chools Chancellor Joel I. Klein has made a priority of giving New York City principals more power to run their schools as they see fit, so it is reasonable to assume that he has an eager ally in the principals' union.þþOr is it?þþIn fact, Mr. Klein's relationship with the union has been thorny — so much so that it took seven months for the two sides to reach a relatively simple contract agreement this week, and the union's president, Jill Levy, has repeatedly accused Mr. Klein of disrespecting her members.þþAt issue is the fact that three-quarters of the union's members are not principals, but the assistant principals and other school administrators who work for them. There are just over 1,200 city principals in the union, compared with 2,730 assistant principals and about 1,000 other administrators. Given those numbers, the union leadership must advocate primarily for the assistant principals and other administrators, which sometimes means making decisions that are not in the best interests of principals.þþÿIt's absurd to have a situation where the supervisors are in the same union with their employees,ÿ said Robert Berne, a senior vice president at New York University who has studied the school system. ÿSince the ranks are so dominated by assistant principals, you get a system steeped in work rules that don't allow the creativity and nimbleness required in educational reform.ÿ þþMr. Klein has said he was appalled, for example, to discover after becoming chancellor last summer that under the union's contract, principals do not have the power to choose their assistant principals. þþAnd the contract is about to present another obstacle, because Mr. Klein wants to put literacy and math coaches in all 1,200 city schools, to help train teachers in the new uniform curriculum. Mr. Klein wants the coaching jobs to go to teachers, his aides say. But the principals' union, the Council of Supervisors and Administrators, has hinted that it will fight such a plan, because assistant principals and other school administrators want the coaching jobs.þþAlso, Mr. Klein's plan could put teachers in the position of evaluating other teachers, which would overlap with or possibly eliminate one of the main responsibilities of assistant principals.þþEven the recent contract battle was mostly about assistant principals, education officials said: Ms. Levy was holding out to get them a bigger raise than principals were to receive under the contract, because currently, assistant principals often earn less than the senior teachers in their schools. þþMr. Klein did not want to agree to that demand without receiving something in return; namely, the power to transfer principals and assistant principals from school to school, or at least the authority to offer hefty bonuses to senior principals who enlist to work in low-performing schools for three years.þþBut Ms. Levy would not consent to either proposal (she said she would have signed off on the bonus program only if the money could be counted toward principals' pensions when they retired, which the city said it could not afford). Mr. Klein finally gave in this week because recruitment season was upon him, and he needed to be able to offer higher salaries to prospective principals. In the tentative contract agreement, which is largely retroactive and expires in June, assistant principals with at least three years' experience will receive salary increases of up to 11 percent, compared with an 8 percent maximum for all principals. þþSome educators believe that Mr. Klein is trying to weaken the principals' union. They say that in addition to putting teachers in coaching jobs, Mr. Klein may be planning to redefine the jobs of several hundred ÿeducational administratorsÿ who work in the community school district offices that will close as part of Mr. Klein's reorganization plan.þþÿThis is a shot for Klein to substantially reduce the membershipÿ of the union, one principal said.þþMs. Levy said yesterday that if Mr. Klein put teachers in the coaching jobs and asked them to evaluate other teachers, she would insist that the coaches become members of the principals' union instead of the teachers' union, the United Federation of Teachers.þþMs. Levy also said the interests of principals and assistant principals did not conflict, except in rare cases.þþÿIt hasn't ever been a real problem for us,ÿ she said.þþBesides, Ms. Levy said, she does not consider principals to be management, even though they run schools and supervise dozens of teachers and administrators. Principals have too many layers of bureaucracy above them — superintendents, the central Department of Education and now, under Mr. Klein's reorganization plan, instructional supervisors who will each oversee about a dozen schools — to be held accountable as managers, she said.þþÿI don't consider them management under any circumstances, because they don't have the flexibility and freedom to do things managers do,ÿ Ms. Levy said.þþþ
Source: NY Times
