News Briefs
NEA to encourage locals to help place best teachers in needy schools
Oct 15, 2009 12:36 PM
National Education Association President Dennis Van Roekel told a Sept. 29 House education committee hearing on teacher quality that his union will encourage its locals to help place their best teachers in schools serving mostly poor and minority students. The way to do that was not by restricting transfer rights of senior teachers, Van Roekel cautioned committee members, but by recruiting, preparing, supporting and compensating them to teach at high-needs schools.
Van Roekel said the union, which represents about 3.2 million teachers and other workers, will ask local affiliates to draw up memoranda of understanding with local school districts that would “waive any contract language that prohibits staffing high-needs schools with great teachers.”
Van Roekel said the move is part of the union’s “Priority Schools” campaign that will also encourage “the most accomplished teacher-members” to start their teaching careers in high-needs schools, remain there or transfer there.
Van Roekel’s model means “matching the right teachers to the right school in the right way,” said AFT President Randi Weingarten. “These bottom-up, collaborative efforts are a perfect example of doing this with us, not to us.”
Weingarten challenged critics’ claims that union contracts are a key obstacle to ensuring that high-quality teachers are assigned to hard-to-staff schools.
“The truth is that contracts can be an effective tool to remedy this problem where it exists, and to make schools positive environments for students and teachers,” Weingarten said. “Even the most effective teachers and dedicated students are at a disadvantage in schools that are unsafe, under-resourced, lack supports and interventions for struggling students, and fail to provide professional conditions for teachers.”
USA Today, Sept. 30
AFT LeaderNet release, Sept. 30
