Unions balk at school aid program

The unions say participation in the program, Race to the Top, would have unfairly tied their jobs to student test scores.

School districts in Brockton, Marshfield, Plymouth, Randolph, and several other communities south of Boston are among the 256 statewide that can look forward to the prospect of funding for new educational services next year. With the federal program structured to give more money to school systems serving greater numbers of lower-income households, Brockton is eligible for an estimated $2.6 million, Plymouth for $440,000, Randolph for $315,000, and Marshfield for $182,000.

But school systems in Braintree, Dedham, Quincy, and Weymouth, among others, are excluded from the funds because they failed to gain union leaders’ signatures on their applications.

“I’m disappointed,’’ said Anne Mahoney, vice chairwoman of the Quincy School Committee and a parent of children in the Quincy schools. “Any opportunity we have to have funds coming in, we should take a good look at it.’’

Quincy would have been eligible for a potential $1.07 million, money its schools lack in this recession to spend on new teachers and professional development programs for current educators.

“This is a kind of economy we have never seen before,’’ Mahoney said of the economic slump that has lowered local and state revenues. “And we have not seen the end of it.’’

A $4.35 billion program, Race to the Top is the Obama administration’s plan to improve the nation’s schools by directing new money to education reform strategies, overhauling failing schools, and increasing the number of charter schools. Nationally regarded as a leader in education reform, Massachusetts is competing for a $250 million, four-year grant to develop similar goals of its own, including pulling up the performances of failing schools, as well as improving - and better assessing - the effectiveness of teachers and principals.

Local school superintendents said the state’s education department worked with them and the Massachusetts Teachers Association, also known as the MTA, to craft a formula that would allow three centrally involved parties - superintendents, school committees, and local teacher unions - to sign an agreement to work jointly on the state’s goals on the local level.

“The fact is we worked very hard with the MTA to come up with an understanding,’’ said Dedham School Superintendent June Doe. “It gave them [unions] the green light.’’

She said the reluctance of teacher unions to sign the agreements in communities such as Dedham is “too bad,’’ because the state is well positioned to win the grants. Although Dedham’s share of the money would have been small (an estimated $30,000) because the town provides relatively few services under Title I, the federal educational program for lower-income families, “it’s still important,’’ she said.

But where superintendents saw green lights, some unions saw stop signs.

“The grant foresaw a time when we would be forced to have our evaluation rules linked to student performance,’’ said Tim Dwyer, president of the Dedham Education Association.

Student test scores depend on many factors outside teachers’ control, he said. “The idea that we be held accountable on student performance on tests is ridiculous.’’

Dwyer said an over-reliance on standardized tests treats education like mass production. “Every student is unique. We are not making Toyotas,’’ he said.

Paul Phillips, president of the 900-member Quincy Education Association, said his union’s executive board saw the new program as more interference from state and federal education bureaucrats.

“The MTA said you can sign if you trust your partners,’’ Phillips said. “We trust the School Committee, we trust the superintendent . . . but we don’t trust the [education] department.’’

He said his members also believe state and federal officials overvalue standardized testing. They fear that agreeing to discuss a new system to evaluate teacher performance as foreseen by Race to the Top will lead to tying test scores to decisions on teachers’ hiring, tenure, pay, and other issues - what Phillips termed a “label and punish’’ assessment model.

Quincy teachers were also skeptical of the new program based on previous programs that led to “unfunded mandates,’’ service obligations that remain even after the funding has run out, said Phillips. The union also questioned whether the amount of funding was large enough to meet the state’s goals.

“This would buy ornaments for a rapidly frayed Christmas tree,’’ Phillips said.

Doe said she agreed that assessing teachers’ effectiveness should not overly rely on students’ test scores. Evaluation is an important tool to be used “always with an eye to improvement,’’ rather than in a “punitive’’ way, she said.

Believers in Race to the Top won out in other school systems, however - such as in Randolph, where half of the district’s 3,000 students are eligible for some level of Title I services.

“I think people are excited about the possibilities, about the potential,’’ Superintendent Richard Silverman said of the new program. “I think this is the start of the major new stage in education, the way it will be for the next century.’’

Educators on state, federal, and local levels are designing a new model for the nation’s schools, including what schools will look like and how long their days and years will run, Silverman said. “We wanted to be part of the design,’’ he said.

Robert Knox can be reached at rc.knox2@gmail.com.