Tag: Caroline Hoxby

A Closer Look at Collaborative Conferencing

by JC Bowman, posted in JC Bowman, Leadership, Professional Development, Professional Educators of Tennessee, Tennessee Education

Young man presenting his ideas to his business team

Collaborative Conferencing is the process by which local boards of education and their professional employees meet, either directly or through representatives designated by the respective parties, to confer, consult, and discuss matters relating to employment.  The process of collaborative conferencing includes the exchange of information, opinions, and proposals among the conferencing parties, as well as the use of the principles and techniques of interest-based collaborative problem-solving (IBCPS).

Our organization supports the right of employees to discuss their working conditions, and always have; however, a failed Industrial era model dubbed Collective Bargaining was previously utilized. Numerous researchers such as Michael Lovenheim, Alexander Willen, Andrew Coulson, Caroline Hoxby, Agustina Paglayan, and Terry Moe criticized this approach. The term “collective bargaining” was coined in 1891 by British socialist reformer Beatrice Webb.

Recognizing that this contentious 18th Century industrial model did not serve teachers and students in the 21st century, the Tennessee General Assembly made changes to the law in 2011. This more modern approach to addressing issues and removing barriers to cooperation, while including more voices on working conditions called Collaborative Conferencing.  It has also been somewhat problematic, even though the intent was positive.

We disagree with some of the items like differentiated pay plans and other incentive compensation programs, including stipends and associated benefits being excluded. The process has clearly established a timeline for how this process must be completed. Any time the specifics of a law that is included in the legislation are being ignored it creates a risk for the entire results to be invalidated outright. All parties involved should want to ensure that the process is followed lawfully so that a Collaborative Conferencing agreement is successful.

In particular, the timeline written into the collaborative conferencing law was established to interact with school district budgeting processes, which align with City and County government budget processes and the state budgeting processes. Items that require funding are not effective until the local funding body has approved such funding in the budget. If the amount of funds appropriated is less than the amount required, the parties may continue to confer to reach agreement within the number of funds appropriated. It is a cycle.

Deviation from that cycle in the bureaucratic processes make alignment with local, state, and federal budgets difficult. Whether or not we agree with the timeline established in the law is moot. It is the law. Perhaps it is time that we look at needed changes to the law.   However, until the law is changed, we have no other option but to follow the law.

The goal of collaborative conferencing has always been to include more, not less, teacher voices in the debate for teacher working conditions. It is a means to express an opinion and work toward solving disagreements on issues such as salaries or wages, grievance procedures, insurance, fringe benefits, working conditions, leave, and payroll deductions. Payroll deductions for political activities are expressively forbidden. It is also important to be reminded that state organizations do not initiate collaborative conferencing, rather it is done by local educators, who may be members of any organization.

Fortunately, collaborative conferencing is not the only manner to address critical employment issues. Working outside of the conferencing process with superintendents and other elected leaders may be much more beneficial, especially since the conferring process has not been enacted widely across the state. In addition, rather than an MOU (Memorandum of Understanding), many of these items should be placed within board policies to be more effective for educators, thus making it more difficult to take away from educators. Public education in Tennessee wins when we all work together through civil discourse to address our considerable issues.

**

JC Bowman is the Executive Director of Professional Educators of Tennessee, a non-partisan teacher association headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is hereby granted, provided that the author and the association are properly cited.

Losing Our Best & Brightest Students

by JC Bowman, posted in Advocacy, JC Bowman, Leadership, Tennessee Education

Nobody can dispute the fact we must increase the achievement levels of minority and low-income students.  However, if that is our focus, the question we now must consider is:  have we pushed some of our best and brightest students, including students of color, aside in the name of equity? What of our gifted low-income students?  It is a discussion worth having, if we believe the answer is “yes.” 

I go back to one of the first papers I ever wrote on this subject in college.  My premise was, while we could not guarantee all children begin and end their formal education at the same level, we could guarantee all children have the same access to opportunities.  Not all children have the luxury of having a nurturing home to grow up in, a proper diet, access to learning materials and a support network to help them.  Unfortunately, that is the world we live in, and if truth be told it has been this way for a while.  Intrinsically, motivation is a factor.  Why do some children, even in the same family, excel and others not succeed?  Do peer groups matter?  What of external environments?  Do the conditions of society impact our children?   I think those answers are fairly common sense.       

In a 2012 study, The Missing “One Offs”: The Hidden Supply of High Achieving, Low Income Students, economists Caroline Hoxby and Christopher Avery highlight the importance of the K-12 education years. It is critical that talented students from all backgrounds be identified and given support at this time in their K12 education.  For example, China and India produce eight times more engineering students each year than the United States.  Talented students cannot reach their full potential if we do not identify and develop them early.  That is one advantage some countries do educationally better than we do here in America.   On the other hand, most of these countries do accept or educate all of their children to levels that our students are afforded, due to limits they place on access to education.  The question, I have always asked:  why can we not do both?   Let’s educate ALL children to their highest potential. 

According to the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation research study Equal Talents, Unequal Opportunities: A Report Card on State Support for Academically Talented Low-Income Students: “ Year after year, in every state and community in our nation, students from low-income families are less likely than other students to reach advanced levels of academic performance, even when demonstrating the potential to do so.”  In this study, Tennessee received a D+ from the Foundation.  I am usually skeptical of groups and grades, and do not put much stock on groups offering external critiques of our education performance, but this study caught my attention, as it reinforced my belief, we are losing generations of children that fall through cracks in the system.  Tennessee would likely fare better in an updated study, but it highlights the point:  we must have the structure in place to identify and address talent development more effectively. 

Bureaucratic challenges often hinder our educators from getting our students what they need.  Some of the recommendations in the research included:  1) When releasing state data on student outcomes, ensure that the performance of high-achieving students is highlighted.  2) Remove barriers that prevent high-ability students from moving through coursework at a pace that matches their achievement level.  This includes a range of academic acceleration options, such as early entrance to kindergarten, acceleration between grades, dual enrollment in middle school and high school (with middle school students able to earn high school credit), and early graduation from high school.  3) Ensure that all high-ability students have access to advanced educational services, including increased opportunities for dual enrollment and AP courses.  We must track our best and brightest students better, and conduct professional development for educators in this area to help them identify and develop these students.  Teachers and principals must have the freedom and flexibility to act on their best instincts to help all students.   A new 2019 research brief from the Tennessee Education Research Alliance finds high-quality Tennessee principals less likely to serve poor and low-achieving students, which seems counter-intuitive to creating better schools. 

There is no opposition to closing the achievement gap of minority and low-income students.  We all understand that should and must occur.  Perhaps we need an equal push for equality of opportunity, where we put ALL our children first. The statistics are telling us we are losing some of our very best and brightest students.  Heidi Grant points out that “smart, talented people rarely realize that one of the toughest hurdles they’ll have to overcome lies within.”   I would add that we do not make it easy for high achievers in public education, and it is time we start looking at that issue very carefully as well. 

—–

JC Bowman is the Executive Director of Professional Educators of Tennessee, a non-partisan teacher association headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is hereby granted, provided that the author and the association are properly cited. For more information on this subject or any education issue please contact Professional Educators of Tennessee.