Long Beach (Oct 28-29, 2011) ~ There was a clearly positive and optimistic tone to the conversations as nearly one hundred participants from across the country (a mix of teacher union representatives and a significant number of guests from the district side of the table) convened to mark progress and share experiences in reshaping the education reform agenda from the ground up -- with a focus on collaboration and systemic change. 

In the face of what can only be characterized as a barrage of anti-teacher and anti-union actions across the country, the teacher union leaders and guests assembled in Long Beach see a window of opportunity to transform the teaching profession and public education... a mood captured in a harmonica performance by MASE TURN Co-Director Rick Baumgartner (photo on right).

The keynote for the conference was provided by Ken Futernick, Director of the WestEd School Turnaround Center, making the case that the current reform agenda has been focused on the wrong problem -- bad teachers -- rather than the dysfunctional system. He cited a number of sources, with special attention to The Progress Principle (Amabile & Kramer) and Choosing the Wrong Drivers for Whole System Reform (Fullan) and set the context for the regional reports that followed (click here to download the accompanying PowerPoint).

The Long Beach meeting marked a milestone in the development of TURN, as reports from Regions (a.k.a. Satellites) filled the afternoon agenda. Co-directors from four of the five regions delivered a combination of brief histories, progress reports, and examples/exemplars of local action:

• CalTURN - Tom Alves and Kate McKenna, Co-Directors - was originally launched nearly a decade ago in the wake of state legislation requiring the establishment of peer assistance programs and saw several years of inactivity as funding dwindled. The network was resurrected with funding from the Ford Foundation grant and with considerable support from the WestEd School Turnaround Center. The new CalTURN is focused on collaboration working with union/management teams using a shared reform language.
• Great Lakes TURN - Mary McDonald and Louise Sundin, Co-Directors - also supports with union/district collaborative teams, engaging local presidents as the advisory group. A grant from the Joyce Foundation (2009) funded the initial work which has evolved into an explicit process to develop sequential curriculum focused on teaching quality. The core belief is that unions need to lead the charge based on a clear picture of what quality teaching looks like. Along the way, they have worked with researchers like Charlotte Danielson, Jonathan Saphier, etc. and keep their efforts in a systemic context with guidance from Pat Dolan. Presentations are video taped and archived on the TURN Exchange Website.
• MASE TURN - Rick Baumgartner and David Shutten, Co-Directors - spans Maryland to Florida, with the center of activity in North Carolina. Many younger teacher leaders are starting to come to the meetings. The focus has been on teaching quality, but they have not yet involved collaborative teams. Being a “Right-to-Work” state means there is no union shop. Some allow collective bargaining, but many do not. Because the vast majority of locals in the region are small, meetings are planned to keep costs down, i.e. most participants can drive to the weekend meetings and need only one night's lodging.
• Southwest TURN – Bruce Dickinson and Ellen Bernstein, Co-Directors - currently has participation from 6 states: Colorado, Texas, Nevada, New Mexico, Nebraska, Kansas and Wyoming. They are working on a message about who they are as an association. We are not good about telling people about what we do. The frame is simple…results for students. Our own members aren’t able to articulate what their union was all about. They decided they needed to frame a consistent message. All the locals are taking the frame, and focusing everything they are doing around it. The members are thrilled because it is easy…we are about results for students. Never refute, always reframe. The dominant frame always trumps facts.

Each of the regions introduced an element of practicality and feasibility to the presentations by including presentations by leaders who are putting the new ideas into practice.  In this  photo, Jack Janezic,  IEA Uniserv Director with the Elgin Teachers Association provides an overview and update of Elgin's Teacher Appraisal Plan.

The second day of the Long Beach agenda began with an up-close look at Peer Assistance and Review with a presentation by Julia Koppich and Dan Humphrey, co-authors of a recently-published study Peer Review: Getting Serious About Teacher Support and Evaluation. Their research provides an in-depth look at teacher support and evaluation in PAR programs in two California districts (Poway and San Juan) and specifically on role of governance boards and consulting teachers.

The final session was billed as "Perspectives and Provocations" by three "Critical Friends" of the Teacher Union Reform Network. Jo Anderson, Senior Advisor to the U.S. Secretary of Education; Chuck Kerchner, Professor Claremont Graduate University; and Joe Graba, Senior Associate, Education Evolving each in their own way expressed similar themes:

• an appreciation for being part of an important conversation,
• an acknowledgement that significant progress progress in deepening the work has been made over the past couple years, 
• that there is a brief window of opportunity for unions to play a key role in remaking the education system for the benefit of quality teaching and learning, and 
• the system will be fundamentally different (shifting from batch-processing to personalized learning) as will the way unions do their work.

(CLICK HERE for a more detailed account of the meeting).