Contentious contract negotiations, like those involving the School District and the teachers’ union, are usually at heart a battle of narratives – between management, which is often in financial crisis, and labor, whose narrative is about protecting beleaguered workers from being exploited. They are rarely a celebration of hard data and facts about hiring, compensation and policies.
That’s presumably why Jerry Jordan, head of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, has questioned the timing and the funding behind a new report investigating policies covering teacher tenure, performance and pay at the School District.