Teachers' Contract Deters Achievement, Study Says

By Ann Bradley

Administrators of the Milwaukee schools and leaders of the city's teachers' union both have failed to use collective bargaining to improve academic achievement, concludes an unusual analysis of the union contract scheduled for release this week.

The report on the contract between the district and the Milwaukee Teachers' Education Association offers what is being described as the first in-depth view of a labor pact with a big-city teachers' union.

Coming as Milwaukee selects a new superintendent, the study says only a handful of "largely anonymous management and union staff" are knowledgeable about the 174-page contract and the 2,000 pages of grievance-arbitration rulings, memorandums of understanding, and state declaratory rulings that make up "the...