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The Boston Herald
April 22, 2005,
Friday, Editorial, p.24
Editorial
BTU’s ‘Discovery’:
Schools for spin
You
gotta give this to the Boston Teachers Union, boy can they get the spin
right.
For more than a month,
contract negotiations between the BTU and school department officials
have been at a standstill over the future of the city's innovative pilot
schools. Pilot schools - unlike charter schools - do come under the auspices
of the School Committee, but they are free from many union rules and regulations.
Ah, and BTU President
Robert Stutman can't have that, now can he?
The pilot school
concept was negotiated a decade ago and today 17 pilot schools are up
and operating. But when teachers at Brighton's Gardner Elementary School
wanted to turn that school into a pilot school - and these actions are
invariably generated by faculty who long to be free to be the kind of
teachers they have dreamt of being - Stutman dug in his heels.
Now, after walking
out on negotiations last week, union officials are spinning their way
around town promoting their idea of ``Discovery Schools.'' A more accurate
description might be ``pilot schools-lite.'' While the schools would reportedly
have some freedom from curriculum and budget requirements, make no mistake
about it, they would be wholly-owned subsidiaries of the BTU, subject,
of course, to union work rules. That would mean more money for teachers
working an extended day - and that, of course, has been the union's chief
objection to the increasingly popular pilot schools. (It is always about
the money.)
Also, the ``Discovery
Schools'' would need to be approved by a committee whose members were
evenly divided between appointees of the BTU president (oh, no power grab
there) and the superintendent.
This is a shameless
attempt to end a contract impasse with a phony scheme that would shortchange
not just the system's students, but Boston teachers who really care about
innovation.
Copyright 2005 Boston
Herald Inc.
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