July 30, 2010
Project Opening Doors was founded in 2007 with a $13.2 million grant from the National Math + Science Initiative. POD includes financial incentives for teachers and students to encourage participation in Advanced Placement testing.
Dramatis Personae:
Dr. John Yrchik – Executive Director of Connecticut Education Association
Thomas Mooney – Attorney
Dr. John Yrchik is testifying in front of the State Board of Labor Relations about the effectiveness of POD.
Thomas Mooney is a partner at Hartford law firm Shipman & Goodwin. He represents several towns involved in the POD program. He is active in school law, and authored the book A Practical Guide to Connecticut School Law (6th Edition, 2008).
Connecticut State Board of Labor Relations
The union argument…
Yrchik: The Project Opening Doors did not to ask educators what they thought was the best way to organize an Advanced Placement program. Project Opening Doors said, “If you are going to accept our money, you have to do the following things,including accept these bonuses if your students pass Advanced Placement exams, whether you want to or not.” In other successful Advanced Placement programs, that is not the case. Educators themselves direct the course of the educational programs. The fact that this happens lends to greater buy-in among the staff, greater collaboration, greater support for the program and, I think, greater success.
Mooney: So you’re supporting your testimony by reference to your own article, with no other information?
Yrchik: Well, I don’t have it off the top of my head.
Mooney: So you have no information, no basis on which to offer an opinion as to greater buy-in by teachers in non-POD AP programs? Isn’t that true?
Yrchik: [Pause] Uh… I know that in POD schools that POD efforts are not, as a rule, shared by the whole school.
Mooney: Prior to offering that testimony, how many principals of POD schools did you talk to?
Yrchik: I haven’t talked to any principals.
…Well, he must have consulted POD teachers while doing his research, right?
Mooney: How many teachers in POD-supported programs have you talked to?
Yrchik: [Pause] I haven’t talked to teachers in POD schools…
If Dr. Yrchik has not consulted with educators at the local level and his only statistics come from a newspaper article he wrote, what does he base his opinions on?
Mooney: And you know that without speaking with any of the principals or any of the teachers?
Yrchik: I know that from talking to my staff.
His Staff?
Mooney: Isn’t it true that CEA has taken a blanket position that POD programs should not be entered in to?
Yrchik: Uh, CEA … I think has strayed way beyond what I came here to talk about.
The State Board of Labor Relations concluded the POD case in November. A Decision is expected in 2011.