SCOT LEHIGH

A clear road for pilot schools

By Scot Lehigh, Globe Columnist | February 21, 2006

THE MESSAGE on my voice mail was from Boston Mayor Thomas Menino -- and hizzoner was sounding more than a little pleased with himself.

''This is Mayor Thomas Menino from the City of Bawston," spake he. ''I represent you at City Hall. I want to tell you that we have an agreement with the teachers union."

Recounting the details of the new pilot school pact, the mayor concluded: ''So I think we have made some progress. Tom Menino, signing off."

That's your on-demand mayor for your on-demand world.

Live on the line later, Menino hailed the pilot school deal as real progress for Boston.

''It is good for education, it is good for parents, it is good for teachers," he said.

Certainly the agreement removes a boulder that has sat in the path to progress since June 2004, when Boston Teachers Union President Richard Stutman blocked the pilot conversion plans of the Thomas Gardner Elementary School because some pilot school teachers weren't being paid for extra hours worked.

As president of the Boston Foundation, Paul Grogan pushed hard to keep the pilot concept alive.

So what does he think of this agreement? Overall, ''I am very happy with it," he says, adding that pilots are ''just too important an idea" to sink into oblivion.

The agreement calls for at least seven new pilot schools by September 2008, which would bring the city's total to 26; the Boston Foundation will once again offer planning grants to schools contemplating converting.

One concern has been whether it would change the very nature of pilot schools to require that teachers be paid for every extra hour they work, rather than letting the schools themselves make that decision.

There, the new agreement is a true compromise. The pact will, after three years, limit to 95 hours a year the amount of extra time pilot teachers will work unpaid. The School Department will pay for another 50 hours at the district's hourly rate of $36.08. For time beyond that, it's up to the individual pilot schools to pay.

Stutman says the free hours plus the district-paid extra time should be adequate at most pilots. Grogan basically concurs. Michael Contompasis, chief operating officer for the Boston Public Schools, sounds more hesitant. ''They still have a fair number of free hours, and they can choose to use them any way they want," he says. ''Time will tell."

It's important to keep in mind what the deal preserved for pilots, notes Contompasis. ''Basically all of their autonomies were protected," he said. ''They have far more flexibility than a regular public school, and we haven't touched that."

Indeed, it's that autonomy over curriculum, budget, staffing, schedule, and governance that makes pilots one of the most important public-school experiments in the country.

As someone who has been critical of Stutman for blocking the pilot conversion process, it seems only fair to give the union chief credit for being flexible enough to arrive at a reasonable agreement.

I've argued before that the BTU should be trumpeting the success of pilots rather than blocking them. This accord should put the union firmly behind what is a signal achievement for the Boston system. That's all the more true since, under the pact, the teachers union will actually run a pilot school, a noteworthy development in and of itself.

''I do think this will pave the way for more schools to become pilots because it gets rid of some of the problems we were facing," Stutman says.

A deal finally in hand, Menino is revoking his threat to call for lifting the cap on charter schools, the nonunion public schools that operate completely outside of traditional public school governance. ''I'm back to my pilot schools," he says.

That's where the mayor and I part company. Good as it is to see this roadblock removed, I think that charter public schools also provide important educational options, particularly for families of modest means. An educational philosophy that truly treated those families as customers would give them as many options as possible.

Still, ending the pilot impasse is a big accomplishment for all parties. Both sides have now declared that when it comes to offering appealing educational alternatives, the Boston public schools are ready, able, and willing to compete. And that's something for everyone to celebrate.

Scot Lehigh's e-mail address is lehigh@globe.com