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Frequently Asked Questions
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- What is a teacher professional partnership (TPP)?
- Does the state need to create new laws in order for a TPP to operate a school?
- Why do teachers want to form and operate TPPs? Do partnerships produce different schools, and different school cultures? Might these differences be appealing to teachers?
- Are there advantages to choosing a particular TPP structure?
- Are TPPs common? Do others exist? Is there any precedence for this?
- Do partnerships have to be in the charter sector?
- Doesn't site-based management already offer teachers an opportunity to be in charge?
- Do teachers really want the work that goes with managing a school? Don't they just want to teach?
- Without a single administrator in charge, how do administrative tasks get accomplished? Doesn't somebody have to be the leader?
- With all of their classroom duties, where do teachers working in TPPs find the time for professional responsibilities such as peer review, learning-program development, personal improvement, maintaining the culture, and more? Will teachers suffer burnout? Will there be turnover that will result in disruption for students at schools managed by TPPs?
- Do teachers need additional training to create a professional organization that works well? In organizational development, interdependent activity, cultural dynamics, and individual accountability?
- What are the sources of revenue for a TPP?
- If the TPP determines the schools' budget allocations, how will the public ensure accountability for results in student-performance? How does the public ensure there is no fiscal mismanagement? When it comes down to cost, is the TPP arrangement more or less efficient than traditional arrangements?
- How will teachers determine their compensation in a TPP?
- How do teachers become members of a TPP in order to work at the schools?
- How do TPPs handle teacher-performance measurement and improvement?
- What happens if a teacher doesn't work out?
- Where existing TPPs are managing schools, what student performance results are available?
- What is the relationship between TPPs and the union local?
1. What is a teacher professional partnership (TPP)?
A teacher professional partnership is a formal entity, organized under law (partnerships, cooperatives, limited-liability corporations, etc.), that is formed and owned by teachers to provide educational services. TPPs may enter into contracts to manage entire schools, a portion of a school or to provide some other educational service. Teachers are in charge and they manage or arrange for the management of the schools and/or services provided. The school district is not managing the school; nor is a district-appointed single leader in charge (e.g., a principal).
The "Teacher Professional Partnership" concept is championed by Education|Evolving, a joint venture of the Center for Policy Studies and Hamline University in St. Paul, Minnesota.
In the position to make decisions affecting learning outcomes, the TPPs are willing to formally accept responsibility and accountability creating and maintaining high-performing learning communities. Contracts, waivers, and other arrangements allow TPPs to control their own work inside the schools they serve, which can include determining curriculum, setting the budget, choosing the level of technology available to students, selecting their colleagues, monitoring performance, hiring administrators to work for them, and setting their own salaries.
2. Does the state need to create new laws in order for a TPP to operate a school?
No. TPPs can organize under existing state laws for workers' cooperatives, partnerships, nonprofits, LLCs, and other formal legal structures. Most of the TPPs we see emerging in K-12 so far are organizing under the state law for workers' cooperatives. Although it's not necessary, teachers might in time, like some other professions, get a separate statute designed specifically for themselves.
3. Why do teachers want to form and operate TPPs? Do partnerships produce different schools, and different school cultures? Might these differences be appealing to teachers?
Founders of TPPs often desire to maximize their professional talents and to create, through their service, high-performing learning communities. They want the personal satisfaction of owning and operating a business that allows them to maximize their teaching (and in some cases management) experience. Rather than working for an administrator, they want to work for themselves. They also seek the changes in culture (evident in the behaviors of teachers, parents, and students) that can result when a TPP is delegated the authority to manage, or arrange for the management of, a school.
TPPs help to professionalize teaching. All the ideas for 'school improvement' and 'education reform' assume that teachers must remain employees and that an administrator, such as a principal, must be in charge. But it is clearly conceivable for teachers like doctors, lawyers, and other professionals to work with partners in groups they collectively own; serving a client in an arrangement that gives them both the autonomy we associate with professionalism and the accountability we expect from professionals. When a TPP accepts responsibility to manage, or arrange for the management of, one or more schools, the teachers are directly responsible and accountable for what happens at the learning communities they serve.
TPPs can radically change what happens inside schools. When teachers are part of a TPP, their attitudes and behaviors change dramatically. Having accepted responsibility for the school the teachers realize their success depends on the students (learning outcomes, entry and exit of "consuming" students and families, and so much more). So they give students serious responsibilities. Parents and students can contribute usefully to school governance; students sometimes helping to select people to work at the school. Teachers turn this positive culture into student success.
What else is in it for teachers? Partners of TPPs continue as teachers while assuming entrepreneurial and administrative roles. In more traditional arrangements they must give up classroom duties if they want to move-up in the field of education. This limitation is not an appealing option for all teachers. "Very frankly," the late Arley Gunderman used to say in private discussions, out of his long experience as an elementary school principal and as president of the National Association of Elementary School Principals, "my job is to motivate as much as I can, for as long as I can, people who are in essentially dead-end jobs" (as cited by Ted Kolderie, 1984, in his notes from a meeting with the Minnesota Business Partnership).
For more details about the specific cultures TPPs can foster, see the remarks by the lead teachers in two partnerships, made to audiences in Washington DC in November 2003: "Teacher Professional Partnerships: A Different Way to Help Teachers and Teaching", Education|Evolving, January 2004.
4. Are there advantages to choosing a particular TPP structure?
Those observing TPPs find that the organizational structure itself is not terribly important. One ought not to look at any structure as the best for achieving set goals. Any given structure chosen by a TPP will be a vessel that may get professionalism for teachers and higher performing students. The TPP arrangement maximizes the pressure to do it right because teachers are accountable for results, but results are not guaranteed. The structure is therefore far less important than a TPP's willingness to make substantial, positive changes in culture and in learning.
That being said, the political landscape and personal preferences affect how TPPs organize themselves. A structure that seems advantageous and appropriate to one TPP may seem disadvantageous to another. For those interested in investigating opportunities and evaluating what structure might work best for them, the guide titled Teachers as Owners, edited by Edward J. Dirkswager and available on Amazon.com, outlines a variety of possible structures and lays out the differences between each. Consulting a lawyer who works on business law in your area may also be helpful.
5. Are TPPs common? Do others exist? Is there any precedence for this?
As of March 2009, there were 15 TPPs serving 21 chartered schools. They were in Milwaukee, Wisconsin (13 TPPs serving 13 respective schools), and Minnesota (2 TPP serving 12 school sites throughout the state). The oldest, EdVisions Cooperative in Minnesota, has operated since 1994. All 15 TPPs serve chartered schools, but a TPP could serve any kind of school. There were also at least 3 TPPs serving private and independent schools in California. All of the existing TPPs are organizing under their state law for workers' cooperatives. To learn more about all the models, see Kim Farris-Berg's report "Teachers in Professional Practice: An inventory of new opportunities for teachers. Second Edition", Education|Evolving, August 2006.
Beyond those, is there precedence for this in education? Probably not. Except, in a way, the 'teacher-led schools' and 'site-based management models' discussed below (in #7).
But look elsewhere: In many occupational areas it is common for professionals formally organized in collegial groups to get authority and to accept responsibility for the operation of an organization. Think about it: architects, engineers, consultants, doctors, auditors, accountants, attorneys.
Teachers have not organized this way in the past. But that doesn't mean that it can not, or should not, be done. Groups of teachers can behave autonomously, without a district-appointed single leader being in charge. According to Ted Kolderie, an Education|Evolving leader advancing the idea of teacher professional partnerships, during a hearing at the Senate Education Policy Committee in Minnesota the lobbyist for the school boards association was talking down the suggestion that people in a school should be able to select their colleagues and to select their leadership. She was interrupted by the committee chair, Senator Steve Kelley, who said: "In my law firm we decide who is admitted to practice with us, and we select both our managing general partner and our firm's administrator. I really don't take kindly to the assertion that professionals cannot make this sort of decision." The lobbyist swallowed hard, and went on to another point.
6. Do partnerships have to be in the charter sector?
No. Up to this point, virtually all are. But under the general Wisconsin charter law being used by the Milwaukee district, the schools managed by TPPs are essentially district schools. They are given autonomy but considered still an 'instrumentality' of the district. The schools' teachers remain employees of the district. This Milwaukee arrangement could probably be used by districts in other cities to give a partnership of professional teachers real authority over meaningful decisions. Discussions about this have in fact occurred with New York City, Chicago, Boston, and other cities.
7. Doesn't site-based management already offer teachers an opportunity to be in charge?
Not entirely.
Site-based management, teacher empowerment, teacher-teams, and team-teaching and 'teacher leadership' and various other efforts are methods aimed at getting teachers to feel professional, to feel they own the school. Some principals believe in enlarging teacher roles and involving them in school decisions.
But all of the constructs mentioned above are within the administrator/teacher, boss/worker, arrangement that is what people have always known in education. The rule has been that if you want to be a teacher you have to be an employee. So people assume that teachers must be managed; then struggle to create 'professional' roles within that paradigm. And often not very successfully.
So when they hear about 'a professional partnership of teachers' most people immediately try to fit it into what they know. "Sure," they think, "We know about that; we do that." They believe, "We have this now; nothing new here. The idea is not very important, anyway."
With the TPP idea we leave the paradigm that assumes teachers must be managed; go into a new paradigm. A TPP is a model in which a professional group of teachers gets the authority and formally accepts the responsibility for the success of learning in a whole school or a department of a school. The important difference is that the professional group handles or arranges for the administration. They feel like they are, and via contracts, waivers, or other formal arrangement are, the people in charge. There is no ambiguity. A TPP is not dependent on the goodwill of a principal or a district school board that can pull back what makes teachers feel autonomous at any point. Where principals and districts advance efforts for teachers to feel autonomous, there is a subtle but real diminishment of the authority and responsibility the teachers would have received if they were part of a TPP.
8. Do teachers really want the work that goes with managing a school? Don't they just want to teach?
Teachers may not all love the administrative work, but some teachers are willing to collectively accept it and to do it (or hire/arrange for someone else to do it) if that is what's required for them to get the authority and responsibility for the school, the freedom to organize the school, and the opportunity to have a truly professional role.
The teachers officially involved with TPPs are not alone. There are others willing to do this, too. The potential was underscored by the finding from Public Agenda's survey of teachers in 2003. The question to a national sample of teachers was: "How interested would you be in working in a charter school run and managed by teachers?"
The question asked respondents to affirm an interest in coming into the charter sector in order to express their interest in teacher professional partnership (which of course is not necessary). Still, the interest is startling to most people: 58 percent of teachers said they would be somewhat or very interested; 65 percent of the under-five-year teachers and 50 percent of the over-20-year teachers.
It is common to hear from administrators working with teachers in a traditional arrangement this notion that teachers don't know anything about management and don't want to know; just want to be left alone to teach (as, of course, they increasingly aren't). Many teachers run businesses on the side, however, and know a lot about management. And many want professional roles in education that allow them to stay in the classroom.
It seems a shame, but the reality is that in education—to secure the opportunity to function as professionals—teachers are obliged to set up a new organizational arrangement outside the traditional district administration. Within the administration others insist on deciding the 'professional issues'. Even when administrators give some autonomy, some contend that they pull it back when the methods working well to motivate student learning are not traditional (Farris-Berg, Kim. 2002. "Alternative Education Programs: The 'Quiet Giant' in Minnesota Public Education." Education|Evolving).
9. Without a single administrator in charge, how do administrative tasks get accomplished? Doesn't somebody have to be the leader?
Perhaps. But that's not obvious.
In a TPP setting all teachers must see themselves as—act as—leaders with a common mission, vision, and set of values. The TPP can accommodate multiple leaders effectively by having a decision-making process which will consider the opinions of every member, but also allow for expeditious results.
People whose minds are locked into the hierarchical model of 'the administered organization' assume there will be a leader who is also the boss. Education does not have experience with the professional model so it is hard for people to think in terms how 'the professional organization' would work in this context.
When people first hear of the TPP notion, what immediately appears is the difference between the structure of leadership in other occupational areas using the professional partnership model and the structure of leadership in a school. Education has a single-leader model: one person, the 'principal', who is—in theory—both the professional leader and the administrative leader. This notion of a single person being best at both these different jobs may be absurd on its face.
In professional partnership organizations there is often a dual structure: one person responsible for the professional activity and another person responsible for the administration. Sometimes more roles emerge. Sometimes the organizations hire one or more outside administrators to handle administrative functions. Whatever the case, these persons are selected and overseen by the members of the partnership and serve at the pleasure of the members. The administrator is clearly not a boss.
Education, too, could have the dual model. Note, above all: In this dual-leader model the professionals are in charge, and have the administrators working for them.
There are people doing administrative work in a TPP, of course. Sometimes in the existing TPPs the teachers divide up the work: one handling reports, another handling payroll, another responsible for the school's purchasing, another procuring the curricular materials. Sometimes they hire outside professionals (e.g. accountants or a service cooperative or a school district) to take on specific duties. Sometimes in a TPP one member does only administration: In an EdVisions Cooperative site called Avalon School in Saint Paul, MN a member who was once a teacher now works full-time just on administration. Other TPPs appoint one person to be a 'lead teacher' to act as the chief liaison between the TPP and the boards of the schools they serve (among other duties). The administrator and lead teachers are not, however, 'bosses'. It is role-differentiation without hierarchy.
10. With all of their classroom duties, where do teachers working in TPPs find the time for professional responsibilities such as peer review, learning-program development, personal improvement, maintaining the culture, and more? Will teachers suffer burnout? Will there be turnover that will result in disruption for students at schools managed by TPPs?
There will be turnover, as there is in all organizations—including school districts.
People who work with TPPs observe that the schools managed by TPPs are significantly more stable than the school that depends on a principal to be its 'leader'.
Principals come and go; are often switched abruptly by a district. A principal essential to a school's success can be pulled out by the superintendent and sent to another school to solve a problem the district has there. Sometimes the replacement wants to change the way the first school runs, causing great turmoil. In a TPP, by contrast, the strength is in the group. If even its lead teacher leaves, the group selects a replacement. When the culture is in place for the school to run collectively, the TPPs are able to transcend or minimize any disruption that the lead teacher's departure may have caused.
As for burnout—it's all relative. Many teachers working in traditional arrangements report that much of their psychological energy is burned up in frustration with battles with "the system" and "the bureaucracy". This frustration leads to substantial burnout, they say.
While it is true that being a member of a TPP will require teachers to take on more responsibility, teachers in existing TPPs report excellent morale. When decisions are their own, they are better able to understand and accept the consequences of them—positive or negative. For a sense of this, see the remarks by the lead teachers in two partnerships, made to audiences in Washington DC in November 2003: "Teacher Professional Partnerships: A Different Way to Help Teachers and Teaching", Education|Evolving, January 2004.
11. Do teachers need additional training to create a professional organization that works well? In organizational development, interdependent activity, cultural dynamics, and individual accountability?
Some members of TPPs are highly experienced in running businesses. They bring their experience into the practice. Some seek, as needed, teachers who have business management abilities and/or experience or non-teachers who can provide services to help with these issues.
Generally speaking, teachers in training don't learn how to manage schools in colleges of education. But of course medical schools don't do much to train doctors to run their office-practice either. Perhaps colleges of education and other teacher-training organizations will adapt and offer relevant courses as more TPPs come to exist. Until then, TPPs tend to develop their own training programs for teachers; partly for the unusual work of the TPP and partly for the unusual methods of instruction used in many schools managed by TPPs (e.g., project-based learning).
12. What are the sources of revenue for a TPP?
The sources of revenue for some existing TPPs are the contracts they have with boards of chartered schools to implement and manage the schools' educational programs and administer the learning sites. The boards of the schools pay these TPPs a lump-sum amount which they must manage. The amount is typically the lump-sum of the per-pupil funding transferred from the state to the schools. The cost of teacher salaries is allocated from this amount, as are all the other costs of school operation. Sometimes the TPPs spend so efficiently that they earn dividends, but none act as profiteers. Small dividends have sometimes been divided among members, but have mostly been spent on professional development.
In Milwaukee, the TPPs do not have contracts with the boards of the chartered schools they serve. Instead, Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) contracts with the chartered schools with an understanding that they will be managed by teacher cooperatives. Therefore, the Milwaukee TPPs do not earn revenue through contracts. The Milwaukee cooperatives were incorporated more to create a state of mind about the way the teachers would manage the schools and less to create an entity that could accept payment for services (although they could legally do so).
The Milwaukee teacher cooperatives/schools do not manage a total lump-sum of the per-pupil funding. The prevailing contract between MPS and each chartered school allows the district to set its own administrative fee, which the district subtracts from the funds before transferring them to the school. The teachers in the partnerships remain employees of—'leased' from—the district, and continue as dues-paying members under the master contract. The teachers' salaries are determined by the salary scale outlined in the collective-bargaining agreement. So each teacher cooperative or 'partnership' just uses whatever funds remain to operate the school and does not seek to earn dividends.
Most of the existing TPPs have 501(c)3 status or have formed an affiliated nonprofit with 501(c)3 status so they are able to receive grants that have been used for start-up, capacity development, and replication of the TPP models.
13. If the TPP determines the schools' budget allocations, how will the public ensure accountability for results in student-performance? How does the public ensure there is no fiscal mismanagement? When it comes down to cost, is the TPP arrangement more or less efficient than traditional arrangements?
A TPP is accountable to any entity with which it has a contract or understanding. In the case of the Minnesota TPPs, these entities are the boards of the chartered schools. In Milwaukee, the entity is the school board of MPS. The chartered and district school boards, which must meet the standards set forth by the state, regularly review the TPPs' actions to ensure the members are meeting the contract terms (set forth for the TPP in Minnesota, and for the school in Milwaukee).
For most TPPs, it is set-up that the boards have an arms-length relationship with the TPP. If the budget a TPP proposes, or a TPP's financial management, were to be unacceptable, the board has the option to ask the TPP to revise it and/or terminate the contract.
Efficiency is a question in any arrangement, and TPPs can be even more fiscally efficient than traditional arrangements. Education|Evolving observes that there are incentives—reasons + opportunities—in this arrangement for the teachers to spend wisely and efficiently so as to free up revenue for other uses. In Minnesota this revenue could be used to increase compensation, but—interestingly—that does not seem to happen. The TPP knows that if it underpays its partners and associates it will not have teachers, so it will close. It knows, equally, that if it overpays its teachers and scants the program it will not have students, so it will close. As a result the balance struck between adult interests and student interests appears to have integrity to it. Some teachers get higher-than-average salaries, and students benefit from high levels of technology at the schools, for example.
Since TPPs don't have to allocate a large portion funds to administrative overhead, they come up with extra funds for other needs. In one school managed by a TPP, students and teachers share cleaning responsibilities that could be hired-out. The school reports that the grounds stay very clean when the users know they'll be the ones to handle the mess!
Where does the extra money go? A recent review of education finance by Education|Evolving shows that of the top 10 chartered schools in Minnesota—in terms of the percentage of budget which goes to instruction—five are managed by a teacher-owned professional partnership. For more see Stacy Becker's "Education Finance", Education|Evolving, 2005.
14. How will teachers determine their compensation in a TPP?
In the Minnesota TPPs, members of the partnership determine their own compensation. These TPPs must also consider how they will handle benefits, including health insurance, accidental disability insurance, leaves, retirement plans, and so on. The process can vary. In most cases compensation is in some way informed by a peer-review process (described in #16). There might be a committee appointed to recommend compensation-levels to the membership. Or the decision might come out of a general discussion within the membership about who has made what contribution to the success of the group during the year; about what it would cost to replace a given individual. The final decision may be made by the entire body. Or, in the case of California, all educational service providers are members of the Aveson Cooperative, including the office manager, plant manager, and so on. All members (including non-teachers) have equal input in determining compensation.
In Milwaukee TPPs, teachers' individual salaries and benefits are set by the scale established in the master contract between the bargaining agent and the district. By deciding to organize the remaining budget (less an administrative fee set by MPS) differently than the way conventional schools organize budgets, a Milwaukee TPP may free-up funds which it can use to pay particular teachers for additional work.
For more information on how specific TPPs determine their compensation, see "Teachers in Professional Practice: An inventory of new opportunities for teachers. Second Edition", Education|Evolving, June 2006.
15. How do teachers become members of a TPP in order to work at the schools?
In all TPPs, teachers are interviewed and selected by their colleagues. In some TPPs, the members get the input of students at the time a candidate is interviewed, and find this valuable.
In Minnesota, teachers are formally elected-to-membership by the members of the TPPs. These TPPs do not use a tenure system. Teacher-members sign at-will contracts to cover a specified period of time.
In Milwaukee TPPs there are memorandums of understanding to work out the technicalities of selection. MPS can technically hire and fire since the teachers are employees of the district, but both the district and the union local have recognized the importance of teachers selecting and (if necessary) deselecting their colleagues in schools managed by TPPs. Without the ability to choose their colleagues, the teachers are not as able to maintain the different, and collegial, culture that results when teachers work in a cooperative arrangement.
16. How do TPPs handle teacher-performance measurement and improvement?
TPPs value professional development, performance measurement, and improvement of their members as key to the success of the educational programs they provide to the schools they serve. To be clear about expectations, TPPs typically have a set of values, a mission, and a vision in addition to quality standards for the behavior of teachers.
Teachers generally form individualized performance and evaluation processes, methods, and procedures for the entire membership to review, evaluate, and accept. All partners and associates are actively engaged in "peer review"—an ongoing feedback process from multiple sources that incorporates mentoring and coaching principles into the daily work of the TPP. The process typically includes compiling and weighing performance inputs from the board of the school, peers, students, and parents. Members of the TPP identify one another's strengths and areas of development as well as areas of growth and remediation.
Failure to live the values or meet the standards—as determined through the peer review process—have consequences spelled out in official documents outlining the process. Whatever the particulars of the process, peer review is intended to be done in the spirit of ensuring continuous improvement and professional development to ensure accountability, morale, and good organizational performance. Peer review is not to be a "gotcha" process. Instead, it is a means to ensuring that a TPP puts students and student learning first.
17. What happens if a teacher doesn't work out?
In TPPs an objective process of peer review and termination is developed by all members or senior members. Teachers are held accountable to the standards set forth by their peers as well as the other teachers, parents, and students who will have a role in the evaluation process. If a teacher is judged by the process to not meet minimum standards then the teacher's contract will not be renewed.
In the Minnesota-model TPPs, teachers sign at-will contracts for a specified period of time. This agreement may be terminated by mutual agreement, the election of the partners, or for cause. If terminated teachers want work, they must seek it elsewhere.
This could be perceived by some teachers to be a risk. Especially teachers who are used to being employed as part of a district pool where teachers have tenure and seniority that are considered as part of the de-selection process. In the Minnesota model, de-selected teachers do not return to a pool for reassignment to another school and seniority is not automatically considered as part of the decision-making.
In the Milwaukee-model TPPs, a teacher de-selected by a teacher cooperative or 'partnership' returns to the pool of MPS-employed teachers for reassignment. Membership in the teacher cooperative is terminated when the teacher is reassigned to another school.
18. Where existing TPPs are managing schools, what student performance results are available?
TPPs are still a fairly new notion. Their outcomes are difficult to study because there are not many of them, and longitudinal studies can be done in only very few cases. Education|Evolving points out, "Research has been slow to pick up on this innovation. Research, as John Witte of the University of Wisconsin has pointed out, tends to generalize; is interested in 'most' and 'on the whole' and 'overall'. It pays less attention to individual, particular developments that turn out to be the really significant innovations" (Kolderie, Ted. 2006. Preface of "Teachers in Professional Practice: An inventory of new opportunities for teachers. Second Edition", Education|Evolving.)
From what we do know, it appears that students are doing well. The Gates Foundation commissioned the American Institute for Research and SRI (formerly Stanford Research Institute) to compare the performance of some of the school sites managed by EdVisions Cooperative in Minnesota with other schools, for the period of 2000-2004. In 13 of 14 categories studied schools that were served by EdVisions ranked higher than any others and in the 14th category they were a close second. Some of the items examined were: high expectations, respect and responsibility, time to collaborate, technology as a tool, active inquiry, in-depth learning, and performance assessment.
Based on student and parent surveys the EdVisions schools are perceived as successful and students appear more motivated and interested in learning than they were prior to attending.
According to a March 2007 article for Phi Delta Kappan International by Ronald J. Newell and Mark J. Van Ryzin, over the years EdVisions schools have consistently achieved adequate yearly progress (AYP) under NCLB in both reading and mathematics. Moreover, many of the schools have posted additional indicators of success, such as performance levels in the top 25% of comparable schools, and the schools reliably meet NCLB standards for attendance and graduation, despite serving student populations that often have higher-than-average numbers of low-income, special education, and limited-English-proficient students.
Newell and Van Ryzin also wrote about the schools' Hope Study findings in comparison with traditional schools (described in more detail in the article linked above). "Student perceptions of autonomy, belongingness, and a "learning" goal orientation were generally higher in EdVisions schools, even though the school populations generally included more low-SES, special education, and limited-English-proficient students. Even more interesting, the EdVisions students showed a higher level of engagement than did students in traditional schools, and EdVisions students showed an upward trend in hope, while students in traditional schools showed a flat trend in hope. This finding is in line with existing research showing that engagement generally goes down over time in most secondary schools."
19. What is the relationship between TPPs and the union local?
In the Minnesota arrangements, the teachers do not continue as district employees. So there is no need for a relationship with a teachers union—at least in the way teachers unions operate today. For many individual teachers-members of these TPPs, their status with the union is no different than the status they would have had when they opted to work for chartered schools in their state.
Some members of the Minnesota model have thought about applying for individual or 'affiliate' memberships. Unions have sometimes puzzled about how to respond to this. The teachers would not need collective bargaining services, they think, so why would they want to be part of the union?
But bargaining need not be an essential feature of unions. As proposed by Teachers as Owners: A Key to Revitalizing Public Education, a book edited in 2003 by Edward J. Dirkswager, "Members of TPPs will have need for a strong advocate for the teaching profession, as well as the usual strong advocacy for adequate funding in public education. It seems reasonable to assume that if an existing organization does not come forward to provide this advocacy for TPPs and their members, a new organization will need to be created in order to carry out these functions. Members of TPPs will also need a variety of services that could easily be provided by unions or a new variation of unions. Retirement programs, other fringe benefits, and professional development services are some examples."
The Milwaukee TPP model is union-compatible. Here the teachers forming the partnership remain employees of—'leased' from—the district; they continue as dues-paying members of the union under the master contract. The Milwaukee Teachers Education Association in Milwaukee has been supportive; in part, with memoranda-of-understanding that modify certain provisions of the master agreement. The teachers point out that they create no work for the union: There is no new little local at the school to be serviced, and the school generates no grievances. "Who would we grieve against?" they ask.
This document was prepared by Ted Kolderie and Kim Farris-Berg, with support and input from Edward J. Dirkswager, of Education|Evolving. Last updated April 2006.