7/30/2011 2:00:00 PMTrust, collaboration key to improving schools: Guest Column

July 30, 2011, 2:05 PM 
   
By The Plain Dealer columnist

The attacks on Cleveland teachers could easily lead one to question the motives of the district, the mayor, business leaders and legislative leaders. Whether it's vouchers or mayoral control, our district is too often the unwilling recipient of someone else's grand reform plan.

It would be easy for us to walk away from the bargaining table, pull out of the state's Race to the Top grant, or otherwise engage in the divisive, adversarial tactics Clevelanders have grown accustomed to seeing. We in the Cleveland Teachers Union are convinced that would be the wrong approach -- wrong for us, wrong for our city and wrong for the children whom we teach.

If education reform were quick or easy, it would have been done 20 years ago. Education reform is work -- hard work. There is no overnight fix or magic formula.

Now, more than ever, we need to forge a new path in Cleveland: a labor-management partnership centered on improving our schools and boosting student achievement. But such a path can only be forged in a climate of trust and collaboration.

Here's the good news: Trust and collaboration work, and they don't cost a dime. In school districts across the United States and around the globe, unions and administrators are doing right by kids by doing things with teachers instead of against teachers. And here's another piece of good news: Cleveland already has a strong foundation for such a partnership.

This summer, I attended the American Federation of Teachers' TEACH conference in Washington, D.C, a three-day event that focused on professional issues. I spoke with presidents of AFT affiliates from across the nation and found that they are facing the same challenges we face. All are trying to move meaningful education reform agendas during tough economic times and unprecedented attacks on teachers and their unions.

One example that stood out to me was Pittsburgh, where Pittsburgh Federation of Teachers President John Tarka and former Superintendent Mark Roosevelt transformed an adversarial labor-management relationship into one of trust and cooperation. The fruit of their effort was a groundbreaking contract that improved schools for children; transformed the way teachers are recruited, trained, supported and paid; and attracted millions of dollars in foundation funding.

We have the foundation to build that type of partnership in Cleveland. At the TEACH conference I attended, the Cleveland Teachers Union was involved in five separate presentations on successful school-reform initiatives that are happening in our district.

Eric Gordon, Cleveland's new schools CEO, and Mark Baumgartner, our union's director of professional issues, led a session on the collaboration we in the district are doing around the Common Core standards. This session was a highlight of the conference and was streamed live on the Internet.

Not only do we have the foundation to build upon, but Cleveland is seeing the results of the hard work teachers and educators do on a daily basis. On this year's state report card, the district reached "continuous improvement" status. We were "above expected" on the state's value-added and performance indexes, both signs that our students are learning at an accelerated pace.

Reading and math scores in key grades have been steadily increasing, and seven of the 10 schools we targeted for turnaround have shown significant improvement.

It all adds up to further proof that Cleveland teachers, paraprofessionals and school-related personnel are a part of the solution to our challenges, not part of the problem. No matter what district, state, country you look to, successful reform is done with educators, not to educators.

In June, after a lengthy nationwide CEO search, the mayor and the Cleveland Board of Education realized that the individual best suited to lead our school district was currently leading our academic office; they selected Eric Gordon to lead Cleveland's schools. Eric and I share the common goal of wanting to give Cleveland's children the great education they deserve.

It is now time for everyone -- the mayor, the board, business leaders and politicians -- to get out of the way and let our new CEO do his job. We who work the closest to our city's children in the schools each and every day stand ready and able to continue to move this district forward.

David J. Quolke is president of the Cleveland Teachers Union.