Uphill both ways: Sizing up the work awaiting a hybrid Providence School Board

 An August 2024 meeting of the Providence School Board. (Alexander Castro/Rhode Island Current)

Teachers union associates comprise a third of the board, higher than the national average.

When I was a young mom, the Parent/Teacher Association at my kids’ elementary school in Providence invited the late, legendary union leader Marcia Reback to speak at a PTA meeting. Parents complained bitterly that our concerns and needs for change were dismissed as impossible because of the teachers contract.

Annoyed by the barrage of parent concerns, Reback said the day the kids paid her to represent them, she would. But she was paid to get the best possible deal for the teachers.

“What about the kids?” parents asked in dismay.

With a this-is-just-the-way-it-is shrug she said, “Not my problem.”

A handful of parents took their kids out of that school that night. Most Providence public-school parents have no such option.

My sincere appreciation of unions here in the U.S. does not preclude questioning the behavior of any entity standing in the way of kids’ success. Unions sometimes do.

Nationally, about 24% of school board/committee members are also teachers union members. Most, but not all, are members of their own district’s union. Yet more board members are union-endorsed. As such, unions participate in negotiating their own contracts – salaries, benefits and work conditions.

Having the employees become the employers and managers of their public service obligations seems fishy to me – if not a full-on conflict of interests. Can union members and their endorsed associates make hard, sometimes unpopular, calls that support kids and education instead of the “deals” the union wants?

In the Nov. 5 election, for the first time since the 1960s, Providence voters chose half the members of a hybrid school board, while the other half will continue to be appointed by the mayor.

City leaders divided the city into five regions each to be represented by one appointed and one elected member, for a total of 10.

Legacy laws are hurting Providence public school students. Question 1 offers a solution

The union put forward and endorsed a candidate for each of the five new regions and won three races. Teachers union associates will be 33% of the board.

Most school boards are elected – 88%. Occasionally boards flip from elected to appointed, and vice versa, usually because of budget, performance or in-fighting crises. Least common are hybrid boards.

Arguments for each governance model attract the different constituencies they serve. Voting is intrinsically democratic, hopefully drawing more people to pay attention to their local schools.

But Brookings and other researchers argue that mayors can make boards more representative both demographically and with a broader range of skills.

That’s because elections draw only candidates willing to withstand the personal and fiscal challenges of running for office. And elections open the door to special interest candidates. Annenberg reports that union-endorsed candidates win about 70% of their elections, not the least because of teachers unions’ “vaunted organizing strength to get out the vote.”

Mind you, the new school board’s power is limited by the three-year extension of the 2019 takeover by the Rhode Island Department of Education.

Still, no matter who the ostensible leaders are, will they confront the problems cemented into the teachers contract or face the harm being done by anti-education legislation?

For example, the state’s recent education commission flags three legacy throwbacks to the 1960s contracts modeled on automotive-workers’ contracts. Specifically, they are legislative mandates to hire by seniority, to use a lock-step pay schedule, and to impose an onerous grievance process. These aren’t the only bad state laws. But a 21st century government has no business hanging onto mid-20th century known mistakes.

In the private sector, the marketplace acts as a natural counterweight to labor’s demands. The company as a whole must stay competitive. Some pundits argue that private unions caused some of their own decline by pricing themselves out of the market. Yes, corporate moguls who become obscenely rich by milking their workers underscore the ugliest value of our wealth-obsessed culture.

But public-sector unions have no counterweight. Schools can’t up and move to China. Taxpayers become a bottomless pocket. Does the public know that Rhode Island’s per pupil expenditure is 8th highest in the nation, delivering mediocre results, while Massachusetts’ is 6th highest with first-in-the-nation results?  In a recent settlement, the court ruled that Providence owes millions to its state-controlled schools. The city won the right to have the school department audited by a third party, but the city will pay for it.

Consider this: The president of Rhode Island’s state teachers union is about to become the Senate majority leader. Will she, Valerie Lawson, an East Providence Democrat, fight to free public school kids from their legislative shackles? Of all people, she could make a huge difference.

Who will become the profile in courage standing firm against structural impediments to high-quality education for Providence kids? Probably not the newly union-peppered Providence school board. So the job is wide open.

Absolutely nothing will improve otherwise.

First published: RI Current News, December 9, 2024

Feel free to post comments about Julia’s work here, at juliasteiny.com