Few Teacher Pacts in Largest Districts Seen as Overly Flexible or Restrictive

Study finds many offer maneuverability for school management.

Just five of the teacher contracts in the nation’s largest school districts grant school leaders the kind of flexibility they need to run schools well, but two-thirds of the rest do not obviously hamstring administrators with rules applying to teachers, according to a report released today by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute.

In the paper, Frederick M. Hess and Coby Loup examine the contracts—forged with unions or set mainly through school board policies—in the 50 largest districts, rating them on a scale that ranges from “highly flexible” to “highly restrictive.” It found that 15 of the districts, including New York City, Miami-Dade County, Fla., and San Diego, had teacher contracts that were either “restrictive” or highly so in matters such as how much the jobs of veteran teachers are protected and whether mathematics and science teachers can be paid more than other teachers.

The five districts at the high end of the scale, all in states that prohibit collective bargaining in education, are: Guilford County, N.C.; Austin, Dallas, Northside, and San Antonio, all in Texas;...