Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Will Local Teachers' Unions Sign off on RTTT plans?

A good question here.

The federal government is weighing whether local unions sign off on district approval of Race to the Top plans: more union president signatures count in the state's favor. Some states have explicit language in their MOUs regarding teacher evaluation by student test scores.
While Massachusetts does not have that in their MOU (it's more vague on that point), it does have, in those four ways of dealing with underperforming schools, some models that won't rest well with the rank and file (I'd think; I should note here that I know nothing of what unions are thinking on this; this is me riffing as a former teacher). As those will only impact districts with schools deemed underperforming (mostly urban), there may be a split along those lines.

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