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Parents Take On Union

“Parents flexing muscle”
Editorial
Buffalo News
January 19, 2012

It might not be so easy anymore for the Buffalo Teachers Federation to sue itself out of educational policy changes it doesn’t like.

The District Parent Coordinating Council recently threw down the gauntlet in defense of plans to improve some of Buffalo’s worst performing schools.

The parents have warned BTF President Philip Rumore they will work to convert three of those public schools into charter schools if Rumore sues to block turnaround plans submitted to the state Education Department by Buffalo Public School officials.

The state has yet to examine plans for Bilingual Center School 33, Drew Science Magnet and Futures Academy. But if approved, each of the schools will be eligible for additional federal funding of up to $2 million annually for three years.

The BTF objects to the plans because they require that teachers be transferred involuntarily, which is a violation of the union’s contract with the district, according to Rumore.

How the BTF achieved contract language impinging on the district’s responsibility to place employees where it sees fit is beyond us. Transferring teachers is clearly a management concern and shouldn’t be held up by the union.

The BTF has had plenty of success before in the courts, and Rumore may be legally correct on this matter, too.

But yet another courtroom scrum is the last thing Buffalo’s school children need now. A lawsuit could threaten the federal funding and delay implementation of the turnaround plans, which Rumore also claims are educationally unsound.

The union might think twice in this instance, however. It could be throwing the proverbial baby out with the bath water. If the parents group sticks to its intentions and is successful with charter school conversion efforts, none of the new charter school teachers will be part of the BTF, diminishing the union’s clout even further.

Whether the parents group would be able to apply and get the necessary state approvals quickly enough to open new charter schools for the 2012-13 academic year is by no means certain.

Nonetheless, the group is becoming a legitimate presence in the educational policy arena in Buffalo. It nudged district administrators and School Board members to get their acts together and played a role in securing the retirement of former Superintendent James A. Williams.

And by calling for an end to the BTF’s recalcitrance, the group has started detangling a nasty knot between the district and teachers union that has helped hold city students back for decades.