The NEA and AFT
both advocate peer-review and peer-assistance programs for teachers.
Teachers don't criticize a colleague's work, at least not for the record:
That has been the hard-and-fast rule in most school districts. Yet last
summer, in a reversal of official policy, the powerful National Education
Association voted that teachers be allowed to evaluate the performance
of other instructors, and even aid in their dismissal. The NEA -- the
nation's largest teacher's union -- has about 2.3 million members.
And what is happening now, as a result of that resolution?
"Peer-assistance and peer-review programs are voluntary. The resolution
wasn't a mandate. We're in the process of providing information to state
and local affiliates who choose to pursue peer assistance and/or peer
review," says Marcia Stein, who is based at the NEA headquarters in Washington,
D.C. "NEA affiliates can have a peer-assistance program without a peer-review
program."
A "NEW UNIONISM" OPENS THE DOOR TO PEER REVIEW
Adoption of the peer-review policy was a triumph for Bob Chase, NEA
president, who has touted a "new unionism" since he took office two years
ago. "In my three decades as an NEA activist, I have encountered few issues
that stir up such passions," Chase stated in the November 1997 NEA
Today in reference to the issue of peer review.
In the past, responding to critics of peer review, Chase has insisted,
"we can support peer assistance and review without embracing the doleful
argument that all public education's problems stem from bad teachers and
bad teacher unions." The new peer-review resolution allows states and
local systems to establish peer assistance and review programs that would
be run by union teachers and the school district.
Seattle and some cities in Ohio had already set up such programs, at
a time when the NEA officially opposed them.
The true fate of peer review actually rests with hundreds of local NEA
affiliates that must decide whether to adopt peer-assistance and -review
programs.
So far, the number of teachers' unions backing peer-review programs
has been relatively small. Most are affiliated with the American Federation
of Teachers, which has 940,000 members. But the programs have not spread
widely, despite AFT encouragement.
COLUMBUS'S PEER REVIEW PROGRAM IS WORKING
One exception to the norm among NEA affiliates is the Columbus (Ohio)
Education Association, which has operated a peer-review program for more
12 years. In Columbus the NEA local chooses 26 top-notch teachers to be
full-time "consulting teachers." Under the Columbus contract, every newly
hired teacher is assigned a consulting teacher. Consultants mentor new
teachers and have a voice in determining whether a new teacher is retained.
About 85 percent of new teachers are teaching in Columbus five years later.
(In other urban districts, according to the NEA, only 50 percent of new
hires, on the average, continue to teach after three years.)
Possibly the first peer-review program in the nation is that of the
Toledo Federation of Teachers, an AFT affiliate, which launched its program
in 1981. In his "Where We Stand" statement of September 15, 1996, then-AFT
President Albert Shanker wrote, "In Toledo, consulting teachers spend
up to three years helping to train and evaluate new teachers, and they
play a major role in deciding which new teachers will get tenure. Tenured
teachers who are in trouble get … one-on-one help from colleagues, and
it continues until the troubled teacher has either improved to the point
of being successful or a termination is recommended."
Throughout most of the country, the issue of peer assistance and review
has been controversial, and in some places, it has been divisive. Proponents
maintain that peer assistance and review will help floundering teachers
and possibly save their jobs. Opponents argue that it will pit one teacher
against another and threaten the unity of local union associations.
Advocates of peer assistance and review point out that they would oppose
a local union's judging members' competence without also assisting teachers
who need help professionally. But, they maintain, as long as the main
focus of a program is to help teachers improve -- and as long as a decision
to recommend dismissal or counsel a teacher to leave the profession is
used only as a final move when help fails to improve the teacher's performance
-- they are comfortable with peer-review.
Widespread concern over student achievement in the United States has
sparked movement toward new options by NEA and AFT members as well as
parents and legislators. Peer-assistance and -review programs are among
those options. For the first time, both unions have allowed the issue
of teacher quality to be included in new contracts so that poor teachers
can be removed from the classroom.
TWO SIDES OF THE PEER ASSISTANCE/REVIEW ISSUE
But many teachers maintain such a policy is unnecessary. Bill Harshbarger,
a 17-year high school history teacher in Mattoon, Illinois, and a member
of NEA Today's Local Editor Advisory Board, maintained in NEA
Today, "Every district has a procedure to fire teachers. In fact,
teachers are being fired or forced to resign all the time. Creating a
new layer of bureaucracy to duplicate what's already being done is a misuse
of valuable teaching resources."
"Nearing the end of my career, I have a vested interest in leaving my
profession in capable hands," stated Linda Lohr, a 30-year teaching veteran
and consulting teacher in Columbus, in NEA Today. "I want to keep
the evaluation and retention of good teachers in the hands of practitioners
for whom classroom performance is the top priority. And I believe our
consulting teachers have the time, expertise, and perspective necessary
to do the job right."
Related Sites
Education Week
Go to the Education Week archives and search using the key words "peer
review" to find a number of articles about the subject.
Christian
Science Monitor Archive Copy the headline "Teachers Unions Jump
On Bandwagon of School Reform" (without the quotes) Christian Science
Monitor search engine for a story that probes the debate over peer-assistance
and peer-review programs and the NEA's vote to support them.
Teachers
Gain Role in Hiring Process This Seattle Times story reports about
a new contract approved by the Seattle Education Association that gives
teachers some control over the hiring process.
Where
We Stand A position statement from the AFT by then-president Albert
Shanker on teacher evaluation, and how to make it more meaningful and
accurate.
Ohio Education
Association The Ohio Education Association Web site includes a search
engine as well as hot topics, news, research, and a professional development
section.
The NEA and AFT
both advocate peer-review and peer-assistance programs for teachers.