Gap Shrinkers
Great teachers are a powerful force for reducing the achievement gap. The AFT and the National Education Association are working together on strategies to recruit and retain them for high-poverty, high-minority schools.

It’s a well-known fact: Fifty years after the U.S. Supreme Court declared that racial segregation in public schools unconstitutionally deprives children of equal educational opportunities, poor and minority students are still more likely to be taught by the least qualified teachers.

What will it take to get a well-prepared teacher in every classroom—a move crucial to closing the nation’s achievement gap? That was the focus of a two-day March summit in Washington, D.C., organized by the AFT and NEA, along with the NAACP, the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards and the National Alliance of Black School Educators.

In many ways, the discussion raised as many questions as it answered. As NAACP education director John Jackson put it, “Teacher quality is the most important factor in improving the educational attainment level of a child.” So how do we prepare high-quality teachers? And how, he asked, do we recruit, retain and support them?

Jackie Jordan Irvine, professor of urban education at Emory University, recommended that school districts adopt a systematic approach to attracting qualified teachers, including loan forgiveness for tuition, low-interest housing loans, signing bonuses, and tuition for advanced degrees and certification.

She also suggested teachers be given the tools to succeed with a diverse group of students who have a variety of learning styles.

“Teacher education must focus on strengthening content knowledge and teaching methods, so that teachers learn not just one method, but multiple methods for working with children,” she said.

Several summit participants said the nation’s teacher quality crisis is especially acute among the poorest schools, which have the highest teacher turnover, the greatest numbers of teachers leaving the profession and the highest daily rate of teacher absences.

Compounding the crisis are several unintended consequences of the Brown v. Board of Education ruling, including the loss of thousands of African-American educators.

Mildred Hudson, CEO of Recruiting New Teachers Inc., a nonprofit organization based in Belmont, Mass., said recruiting more teachers of color could be instrumental in shrinking the achievement gap because data show they are less likely to place minority students in lower academic tracks, generally have higher expectations for minority students and can serve as role models of academic success.

“After Brown, the number of black teachers fell dramatically, and we saw in subsequent years an increase in tracking and ability grouping, which has resulted in the resegregation of our classrooms,” she said. Nearly half of the black teachers in the South and border states lost their jobs.

Currently, only 14 percent of the 3 million public school teachers in the United States are people of color, while 35 percent of all students are minorities. Hudson said financial aid policies such as targeting money to community colleges, part-time students and adult learners could help attract new teachers and diversify the teaching profession.

NEA president Reg Weaver told the summit that the achievement gap can be closed, but “one-size-fits-all” legislation like the revised Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the so-called No Child Left Behind law, won’t do it. The law stresses paperwork, bureaucracy and testing, “but we know from experience these things don’t enhance student learning.”

AFT executive vice president Nat LaCour added that the law presents a host of problems, not the least of which is its inadequate funding. Educating children should be a higher priority than “tax cut measures that leave no millionaire behind,” he said. “Not providing a quality education to all of America’s students is a weapon of mass destruction, for ignorance and poverty can cripple a person as well as a nation.”

Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) told the conference that the federal government needs to provide the resources so school districts can reduce class size and improve professional development for teachers.

A report on the summit’s recommendations will be released in May in Topeka, Kan., during a ceremony marking the 50th anniversary of Brown v. Board. It will provide a comprehensive plan that legislators, lobbyists and community-based organizations can use to improve teacher quality.

Banding together
San Antonio educators' unions gain strength by merging

In Texas, thousands of educators belong to associations that charge low dues, offer little support for members, and strongly oppose collective bargaining. In some districts, the AFT and NEA locals have merged to provide a single, strong alternative.

One of those is the San Antonio Alliance of Teachers and Support Personnel, which made its merged debut last fall. The new local already boasts an impressive membership base comprising nearly 60 percent of the district's teachers. Membership among support staff is lower, and raising those numbers is one of the union's immediate goals.

Although there was some animosity when the two sides first sat down to discuss a merger, "we came to realize we both have the same goals in mind," says Carmen Garzes, a middle school teacher who served on the negotiating team and is now an alliance vice president. "Now we can focus on issues and not on fighting the other organization and competing for members." For Garzes and other educators, that means overcoming all the challenges involved in helping students in an urban district reach high standards.

For now, the alliance has three co-presidents: one each from the former AFT and NEA teacher groups and one for the support professionals. "It really was a natural fit to put the organizations together," says J.B. Richeson, one of the co-presidents.

After a two-year transition period, alliance members will elect one president and two vice presidents. "Our goal is to be at a point where you look at people in the room, and you won't know which union they came from," says co-president Shelley Potter.

Ultimately, of course, the main reason to merge is "to make sure all employees in the district have as strong a voice as possible" when it comes to improving wages, working conditions and benefits, Potter says. But a strong union can also be a more potent political force, she adds, working to elect friendly school board members, for example.

Rachel Martinez, the former AFT classified leader in San Antonio, is the third co-president.

Among the four other merged local unions in Texas, Education Austin is by far the largest, with around 4,000 members. The union merged in 1999 and last fall faced an election challenge from two small independent associations. Austin school employees gave Education Austin an overwhelming 80 percent of their votes to remain their exclusive representative.

"The election enabled us to demonstrate to the school board and to the administration and to the public that the employees in this district clearly support Education Austin," says president Louis Malfaro.

Ohio teachers now have a stronger say on professionalism in their ranks thanks to the new Educator Standards Board (ESB), which was created largely through the legislative teamwork of the Ohio Federation of Teachers (OFT), the Ohio Education Association (OEA) and other pro-education groups.

Under a new state law, practicing preK-12 classroom teachers will make up the majority of the board, which will develop recommendations for statewide standards for educators. These benchmarks will be submitted to the state board of education, which is required by law to consider the ESB recommendations.

The ESB was signed into law this March after a long legislative struggle and a coordinated lobbying effort by the OFT and OEA to protect the heart of the proposal: a statewide body of frontline educators with the legal standing needed to influence state standards set for new and veteran teachers alike.

“This is a major breakthrough in terms of getting real teacher professionalism here in Ohio,” says OFT president Tom Mooney, who is also an AFT vice president. “A number of AFT and NEA locals in Ohio—Toledo, Cincinnati and Columbus—have established career ladders and peer review programs, but this is the first statewide program that recognizes the importance of teacher professionalism.”

“Teachers have long deserved the right to be involved in the decision-making that governs the standards of the profession. This is an expectation of all professions and long overdue in Ohio.

“We expect this to strengthen and enhance the teaching profession, the quality of teaching and the learning of students,” says OEA president Gary Allen.

The law directs the ESB to develop Ohio’s “master teacher” standards—additional avenues for teachers to assume leadership positions in schools—and to carry out other functions recommended by the Governor’s Commission on Teaching Success, which was established to consider ways to attract, prepare, support and retain excellent teachers.