All Massachusetts school districts will have to adopt new evaluation systems based on a state framework that was approved by the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education on June 28. The new system will be phased in over three years, beginning with Level 4 schools--those designated "underperforming" by the state--in the 2011-12 school…

After months of arduous negotiation and partisan squabbling, states across the country have produced budgets for the new fiscal year that in many cases will bring deep cuts to state spending, including money for schools. The budget blueprints adopted by numerous states were postscripts to divisive legislative sessions that saw newly elected…

As state legislatures go to work this year, one of the overriding questions is whether 2012 will bring a reprise of last year's frenzied work on education--much of it shepherded by newly elected Republican majorities and governors--or whether elected officials will take a more deliberate and cautious approach. Last year, many governors and…

Collective bargaining is common in American public education, but its consequences are poorly understood. We focus here on key contractual provisions--seniority-based transfer rights--that affect teacher assignments, and we show that these transfer rights operate to burden disadvantaged schools with higher percentages of inexperienced teachers. We…

The purpose of this qualitative study is to investigate superintendents' perspectives of the value of formal training in collective bargaining negotiations. Dependent on their responses, one could propose negotiation skills training as a crucial area of need for superintendents. Social interdependence theory provides the theoretical framework…

Between 2011 and 2013 lawmakers in every state proposed, and often enacted, laws intended to impact codified state provisions related to teachers and teachers' unions (author calculation). These new laws either worked against union interests (e.g., by prohibiting collective bargaining) or they aligned with union positions (e.g. by providing…

This study focuses on Public Act 103 of 2011, which made teacher evaluation, layoff policies and teacher placement prohibited subjects of bargaining, among other things. After surveying 200 Michigan school district collective bargaining agreements, this study finds that as many as 60 percent of districts could have collective bargaining agreements…

The relationship between teacher union officials and central office administrators' descriptions of the level of importance and the level of difficulty when negotiating Annual Professional Performance Review (APPR) language into a teachers' union collective bargaining agreement was examined. Relationships were investigated using the New York State…

"Harvard Education Letter" is published bimonthly at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. This issue of "Harvard Education Letter" contains the following articles: (1) Bringing Art into School, Byte by Byte: Innovative Programs Use Technology to Expand Access to the Arts (Patti Hartigan); (2) Differentiated Instruction…

We evaluate potential determinants of enrollment in an early retirement incentive program for non-tenure-track employees at a large university. Using administrative records on the eligible, population of employees not covered by collective bargaining agreements, historical employee count and layoff data by budget units, and public information on…

Increased spending and decreased student performance have been attributed in part to teachers' unions and to the collective bargaining agreements (CBAs) they negotiate with school boards. However, only recently have researchers begun to examine impacts of specific aspects of CBAs on student and district outcomes. This article uses a unique measure…

During the last twenty-five years or more, administrative jobs have increased dramatically as colleges compete for students. Who could argue that academic professionals can get by without more admissions counselors or more technology experts to make sure e-mail and computers are promptly fixed, or more fundraisers in advancement to pursue needed…

For at least two decades, studies have demonstrated that the least experienced and credentialed teachers are concentrated in poor, minority, and low-performing schools. Some blame provisions in collective bargaining agreements (CBAs) between teachers unions and school districts that favor senior teachers. Seniority preference rules, they say,…

The purpose of this study was to identify and describe the typical terms and conditions of employment in 2012-2013 negotiated agreements in Pennsylvania school districts, and to determine if there was a relationship between enrollment size and 5 selected terms and conditions of employment: base salary; highest salary; teacher contribution for one…

The unionization of instructional workers is a central feature of U.S. higher education, with more than a quarter of those teaching college classes covered by collectively bargained contracts. Though dated, the best existing numbers indicate that more than 430,000 faculty members, graduate students, and related personnel are in bargaining units;…