The Washington Post article by Robert McCartney is just another example of extremely poor journalism.

"Some experts say a more collaborative, low-profile strategy is more successful in the long run because it preserves trust and confidence with teachers and the community." This tentative agreement was anything but a collaborative effort. The strategy used by Alonso, the school board, and the BTU was so low-profile that not a single teacher knew anything about the 8 month long negotiations that led to this absurd tentative agreement.

"Since Alonso took over as chief executive of Baltimore City Public Schools three years ago, test scores and enrollment are up, and dropout rates are down." If this is true and not a manipulation of statistics, then why do we need merit-based pay in Baltimore. According to Alonso, we are making great strides.

"Previously, Baltimore teachers automatically received raises every year, or for getting an advanced degree, regardless of whether it helped with teaching." Teachers do not automatically receive raises after step 21. Also, most teachers earn a master's degree in some area of education which most people would agree helps with teaching.

"Under the new deal, which is expected to be ratified by the rank and file, teachers make more based on student performance, teacher evaluations and courses they take that are related to improving instruction." What is the basis for you to expect that the tentative agreement will be ratified? Have you conducted a poll? This sounds like more propaganda from the school board and the BTU. Also, we still do not know how student performance will be linked to teacher evaluations and we know nothing else about how teachers will be evaluated. So to say that teachers will definitely make more money because of this tentative agreement is ignorant.

"The starting point [in Baltimore] wasn't that the teachers are a problem. The starting point was that the teachers are part of the solution." Wouldn't it be nice if teachers were part of the negotiations as well?

As a BCPSS teacher and a BTU member, I am asking that each and every BTU member carefully read over the available information about this tentative agreement which can be found at http://md.aft.org/btu/. I am also asking that each and every BTU member exercise their right to vote on this tentative agreement. Voting dates, times, and locations can also be found at http://md.aft.org/btu/.

Any reporter who didn't earn their degree off the internet, would hold their opinion in abeyance until the details were made clear.

16 Reasons To Oppose the New BTU Contract
Alan Rebar, BTU Member, Sinclair Lane ES # 248

1. 2 % pay increase and 1500 one time bonus (“stipend”) for year one is not enough, and is an insult. We just had a pay freeze. 2% plus 1500 might amount to a cost of living increase due to inflation – or it may be in effect a pay cut compared with inflation. Since Alonso himself stated that we are making great progress and test scores are up, and since Maryland won 250 million dollars, 46 million of which is supposedly slated to Baltimore, in Race To the Top funds, we should demand at least 7 % a year for the whole three years. At a salary of 55,000, that amounts to $3750 for the first year. But that 3750 is really only 1875 when we average it out to make up for last year’s pay freeze. And that’s 3750 that will follow you year after year. 2 % of 55K would be 1100 – and with the stipend that WON’T follow you, only 2600. This is absolutely unacceptable.
2. Next school year, only 1%. One percent! This is not a typo. For a contract that is being sold as a gold mine for teachers, this is doubly insulting. For 56K with the current raise going into year two, that means a $560 raise! That’s not even $30 in each of 21 biweekly checks – BEFORE taxes! No, we need 7% again for year 2.
3. The new salary structure is confusing and unnecessary. We will all make more with flat 7 % across the board raises.
4. Year 3 – 1.5% raise – again, LESS than a thousand dollars! Totally unacceptable! We need another 7%.
5. Year 3 does include a contract reopener for salary contingent upon funding. The economy MAY be out the tailspin by then. But it may be worse. We need 7%, no contingencies, no excuses.
6. New career ladder is unnecessary. All bonuses could be paid as stipends to ONLY TEACHERS WHO WISH TO DO THE ADDITIONAL WORK AND COURSES. The union and all of its members should demand UNIFORM PAY RAISES FOR ALL and allow those who want to do more to be paid STIPENDS. No pressure to spend our lives taking classes when we’re exhausted from overwork providing superior education in dismal conditions!
7. All “joint” BCPS/union “oversight” and “peer review” etc. “committees” are pie in the sky promises. There is and can be NO joint collaboration by the Board and the BTU. The Board is the boss and the union will ALWAYS be stuck playing second fiddle. All this can do is mislead teachers into allowing the Board, with its junior partner the union, force us into more work which will not be paid, and possibly to accept the ugly prospect of teachers participating in the firing of teachers, which would be the death of unionism.
8. All “Achievement Units” and other gimmicks can be implemented OUTSIDE THE CONTRACT as stipends or bonuses for teachers who are willing and interested and able to keep doing all these extra things, attending classes and courses, etc. The fact is that all these things will benefit younger teachers more because they are more likely to have the time, the energy and the personal space which older teachers lose through the ageing process, medical issues, the tendency to have a family which demands most of your time outside of contractual hours. Younger teachers and those older teachers who are able and willing to do these extra things can be rewarded OUTSIDE the contract instead of tying all of us to these things INSIDE the contract. We can be awarded extra pay without it being in the contract. It happens all the time with stipends we receive for attending PDs on Saturdays, evenings, etc. and reimbursements for coursework. It’s not new.
9. “New School-Based Options” include “options” that represent the destruction of the union: 80% of the staff at a given school can vote to approve waivers of the school year, school week, school day or prep time! This ends the uniform contract for a patchwork quilt open to intimidation by principals. It forces the 20 per cent or less who may be unwilling to work longer days, weeks, or SCHOOL YEAR to give up our contract! Again, veteran teachers who do not have the time, energy, and/or personal space to work longer and harder will be put in an ugly position. This can split the union from within on generational lines. It is absolutely unacceptable.
10. The “waivers” in number 9 can be “vetoed” – so, any beneficial waiver, including the real planning time we need (at least 2 hours a day) can be shot down, while all “waivers” that make us work longer, can be approved. Will we be able to “waive” the school year and make it shorter? Not likely. Will we be able to “waive” professional development days at the start of the year which are endless meetings so we can spend a full week PREPARING OUR CLASSROOMS so we are not then harassed after the kids arrive about our messy, disorganized, unattractive, non-child-friendly classrooms? Not likely.
11. BR earns 3 achievement units! This ties building reps to the “joint committee” of the union leaders and the Board with a pay incentive! Building reps are REPRESENTATIVES OF THEIR COWORKERS IN THEIR BUILDINGS OUT OF THEIR COMMITMENT TO LABOR SOLIDARITY. NO SUBSIDIZING OF BUILDING REPS!
12. Miscellaneous change 7.3.E about MOUs for “charter, Innovation, Transformation, New Schools Initiative, Turnaround, Restart or any other newly created school for extended school day and or/or extend school year” indicates again, pressure to extend our work time.
13. I am personally opposed to charter schools as a back door to privatization of the public schools. If you agree, this contract should dump all charter schools and fully fund all schools back on the traditional school model. If you disagree, this may not be relevant to your opinion about the proposed contract.
14. Side Letter MOU on Fair Student Funding concerning elimination of art, music, and physical education teachers in certain K5 schools – I don’t know what this means but our contract should guarantee art, music, phys. ed., library, computer, and ADDITIONAL resources for all schools, even if it isn’t feasible to have them for one day a week.
15. THIS CONTRACT IS PART OF THE BROADER POLITICAL AGENDA OF FAKE EDUCATION “REFORM.” Baltimore schools are being used as a laboratory for a broad experiment to attack unions and further divide education between the haves and have nots in this country. This can be seen in the massive layoffs and firings in Detroit and California, and the similar contracts rammed through in Chicago and D.C., with the blessing of Education Secretary Arne Duncan (and under his leadership in his old job of schools boss of Chicago). We’re told the contract is needed so big changes can be made, with implication that the current system isn’t working. This is directly contradicted by BCPS schools head Alonso’s statement at the contract press conference public meeting on Sep. 29 2010 that scores are up and we’re making great progress and it’s all because of the great work done by the teachers. NO COMPLETE CHANGE IN THE CONTRACT IS NEEDED. In fact, this attempt to
turn our working conditions upside down is being driven by national education “reform” peddlers backed by both major political parties, who have their own agenda. That agenda is not about improving schools but union busting and regimenting working class and poor kids into the discipline they will need to perform low wage jobs in the degenerating economy.

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.

Some good thinking has gone into these assessments of the teacher contract. I only hope that the rank and file don't fall for the allure of big cash and get fooled into voting for this contract.

Amen and Amen to Bill and Alan! GREAT points! Please send these to every BCPS email that you possibly can... 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 -Less than $2000 - the same amount it would be under the current “step” system and I agree with previous posts here -- it is an insultingly small amount of $$ and a "gimmick" to give away all safeguards against rogue administrators. 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 referenced here that I have read in its entirety 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…

I posted a comment re Bill's comment on the post entitled "BTU deploying reps to answer contract questions, may provide more time before vote if necessary"