Battle in Philadelphia Highlights Teacher Assignment Issue

Throughout the month of September, the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers and the School Reform Commission have been negotiating a contract to replace the current collective bargaining agreement, which has been extended. As reported in the Philadelphia Inquirer, James Nevels, chairman of Philadelphia's School Reform Commission (SRC), and Ted Kirsch, president of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers (PFT), have been involved in extensive bargaining that both hope to resolve before another contract extension becomes necessary.

Issues on the table include salary increases, extended school days, shortened teacher preparation time, health benefits, and, most controversially, the system by which teachers are assigned to schools. Philadelphia, a district that was taken over by the state in 2001 and converted into a mix of public, private, charter, and parochial schools, has long preserved a system of teacher assignment that some deride as inequitable.

Seniority vs. "Site Selection"
The current system allows teachers already working in the Philadelphia school system to transfer into available positions across the district without any approval by the receiving school, as late in the school year as July. This creates a hiring crunch during the late summer, after experienced teachers have exhausted their opportunity to transfer, when many new teachers have already sought work elsewhere. The de facto result of this system is a constant flow of experienced, qualified teachers out of impoverished and low-performing schools into higher-performing ones. First-year teachers are typically assigned to teach in low-resource, high-poverty schools.

The SRC wants a new system of "site selection," wherein the principal, often with the help of a panel of teachers, administrators, and/or parents, would interview and select teachers to hire, regardless of seniority. This is an option for Philadelphia schools, but only if two-thirds of the school's faculty approves the system; currently only 17% of Philadelphia schools have done so.

The teachers union strongly opposes the proposed change to a site selection system. The current system is itself the hard-won result of bargaining by the teachers' union to replace the previous system of site selection, which had allowed tremendous discrimination, nepotism, and corruption to enter into the process. Union president Ted Kirsch has argued that a coherent and attractive incentive package would be enough to counteract the exodus of experience from the neediest schools without removing the system of assignment by seniority.

Researchers found that Philadelphia lags far behind school districts such as New York City, Charlotte-Mecklenberg, and Baltimore in the incentive packages offered to teachers working in impoverished or under-performing schools. These packages were emphasized as a necessary component of any effort to improve teacher quality and teacher retention in under-performing schools. Research has also shown that poor working conditions and lack of basic resources and support for teachers in many low-performing schools contributes significantly to teacher transfers.

Future of Urban Schools
School funding adequacy litigations have consistently determined that teacher quality is an issue of the most critical importance. Some courts have ordered states to provide needy schools with high quality teachers, and proof that schools are employing "high quality" teachers is supposed to be a central requirement of the federal "No Child Left Behind" Act, although that provision has major weaknesses. The adequacy litigations also identify smaller class sizes, preschool, additional "time on task," and other programs and services that would improve low-performing schools and make them more desirable places for teachers to work. Efforts to change teacher assignment practices in Philadelphia is of intense interest to urban districts across the nation, as district officials search for reforms that will satisfy hard-working teachers and achieve measurable improvements in student learning.

Prepared by Nelly Ward, September 30, 2004