Background:
Madison Schools 2000 is the strategic plan for the Madison Metropolitan School District. The plan consists of twelve "strategies" designed to achieve the plan goals. One of the strategies is "Participatory Management".
The Participatory Management strategy is designed to "involve all stakeholders in decision making" through the completion of a number of objectives. Included in the objectives is the creation of site-based participatory management groups. These strategies are consistent with the District's adoption of total quality management (TQM).
Status:
Most of the Participatory Management objectives involving site-based management groups are ON HOLD until the District and MTI resolve key issues. MTI advises all members NOT to participate until these issues are resolved. One area where the District has proceeded absent agreement with MTI, is in the area of School Improvement Plans (SIPs). Each school has created a "participatory management team", known as School Improvement Teams, to develop SIPs. The School Improvement Team consists of 12-20 members, including the principal, school staff, parents, community members, and, at secondary schools, students. The selection of the Team is the responsibility of the principal, who is encouraged to involve the stakeholder groups in selecting their representatives.
Concerns:
In what management decisions would the site-based teams "participate"?
The District has indicated that it would be the purpose of the site-based teams to focus on instructional issues. But when do instructional issues become employment issues? Teachers have always been active, whether as teams or as part of committees, in developing, modifying, and analyzing curriculum and other instructional issues. Experience in other Districts suggest that discussions of instructional issues by site-based management teams eventually lead to discussions of staffing issues, including issues addressed in the Collective Bargaining Agreement. From its research, MTI is aware of numerous examples from other school districts where similar participatory management schemes have led to the gradual erosion of contractual rights, including transfer rights, limitations on work load, hours of work, planning time, surplus procedures, evaluation, and assignment rights. MTI has sought, and will continue to seek, agreement from the District that participatory or site-based management will not involve subjects addressed in the Collective Bargaining Agreement. Until an agreement is reached which protects the interest and welfare of MTI members, MTI will not participate, nor recommend any member to participate, on site-based teams.
Of additional concern is that, in light of revenue limits and budget constraints enacted by THOMPSON'S LAW, the decisions that the site-based teams may participate in will most likely involve the choice of two negatives; i.e. where neither option is desirable. Likely alternatives are, "Which program should we cut?" "Should we trade a teacher allocation for two educational assistants?" In this environment, participatory management has more to do with allocating scarce resources than developing programs to improve educational quality.
How are site-based teams selected?
As has been indicated herein, District principals would only be encouraged to involve stakeholder groups in selecting their representatives to the site-based team. Principals would not be required to do so. In fact, the principal retains sole responsibility for the selection of the team. It is MTI's position that the stakeholder groups elect their own representatives. Teachers, educational assistants, clerical/technical workers and substitute teachers should decide who will represent their interests on the site-based team, just as they decide who will represent their interests on their Board of Directors or their Bargaining Team. As with any democratic process, in order for the team to represent the stakeholders, the stakeholders must have the right to determine their representatives. THE DISTRICT HAS REFUSED to agree to this provision and has, in fact, allowed principals to select the site-based team.
How would participatory management impact instructional duties?
As most are painfully aware, there are currently too many demands on a teacher's time and more than enough committee meetings. Teachers need more time to plan and prepare, not less. Given this, how will the addition of site-based management responsibilities impact on an already full load? One teacher in a school district where site-based management was instituted referred to SBM as "a black hole in terms of time."
How much authority would be granted SBM teams?
There is a distinct difference between participatory decision making and shared decision making. While the District's alleged goal is to "involve" all stakeholders in decision making, they also place ultimate authority with the building principal, District administration, and the School Board. The District's repeated returning of school-created SIP goals until they conformed to what management wanted them to be is evidence of this. Unless the participants are given the authority to implement their decisions, site-based management is nothing more than a glorified suggestion box.
What are the benefits? Does site-based management improve student performance or reduce unnecessary spending?
Proponents of site-based management argue that site-based decision making results in better programs for students since resources are more likely to match student needs when instructional decisions are made by those who work more directly with students. However, studies have found no evidence linking site-based management to student achievement. The U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO), in a report dated August, 1994, stated that their study of site-based management indicated that its impact on student performance was unknown. The G.A.O. study further found that districts using site-based management have not realized net budget savings. Even proponents of site-based management recognize that "highly centralized organization appears to be more efficient in terms of per-unit dollar costs, expenditure of time, or straight-line, no-nonsense task accomplishment" (Department of Public Instruction, October, 1992).
MTI believes that, by and large, instructional decisions are already being made by those who work with students. Teachers create and adopt curriculum, plan their lessons and design testing instruments. MTI believes that the surest way of improving instruction is to provide more time for teachers for planning and preparation. As site-based management duties infringe on planning and preparation time, they would actually have a negative impact on instruction.
Legal Concerns.
I. Given the labor laws, there is some ambiguity about union represented employees participating in management decisions. In part, this is due to the exclusion of supervisory employees from labor law protection. A recent U.S. Supreme Court decision highlights the issue:
NLRB v. Health Care and Retirement Corp. of America
This case involved the filing of an unfair labor practices complaint after three licensed practical nurses (LPNs) were discharged by their employer. The Supreme Court ruled that nurses who direct less-skilled employees as part of their duties are supervisors and therefore are not protected by labor law and thereby had no recourse to file an unfair labor practice (ULP) over their discharge.
For teachers, this case is significant in that it raises concern over teachers' relationships with Educational Assistants. The MMSD has already begun referring to teachers as "lead workers" who, while not supervisory, direct the work of educational assistants. In her dissent, Justice Ginsberg stated the ruling "had implications far beyond the nurses" and charged that "if any person who may use independent judgement to assign tasks to others or direct their work is a supervisor, then few professionals employed by organizations subject to the National Labor Relations Act will receive its protections." It is for this reason that MTI strongly advises all members NOT to be involved in matters of hiring, evaluating, or the assignment of others or any other management function.
II. There is little ambiguity, however, in what matters employee participation committees can be involved. It is a well established principle in labor law that an employer cannot dominate a labor organization. Two recent National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) decisions attest to same:
Electromation, Inc. v. Teamsters Local 1049 E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. v. Chemical Workers AssociationBoth of these cases were decided by the NLRB and dealt with the issue of employee participation committees. While the facts in the cases are different, both decisions reinforce the Union's right as exclusive representative for purposes of dealing with the employer about wages, hours, and working conditions. Both decisions reinforce the longstanding prohibition on employers from creating employee groups that deal with the employer on conditions of employment, because the employer inevitably controls such groups and thereby undermines the rights of workers and unions.
Forms of such employer dominated employee groups include: 1) the employer controlling the membership of the participatory group; 2) paying for members' time in participation groups; 3) providing meeting space and materials; 4) requiring supervisory personnel (aka principals) to be present in participation group meetings; 5) controlling the group's agenda; 6) controlling the facilitator or training; and, 7) requiring a consensus decision-making procedure, thus giving supervisory members of the group a veto. Most, if not all, of these forms are evident in the site-based management structure currently proposed by the District.
Summary.
One of the primary purposes of a union is to enable employees to have an equal "voice" in matters affecting their employment. MTI supports proposals which expand the employees' voice, especially as regards items of importance to them. MTI's concern with site-based management is that while it gives the appearance of providing employees with an expanded voice, in reality it is ventriloquism - a means for District administration to control the agenda by giving the appearance of equal participation.
By the District doing so and gaining exceptions to the negotiated Collective Bargaining Agreement, site-based management could well dissolve the glue that holds the union together and makes it strong. The resultant effect would be that the union's power base would no longer be strong enough to continue to provide and protect the wages, rights and working conditions which MTI members deserve and enjoy.
Labor-Management "cooperation", in its most basic form, is collective bargaining. Given that the District has done all possible to disrupt that basic activity, MTI is doubtful that they would respect labor's views in other joint efforts, such as site-based management. It is feared that those whom MTI represents would find themselves like many other employee groups who have experimented in joint efforts with management; i.e. management gains at the expense of the employees. Recall the fox who said to the gingerbread man, "If we stay together, we can make it across the stream."