An unexpected perspective

Ms Frizzle is a well-know blog by a science teacher in NYC. Her blog offers many insights into a teacher's life, as well as her views on current issues like school reform, NCLB, etc. But I had never heard her speak about unions before this post which airs some complaints about the NYC union, the UFT, and their ongoing contract negations: Pay attention, UFT

I don't like this oppositional system we have for making important decisions. I don't think there should be so many sides, all doubting each other's motives, playing politics with our paychecks, pitting us against one another. I resent the energy dissipated that could go into productive conversations that would benefit the children. I particularly resent the energy on top of energy dissipated in arguing within the union.

Read the whole post. She is not stating a knee-jerk anti-union position at all. She feels the union should have put its foot down long ago. She just feels the negotiations should never have been allowed to reach their current dysfunctional state.

All of which resonates with me as I try and understand the situation here is SF. The current impasse between teachers and management reeks of an overly oppositional, fractious system that is playing politics with the teachers' paycheck while failing to protect the students' interests. I don't know of anyone who is happy with the way this story is unfolding. I just wonder who will step forward and provide the leadership needed to complete the UESF contract.

Does Superintendent Chan have a strong enough hand to break the impasse? Today's news tells me no. From my outsider's perspective, it's impossible to know who is representing the district and who is delegating what authority to them. Is is Ackerman, Chan, or the BOE? Is any accountable party in charge on the management side?

Is the union bargaining team acting in good faith, being realistic about compromise where compromises are needed while consulting with members and union leaders to ensure that members' priority needs are represented? I should hope that teachers have more than the occasional email updates keeping them in the negotiating loop. Yet the last union meeting I am aware of was months ago during the SEIU brinkmanship, and it gave the impression that behind the impressively united union front there is a need for better internal communication.

Will the BOE act responsibly and step in to fill the void left by the departing Ackerman administration? Will they take an active role in the negotiations sooner than it did in the SEIU fiasco? Again, today's news indicates a divided board is fixated on scapegoating and finger pointing over Ackerman's departure instead of leading.

The BOE should be focusing on the most important district business, completing the contract, instead of grabbing headlines and planning their upcoming election campaigns. But that may be expecting too much from this dysfunctional group. They did beat expectations and come together under difficult circumstances during the final school closure meetings. They showed that they are capable of collegial, respectful, civil deliberations. They need to muster the same professionalism and reinvigorate the contract negotiations. If they dither and allow the impasse to deepen, if they fall back to the pettiness, acrimony, and political grandstanding that marked the end of the SEIU negotiations, if they fail to protect the district finances, then voters will have to make sure they pay for their ineptitude next November.