The Bruce Randolph School Uprising
Events at the Bruce Randolph School in Denver have been all over the Colorado papers and blogs for weeks, but for some reason the story hasn’t broken out in the rest of the country. It should, because it’s more important than the district’s much-ballyhooed performance pay program.
The short version: Bruce Randolph was once one of the worst schools in the state, but recent reforms have turned it around. Now the school’s principal, teachers and union reps want exemptions from several provisions of the teachers’ contract, which they say are hindering their efforts.
In an unusual moment of insight from an editorial board, the Denver Post correctly analyzed the problem as having little to do with the school or its performance. The editors wrote:
“But the union, frankly, had been backed into a corner on this issue. Decline a request from a successful inner-city school that has gotten national attention and you look like obstructionists. Agree, and run the risk that other Denver schools will want the same thing and your organization ebbs into irrelevancy. So the union tried to come out somewhere in the middle, granting waivers but not buying off entirely — a move that ends up smelling of desperation.”
Too often, education stories completely miss the labor angle – mainly because education unions don’t want to admit they have self-interest.
In any event, it’s going to get very interesting in Denver, because the Bruce Randolph administration and faculty refuse to back down. Greg Ahrnsbrak, a union rep at the school, said, “They [the union] are doing everything they can to block a real reform effort. Reform is happening. You’re either going to be on the bus or beneath it. I want to be driving it.”
