The Paul Cuffee Lower School on Promenade Street in Providence. Teachers at the school voted to join Rhode Island’s American Federation of Teachers last December. (Photo by Alexander Castro/Rhode Island Current)
Better pay or small class sizes? Tough decisions are pending.
Three Rhode Island public charter schools are negotiating contracts with labor unions. Last August, Highlander Elementary partnered with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW). In October, Paul Cuffee Upper School followed suit, joining Rhode Island’s American Federation of Teachers (AFT). In December, Cuffee’s Lower School joined them. Cuffee Middle School has not signed on.
Nationally, 70% of public district schools are unionized. As are roughly 11% of the teachers at charters, with 54% of those in states that mandate charter unionization. Charters are public schools — publicly funded, strictly held to the same public accountability as district schools, with students chosen by lottery systems when over-enrolled.
Rhode Island’s charter approval vetting process is praised as one of the best, unlike the Wild West of, say, Arizona where lax approval laws let charters frequently open and close, disrupting families. Rhode Island charters are stable and highly attractive to families.
But why would a charter give up its flexibility to join Rhode Island’s unions? With these negotiations underway now, several educators did not respond to my queries and those who did would only speak off the record.
To find the answers, I conducted off-the-record interviews, read an announcement in an IBEW newsletter focusing on teacher voice and higher pay, and obtained an email recruitment pitch from a union organizer recently sent to charter schools. Three main issues emerged:
Better benefits and pay
The critical issue with Rhode Island charter schools generally is that they operate with almost 20% less money, per pupil, than district schools. The Rhode Island Expenditure Council (RIPEC) put its exhaustive study of our charters in a national context that revealed uniquely inequitable funding between charters and district schools. The biggest gap drivers are:
- Districts home to the charter building hold back at least 7% of the per pupil cost (PPE) for, as RIPEC put it, “so-called unique costs.” But then, districts can increase the amount using a complex series of calculations to claw back yet more of the PPE, with Woonsocket’s RISE charter topping out at a whopping 62% holdback.
- The state’s School Housing Aid Fund helps schools pay for renovations, new buildings and upgrades. A formula allocates at least 35% of the costs in low-poverty districts (Little Compton, Barrington) and up to 97% and 88% respectively in high-poverty districts (Central Falls, Woonsocket). Charters get a flat 30%, no matter what their needs or poverty level.
- Municipalities and districts own the buildings. Charters must buy or rent and make all necessary repairs or risk losing their charter. Charters have no other resources to draw from.
- Rhode Island’s charters are subject to extensive audits at least every five years. These accountability requirements are expensive, labor-intensive, time-consuming and inequitable because district schools have no such requirements.
Surely, the charters would raise salaries immediately if they got their full per-pupil funding without all the holdbacks. The money is supposed to follow the kid. Furthermore, lower salaries make charters vulnerable to teacher poaching by districts.
Also, charters often have specific missions — i.e., the Nurses Institute, the Greene School — to which the school must deploy resources. If the money is redeployed to, say, salaries, can these schools stay true to their mission?
To raise salaries and benefits, where would the money come from?
Answer: mostly by increasing class size. Charters’ smaller classes contribute to their efficacy and popularity. Especially post-COVID, virtually all kids need lots of support and help. Private and suburban schools have small classes. Often charters’ smaller classes attract teachers who want calmer environments where they can be more successful.
More control over administrative decision making, a.k.a. “teacher voice”
Schools with poor teacher feedback mechanisms invite conflict. A memo that dictates, “Here is the new rule (which is news to you); implement it tomorrow,” is infuriating.
Some authoritarian administrators only pretend to listen to staff, or they don’t share enough information about a decision to allow the faculty to weigh in on important decisions. Teachers experience them as oppressive.
Other administrators might invite conflict by running a tight ship, holding staff accountable or deploying resources to the mission for which they’ve been chartered when teachers want something else, like higher pay. Teachers often choose to teach (and stay) at charter public schools because they enjoy collaborating on challenges with their colleagues and leadership. Seemingly, something is not working at the unionizing charters.
Legal protections and power
The email from the union recruiter says, “Our union offers legal protection and liability coverage. Unionized workers also cannot be fired or disciplined without just cause.”
True, union dues pay for legal departments that protect district teachers from discipline and dismissal, usually to the detriment of the students. Burdensome state laws governing grievance procedures nearly prevent district staff from ever being disciplined. Since the charter teacher and administration would have to pay legal fees, an unprovoked dismissal is not in either parties’ interest.
So, what now?
The IBEW is a private-sector, construction union, not part of the state’s public-service union body politic. Incompetent construction workers get fired. Will the IBEW protect ineffective teachers? Also, do they have the clout or will to endure a fight for fair funding? Hard to know.
The far more powerful AFT leaders are crackerjack negotiators. Will Cuffee’s flexibility rigidify with adherence to their new contract? Or will negotiations include a wealth of carve-outs to provide the non-traditional practices consistent with the charter’s mission?
Most importantly, will the AFT fight to get their charter partners full funding? Nationally, unions have been fighting charter schools since the movement began, mainly by working to hogtie them with underfunding (see item #1 above). Will the AFT represent these new schools with the same fervor as they once opposed them?
If so, that would be fantastic. Because giving all charters their full per pupil expenditure would solve a world of problems. It’s a long shot, but shouldn’t be.
First published: RI Current News, May 27, 2025
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