Would these students' 'achievement' count against my score?

Currently, because administrators really don't have time to do multiple observations or lengthy osbervations of a teacher's teaching, evaluations and 'evidence' for evaluations are partially comprised of checklists of what is hanging on our walls.

This means the exact placement of my daily objective, (left side of the board, rather than right) the prominence of my HSA- cheer (Go Wildcats! You can Pass the HSA! in at least one-foot letters) and whether I write out the word Wednesday, rather than simply put a numerical date on the board are often part of what administrators look for to decide whether a teacher is using "Best Practices in Teaching." Believe me, I've been marked down for not having that kind of thing.

I worry that teachers will get excited about the (substantial) raises, and forget that there are scenarios in which very few people could actually get those raises. It's easy to say-- "look how much you could make as a Lead Teacher" but not so easy to keep in mind that there is only one Lead Teacher per school, which means that even in a small school, there's less than a 5% chance that Lead Teacher is going to be YOU.

And how many Model teachers are there? What if the budget gets cut? Merit pay allows an administration to use teacher-quality as a way to justify lower expenditures on salary. Rather than pay all teachers what they are worth, an administration can simply decide that there can only be 2 Model teachers per school. Or increase the requirements for getting a raise more and more difficult. Or threaten principals with retribution if they hand out too many Proficient Ratings.

With a Merit-Pay set up, there will always be a few good teachers who are lucky to make lots of money. And these teachers will be well-deserving of their raises. If the administration is smart, these teachers will feel really good about themselves and believe that no one else is deserving of the raises that they have. But it is very easy to make the number of hard-working teachers that are eligible for this money as small as any budget allows. And instead of acknowledging that those other good teachers can't get their raise because there is no more Race to the Top Money, Dr. Alonso and the principal near you can simply say, "Oh, you just aren't good enough," to justify it.

Bigger than all of these issues-- isn't Race to the Top a one-time thing? What happens when Sarah Palin wins the presidency in 2012? Even though, just like Obama, she's for privatizing the school system, she-- and frankly any politician to the Right of Obama won't be in favor of Arne Duncan's huge Federal Influxes of Cash into the public education system. What do we do then? With a merit-pay system, teachers who under the current system have a smaller but somewhat protected salary trajectory, under the new system might simply be told-- "Oh, sorry-- you are not a good enough teacher to get a raise. You didn't work hard enough, and my my my! Look at those HSA scores! What were you thinking? We have got to get rid of these bad teachers around here!"

All this to say that while I want to believe this contract is good, I also want to see exactly how we are going to be evaluated and how student-achievement is going to be linked to my paycheck before I vote for this contract.

Please join me in signing a petition to delay the vote until we can get these hard questions answered:

http://teach2010.epetitions.net/
Robin

The tentative agreement makes references to the original contract but the teachers contract is not liked on the BTU website. Where can a non-BTU member see the original contract?

I was with you Robin, until you said Sarah Palin would win the presidency.....and then I just laughed.

Though, I certainly would be concerned if Erlich won the governor elections, considering his new proclamation of cutting educational spending.

Sarah Palin? Goodness.

The merit pay is essentially a race to the top issue, not a Baltimore City contract issue. Our evaluations MUST be 50% based on student achievement. Unless you expect Baltimore City to say "We're disregarding your teacher evaluations," then that's what we're stuck with regardless.

@Robin

I understand your concerns about setting the standards in an ad hoc way to be giving out the number of AUs desired. However, there are multiple safeguards in place to prevent this. Most importantly, all decisions regarding the evaluation process, what are the qualifications to be a model teacher, who meets these qualifications and how AUs can be earned outside the classroom away from student growth achievement data will be made by committees made up of equal numbers of Board and Union appointees. Thus, ideally, the needs of the system will be properly balanced by the needs of the teachers (in case you think those needs aren't the same thing). Also, there will be ways for teachers to earn AUs besides their evaluations...for example, taking classes or being the BTU building rep among other, yet-to-be-named opportunities.

Safeguards are in place, and before you vote, you should make yourself aware of them.

Don't forget, but union dues WILL go up. That should offset any salary increase.

They better send a rep. to my school because every teacher in my school hates the new contract.

Simon, please elaborate on the safe guards that are in place.

Please be specific and avoid wording your responses like "ideally" and "yet-to-be-named".

See, In Baltimore "Ideally" = not going to happen.

Its very hard to believe the union reps or the board reps have any clue what the hell is going on in classrooms, or with teachers..

Have you already forgotten as well, Simon?

Robin, excellent points! I too want to know much more in detail about the evaluation system before the vote.

Anonymous, remember that the requirement of 50% evaluation based on student "achievement" includes 20% local decisions on how to measure that achievement. So why can't we at least know how Baltimore plans to measure this (and like Robin, I'd hope to see some emphasis on other things besides the standardized tests)?

And Simon, although the idea of balance between North Ave and BTU members on committees sounds good, why couldn't those issues (evaluations, model teacher reqs, AUs) be part of what we vote on instead of accepting the contract on faith and leaving the important stuff to later?

@ Simon

"Most importantly, all decisions regarding the evaluation process, what are the qualifications to be a model teacher, who meets these qualifications and how AUs can be earned outside the classroom away from student growth achievement data will be made by committees made up of equal numbers of Board and Union appointees."

The fact that half of these committees will be made up of one half union appointees does not make me fell any better at this point. You are talking about a union that has known for months about the negotiations of the tentative agreement, did not tell a single teacher about the negotiations (even when asked several times), and gives its members just a few weeks to make a decision. The worst part is that the BTU is not responding to its members' phone calls or emails concerning questions about the agreement.

Simon, do me a favor and email Marietta English at menglish@baltu.org (the email address given on the BTU website) and see what happens. The email address doesn't even work!

@m.w. You should identify your school so that the Union could send someone to your school to explain it to the teachers there - or at least call BTU (410-358-6600) so they can send someone out. It would be a shame if the contract were not ratified because of ignorance of it!

I totally understand the above commenters' frustrations and worries that all the details have not been worked out yet. It's tough to approve a structure for a contract without the details, I totally agree. However, if you take the opinion that you don't think the Union will properly insert their voice into the process during the three years of the contract and fight to create systems and structures that are fair, then I'm not sure why you think they'll fight for teachers' interests when they go back to the negotiating table if the contract is rejected. If you like the ideas in the agreement, but will vote no because you don't trust the Union to speak for you, I hope you also take to the polls in Union elections (if you can ever figure out when and where they are, of course).

Nick, I think you make a good point when you ask why we can't vote on the issues rather than the structure. All I can say is that the system is going to devote 8 full-time employees for a year to coming up with the best system, based on research, agreeable to both parties, with all safeguards in place, so maybe it's not feasible to do all of that work for so long and devote so many resources if it will still come up for a vote? That's my guess. Remember, under this agreement, if they two sides can't agree, the whole program is scrapped and the contract reverts to the current system (with higher pay). Teachers will only be under the new evaluation system for 2 years before it gets re-evaluated...and if the combined Union/Board committee shows that student achievement isn't improving and professional development for teachers isn't improving, the system is scrapped automatically.

Again...with a contract this different, I totally agree that people should have reservations...it's a big change! I just hope that teachers figure out what's changing due to state law regardless, as well as what safeguards are in place in case it doesn't work. If you look at the structure and become well-informed and understand the safeguards and still don't think it will help students and teachers, then I definitely encourage you to vote no. But don't vote no without giving the entire agreement a fair chance.

Simon: You invalidated your argument by saying:

"BTU building rep among other, yet-to-be-named opportunities."

What a moronic way to earn an AU.

Can I get an AU (an achievement unit for being a great teacher) by wiping my union rep's butt since that requires lifting a finger as well?

Or rather than taking actual classes at a good school, can I just pick some joke school off the internet to earn college credits?

Only by voting this down will teachers get a voice and the "union" will be forced to craft a more thoughtful and cogent incentive based contract.

As some or many of you know, Bill Bleich has been a leading rank and file activist in BTU as well as perenially reelected Building Rep of a very democratically functioning union chapter at Poly HS. He has released a powerful critique of the contract which I don't think has been sent to this list. Apologies if it has - here it is cut and pasted in, and I will send also as an attachment, and I will also send an excerpt to convince thos who are very busy that it is well worth their time to read the whole thing.
Bill explodes the fools' gold pay offer that is the core of the contract scheme, with basis statistical methods. I don't see one point in the whole exposition that is incorrect. His comments on war will be controversial to some but I support them 100% and it is my conviction that they are irrefutable. His opening section on teacher rivalry addresses one of the central questions of this contract: cooperation or competition? Which side are we on? It is my conviction that as a union we go down to destruction together unless we stick together. Bill's critique:
CRITIQUE OF THE PROPOSED BTU CONTRACT

COMPETITION INSTEAD OF HELPING EACH OTHER
“Merit” pay - more money for a relatively small percentage of teachers who get top evaluations - will encourage rivalry among teachers. Now, without merit pay, it’s different. Currently, we help each other all the time. We share pedagogical insights. We share teaching materials. We share effective lessons. For most of us, our support for one another is a reflection of our profound concern for maximizing the intellectual growth of the young people for whom we’re responsible.
With “merit” pay, there will be pressure on teachers to be less helpful, and act in a more self-centered way. The goal of “merit” pay is to get more money for oneself by outshining others, especially since the number of high-earning “model” and “lead” teachers will be strictly limited. “Merit” pay is counter to mutual support and collegiality among teachers.
Think about it. We are modeling the adult world to our students. Do we want our young people to learn - from observing our behavior - that rivalry, withholding assistance, and backstabbing are the best ways for humanity to conduct itself? Isn’t it better to show, by example, that humanity is better off when we are mutually supportive? Shouldn’t our goal be to uplift all of humanity, not just a small portion of it?

FOR THE VAST MAJORITY OF TEACHERS - NO MATTER HOW EFFECTIVE - MAJOR MONEY IS A MYTH
The proposed contract talks about increased “career acceleration,” but in reality, those gains will be for a relatively small percentage of us. Linda Eberhart - who participated on the CEO’s side in negotiations for the new proposed contract - “said the cost of the contract over three years would be a maximum of $60 million” above and beyond the cost of the current contract (Sun 9-30-10). Let’s take a careful look at the implications of this.
The total budget for the Baltimore City Public Schools is currently $1.23 billion. About 54% goes to salaries, with about $360 million of that going specifically to teacher salaries. Of the $60 million MAXIMUM that the school board may add over three years, here are costs that would have to be deducted from that amount:
1) The one-time $1500 bribe (signing stipend) x 6,000 teachers = $9 million
2) 2% increase in 2010-11 (to be included again in next 2 years) = $21.6 million
3) 1% increase in 2011-12 (to be included again in the next year) = $7.2 million
4) 1.5% increase in 2012-13 = $5.4 million
5) Cost of one “Lead Teacher” at each of 191 schools in 2nd & 3rd year of contract, assuming this means an average of $20,000 additional per person = $7.6 million.
This adds up to $50.8 million. In other words - not counting the single lead teacher at each school - only $9.2 million remains to fund all other “increased career acceleration.” If we assume that the average “Model Teacher” would earn $25,000 extra - compared to salaries in the current contract - and if we assume they would be paid that rate in the second year and again in the 3rd year of the contract, that means at the most that about 184 teachers will be allowed to become “Model Teachers.” In other words, if the quote by Linda Eberhart is accurate, and $60 million is going to be the MAXIMUM amount of new money spent on this contract, then the CEO will have to guarantee that 94% of us are not allowed to achieve either “Lead” or “Model” status!
Keep in mind, according to the new contract, that achieving “Model” status will require the highest possible rating (now called “Proficient”) for at least 2 out of 3 years. This means, to limit the number of “Model” teachers, all the CEO has to do is tell principals that they can only give top-rated evaluations to a small number of teachers. The CEO could easily mandate, for example, that only 5% of the teachers at each school can get the top evaluation. In fact, according to the numerical analysis in this critique, the CEO will probably have to do something like that, to stay within budget (if the proposed contract is adopted).
The numbers used in this section of the critique are as accurate as could be determined, but even if they’re off by a bit, the general conclusion would be virtually the same. Maybe instead of 94% of teachers being blocked from “Model” and “Lead” status, if the numbers aren’t exact, perhaps just 90% of teachers would be prevented from the “increased career acceleration,” which is roughly the same thing.
The Sun, in its glowing reportage about the proposed contract, argues that “Pay could go up quickly for effective teachers” (9-30-10). Are we to assume that 90% or 94% of Baltimore’s teachers - whose pay won’t go up quickly - are ineffective?
We don’t need a star system. We need to continue working together as equals, helping each other to best serve our students’ educational needs.

WAR
The proposed contract is being lauded as a cutting-edge contribution, on a national level, to school reform and Race-to-the-Top strategies. However, the real centerpiece of these trends, though it’s not discussed extensively, is actually a national curriculum. In all probability, in upcoming years, the MSA and HSA tests will be phased out and replaced with new high-stakes tests aligned with that forthcoming national curriculum. For the first time, powerful forces will have centralized control of what gets taught in all U.S. schools.
Let’s consider the international situation. The main conflict in the world, which profoundly influences all other developments - even at the local level - is the intense rivalry for control of cheap labor and natural resources - especially energy - by the world’s major powers. Two wars are currently raging because of this, and more war is on the horizon, including the threat of a world war, once another world power is militarily capable of challenging the U.S. empire, a situation that could develop, perhaps, in as little as 25 years.
Exxon/Mobil, along with the other major oil and gas giants - and the big banks who provide them with financing - are key players, behind the scenes, in running the United States. The continued and expanding profits of these institutions require war. They need millions of young people who are willing to fight and die for them. To accomplish this, the ruling class needs the schools to teach a particular set of beliefs and “facts.”
Picture the situation, perhaps just 5 or 6 years from now, when a devoted teacher wishes to encourage the consideration of a more accurate, balanced set of facts and analytical thinking.. But the new high-stakes tests require - for students to score well - that particular answers, favorable to the world-view of Exxon/Mobil, must be given. And any teacher, whose students haven’t been duly habituated to giving those responses, will be evaluated poorly - and denied raises - because his or her students didn’t make the appropriate “progress.” This sort of scenario is where Race-to-the-Top is headed. And this is another reason why we should not support the proposed contract.
It must be acknowledged, however, that the proposed contract does have some positive aspects. And, if we do vote to reject the proposed contract, the positive aspects can, of course, be included again in a newly-negotiated, second version of the contract.
One positive aspect of the contract is its insistence that teachers at Charter schools (and at other, similar types of schools) must be paid in accord with our contract. The proposed contract also insists that larger salaries must be paid at schools where the hours are longer, or where the school year includes more days. Maryland is almost unique in this regard. In most other states, teachers in the Charter schools are not covered by the union at all, and they are generally paid significantly less than unionized teachers.
In fact, one reason for the national push to have more and more Charter schools - as part of Race-to-the-Top - is to lower the cost of public education. And this too relates to war. The current military conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan require hundreds of billions of dollars. Lowering the cost of education is one way that the Exxon/Mobil loyalists want to free up resources, and then direct those resources toward ongoing and new wars in their desperate effort to preserve their lucrative and blood-soaked empire. Fortunately, this cost-cutting aspect of the charter-school movement is not part of the proposed contract.

ENCOURAGING COWARDICE INSTEAD OF WHOLE-HEARTEDLY SERVING OUR STUDENTS’ NEEDS
The current contract stipulates that a Building Rep cannot be involuntarily transferred out of a school (except for very limited exceptions). However, the proposed contract says that a BR can indeed be reassigned, and all that’s required is written approval by the CEO.
Picture this. A Building Rep has helped to organize teachers at a school to fight hard for racial and socio-economic equality in class size so that all classes - whether advanced or regular - have the same average size. Imagine it was an effort to significantly improve learning for the majority of students at that school, who are in the regular classes, but who were - for years - treated as stepchildren and thrown into overcrowded classes which are much less conducive to educational progress. Imagine that the Building Rep and many of the teachers had to ruffle some administrative feathers to finally win this campaign. Imagine that other bold efforts - requiring some opposition to the principal - are also being pursued in the interests of parents, teachers, and students. The proposed contract would allow a principal, with the CEO’s written approval (probably not too hard to get) to get rid of that Building Rep as a way of trying to undermine those
social-justice campaigns for better education.
Similarly, any teacher who speaks up boldly - trying to advance the learning situation for his or her students - may, at times, have to oppose the policies of a principal. If that principal, under the new contract, has the power - through evaluations - to have a major and direct effect on a teacher’s salary, then highly devoted teachers may hesitate to do what’s truly in the best interests of their students.
Think about it. Not infrequently, the motivation to become a principal is based on wanting to: 1)Make more money, 2)Distance oneself from the students, 3)Do less work, and 4) Eventually advance one’s career to a higher-paid, cushy, school-headquarters position.
With this in mind, it’s reasonable to argue that, often, teachers are more highly motivated than administrators to serve the educational needs of our students. The self-serving, careerist attitude that motivates some people to become principals causes them to focus their time on administrative courses and personal advancement, while a dedicated teacher, instead, may devote his or her time to being a voluntary Club advisor, helping to organize social and academic events for the students, getting to know parents, and spending large amounts of time revising personal teaching strategies and materials to become more and more effective each year.
But the proposed contract gives principals tremendous power to choose which teachers to advance, and which to sideline. Won’t that lead, in many schools, to a situation where favorites are cultivated and rewarded, but anyone who opposes the principal on any matter at all - even when doing so for the benefit of the students - is excluded from advancement?

NO TEETH IN PROVISION TO INVESTIGATE PRINCIPALS WHO WRITE UNFAIR EVALUATIONS
The proposed contract has a provision for investigating a principal who “significantly changes” the proportion of teachers receiving lower evaluations than the year before. That sounds good. However, the proposed contract only stipulates an investigation.. It does not stipulate any consequences. And it does not stipulate, even if the investigation finds wrong-doing, that the evaluations must be changed.
In fact, in our current evaluation system, observations and evaluations cannot be grieved in regard to their content. Only procedural violations can be grieved. In the proposed contract, the consequences of an evaluation will be much more significant. In particular, a teacher can be held - indefinitely? - at a particular interval (which is the proposed contract’s new name for a salary step).
The proposed contract, like the old one - and like the Performance-Based Evaluation System - has no provision allowing teachers to grieve the content of an evaluation. Let’s be clear. Principals are not elected. They are primarily accountable to higher authorities, not to teachers, students, and parents. The proposed contract has the potential to allow principals to become quite dictatorial. And such principals won’t necessarily be “benign” dictators. They could readily be dictatorial in regard to teachers and simultaneously contemptuous in regard to the educational needs of our students.

INCREASING CLASS SIZE
This is not certain, because many aspects of the proposed contract are not stipulated with much detail. However, it sounds as if “Lead” teachers will be given some leadership responsibilities that may prevent them from having a full teaching load. Similarly, the “Joint Governing Panel” - in the proposed contract - is tasked to “designate the roles and responsibilities that Model Teachers will assume, consistent with the strengths of the Model Teacher.” This too sounds as if these teachers will be partly removed from the classroom. In addition, it sounds as some staff members will be spending time outside the classroom as AU (Achievement Unit) coordinators.
If several people in a school - who each used to have a full teaching load - will be partly or completely taken out of the classroom, all the students that would have been taught by those individuals will have to be added to the classes taught by other teachers. This means that classes will grow in size.
Class size matters. If it didn’t, why are the classes - in advanced programs like Ingenuity - deliberately kept significantly smaller than other classes. It’s simple. Smaller classes are better for teaching and learning. However, it seems that the proposed contract may well lead to larger classes.

CONCLUSION
The writer of this critique urges you to vote NO when the ratification vote is held on October 14th.. We can do better than this for our teachers and for our students.

@Bill Bleich via @MW - Wow. Simply wow. I'm not sure if this is Glen Beck in disguise or Conspiracy Theories 101.

Vote against the contract because Exxon/Mobil may brainwash students and cause widespread world war? Seriously? Wow.

All teachers impact kids. Students learn when teachers collaborate. Teachers get rewarded when students learn. More collaboration = more student learning. More student learning = greater chance for merit pay. Such is particularly the case if the merit pay system includes a school bonus for school-wide achievement. Rather than discourage collaboration, the new structure encourages collaboration. The basic premise of Bill Bleich's response is simply erroneous and misguided.

And then he goes on about Exxon/Mobil's takeover of the Baltimore City Public Schools. Is this who really teaches our kids? My gracious.

My School had a union rep come to answer questions last week. While he was a least able to give us a tentative pay schle most of our other questions were unanswered. I left the meeting not knowing much more than when I came.

I am a HS counselor in another system in MD. My husband has worked for BCPS for 6 yrs–there is nothing exemplary about BCPS or this ridiculous contract. The new evaluation system has not even been developed-yet, they are asking teachers to vote for it. No criteria have yet been set for what will constitute “model” or “lead” teacher status-yet, they want to develop that after members vote. The local principals already have too much power and this contract also gives them power over a teacher’s salary. There is MUCH cronyism and this would make that worse. Absolute truth–his final year-end evaluation has been completed for years by principals who never saw him teach for one single minute! Some of the immediate supervisors just “made up” observations and asked him to sign them -so, we have zero confidence that this “new system” will accurately measure “instructional effectiveness”. In fact, the increase in pay is miniscule -why did another poster think these are substantial monetary increases? They are less than $2000 - the same amount it would be under the current “step” system -it is an insultingly small amount of $$ and a "gimmick" to give away all safeguards against rogue administrators. And hello -- run the budget #'s -- they can't afford for more than 5% of teachers in a school to have "model" status and only ONE teacher per school will be "lead" so don't get sucked in by that false promise. Also, the piece in the Sun on the 8th is such propaganda -- How about interviewing some actual TEACHERS Baltimore Sun writers and publishing varying viewpoints? Isn't that what good press is supposed to do? The piece in the Post recently comparing Rhee and Alonso is laughable - "Alonso hasn't alienated teachers" and he has been "collaborative" -- are you kidding? He has sanctioned treating teachers like trash, throwing due process out the window, making local administrators dictators, and has successfully created a pervasive culture of fear... (which is neither effective nor professional).
I sincerely hope the membership votes this down… read comments on Inside Ed blogs from teachers!For the challenges that teachers in Baltimore City face daily, they deserve much better than this…

As an individual who does not work for City Schools, I wonder if it's smart for me to give an opinion on the tentative contract. I was having a hard time doing it, but until someone posted Bill Bleich's very long rebuttal I was succeeding. Now I can't restrain myself.

Starting point - I am a parent of 3 kids in City Schools and I have always been a supportive and contributing member of our school communities. I have also always been a pro-union type, starting with growing up listening to Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger. I have never been a member of a union, but as an engineer in a plant with a large number (until recently) of hourly, union, assembly workers, I have a little bit or experience on the subject. The biggest issue to me is that teachers are more like engineers than assembly workers. A lot of good things come from being treated like a professional and I think this contract is a step in that direction.

To rebut some of Bill's points:
1. If you have merit pay you will have less collaborative work between those competing for the pool of merit increases. That is absolutely not the case in my job. There might be more sucking up to bosses who are determining raises or more usually a higher value is put on giving your boss the ammunition he or she needs to put in for your raise. I have never seen a boss say that since someone else is doing such and such and you are too I don't think you’re of high value to the company. In fact I have often heard that since you are establishing a new standard for doing such and such and everybody is following your lead, you get the merit increase.

2. Most people won't be getting a big raise. It's differentiated, so by definition some will and some won't be getting as big of a raise. I would rebut, if it makes no difference to be blazing new paths why should anyone bother. I don't think anyone who has been a parent in various schools for multiple years would argue that all teachers are all working equally hard and are equally skilled. The point is to reward those who are doing the best work and encourage others to try to follow in their footsteps.

3. War. Sorry, I'm not following you and this seems a bit like conspiracy theory to me. Maybe you have to be a teacher to get it.

4 & 5. Transferring building reps for speaking out & no teeth against unfair principals. This seems to boil down to "if your principal is a jerk you're screwed" My response is, "always has been, always will be." Maybe teachers had some protection from this fact, but parents and students never have.

6. Increasing class size. This is an ongoing issue that started with fair student funding. It's always a balancing act to provide support to teachers while having enough people actually teaching classes. I have seen large classes with excellent teachers work well and small classes with poor teachers work badly. There is a lot more to it than just class size. You bring up Ingenuity, I'll bring up Roland Park Middle. Nearly every class is at the cap of 30-35. There are many kids that qualify for the magnet program and they try to accommodate them all. Roland Park Middle graduates consistently perform well in high school, even with big classes.

CONCLUSION
There are risks of moving away from union protection to a more professional job description. I really think the biggest thing that would improve education in this country is to make education more people's first choice of what they want to do rather than a fall back if they can't find a job or finish a tough degree. I thought this article about education in Finland was very enlightening. Whichever way the vote goes I'll continue to support teachers and schools and PTA's, but I think this looks like a good opportunity.

AUs can be earned outside of the classroom as well by taking classes, other professional developments and MSDE credits (cr=1AU).

I would like to see the evaulation before anything voting even begins.

So I guess that the union feels that the members are ready to make an informed vote because we have not heard anything about it being delayed. There was a meeting at BTU headquarters Monday night from 5 - 7 pm with information on the new contract. Emails went out to BTU members around 12:30 on the same day. How is this providing adequate time for members to show up and get their questions answered?

A question/comment to mw or Bill Bleich, on the numbers: The 2%, 1%, and 1.5% raises are probably equal (or even less) than what we would get under the old contract, with steps and cost-of-living increases. [The potential salary benefit to us would come from the ability to become model teachers, or move up at a speed (at least somewhat) of our own choosing.] So, anyway, that $34 million from those % raises seems like it should not be counted against the $60 million which was quoted as the cost "above and beyond the cost of the current contract".

It's insane that they are asking us to vote for or against a "new, ground breaking, innovative" contract that hasn't even been written yet. We've been given information about salary increases, I guess in an attempt to buy our votes, and told that if we vote no there will be no increase in pay. When I looked closely at the numbers the proposed pay scales offer some individuals will be given a $25,877 increase over 3 years while others will net less than the 4.5% cost of living adjustment promised. These initial 3 year salary increases have NOTHING to do with student achievement or employee excellence. That doesn't enter into the equation for years to come. For those of you who may think we'd be fools or worse to reject this contract, ask yourself if you'd sign a 3 year employment and wage contract without knowing what the terms are.

To the person who said the numbers look good. Do the math! Compare our current contract with steps and the minimal cost of living adjustment this proposal says it offers (2%+1%+1.5% at each new step) with the charts they gave us. It's totally arbitrary and unequal. Some people will make out like bandits, others will lose.

CityTeacher: the new state law requires that evaluations reflect student achievement; NOT PAY!

Please remember that the future evaluation and the proposed contract are exclusive of each other. The new evaluation being worked on in Annapolis is a result of our winning Race to the Top funds. It's unfortunate that we have a contract that is expiring and another one that is being presented on the same year when we won Race to the Top. Comparing the evaluation and contract is really like comparing the proverbial apples and oranges. Again, be informed and please don't confuse issues.

I have been holding back as many others have. The thing is that I am making a choice for ME. In 11 of my 12 evaluations with BCPSS, I have had proficient evaluations. And that is with 8 different principals. Yes, they are crazy. But guess what, if we revert to the old contract, they are still crazy! I would rather have my performance tied to the work of my students (at least 50%) then to be 100% arbitrary as it is now. I have enough confidence in my abilities and the effort I put forward. Its interesting also that so many teachers complaining are the ones who have been around for awhile. You know, the ones who only want to teach AP or specialized classes so that they dont have alot of students, fight to not teach HSA classes, etc. I have zero trust in the union, and also do not trust principals. I have been "suspended" by a principal in an attempt to get me out of her building. I am here, she is not. SO I know what happens with principals. However, if the state law requires my evaluation to be based partly on student performance, how can the union do something differently? They cant. I hear that there are ssssoooo many teachers who are unhappy? In my building, everyone seems ok with the contract. There are only 24 posts here, several of which are by the same people and two are admittedly not in BCPSS. Also, when I last checked there were 135 signatures on the e-petition (might be more at this point, but I have not looked). That is out of 6000+ teachers. Sounds like not much concern other than the same old teachers who dont do anything but want to fuss about everything! Imagine that.
Everyone has the ability to vote however they would like, I do not need to stress my issues to anyone else to make me feel better. I know which way I will vote. Please, I encourage everyone else to do the same. While the new contract does not bother me, I understand that others are not so comfortable. Go tomorrow and vote whatever you feel. If you do not vote at all, please do not comment on anything. You give up your right.