Cleveland school district, union agree to performance-based contract

by Paul Kersey In Illinois we have gotten used to being kept in the dark about collective bargaining with government worker unions. Recently a bill to open up the process and have tentative agreements made open to the public before they are signed failed in committee. But it doesn’t have to be like this. In Cleveland of...

by Paul Kersey

In Illinois we have gotten used to being kept in the dark about collective bargaining with government worker unions. Recently a bill to open up the process and have tentative agreements made open to the public before they are signed failed in committee.

But it doesn’t have to be like this. In Cleveland of all places, school district and teachers union officials just agreed to what might be a groundbreaking contract that promotes performance in the classroom. The contract does this by replacing the archaic steps and lanes system of determining teacher pay with a more dynamic system of performance credits. That means teachers will be rewarded based on how their students achieve, not how many years they’ve been a teacher.

And all stakeholders, including teachers, taxpayers and parents, can see just what they did – now!  No, really, the summary of the contract is here and the changes in language between the old and new contract are here. The district released terms to the media just a couple days after the contract was agreed to.

Is this as good a deal for school kids as the administration claims? We’ll have more to say about this, but parents can see for themselves. Is the deal fair to teachers? They’ll get to see for themselves, too.

Even if the deal turns out to be a stinker on closer examination, Cleveland’s school administrators and union officials at least deserve credit for showing us that union contracts don’t have to be treated like state secrets. Transparency means that a bad deal can be fixed before it’s finalized.

The question Illinoisans need to ask their representatives in Springfield is: Why isn’t this standard procedure here?