Back-to-school tour: A chance to listen and to learn

American Teacher, Oct/Nov 2009 by Weingarten, Randi

AS PRESIDENT OF THE AFT'S New York City affiliate, I visited schools and other worksites several times a week. I loved these visits. They were both grounding and learning experiences. Grounding, because they allowed me to listen and hear from the people who are most important - those in the trenches. And learning, because they gave me a chance in real time to see what teachers and students needed, and what was working in the schools - and what wasn't.

I recently completed a back-to-school tour to eight cities in eight states. In many ways, it was a coast-to-coast version of my previous school visits. What an honor it was to spend time with our members at the start of the school year, and to shine a light on some of the many good things going on in our public schools.

On each stop, I saw our members' hard work and dedication to their students, and the great practices and programs they are a part of. Given the space constraints of this column, I'll highlight two AFT affiliates that are doing great things despite ah-too-familiar challenges. One local is making strides in a once hostile labor- management climate. The other is skillfully navigating a grim economic situation and focusing on both in-school and outof school factors affecting education.

St. Louis was our first stop. For years, as AFT St Louis president Mary Armstrong told me, a series of superintendents uniformly rejected the union's proposals for innovative and substantive reforms. Instead of getting any traction for these promising approaches, school employees in St. Louis endured a series of grueling contract battles, school closings, serious underfunding and state takeover of the school district.

But Armstrong and her members never gave up. AFT St. Louis developed an educational plan that includes a zero-tolerance discipline policy, smaller class sizes, highquality professional development, community schools and full-access preschool.

Their efforts to enact the plan fell on deaf ears-until Kelvin Adams became superintendent. Adams reversed the course of his predecessors by viewing educators as professionals and the union as a partner.

AFT St. Louis and the district have enacted several elements of the union's plan. The new labor-management cooperation also resulted in securing retroactive pay and a pay increase for members.

Underlying the tour was the economic crisis gripping the nation. The economic stimulus package championed by President Obama and passed by Congress so far has spared public schools the worst potential effects of the downturn. Nevertheless, the financial meltdown has had an impact.

No state has felt that impact more acutely than California. Yet, as I learned during my visit there, San Francisco's public schools have avoided layoffs and major funding cuts. They provide lessons the rest of the country would do well to note.

Several years ago, United Educators of San Francisco (UESF) president Dennis Kelly and his politically active membership supported the establishment of the city's "rainy-day" fund, a set-aside during flush economic times to help provide funding for public education during inevitable economic downturns. The fund has enabled the city to maintain crucial revenues for public schools.

The union worked on other fronts, as well- securing access to child development education for all 4-year-olds, and a parcel tax that has enabled the district and the union to maintain their master teacher program, gain additional time for professional development, slow high turnover in the profession and help staff hard-to-fill subjects.

UESF also supported a living wage initiative, which has lifted many working families out of poverty - and boosted their children's chance for success. And the union lent hearty support to the city's "Healthy San Francisco" program, resulting in nearly every San Franciscan having access to healthcare - another proven benefit to student well-being and academic achievement.

Visiting with students and educators in San Francisco, it came as no surprise that the city is the highest-performing urban school district in California. The rainy-day fund is drying up, so the challenge in San Francisco will be that faced everywhere - to fight for our public schools and maintain funding.

In both St Louis and San Francisco, the key has been collaboration and respect for doing things with us, not to us, and sharing responsibility rather than the demonizing that goes on in many other places- and acts as a substitute for real leadership.

Great things are happening in classrooms across America. This school year, my lesson plan is to visit as many of them as I can, and to work tirelessly to help ensure America's teachers have the tools and support they need to make the dreams they hold for their students a reality.

RANDI WEINGARTEN, AFT President