When I pulled up to Ballou High School the afternoon of the meeting, I wasn’t sure what to expect. As I entered the auditorium, I could see groups of students chatting with one another. I marched up to the front, where they were still working on setting up the microphones. It was taking longer than expected, so I got started.
“Thank you so much for joining us today, especially on such short notice,” I began. “As many of you may already know, all ten DCPS high schools must be restructured this year because of failure to make progress according to the U.S. Department of Education.”
I told them we had been through a long process to try to write improvement plans, but before we took any formal steps, we wanted to hear from students.
“What do you think can help us improve your schools?” I asked.
Grumbling. The kids were unimpressed.
“Does anyone want to share some beginning thoughts?” I asked. “If you do, please raise your hand and tell us what school you’re from.”
Deafening silence.
Then one young man stood up.
“I know that you did that Teach For America program,” he said. “I’m afraid that you are going to fire all of our teachers and replace them with those young teachers.”
He said students need older, experienced teachers who know what they’re doing.
“We need people who know us and our neighborhoods,” he said, “not a bunch of young, white people from Yale.”
There were appreciative snickers rippling through the audience. A young woman stood up.
“I totally disagree with you,” she said. “Yes, some of the TFA teachers are clueless when they first get here. But they improve really quickly.”
She said they were dedicated, cared about learning, and worked harder than everyone else. She added: “The best teachers I’ve had have all been Teach For America.”
Another student stood up and said, “My best teachers have been veteran teachers.”
The dialogue continued. Students from all the schools stood to express their opinions on their best teachers.
Finally a young man stood up and said, “I actually don’t think we’re disagreeing here. Based on what I’ve heard, what we all know is that whether you’re Teach For America or not, whether you’re white or black or new versus old, great teachers care about their students, know their material, and are interesting. We can’t make assumptions based on groups; we have to look at the individual teachers. But the bottom line is what we need most is great teachers.”
The kids murmured in agreement. They were getting restless, and I had heard what I needed to hear. We adjourned the meeting.
A reporter approached me.
“What did you think?” he asked.
“What did you think?” I asked him back.
“Well, I’ve been to a lot of these community meetings about the plans, and I’d have to say that this was both the most civilized and the most thoughtful,” he remarked.
“I agree one hundred percent,” I said. “Kids have a way of doing that.”
I AM NOT A big believer in fate or destiny, and I am not the best at planning or setting career goals. But in many ways it seems that my entire professional life had been preparing me to negotiate a new teachers’ contract on the national stage of Washington, D.C.
My family ties and days teaching in the Baltimore classroom had taught me to respect teachers and see what strides students could make with good ones; at TNTP, our research and direct contact with school districts had shown me the destructive impact that some teachers’ contracts could have on schools.
The culture in education is what TNTP refers to as the Widget Effect, meaning that teachers are treated as if they are interchangeable widgets, as if they are all the same. Everybody gets tenure. Everybody gets a good evaluation.
That culture does not actually help the profession. It certainly does not help students. The reality is that teachers are not interchangeable widgets, not even close. The differences that highly effective teachers have on kids are massive.
A recent Harvard University study that looked at more than two million students over a twenty-year time period showed that kids who had just one effective teacher in their lifetime had a higher likelihood of graduating from high school, going on to college, and making more money as a professional. They were also less likely to have a teen pregnancy.
If this is the case, it’s our obligation to ensure that every student is taught by a highly effective teacher every day.
When I took office in June 2007, I knew that the union contract was about to expire in September. I could not wait to get into the negotiations. This was my wheelhouse. With all of the research we’d done at TNTP, I knew exactly what we needed to change in the new contract.
IN LATE SUMMER, KAYA HENDERSON set up a meeting with George Parker, president of the Washington Teachers’ Union. We met one hot weekend in my office. The air-conditioning was off.
Parker pulled out a pad and pen.
“Who are the seven negotiators on your side?” he asked. “We need to determine our negotiating teams.”
“George,” I said, “I know you’re used to conducting negotiations in a certain way, but that’s not the way I operate. These are incredibly complex issues and I think they are best discussed mano a mano—just me and you.”
I could see Kaya’s eyes widen.
George laughed.
“We can’t do that!” he said.
“Why not?” I asked. “Nothing that’s a real breakthrough is going to be accomplished through group negotiations. I say the two of us work it out on our own and then we can take it to our folks to put it on paper.”
He laughed again, nervously this time. Beads of sweat were breaking out on his forehead.
“I have read all of your studies, Chancellor Rhee,” he said. “I know what you want.”
I had read about George Parker, too. George was a lifer in D.C. schools. He had taught math for years before rising through the union ranks. He had a deep, mellifluous voice that Washingtonians loved when he sang and played keyboards in his band, Special Delivery. He had a reputation as a thoughtful, patient man with a sweet side. He was the opposite of the corrupt union leaders he had replaced.
“If you want to bring stuff like merit pay and tenure to the table,” he said, “you had better bring a whole lot of money with you! The last time we did well with a contract was a ten percent raise over three years under Mayor Anthony Williams. And we didn’t have to give many concessions to get that.”
The Washington Teachers’ Union had not been doing very well for years. It was known more for scandal and corruption than for organizing and teaching. Former president Barbara Bullock had pleaded guilty in 2003 to stealing nearly $5 million in union dues. In court, Bullock testified that she and two top union officials had systematically skimmed union dues and blown them on extravagant shopping trips. It’s safe to say the WTU would not be dealing from a pristine position.
“So you’re saying that in order to be able to negotiate around things like tenure and seniority that I have to give raises larger than that?” I asked.
“A lot more,” answered Parker.
“What if we offered a twenty percent raise over three years?”
Parker was flummoxed.
“How can you pull that off?” he asked. “Everyone knows the economy is in rough shape and cities will face tighter budgets. The city CFO has already announced that revenues are falling. You can’t come up with that kind of money.”
“You’re right about that. The city doesn’t have any money. But I think there’s a chance I could raise it externally.”
“Doesn’t really matter where it comes from as long as it’s real,” he said, “but there better be a whole lot of it for what you’re talking about.”
I KNEW EXACTLY WHAT I wanted in the contract: Mutual consent, under which both the teacher and the school had to agree before the teacher got a position. No more forced placements or “the dance of the
lemons.” Teacher evaluations would be based in large part on student achievement. Layoffs would be based on quality, rather than seniority. I wanted the new contract to establish rewards and consequences, so that we could pay our most highly effective teachers a lot more and move ineffective teachers out of the system. We would develop strong professional development programs to ensure that teachers at every level had the opportunity to improve their practice every year.
I was aware that these kinds of changes to a contract wouldn’t come cheap. I had to find a lot of money fast. But where? I hated raising money. As it turns out, though, I didn’t really have to ask.
After we published our first report at The New Teacher Project, foundations had offered to help finance additional research and studies. For the most part, I had turned them down, because we had our own resources. As soon as I landed in Washington, D.C., many of the same foundations came to us unsolicited and asked if they could help finance my reforms.
With that in mind, I directed Jason Kamras and Kaya to take the lead in coming up with the proposal that we would eventually refer to as “the Grand Bargain.”
Under the plan, all teachers would receive a retroactive pay increase of 5 percent as well as generous raises for the next few years. That was the hook to earn broad-based appeal for the proposal. Here was the revolutionary aspect: teachers had the choice of two paths, red or green. A teacher who chose the red track could expect to continue with similar work conditions and expectations set out in past contracts. Teachers who chose the green track would be eligible for much heftier salary increases and bonuses, based on performance and increases in student achievement. But those choosing green would give up their tenure protections. Seniority would no longer apply for teachers in either track. We offered generous professional development opportunities for all.
Yes, it was the age-old carrot-and-stick approach, but this time with a golden carrot.
If teachers chose the green track, had strong classroom observation ratings, and raised student test scores, they could be making $100,000 after three years, with bonuses of $20,000. After fifteen years, the pay scale reached $146,000 for high-performing teachers.
In our first meeting, when I came on board in the summer of 2007, George Parker told me the prospect of high-dollar raises could help push through my basic goals. We spent the next year researching and writing our proposal and raising funds. George and I met in late spring 2008 to discuss the red-and-green proposal. He was amenable. He requested a few changes. We agreed. In late June he was ready to present the proposal to his rank and file. He and I would spend the rest of the summer meeting with union members, answering their questions, and selling them on the merits of the plan. The WTU would vote in the fall.
We were all set to unveil the plan the first week of July. A union member opposed to Parker and the plan got his hands on the package, leaked it to the Washington Post, and trashed it.
RHEE SEEKS TENURE-PAY SWAP FOR TEACHERS, the headline read on July 3. The unidentified union member was quoted as saying, “You may be trading off your future, your tenure, your job security. When you trade that, it seems to me you’re not getting much.”
Thanks to the leak and the publication of the plan’s bare details, we lost the high ground and the chance to make a nuanced pitch. Not only did the red-and-green plan fail, but the American Federation of Teachers was furious at the direction we were taking.
Randi Weingarten, now the president of the AFT, was not pleased.
NOT LONG AFTER OUR red-and-green proposal was unveiled prematurely, Randi Weingarten invited me to her office in the national office of the American Federation of Teachers, on New Jersey Avenue, not far from the U.S. Capitol. It didn’t look nearly as posh as a K Street lobbying firm from the outside, but Weingarten’s suite on the top floor was not too shabby, with lovely wood paneling and high ceilings.
I arrived on time—and waited. And waited. Finally an aide ushered me in to see Weingarten. A petite woman, she flashed her wide, toothy smile and grabbed my hand in a firm grip. We sat in a small room attached to her grand office, just the two of us.
“I have studied your first offer, if you can call it that,” she said. “George finally gave me what you describe as the red-and-green proposal. Would you call that an offer?”
“It’s not an offer,” I said. “It’s the agreement that we want to put up for a vote.”
The smile was gone.
“Let me tell you what’s not going to work,” she said. “Teachers at the same school cannot work under two different sets of work rules.”
Interesting. She was saying that two schools could have different rules but not two teachers within the same school. Apparently, my plan to give teachers a choice between two tracks with different pay plans was out, at least in Randi Weingarten’s mind. I would have expected nothing else.
Weingarten was born in New York, the daughter of a teacher who was active in the union. One of the stories she tells everyone is her early memory of her mother going out on strike and getting docked pay, at the time her father was out of work as an electrical engineer. The family suffered and struggled. She says it seared in her mind the need for a strong union that protected the rights of teachers.
No doubt Weingarten is smart—and committed. She has an undergraduate degree in industrial and labor relations from Cornell and a law degree from Cardozo. Right out of law school she was making big bucks at the Wall Street firm of Stroock & Stroock & Lavan, but she tossed it aside for the union. She became general counsel to Sandra Feldman, head of New York’s United Federation of Teachers (UFT), rising through the union ranks to become president of the UFT, which represented an estimated 200,000 members, including 75,000 teachers.
Weingarten was a union powerhouse in Manhattan, but she had bigger ambitions. Political office? Perhaps a run for the U.S. Senate in New York? In the summer of 2008, she was elected president of the American Federation of Teachers, moved to Washington, and set up shop in the union’s national headquarters. She also announced she was taking a hand in the local negotiations between DCPS and the city—which is why she had invited me for a chat.
“Here’s what else is out,” she said. “We are not going to give up tenure. And we cannot have individual pay for performance.”
“My turn?” I asked.
She nodded.
“We must be able to pay individual teachers for the work that they’re doing and results they attain,” I said. “Tenure as a job for life regardless of performance doesn’t work for me. And we must have mutual consent. No more forcing ineffective teachers onto schools.”
Weingarten was as unsurprised by my reaction as was I by her approach. We knew one another’s positions. We were worthy gladiators. We said our cordial good-byes.
Weingarten tried to get to Mayor Fenty. She requested a meeting. No response. She called him directly. He didn’t return her call. It must have driven her crazy. In New York, she had Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s ear. When she differed with school chief Joel Klein, she could call Bloomberg, and he would hear her out. Bloomberg was a seasoned, smart politician. He knew Weingarten had a significant power base that could swing elections. Randi knew how to work New York. She was comfortable with the dynamic she had on her home turf.
Now she was in new territory. Fenty ignored her. She was livid.
WHY DID I GO through the painful process of closing twenty-three schools my first year as chancellor?
Certainly, I was justified by the raw numbers, since so many schools were half empty. But there was another reason: I believed that art, music, and physical education were not extras, as they had been for decades at some schools because the number of students could not support teachers.
My goal was to make sure that students at every school could take art, music, and physical education. Each child deserved to attend a school that also had a librarian, a nurse, and a guidance counselor or social worker. On the first day of school in 2008, we delivered. Schools were ready for children; te
xtbooks and supplies awaited them; we had begun to bring in stronger principals and teachers.
Test scores in reading and math began to rise dramatically for the first time in decades, in both D.C. and national tests. Our DC-CAS tests showed that elementary school reading scores rose by 8 points, math by 11. In high schools, reading rose 10 points and math moved up by 9. The numbers of students showing proficiency were still way too low, but we were on the right trajectory.
Why? Did the students get smarter just because I showed up? Hardly.
Achievement levels increased because we set the bar higher and asked principals to show improvement in student learning. Our critical response teams were one call away. They took many nagging problems off the table. When principals didn’t have to worry about leaky roofs, textbooks, or teachers who had lost interest, they could direct their teams to improving academics and the curriculum.
The quality of the principals made a difference, too. I had been scouring the nation for great school leaders and had found a few, in nearby Maryland school districts. I had convinced a few to join us—such as Dwan Jordon at Sousa Middle School, Pete Cahall at Wilson High, and Darrin Slade at Ron Brown Middle School. And they were setting new standards.
People were starting to notice—not just within the city but outside as well. Our actions and the subsequent progress were winning the attention of the national press. Reporters were intrigued by the story of the Korean girl from Toledo, Ohio, who took over the worst school district in the country.
The press was helping me attract fans and detractors by the thousands.
I had never sought the limelight. In choosing education as my life’s work, I was not making a media play. As a breed, educators are focused, serious wonks. So I was more than a little taken aback when reporters from national newspapers and magazines started requesting interviews. PBS proposed a yearlong series of videos for its NewsHour.
I became what they call good copy. I wasn’t savvy enough to say no and manage the press, which a more seasoned professional might have done.
Radical Page 14