For the last year, the school has been operating under a temporary agreement with the union that preserves the status quo. But that’s set to expire this year, and KIPP Baltimore executive director Jason Botel says the school will have to close if it can’t reach a long-term accommodation with union officials that allows it to keep its commitments to KIPP’s students, parents and staff. As things now stand, KIPP teachers don’t know whether they’ll have a job next year, and parents worry their kids won’t have a school to attend in the fall. Mr. Botel has been working with union officials since February to resolve the crisis, so far without success.
If all else fails, a bill sponsored by Del. Samuel I. Rosenberg and Sen. Catherine Pugh in the General Assembly this year could allow KIPP teachers to vote on their working conditions, including their pay for the extended hours. The legislation would give the school the power to ask teachers to amend the current contract to allow them to accept a 20 percent increase rather than the 33 percent increase the union is demanding. If 80 percent of the teachers agreed, the school could continue offering its extended school day and year. Hearings on the proposed legislation will be held in Annapolis on Wednesday, and we urge lawmakers to pass the measure during the current General Assembly session in order to ensure that KIPP can continue operating in Baltimore.
Maryland has a relatively weak charter law as it is, and ultimately broader reforms are needed to help innovative alternatives to standard public schools to flourish — for example, the state needs to prevent local school boards from vetoing the creation of new charters and to provide some capital funding to help these schools get off the ground. It would take time to build support for those reforms, but KIPP’s need is urgent. Mr. Botel says that without a long-term agreement, he has difficulty raising money and financing needed renovations of KIPP’s building. Without a permanent solution, he says, the school will be forced to leave Baltimore.
Public employee unions across the country are feeling under siege these days. But forcing the closure of a school where innovation and imagination are producing astounding results that could become a model for reform efforts nationwide, which the Baltimore union seems bent on, is no way win back the public’s affection, and it stands in contrast to the union’s approval last year of one of the most reform-minded labor agreements in the nation. The ability of teachers in any given school to approve different working conditions than the district-wide standard is a key component of the agreement, but the contract does not extend that flexibility to matters of pay.
While we understand the union’s concern for strictly adhering to every provision of the contract it negotiated for its members, lawmakers must also look at the bigger picture and allow themselves to be guided by what is best for Baltimore’s children, who clearly are flourishing at KIPP.
Moreover, no one is being asked to teach there who doesn’t share the school’s philosophy or is unwilling to make the extra effort its extended day requires; on the contrary, the staff seems enthusiastic and hopeful that the transformative work they have begun can continue, even if it means being paid slightly less than union scale for the extra hours they put in. Money can’t buy that kind of dedication, and Baltimore is lucky to have such professionals. Lawmakers ought to be doing everything possible to encourage them to keep it up.