Rennie Forums – District Field Work
The Rennie Center is working with seven district teams—each headed by a superintendent and a union president—to develop and implement an action plan for transforming labor-management relations based on a district-specific focus area. District teams attend semi-annual Rennie Forums and engage in ongoing, site-based consulting to address specific challenges and opportunities.
Rennie Forums create opportunities for participants to envision, conceptualize and plan new, more flexible, more effective working relationships to advance student learning. Sessions are variable, facilitated by labor-management experts, and include elements such as visiting practitioners and researchers, readings and seminars, case studies, role playing exercises, visioning exercises, role-alike and team conversations, field trips, inspirational speakers, debates and design exercises.
Supplementing more general work accomplished during the Rennie Forums, Rennie Center consultants work at the district level with school managers, union leaders and their teams to address more case-specific challenges and opportunities. Expert consultants, versed in the education reform areas selected by the joint district teams, facilitate improved relationships between labor and management. Linking theory and practice, district-level consulting provides a regular discipline for encouraging school managers and union leaders to step away from their day-to-day interaction and focus on larger issues of transforming relationships. Each district team jointly selected its focus area for this work; greatly increasing each individual’s commitment to both resolving specific district problems and concerns and improving professional relationships. District-level consulting has enabled us to take the shared vision for labor-management transformation developed during forums and work with districts to implement it locally.
In 2006, the Rennie Center initiated a second, more-focused phase of the Labor-Management Initiative, offering joint district teams the choice of three areas of education reform that are common hurdles for labor and management: high school reform, differentiated roles for teachers, and expanded learning time. Below is a listing of the second cohort of Labor-Management district teams, as well as their areas of focus and a summary of their work to date. Boston and Springfield were part of the first phase of the Labor-Management Initiative which began in 2003 and continue to participate as part of Cohort I.
Cohort II:
Athol-Royalston
Consultant: Paul Sutherland
Focus Area: Expanded Learning Time
The Rennie Center began working with Athol-Royalston in 2006. The team is also working with Massachusetts 2020 and the Department of Education to secure funding for a 2008 planning grant to fund the LMI team’s work on expanding learning time in two schools as well as to focus on using the current allotment of time more effectively.
Brockton
Consultant: Elaine Fersh, Community Matters
Focus Area: Alternative Education Opportunities
The Rennie Center began working with Brockton in 2007. The team is focused on creating alternative education opportunities for students within the district. The goal for the labor-management team is to create alternative education programs for at-risk and overage high school students that will launch at the start of the 2008-09 school year.
Falmouth
Consultant: Dania Vazquez, Center for Collaborative Education
Focus Area: High School Reform
The Rennie Center began working with Falmouth in 2006. Falmouth High School is in the midst of a renovation project. District leaders and teachers decided to use the renovation as an opportunity to engage in discussion about renovations to the curriculum, structure and program offerings with an eye toward developing students who are prepared to be competitive in a global economy.Southbridge
Consultant: Andrew Bundy, Community Matters
Focus Area: Expanded Learning Time
The Rennie Center began working with Southbridge in 2006. Southbridge received an Expanded Learning Time planning grant from the Department of Education in August. The district team is currently working to launch two expanded learning time schools in the fall of 2008.Worcester
Consultant: Celine Coggins, Rennie Center for Education Research & Policy
Focus Area: Differentiated Roles for Teachers
The Rennie Center began working with Worcester in 2006. The team worked on an analysis of teacher positions within the district to determine what existed and what needed revision. The team’s work culminated in the creation of jointly approved job descriptions for new instructional coach positions at the elementary and middle school levels.
Cohort I:
Boston
Consultant: Paul Reville, Rennie Center for Education Research & Policy
Focus Area: Alternative Education Opportunities for At-Risk Students
The Rennie Center began working with Boston at the beginning of the Labor-Management Initiative. Their focus was the creation of alternative programs for at-risk students. As the new district leadership team sets its priorities, the Rennie Center is continuing discussions with the union and management leadership to explore new possibilities for joint work.Springfield
Consultant: Paul Reville, Rennie Center for Education Research & Policy
Focus Area: Successful Schools Initiative
The Rennie Center began working with Springfield in 2003, at the beginning of the Labor-Management Initiative. The team collaborated to create a definition of a successful school, and implemented a district-wide survey to measure school responses to their definition. After analyzing the data, the team created an intervention plan that sends two experienced coaches into each selected school.
Research
The Rennie Center has commissioned research to provide evidence for informed discussions about innovative labor-management practices that have been implemented around the country; and the status of labor-management relations in Massachusetts. Additionally, the Rennie Center is prioritizing the documentation of various aspects of this initiative to both chronicle our experience and provide insight for others pursuing similar endeavors in the future.
District Case Study. The Rennie Center has been working with the Springfield Labor-Management team since the inception of this initiative. Over the past two years we have seen different levels of progress and success within the district. We have contracted a graduate student from Harvard University to write an in-depth case study of our work to date in Springfield. This will serve to document the longevity of the work as well as the district-level success and relationship improvements we have seen.
Labor-Management Initiative Evaluation/Analysis. As we enter the fourth year of the labor-management initiative, we are working to document the work we have done and the progress we have made in participating Labor-Management Initiative districts. This is a broad internal analysis of our strategy, its execution in several districts and lessons learned across districts. This document will inform future planning for the next phase of the Labor-Management Initiative which will begin in Fall 2008.
Best Practices Research. To ground the discussion in evidence about promising practices, the Rennie Center has produced a book cataloguing path-breaking labor-management practices and contract provisions that lead to a sharpened focus on student achievement. Released nationally in September 2005, this "desk reference" provides school board members, superintendents, union leaders, and these groups’ lawyers and others engaged in negotiations or otherwise seeking to improve labor relations with access to effective models from school districts across the nation.
The Rennie Center worked with a team of labor experts, led by Linda Kaboolian, at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, to craft this user-friendly and provocative reference guide. This national compendium of breakthrough practices documents innovative ways in which district and union leaders are creatively collaborating to directly impact student achievement.
Research with Massachusetts Leaders. As part of another research effort, the Rennie Center has conducted research on the current status of labor relations in Massachusetts districts to clarify and better understand issues which are of foremost importance to school managers and union leaders as they work together to improve teaching and learning opportunities.
Ongoing Public Events
Through public convenings and invitation-only meetings, the Rennie Center brings groups of district and labor leaders together to engage in constructive discourse about the process of transforming labor-management relations. The Rennie Center will continue to host events aimed at moving this issue into the public limelight and creating a genuine discussion about ways in which to improve labor-management relations in public schools. Learn more about past events focused on the topic of labor management relations.
The Rennie Center’s National Labor Management Advisory Board
To help us with this work, we have convened an expert advisory board of national and local representatives of teacher unions, superintendents, school boards, policy leaders, business education activists, labor relations experts, and others to conceptualize the needs, interests, opportunities, and possible strategies for consideration in this work. This group helps us develop our working agenda. Members include:
Irwin Blumer, Professor, Lynch School of Education, Boston College
Ed Doherty, Massachusetts Federation of Teachers; Former President of Boston Teachers Union
Roger Erskine, Teachers Union Reform Network, Seattle, WA; Former Seattle Union Leader; Former Senior Staffer, National Education Association
Thomas Gosnell, President, Massachusetts Federation of Teachers
Thomas Hickey, South Shore Vocational School, MA Administrator & Former Teacher
Susan Moore Johnson, Professor, Harvard Graduate School of Education
Glenn Koocher, Executive Director, Massachusetts Association of School Committees
Bill McKersie, Associate Dean for Development & Alumni Relations, Harvard Graduate School of Education
Rosanne Bacon Meade, Advisory Board Co-Chair, Cambridge College; Former President, Massachusetts Teachers Association
Thomas Scott, Executive Director of MA Association of School Superintendents; Former Executive Director of EDCO Collaborative
Kathleen Skinner, Director, Massachusetts Teachers Association
Adam Urbanski, Founder/Director, Teachers Union Reform Network; President, Rochester Teachers Association, NY
Anne Wass, President, Massachusetts Teachers Association
Learn more about Transforming Labor Management Relations in Education. >
