By CHASTITY PRATT DAWSEY
FREE PRESS EDUCATION WRITER
Thousands of Detroit Feder ation of Teachers members railed Sunday against a tenta tive contract with the district that calls for radical changes, in cluding deferring $10,000 from each of their pay over the next two years.
The 3-year tentative agree ment, outlined during a heated 2-hour union meeting at Cobo Hall, would save the deficit-rid den district $62.8 million, Rob ert Bobb, emergency financial manager for Detroit Public Schools, said after the meeting. It also would eliminate the need for DPS to file bankruptcy, he said.
Members will vote over the next two weeks.
Bobb said the deferred pay — the issue that raised the most hostility Sunday — is not a wage cut but will reduce DPS cash-flow problems while placing those wages in protected accounts. Money will be returned upon the employee’s departure. DFT President Keith Johnson urged teachers to consider that rejecting the contract could lead to bankruptcy, in which job protection could be disregarded.
“I suggest you go back to the negotiation table,” Kimberly Porter, a teacher at Cass Tech High, said amid cheers.
Union, DPS hear anger, ask teachers to rethink
Warnings of possible bankruptcy are met with some mistrust
By CHASTITY PRATT DAWSEY
FREE PRESS EDUCATION WRITER
Union and school officials are hoping that in the coming days before the contract vote, teachers will calm down and consider a 3-year tentative agreement with the Detroit Public Schools that, among other changes, would require them each to defer $10,000 in pay over the next 2 years to help offset the district’s finan cial troubles.
Under the deal, the Detroit Federation of Teachers would not get a pay cut, but $250 pre tax from most paychecks — or about $150 after taxes — would go into a Termination Incen tive Plan (TIP) account. The pretax $10,000 withdrawal would look like a $6,000 take home reduction. The full $10,000 would be returned when the employee leaves.
The proposed 3-year con tract would save the district $62.8 million and there would be no need to declare bank ruptcy, according to DPS. The district had a $219-million def icit as of June 30.
In a heated union meeting at Cobo Hall on Sunday, many teachers vowed to vote against the agreement. No one spoke in support of a strike — such as the one that lasted 16 days in 2006 after teachers verbally rejected a contract propos al — but there was clear op position to the notion of loan ing the district money in the short term from paychecks.
“I would make less than when I was a part-time em ployee,” said Russell Chessin, a teacher at Breithaupt Career and Technical Center who be came a full-time teacher two years ago.
But not everyone at Cobo opposed the deal.
“We didn’t get a pay cut. Yes, it does hurt, it’s going to hurt a lot of people, but your pension is intact,” said Valen cia Grier, a 25-year veteran and fourth-grade teacher at Webster Elementary. “We can’t do anything about the economy. If people with 30 years would retire, they’d make it easier for the younger people,” she added.
The average DPS teacher salary is about $65,000.
The tentative contract also calls for wide-ranging school reforms, including:
| A switch to a peer review pro cess to evaluate teachers’ work.
| Higher health care premium and prescription payments.
| A 1% raise in the 2011-12 school year.
However, it was the wage deferment that caused the backlash Sunday.
Some said that they did not trust the district, fearing DPS still would claim bankruptcy or fail to reimburse them.
“How do I know my money is going to be there when they’re not paying vendors now?” said Kimberley Murray, a teacher at Howe Elementary. Robert Bobb, emergency financial manager for the dis trict, said the wages that go in to the TIP accounts would be protected and would reduce DPS cash-flow costs.
Despite cries for an on-the spot vote on the contract at Co bo, DFT President Keith John son would not allow the union to conduct a voice vote — a past union tradition. Members will vote by secret ballot in schools this month.
DFT Executive Vice Presi dent Mark O’ Keefe said the true deficit in DPS is more than twice the $219 million that an outside auditor calculated at the end of June. Bobb said Sunday his team is calculating the up-to-date deficit, but he anticipates more job cuts this school year because of state funding cuts — whether the contract passes or not.
Johnson warned the union that rejecting the agreement could lead DPS into bankrupt cy, which would put the union in danger of losing 1,500 jobs, seniority, longevity pay, yearly increases and other benefits.
Cassandra Davis, a speech therapist, called his state ments scare tactics.
“It’s intimidation,” she said. “To get us to accept what they’re trying to ram down our throats.”
DFT represents about 7,000 members, including sup port personnel such as social workers, truancy officers, sub stitute teachers, and about 5,000 teachers. About 1,000 union members with the low est wages would be exempt from the wage deferment.
Patrick Faculson, the DFT official who counsels members on retirement, said 400 to 800 teachers need to consider re tirement.
If they submit retire ment paperwork by February, they could get up to $8,000 in benefits that will not be avail able after this year in the pro posed contract, he said.
Luciana Simpkins, a special education teacher at Howe El ementary, said DPS needs to expand class offerings to bring in more students and thereby more state funding.
“They can find the money,” she said. “Maybe Robert Bobb is not the one who can figure it out.”
Johnson said teachers de serve better, but DPS is broke. “I understand nobody ever likes to have to give up some thing, but, ladies and gentle men, here is the reality of ourexistence,” he said.
Be a good teacher — or get out of the way
The most important thing about the tentative con tract agreement reached between the Detroit Public Schools and its teachers union is not that it would save the district $30 million in expenses.
It is not that it would save the district $28 million — and cost teachers more — in health care costs.
No, the most important thing is that it would require real teacher evaluations for the first time in decades.
For those of us with reg ular jobs and regular evalua tions, that might seem strange. But at DPS, many teachers have not been evalu ated for more than 10 years.
“We have some teachers who haven’t been evaluated since Moby Dick was a gup py,” Detroit Federation of Teachers President Keith Johnson said in an interview Friday.
Moreover, Johnson said, DPS has many substitute teachers who are not certified to teach at all and have not met the conditions they should have to keep their jobs. The condition of their employ ment was that, within 6 months of being hired, each had to enroll in a certification program and complete six credits to keep the job.
“We had some people who were (substitutes) for 18 years and are no closer to certifica tion in their 18th year than they were in their first year,” Johnson said. “And that is deplorable and unacceptable.”
Professional pride needed
DPS is roiling with efforts to balance its budget, shrink its overhead and fight low academic achievement and high dropout rates. At a meet ing at Cobo Hall on Sunday afternoon, many teachers booed details of the new con tract that would force teach ers to: lend the district $10,000 each over two years, not get a raise until the third year of the contract and pay more for insurance costs.
Johnson told teachers, according to news reports, that the alternative to the contract would be for the district to declare bankrupt cy.
While the union grapples with many aspects of the agreement, one thing is clear: The district and union leader ship finally appear to be on the same page concerning a system of peer evaluations that might finally weed out bad teachers and salute good ones, taking the best teachers’ best strategies and emulating them district-wide.
“I’m very proud of my profession and want to re main proud of my profession and of my union,” Johnson said. “I go out to schools whenever I’m not at the bar gaining table. And I’m so proud of what I see in most instances. But I also have to acknowledge that I can go into some classrooms and know if this was my child in this classroom, I’d have a hissy fit.”
Johnson said that as a classroom teacher, he had been evaluated only once in 17 years.
Step it up or quit
Johnson said the peer eval uations will lead to improved instruction. Previously, he said, many tenured teachers were evaluated by principals who would drop by classrooms and use a checklist to mark 1) whether the teacher had a lesson plan, 2) whether students were seated and 3) whether students appeared to be engaged.
Johnson is pushing for peer evaluations that do more than identify what’s wrong.
The union wants to “identify what’s right and emulate it,” he said.
This will be a tough week for teachers with needs facing off against a district that can not afford to meet those needs. But one thing that shouldn’t be lost is the chance to rid the system of people who don’t want to be there, don’t care about kids or are just marking time.
Teachers who aren’t doing the job “will have a profes sional and lifelong decision to make,” Johnson said. “Either you are going to step up your game and deliver the level of instruction this community has the right to demand or you’re going to be out of a job. As a profession and a school district, we cannot have, nor do we need teachers who are not properly prepared, not properly engaged and not properly supported. We don’t need them teaching the chil dren of Detroit.”
Amen.
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