National teachers union leader points to St. Louis as model
ST. LOUIS • The head of the nation’s second-largest teachers union said Tuesday that school districts and unions should aim to solve problems rather than win arguments, and she pointed to St. Louis as a model.
Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, met with early childhood educators, toured classrooms and observed a special education class inside Gateway Elementary School west of downtown St. Louis. She later told reporters that public education nationwide is on the ropes and that the unusual working relationship between the city’s teachers union and the St. Louis Public Schools was an important ingredient to help save it.
That relationship involves a union-district effort to remove ineffective teachers from city classrooms, including teachers with tenure, but only after providing them training to improve. It also involves mentoring first-year teachers to help them get off on a better foot. It’s called the St. Louis Plan.
“We’re better together than apart,” Superintendent Kelvin Adams said of the union.
“This should be the model and not the exception,” Weingarten said.
Earlier in the day, she addressed a United Mine Workers of America rally at Kiener Plaza.
Since Adams began leading St. Louis Public Schools in 2008,
