Effects of work-to-rule
Teachers aren’t grading fully.
Many teachers have to compensate for work-to-rule by grading assignments and tests less thoroughly than they would have otherwise. Teachers who don’t are far behind in their grading and students are going without having received grades on assignments they did last semester.
Students who need help can no longer get it.
Teachers are no longer available to students after school and during lunch when students are having trouble with assignments or when they have been absent for several days and need help catching up.
Students do not have clear measures of their grades.
When progress reports came out, teachers graded the students on a pass/fail system. Students did not know where they were on the grade scale—only whether or not they were passing a class. Because quarter grades require letter grades, many teachers put down grades for their students, despite not having graded all of their assignments yet.
The negative effects on students are long-term.
Many student’s grades have been affected by this protest and this will affect their college applications. This is not just suffering for the duration of the protest; it exends farther than that.
Why work-to-rule is ineffective
It is mistargeted.
Work-to-rule is aimed at the district, but it is necessary to realize that the district is in the midst of a severe financial crisis and does not have the money to give teachers the increases which BFT is seeking. The problem does not lie with the district, but with the government.
It hurts the wrong people.
Even assuming that the previous argument is wrong and that BUSD does have the power to give the raises which the union demands, the fact still remains that work-to-rule does not put sufficient pressure on the district to make those changes. It only hurts the students. In essense, the purpose of work-to-rule is to hurt the students and cause discontent, which will theoretically lead parents to complain to the district. The problem is that parents don’t complain. Many just ignore it. Some write their support for it, but still do not get in touch with the district. And it is an unfourtunate fact that the students who need the most help—who are most affected by work-to-rule—have parents who are not very involved the the district and wouldn’t know where to complain to. It just doesn’t work.
What’s the solution?
There does not seem to be any one solution that will satisfy all parties involved. There are any number of possible solutions. The teachers could strike, which may cause a bit more stir in the district. The district could cut sports funding and make parents pay to keep sports afloat. The state could start allocating more money to education which could, in turn, be allocated to the teachers. The teachers could give up and just accept the contract proposed by the district. The district could cut various programs, classes, and sports to make more room in the budget. These are only possible solutions. Some of them are more likely than others. Some of them please us more than others. None of them seem to be the right solution.
In short, we don’t know what the right solution is and our opinions on the subject vary. We are only certain that work-to-rule is not that solution.