Green Dot calling.
It was on May 18th I first posted about Green Dot. Actually it was a longer than usual ramble about Locke High School in LA, Green Dot charter schools and the Green Dot leader, Steve Barr.
I didn’t expect what was to come.
It was followed by some exchanges with Leo Casey of the UFT in NY. Casey is a regular poster on Edwize. And with NY teacher blogger JD2718.
It surprised me even more when every time I posted something about Green Dot, my blog hits would see major jumps. People are interested in this experiment in education.
A few weeks later there was news that Randi Weingarten, the head of the NY union, and Barr were having discussions about working together on creating a New York charter high school
And AJ Duffy, the UTLA teacher union chief began speaking with more balanced words about the Green Dot schools in LA.
LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and the new majority on the LA school board, including the board member who represents the Locke-Watts area, announced support for Green Dot’s efforts. Along came money from the Gates Foundation.
Something was going on.
And then Steve Barr called.
Here’s what I asked and what I think Barr said. No quotes. I wasn’t taking notes.
About unions?
Barr says he is pro-union. He insists that every Green Dot school is organized by a genuine (not a company) union. Casey has reprinted a copy of the LA-Green Dot contract.
I asked about how the contract was negotiated?”
Barr said it was negotiated between Green Dot and teacher representatives of the CTA. He described the teachers at his schools as “mission driven,” as is he, which made the process easier.
I have read the contract. I have read many contracts over the past twenty years. There’s good stuff and bad stuff in all of them. The issue is whether they were honestly and fairly negotiated. I have no reason to think this one wasn’t.
When Barr spoke, he spoke about the educational needs of the poorest of our communities and students. He makes the case for a view of school change and reform as a social justice issue.
Of course, in many ways, so do the Bushies and the privateers when they push NCLB
.
But here is what I saw as a difference.
Barr says he doesn’t see Green Dot as part of the charter school movement.
He says he see it as part of the civil rights movement.
He told me the story of being interviewed by some guys from Harvard Business Review. Barr told them Green Dot was trying to use the SNCC model. He said they were confused. “You mean like ‘snickers’ candy bars?” He had to explain to the Harvard guys about SNCC, the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, which organized many projects in the 60s Southern Civil Rights Movement, including Freedom Schools to teach poor Southern blacks to read so they could vote and gain some political power.
I asked about the fight for public schools and the fight against those who want to turn every area of public life into private, market driven operations.
It seemed to me he saw Green Dot schools, not as an alternative to non-chartered public schools, but as a model for them. “Why can’t our successes be brought to any public schools,” he seemed to be asking?
And that has always been the value of the movement of alternative schools. It is nothing new in the history of American education. Go all the way back to Dewey’s Lab School. The best alternative schools have been a challenge to, not a substitute for, public schools.
Barr is a smooth and articulate guy. Was he selling me a bill of goods? Could be.
But he’s a Dodger fan, thinks Dodger Stadium is “beautiful” and wants to see the Cubbies when he comes out here.
Gotta give a guy like that the benefit of the doubt.
Hi Fred
I was the CTA staff who, along with three members of AMU, the union for Green Dot Public Schools, negotiated the initial agreement.
The agreement itself was one of the first in California with an independent charter school and has served as something of a template for others.
In evaluating the agreement, it needs to be understood that, in California, charter schools are exempt from the education code. Therefore, what’s in the agreement is what you get–nothing more.
The agreement was negotiated during a period when Green Dot consisted of two sites with 18 teachers. It now has ten sites with over 150. What made sense four years ago when the initial agreement was ratified may look quaint or dated today.
Steve unquestionably believes what he tells you. His background is as a politico and he has organized circles around his opponents. However, his commitment to progressive causes is not necessarily shared uniformly by his hired managers and Steve is not directly involved in the day to day operation of Green Dot Schools as he was in the beginning.
Just like that? Hello, this is Steve….?
So I do like the “we’re not part of the charter movement” bit, and you’ve gotten some real response to your question. And that’s something.
But two large questions among others remain: 1) is it really ok to have regular public education for most kids, but green dots in small settings for poor Black and Hispanic kids? 2) why should teachers, too weak in their current unions, accept being divided into smaller units with different contracts and less “strength in unity” to bargain from?
Jonathan
Barr called pretty much just like that.
I don’t understand your first question. Is it ok to have regular schools for white suburban kids, but shitty schools like Locke for the urban poor?
As for the union question: I still have lots of questions about the role of collective bargaining and Green Dot. But I don’t think your premise works. The structure of American school districts has always been local. There are thousands of locals across the US, thousands of contracts. The fact that within LA, for example, there might be smaller bargaining units, in itself, is not a necessarily a problem. It could be, but like most things, it depends. Look, some schools have active, high capacity union leadership. Other schools don’t. Same with smaller NEA locals. But the work to organize our members is our job. If they’re weak, capacity building is union work.
But if your point is that Green Dot is out to divide and conquer, I don’t see it. California law does not permit charters to work under the same contract as regular schools. But Barr says he inisited that Green Dot schools have a bargained agreement and that the teachers have union representation. Is that what you’ve heard from other for-profit charters and their political backers? Not me.
Well, I think we diverged on versions of that first question before. Many public school systems in urban areas have failed to deliver adequate education. It just doesn’t follow (says me) that this makes it ok to bring in charters. In fact, in doing so we surrender even the pretense that we can supply the same quality of education to Black and white. In the New York context it’s uglier. Mediocre schools were manipulated into becoming failing schools, to create the needed excuses to create different sorts of schools for minority kids than for white kids.
And on the union side, the smaller the unit, the greater danger of leaving teachers unorganized. I have watched over the last decade as poorly represented teachers in large schools gave way to unrepresented (on the day-to-day level) teachers in Gates-mini-schools.
That small structure, as a unionist, it’s a challenge. And small structures on a large scale (what we have in NY) are not a challenge – they are a serious problem. And into this situation we are going to bring an organization that is committed to the full conversion of our second largest city to small schools (the web site does not indicate their vision for New York)?
Our recent experiences in high schools in New York will tend to continue to make us quite suspicious. Even if Green Dot’s own intentions are good/
Nothing wrong with being suspicious. I’ve been playing cards with the same colleagues for 25 years. We still cut the deck.
thanks for the post re green dot and unions ‘colaborating’ with charters. i am still skeptical of green dot, but will look much more closely at their sncc-inspired model.
but as a giants fan and someone sympathetic to the old brooklyn dodgers, barr seems very suspicious to me…
Eric,
Your welcome. It is always good to be skeptical. A Giants fan who claims sympathy for the Brooklyn Dodgers? Hmmmm.