Unfair advantage

Is the Boston Teachers Union afraid of competition?

As the Phoenix went to press, it looked as if the Boston Teachers Union and the city's school administration were nearing a settlement on a protracted contract dispute. Let's hope City Hall hasn't caved on the question of eliminating teacher seniority in the new contract.

The BTU should give up this issue and join the rest of us who work in the 21st century. That is to say, the teachers' union should embrace meritocracy and abandon seniority-based patronage. Empowering school principals to fill open teaching slots with the best-qualified candidates -- as opposed to candidates who have worked for the system the longest -- is the only way to achieve real reform in Boston's public schools. We need to fill every open position in our classrooms with enthusiastic, highly qualified teachers.

The BTU charges that teacher seniority must be protected as a hiring factor because principals, if left to their own devices, would fill jobs based on internal politics, favoritism, and personality. If that's true, well, let's just say that the problems in our schools are much bigger than any of us imagined. After all, half of the principals and headmasters leading Boston's public schools have been appointed within the past five years under Boston Schools Superintendent Thomas Payzant's plan for reform. If school administrators give in on the seniority issue, it's an implicit acknowledgment that Payzant's plan isn't working.

There was a time when the BTU's argument made sense. Years ago, it wasn't uncommon to move classroom incompetents into administrative posts where, it was believed, they could do less damage. But that hasn't been true for years. In most schools, you can't get hired as a principal unless you have a doctorate in education. While that alone doesn't guarantee competence, it does indicate intellectual ability and ambition. Perhaps more important, even as the caliber of principals working in Boston's public schools has increased over the years, Payzant has taken unprecedented steps to ensure administrative quality. Last year, he sent three investigative teams made up of teachers and administrators to high schools in Boston neighborhoods including Dorchester and South Boston. When the teams found that expectations for achievement among students were uneven, he took the unusual step of reorganizing the leadership structure at each school. All middle managers were asked to reapply for their jobs, and one of the principals was replaced.

Given this, the BTU's insistence on continuing to use teacher seniority as the primary hiring criterion looks like nothing more than protection for teachers who are, at worst, incompetent and, at best, not as sharp as outside candidates. Under the current system, veteran teachers can wait until the summer -- just a few months before the start of the school year -- to decide whether they want to apply for a different job within the system. Because jobs are filled based on teacher seniority, the school system must wait until all applications by veteran teachers are processed before opening up the hiring process to outsiders.

Last spring, for example, about four percent of Boston's 4600 teachers applied for the approximately 300 jobs that were open. Think the majority of these positions were filled by new teachers? Do the math. That said, the school system was then saddled with job openings due to teacher transfers. Given that most schools do their hiring in the spring and early summer, the talent pool available to fill these jobs was depleted. And that puts Boston's public schools at a disadvantage.

In guarding teacher-seniority provisions, it's not as if the BTU were protecting a hiring practice unique to Boston. Most public-school systems across the country have teacher-seniority provisions written into their contracts. But the way the hiring process is currently organized makes it almost impossible to hold anyone accountable for poor performance. After all, if principals cannot hire the teachers they want to run their classrooms, then how can you hold them responsible if students at their schools get failing scores on the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System? Principals and headmasters are the educational leaders in our elementary, middle, and high schools. They must be given the autonomy to do their jobs. The city was to right to demand a change.

The BTU's insistence on maintaining teacher-seniority provisions makes no sense -- especially when you keep in mind that abolishing teacher seniority doesn't mean veteran teachers will be fired. Nor will they lose benefits or receive cuts in pay. It simply means that unless veteran teachers can impress hiring principals -- who are simultaneously considering applications from new graduates and experienced teachers from other systems -- they'll have to stay in their old jobs. Given that, you have to ask: what is the teachers' union so afraid of?

What do you think? Send an e-mail to letters[a]phx.com.