reprinted from The Chief, 9/9/03

Chancellor: Not Communicating
Unions Call Klein an Autocrat

By DEIDRE McFADYEN

Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein's relations with education union leaders, which radiated warmth when he took the job a year ago, have frosted over as the most extensive overhaul of city schools in a quarter-century takes effect this week.

In a school system like New York City's where the Chancellor cannot change assignment rules or offer monetary incentives without union approval, that deterioration has put a brake on key elements of the "Children First" agenda, from having accomplished Principals mentor their counterparts in troubled schools to using pay differentials as a lure to recruit Teachers in shortage areas such as science, math and bilingual education.

May Hinder Success

Union hostility may do harm in other less-easily calculable ways as well. Labor officials say that waning enthusiasm among the front-line educators who must implement the changes augurs poorly for the reform effort's ultimate success.

"The teaching staff is key to any reform," said United Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten, who has gone from being one of Mr. Klein's strongest supporters to one of his sharpest critics. "If you don't have their hearts and souls, it's much harder to do any reform."

"If he's in it for the long term, the impediments will come out," said Council of School Supervisors and Administrators President Jill Levy. "You need a stable and happy work force. Five years from now, how many Principals and Teachers are going to get up and leave?"

Asked about his falling-out with the unions, Mr. Klein argued that the city's fiscal straits made the job losses and reassignments associated with the reorganization much harder to stomach. "I think unfortunately for us, we were charged with doing this transformation during a year in which there were significant city and state cutbacks," he said in a round-table discussion with reporters in August. "That is probably the most critical factor."

She Doesn't Buy It

Ms. Weingarten scoffed at that reasoning. "If you look back in history, there has been many a budget cut where the school system and the union have been one in fighting it," she said.

In June, Mr. Klein laid off 864 Paraprofessionals represented by the UFT after the unions and Mayor Bloomberg failed to agree on $600 million in labor concessions. Mr. Klein rejected Ms. Weingarten's offer to freeze Teacher sabbaticals for one year and use the savings to avert layoffs.

"The Chancellor is using the $600 million as a wedge issue," said Ms. Weingarten. "Once we made the offer of trying to mitigate the layoffs, I think he should have become the advocate for that offer."

Early last October, during the infant stages of the planning process, Mr. Klein vowed that unions would be "critical participants" in designing the blueprint. "We will work with them," he said with Ms. Weingarten and Ms. Levy looking on. "We are looking to start a movement for change, and we need the support of our Teachers and the support of our Principals."

Little Love for Unions

Union leaders say that never came to pass. Mr. Klein, an accomplished Federal prosecutor and businessman with no formal training in education, built a management team with a corporate tilt. Not surprisingly, team members shared the narrow view of labor unions that prevails in the private sector. That attitude was particularly jarring for the UFT, which worked closely with previous Schools Chancellors in crafting new initiatives.

"They look at the UFT as a collective-bargaining agent that only bargains over salary and benefits for its members," Ms. Weingarten said of Mr. Klein's team. "In schooling, that is not what the UFT's reputation is. You had a lot of people who did not understand how pivotal the UFT has been in achieving the positive reforms that have happened."

Ms. Levy charged that Mr. Klein's modus operandi was to bypass her 5,500-member union and communicate directly with her members. "Obviously Joel Klein believes he doesn't need to negotiate and that he has the imprimatur of the Mayor to do whatever he wants whenever he wants," she said.

`Why Waste My Breath?'

Revealing the depth of her disenchantment, Ms. Levy said, "I don't have a need to talk to him. Obviously whatever I say is meaningless to him, so why waste my time?"

The corporate mentality also defines a Department of Education decision-making process that has been criticized as unduly secretive and exclusive.

"They have this top-down management structure," said Ms. Weingarten. "Unions are antithetical to them. Employees having a voice in their work is antithetical to them."

Ms. Levy said she was labeled not a team player after she disagreed early on with certain policy proposals. "This was an organization that was not open," she said. "Everyone was in lockstep. Either you are on-board 100 percent or you are not a part of this organization."

Failure to Communicate

When asked about the unions' complaints about the lack of consultation, Mr. Klein recast the issue as a "communication" problem and acknowledged room for improvement. "One of the problems with change is not that I think that change isn't powerful, necessary, comprehensive and effective, but communicating it makes a greater challenge," he said. "And in that respect, I think that we probably can -- and I've focused on how we can -- do that better."

Ms. Weingarten responded that it wasn't only a matter of the message not getting delivered, but the absence of meaningful dialogue with the unions in the creation of policy. "Communication cannot be a one-way street," she said. "You must listen to what your front line is saying to you. That means engaging in give and take."

Riding high from a recent contract that gave Teachers unusually large raises, Ms. Weingarten embraced Mayor Bloomberg's sweeping reform plan as "music to Teachers' ears" when he unveiled its core elements in a Jan. 15 speech in Harlem. Four months later, the reservoir of good will had been sucked dry, as Ms. Weingarten's growing frustration at being left out of the loop on decisions peaked when Mr. Klein targeted Paraprofessionals for layoff.

Race Suit Backfired

In a slap against Mr. Klein that was intended to sting, the UFT filed a lawsuit on May 5 charging him with racial discrimination for axing minority school aides while hiring hundreds of mostly white administrators. The suit, whose legal merits were dubious, appeared aimed at drumming up such bad publicity that Mr. Klein would retreat. The tactic failed.

It came as no surprise when Ms. Weingarten officially withdrew her support for the "Children First" initiative five days later at the union's spring conference. "This school system is not an experiment," she said in a fiery speech. "I don't want to see it implode in September." The May 21 issue of the New York Teacher, the union's newsletter, bore the headline: "They Just Don't Get It!"

In late May, Ms. Weingarten characterized the record high number of Teacher retirements as an exodus before the storm. "What we're seeing is that senior Teachers don't have any confidence in what the school system will look like next year," she testified at a City Council hearing.

Feud Intensified

In the ensuing weeks, each new step that Mr. Klein made was met with a prickly response from the UFT. The union loudly objected to the Chancellor's decision in June to set aside for professional development half of the extra 100 work minutes added in the last contract in the coming school year, even though Ms. Weingarten had repeatedly complained that Teachers felt unprepared to teach the new common reading and math curriculum. The New York Teacher headline read, "Klein Flip-Flops."

Ratcheting up the level of rancor towards him, Mr. Klein announced on the final day of school that he was denying the vast majority of applications by Teachers for year-long sabbaticals.

Despite her bulging list of grievances, Ms. Weingarten said her members would do their best to implement the reforms for the sake of the children this September. "We are taking the high road," she said. "Regardless of how management treats its teaching staff, we are going to roll up our sleeves and try to make this work."

A Curious Discord

The bitterness between Mr. Klein and the Principals' union seems curious on first impression. After all, Mr. Klein has championed two goals long sought by the union: giving Principals real clout in their schools and providing them with regular training.

The delay in reaching a new contract with the CSA put the relationship on unsteady footing early in the school year. Mr. Klein unveiled his multi-pronged plan to reinvigorate the city's corps of 1,200 Principals on Dec. 11, two days after the union declared an impasse in contract talks. Ms. Levy declared that she would not cooperate with Mr. Klein on those aspects that required negotiation until the union got a new contract.

Mr. Klein's decision to keep the unions on the periphery did not help matters. Ms. Levy complained that Mr. Klein shut the CSA out during the development of his plan for Principals, only inviting her the night before to attend the press conference at Tweed Courthouse. "I'm not going to be trotted out when he wants to make an announcement," she said that day. "This is not a partnership anymore."

Stepped on Own Message

Compounding the insult, Mr. Klein announced the same day that he planned to fire the system's 50 worst Principals at the end of the school year -- a vow that made headlines and distracted attention from the more substantive parts of his plan for Principals.

The contract that was eventually reached on April 1 was a bare-bones deal that provided Principals with the same basic raise as other city workers while changing none of the work rules that had impeded Mr. Klein's initiatives. Underscoring the lingering acrimony, the CSA eschewed the customary joint announcement and held its own early-morning press briefing on the new contract.

The restructuring of middle management exacted a much heavier price from the CSA than the UFT. Mr. Klein laid off 856 educational supervisors assigned to district offices and asked them to reapply for jobs in the new learning support centers that the union claimed were in many cases strikingly similar to their old ones.

Say Authority Cut

Ms. Levy claimed that Mr. Klein's mantra about Principal empowerment was more rhetoric than reality. Under the new setup, she said, Principals have to deal with two new layers of instructional supervisors telling them what to do as well as reading and math coaches selected by and reporting to outside administrators.

"The Principals have all this responsibility, but they have no more authority than they had before," Ms. Levy said. "They probably have less."

Perceived personal slights have also rankled. Ms. Levy complained that Mr. Klein asked her to travel to Albany in the spring to lobby state legislators to restore school aid, but then did not say a word to her the entire day. Nor, she noted, was she invited to a barbeque for Principals at Gracie Mansion hosted by Mayor Bloomberg and Chancellor Klein in mid-August. "The invitation was obviously lost in the mail," she said sarcastically.


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