The Issues

Below are the priority issues I see for each unit and constituency currently given my experience and conversations with hundreds of CEA members over the course of my work and this campaign. I know that there are some constituencies that I do not address, but these are the largest. I want to be clear up front - while this page exposes many weaknesses of our schools, scholars in Cambridge have incredible educational opportunities. I think that we can do better and this page documents what I believe are the most pressing issues. Please visit my Plans page to learn how I plan to address these issues.

• Overall: Solidarity, Trust, and Achievement Gaps and Cultural Proficiency

• Unit A: Time and Evaluation

• Unit B: Small numbers, Distribution across the district, Range of Roles

• Unit C: Respect, Small Numbers, Distribution across the district, Range of Roles

• Unit D: Small numbers, Transience

• Unit E: Contract- wages and benefits, Long term/short term divide, Professional Development

• Elementary: Curriculum and Assessment

• Upper Schools: Consistency, Collaboration and Tracking

• CRLS: Teacher/Admin Relationship, Instructional Coaching, Clerks

• JK-8 Special Subjects: Multiple schools, Meeting Times, Supervision

• OSS: Restructuring, Supervision, Workload

Overall: The CEA is struggling to build solidarity and trust across schools and units. This is not a new struggle, but it is foundational to our effectiveness as a union. A significant component is the different sizes of the units. Unit A (Teachers) has by far the most members, so all other units often feel ancillary and/or ignored. This is perhaps the most significant issue for all units other than Unit A. We need to find ways to work and communicate so that all units feel the connection to our common ground. If we trust that we are looking out for each other, we will all be stronger.

CPS has made strides in closing achievement gaps as measured by standardized test scores, but closing those gaps is treating the symptom rather than the cause. Our schools cannot correct societal inequities (such as systemic racism and income inequality) but there is a great deal more we can do to mitigate those factors in our school communities through cultural proficiency work. We also need to work harder towards ensuring the diversity of our educators more closely reflects the diversity of our scholars. There is no silver bullet and we are obligated to keep these issues in the forefront of our work. The CPS Cultural Proficiency Educator Leadership Team is moving this work forward, but it is really just beginning. Our union needs to be more culturally responsive and actively engage diverse voices.

Unit A: Teachers: The most pressing issue facing teachers right now is the increasing demands on their time. Over the past several years, teachers’ time has been chipped away at by one initiative after another at all levels. Another key issue for teachers is meaningful time for collaboration with colleagues. While there are schools that make this a priority, there is not enough time for this work in many schools, or that time is not in the control of the teachers.

Perhaps most importantly, the pressures of high stakes testing has pushed educators to narrow the focus of instruction to the subjects tested, and within those subjects to what can be assessed on a test. (Please see my more complete articulation on my “What I Believe” page because this is a very complex issue.) We need to bring the joy back into teaching by remembering that our job is to educate the whole child, not good test takers.

The new evaluation system continues to be an issue in several ways. The focus of this work should be on growth, but 39% of educators surveyed in 2015 felt their practice did not improve at all. The good news is that 90% felt that if the process was implemented well, their practice would improve. (I am glad to share more results, just ask.) The system continues to have very inconsistent implementation, Teachpoint software continues to be awkward to use and there need to be more face-to-face interactions between the educator and evaluator.

Although less immediately pressing, there are some other significant issues we could take on as a union. Teacher retention continues to be a significant issue in Cambridge and across the nation. In addition to making the profession more joyful, we need to promote multiple career paths and teacher leadership opportunities.

Unit B: Administrators: Administrators are unique, even among non-Unit A units because they share a contract with the Teachers. This can be helpful to be in closer solidarity with teachers around bargaining, but they often have different issues to bargain. In addition, because they are supervisors of unit A members, it can create a divide on the bargaining team. However, even within this unit there are constituencies that have distinct issues: Assistant Principals, Coordinators and CRLS Deans.

Evaluation is an even greater issue for administrators because they are on both ends of the system. As evaluators, the Teachpoint system is clunky (to say the least) and the district does not have clear guidelines and training about how to best use it. As those being evaluated, their issues are similar to those of teachers: Inconsistent implementation and little emphasis on professional growth.

Professional Development is also a tremendous issue for administrators. The new PD system has helped support some professional development for administrators, but not enough in quantity or range of topics.

Unit C: Clerks: Overall, professional development has been lacking. There are requirements for the district to provide this in their contract, yet it is a continual struggle to have courses available. In addition to being a small and often overlooked unit like Units B, D and E, the unit itself is also broken into subgroups: Berkshire, Elementary and Upper School, and CRLS

Thorndike is the largest of the subgroups, and their issues are significant. They have gone through significant cuts and reorganizations a few times over the last several years. The union has had to file multiple grievances about non-union postings and temporary positions. They feel disrespected by administration as a result.

There is only one clerk at each of the elementary and upper schools, so it is very difficult for them to connect with each other. These clerks are often the glue that holds the schools together, and they do a tremendous variety of tasks. Because they are not specialists, they then do not have the opportunity for the additional salary available in the contract.

CRLS clerks are another distinct constituency. They have recently been through cuts despite significant support from their union colleagues. From my conversations, it is clear that teachers are feeling these cuts significantly as they have less support from their clerks than they used to, and it is likely that scholars are as well (it is hard to know this for sure, but how can they not be impacted?)

Unit D: Substitutes: The substitutes are a very small group, are often not connected with a school and they also have subgroups - day to day, extended term subs and building subs. In addition, there are very few substitutes who make substituting a career - many are in it for a few years or less. This makes solidarity tremendously challenging. Specific issues are professional development, ensuring continuity of benefits when they take temporary positions, and building substitute responsibilities (they are often asked to do more than just cover classes.

Unit E: Paraprofessionals: Fortunately we have just settled a great contract for paraprofessionals - over 16% pay increase for many over the next three years. However, there are many issues that still need to be addressed, most notably professional development, evaluation and professional respect.

Elementary: Over the past few years and for the upcoming few years, the district has been and will continue to implement new curriculum and common assessments in Math, ELA and Science. The amount and quality of educator involvement in the design of the curriculum and assessment has varied across departments and over time. At the elementary level where teachers teach all core subject areas, the stresses of improving high stakes test scores has lead to greater compartmentalization of core content areas, rather than stronger integration. Also, the amount of time spent on testing and analyzing test results, sometimes for results that end up being meaningless or only reinforce what the teacher already knows, cuts into time for collaboration.

The new assessment system, iReady, while holding promise as a powerful tool for educators, has been often misused to highlight deficits, rather than supporting instruction. While this may or may not be intentional, it is a result of insufficient common understandings of the meaning of the data. Specifically, strict timelines reduce the validity and reliability of the overall scores and rushed design time reduced the validity of the assessments themselves. As the use of this system expands to other grade levels and subject areas, these issues will likely grow.

Upper Schools: The Innovation Agenda was a step forward for many of our middle school scholars, but it has a long way to go. A stated goal was to ensure more consistent experiences for our scholars across the middle schools. While this has been achieved to a certain extent (only 5 schools instead of 12) the experiences of scholars and educators in the upper schools continues to vary significantly across the district.

One of the guiding principles in the design was to increase the opportunity for collaboration. While school-based, grade-level teams have more time for collaboration, the vast majority of teachers do not have a colleague in their building who teaches the same curriculum. This has two detrimental effects: decreased consistency across schools and a lack of opportunity for deep instructional collaboration.

CRLS: I continue to focus a significant amount of attention on CRLS. The Faculty Advisory Committee is much stronger now, and we have a great team of Executive Board Representatives. However, the administration continues to need to be held accountable to consistently implement policies in the best interests of scholars.

JK-8 Special Subjects: Special Subjects educators (VPA, Health, PE, Technology Integration, Library Media) have their own set of issues. Many of them work in multiple buildings. This creates a chaotic work week and pressures from multiple supervisors. Also, there is little time when they can get together, and that time is further challenged due to different start and end times of schools across the district. Because of their role, many will see a few hundred scholars every week, but this varies significantly between special subject educators.

Office of Special Education: Like special subject educators, special educators are often face pressures from multiple supervisors and are spread thinly across the district. Also, there are so many different kinds of special education roles that it can be difficult to translate the contract into their particular situation. In particular, ensuring equitable workloads is difficult due to the unique nature of each educator’s caseload. The OSS advisory is back in place and will hopefully work with the new administration to improve the working conditions for our special educators.