But at least the structure will be oriented toward giving you and me the credit we deserve as professional educators of children. The MCEA began jettisoning conventional wisdom even while planning contract talks. Negotiators used a technique called interest-based bargaining, in which both sides brainstorm around issues of common concern, rather than make a series of offers and counteroffers. They also brought in consultants to conduct conflict-management training. As a result, the union and the district reached agreement without mediation for the first time in the history of the 125,500-student district, located in suburban Washington.
Negotiators believe a new philosophy is reflected in the agreement itself.
The contract also stresses the need to train staff members in the use of such educational data as test scores, attendance and suspension rates, and gauges of staff and student satisfaction to measure improvement. The linchpins of the agreement are the new governing bodies it will set up at all the district's 183 schools within three years. Mr. Simon argues that the councils go further than past efforts at decentralizing decisionmaking. Unlike the new councils, which are written into the contract, Montgomery County's other policies on site-based management have neither guaranteed teachers the right to elect their own representatives nor given school committees the option of appealing a principal's veto, he said. The change could rub some principals the wrong way.