All Aboard for Reform
By reaching out to parents and the community,
the Hartford federation has helped bring about
a shared vision of school improvement

No one in Hartford likes to talk about what the relationship between the city's educators and the community was like just a few years ago. When the subject does come up, words like frustration, bickering and scapegoating are used to describe the climate.

Instead, teachers, parents, union leaders and others in the Connecticut capital would much rather talk about--and celebrate--the impressive gains the city's public school students have made during the past two years. This past January, when the state announced the latest round of student test scores, the Hartford students meeting the state's goal in reading had increased by 11 percent in the fourth grade, 7 percent in sixth grade and 12 percent in eighth grade. In math, the gains were 13 percent, 21 percent and 11 percent, respectively. In fact, test scores improved more in 1999 than in the prior four years combined.

"There is a lot of excitement about the results," former Hartford federation president Cheryl Daniels said shortly after the scores were announced. The gains are a testament to the dedication of educators in the classroom, she added.

The improvements in student achievement are only part of the Hartford story, however. Almost as remarkable is the metamorphosis in the relationship between the union and its members and the Hartford community. This turnabout began when both sides came to recognize that they wanted the same thing: better schools for the city's students. "Teachers realized they needed the parents, and parents realized they needed the teachers," parent Shirley West says.

The Rev. James Bishop, pastor of New Welcome Baptist Church, says he "always believed that if anything good was going to happen it was because the community, the teachers and the school district were working together."

Finger pointing and frustration

Throughout the 1980s and well into the '90s, a lot was wrong with Hartford's schools--out-of-date textbooks, low test scores, little or no professional development for staff, and a contentious school board, says West, who for the last eight years has served as president of a Hartford parent advocacy group, called Together We Can. And "teachers were easy targets for parents who were getting more and more frustrated with the school system," says West. "We were fighting each other so much that we forgot what we really should be focusing on, which was reforming the schools and doing what was needed for our kids to succeed."

West says she would meet regularly with former HFT president Jeanne Spencer "to talk about what we could do to stop the animosity and feuding that was taking place between parents and teachers."

Nick Carbone, president of the Connecticut Institute of Municipal Studies, blames the school board for the "stormy relationship" between the union and the community. "The board was saying it was the union contract that was preventing them from reforming the schools, so parents were blaming the union and teachers for the poor performance of the schools."

To make matters worse, Carbone says, the board brought in a private firm, Education Alternatives Inc. (EAI), to run the schools, an experiment that lasted fewer than two years. "The community was told that EAI was going to be the magic bullet," Carbone says.

Because many of EAI's plans were punitive to teachers and paraprofessionals, the HFT had no choice but to oppose them, current HFT president Edwin Vargas recalls. This turned parents and community leaders against the union. "While many of the ideas being advanced by EAI were not sound education policy, people saw EAI as an alternative to a status quo that no one was happy with," Vargas adds.

Union puts focus on reform

The HFT began to restore its image with parents and the community when it came forth with several reform ideas of its own. "It was not enough for us to be against bad reform ideas, we had to show that we had alternatives that were good ideas," Vargas says. One of those good ideas was the union-negotiated Educational Reform Committee, which was made up of HFT representatives, administrators, classroom teachers, parents, elected officials, and community and business leaders that was charged with coming up with a strategic plan for reforming the city's schools.

"The committee brought everybody to the table and put us all on the same page" as far as working together to fix what was wrong with our schools, West says.

The Rev. Bishop was invited to serve on the reform committee. "Many of my parishioners either have children or grandchildren attending Hartford public schools so it was imperative that the church get involved," he points out.

Leaders of the Hartford federation also invited parents, community leaders and other stakeholders to join them at the AFT's biennial educational issues conference, QuEST. The group also visited successful public schools in other cities. Trips were taken to Boston, New York City and other Connecticut school districts. "We wanted parents and the community to see that public schools can work given the proper materials, professional development, high standards and other tools," Vargas notes.

Nick Carbone says these visits broke down the barriers and suspicions that had existed between the union and the community and restored the hope of parents and teachers who now shared a common vision of successful schools. "We saw schools that worked because parents and teachers were partners" in problem solving, he says. "It showed everyone that the union was out there looking for schools and programs that worked and that they thought enough of the community to involve it" and let citizens see firsthand what works.

Back home, the union pushed for adoption of the Success for All reading program--a program the union encouraged its members and the district to consider implementing. ŅI really take my hat off to the union and [former president] Cheryl Daniels for bringing in Success for All and convincing teachers that it was worth trying," West says. Success for All, which is seen as the cornerstone of the district's improvement strategy, has helped to bring about the significant improvements in the Hartford students' test scores.

Vargas and others from Hartford had participated in the AFT's Redesigning Low-Performing Schools institute, where they learned about several research-based programs that have proven successful in turning around low-performing schools.

Teachers saluted for their efforts

The emerging solidarity around school improvement has caught the attention of decision-makers in Hartford. And the HFT has rightfully been recognized as a catalyst for making improved achievement, discipline and student attendance focal points. "When parents went before the school board and other groups and credited the union with bringing reform to Hartford's schools, it changed our image and relationship with elected officials and the media," Vargas says.

The focus on improving student achievement was not new for HFT. It has a full-time educational issues coordinator, Kathie Stroh, to help keep these reforms on track. It also employs a parent coordinator, Marjorie Moon-Miller, who is charged with keeping parents and the community abreast of what the union is doing and why. HFT has a bus, the Education Express, which it uses to transport teachers, parents and students to meetings and other events, such as community day.

One of the biggest fans of the union and its members is new Hartford school superintendent Anthony Amato. The union's outreach to parents was a big reason for the record student attendance on the first day of school last year, he points out. The union asked every teacher to call every parent to "get them to send their kids to school," Amato says. Teachers had a "real conversation with parents," and parents responded, he notes. Attendance on the first day of the 1999-2000 school year was 84 percent--up 12 points from the previous year.

The Rev. Bishop, who says he often "speaks positively about the union from the pulpit," notes that Amato recently addressed members of his church and "spoke highly of the teachers and the union" as well. "Many members of my church are educators, and you can sense the pride they have knowing that their work is appreciated," Bishop reports.

Maybe the most visible show of appreciation for the union and teachers was a two-page ad run in the Hartford Courant on May 24. The newspaper, which had been very critical of the HFT and the city's schools, and parents' groups sponsored the spread to publicly thank the union and its members for their efforts on behalf of the schools and students.

American Federation of Teachers, AFL•CIO - 555 New Jersey Avenue, NW - Washington, DC 20001