PAR: challenging the status quo

Gary Obermeyer, Friday Dec 24, 2010, 05:15 pm

Critics of public education often blame teacher unions for low-performing schools -- accusing their leaders of resisting reform, defending bad teachers and the status quo.  Fact is, the union leaders with whom I work in the Teacher Union Reform Network have been challenging the status quo for a very long time.

Dal Lawrence, former president of the Toledo Federation of Teachers, is a good example. Through his persistence and three rounds of bargaining (from 1973 to 1981) Toledo established the first program of Peer Assistance and Review (PAR). This collaboratively developed program assures that only competent teachers achieve permanent status and full membership in the local union. 

The basic premise behind PAR programs is that teachers help teachers. In peer programs, experienced, accomplished veteran teachers provide sustained, intensive assistance to teachers who need it.  PAR programs provide help to struggling teachers and reduce the number of teachers who must be formally terminated. Thus, PAR programs have a positive effect on teacher retention. On average 50 percent of new teachers drop out of the profession within five years, but in some PAR programs, about 80 percent of all new teachers are still teaching within their first five years.  

PAR programs are now either in place or in the planning stage in nearly 40 locals in 13 states (see list). A real testiment to their success... in the 37 years that such programs have existed, not a single one has been dismantled or diminished.

If you are interested in PAR, I recommend A User's Guide to Peer Assistance and Review from the Project on the Next Generation of Teachers at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

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