At first blush, the school reform deal announced Wednesday by Illinois Senate Democrats looks like a genuine, substantive effort to improve education. We’ve watched Springfield long enough to bridle our enthusiasm a bit until we see everything that actually gets written into a bill. But this agreement does look very promising. It will be easier for schools to keep their best teachers and dismiss their worst teachers. Chicago kids will spend more hours in the classroom. Overall, there will be more flexibility for schools.
Here’s the good:
Teacher layoffs would be driven more by performance, rather than strictly by seniority. Good young teachers wouldn’t be first in line to get fired simply because they were last to be hired. Poor teachers wouldn’t be protected by their seniority. This might just end the “dance of the lemons,” in which poor teachers move from one school to another, rather than be shown the door.
*The Chicago school board would get the power to increase the number of hours in the school day and days in the school year without having to beg the teachers union for its blessing. That’s a big win for Mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel, a bigger win for every child in a public school. Chicago has the shortest school day of any major school system in the country. Emanuel wants students and teachers to spend an extra hour each day and two more weeks each year in the classroom.
*The incredibly cumbersome process of firing a teacher would be streamlined. It can take more than two years to dismiss a bad teacher. A lot of principals don’t even try, so kids get trapped into classrooms with teachers who shouldn’t be there.
*Teachers would have to demonstrate a higher measure of competence to gain the long-term job protection of tenure. Frankly, this is a modest reform. There’s no reason to preserve tenure at all. Lawyers, secretaries, bakers, sales clerks, doctors … every day they earn the chance to come back to work tomorrow. They don’t get tenure. Teachers shouldn’t either. But this proposed change does appear to be better than the status quo.
One great, big vulnerability in this package: It still allows teachers to walk out of their classrooms and head to the picket line. Teaches perform an essential public service, and when they’re on strike, their students suffer. Emanuel wanted to prohibit strikes by teachers, but he didn’t get it. And that’s a red flag as he moves to bring in aggressive new leadership and address a financial crisis at Chicago Public Schools.
The proposed law does set a higher bar for a job action. Authorization for a strike in Chicago would require approval from 75 percent of active union members, rather than a majority. The legislature should set an even higher bar for job actions by professional educators.
Give credit to the lead negotiator on this package, Sen. Kimberly Lightford of Maywood, and to Senate President John Cullerton for sticking with marathon discussions between lawmakers, teachers union officials and education reformers until they produced a meaningful result.
Now, let’s learn more about the details, particularly on seniority rights and performance standards. Let’s set this as the floor for reform. Let’s air it all out, and see how this deal can be made even better.
