A teachers union forces damaging cuts at Baltimore's KIPP Ujima Village Academy

APPARENTLY not content with their part in stifling needed change in traditional schools, teachers unions are now setting their sights on undermining public charter schools. A case in point is the high-performing KIPP Ujima Village Academy in Baltimore. Union demands for higher teacher pay are causing the school to lay off staff members and curtail instruction. Urban education is short on success stories, so union leaders need to come to their senses and -- equally urgent -- Maryland lawmakers must change the law that gave rise to this perverse situation.

The Ujima Village Academy is Baltimore's most successful middle school, with its students consistently achieving some of the highest test scores in the state. Part of the KIPP national network, the school relies on a longer school day and school year to lift the performance of disadvantaged, minority children who often start out lagging in achievement. But, as the Baltimore Sun recently reported, the school has decided to cut back the length of the school day and cancel Saturday classes because it couldn't afford the demands of the Baltimore Teachers Union. Also, the school is laying off four staff members, including a music teacher and an art teacher.

The dispute arose because Maryland's charter schools law requires charter school teachers to belong to the union in their school district and be subject to the local contract. KIPP teachers are already among the city's highest-paid, receiving 18 percent more than the salary scale, but that's not enough for the union, which demanded 33 percent. It's vexing that this issue is being raised now, seven years after the school was founded. A union spokeswoman told the Sun that teachers complained, a claim disputed by KIPP officials as well as by teachers who talked to the Sun. Said math teacher Brad Nornhold: "It is a school for choice for teachers as well as students. I didn't feel I was tricked. It was worth it for me to teach at a school that is working so well."

Therein is the key to charters -- their ability to innovate in the interest of what helps teachers and works for children. Take that away and impose stringent rules, and you weaken their effectiveness. The unnecessary threat to Ujima Village is yet another example of why Maryland is notorious for having one of the worst charter school laws in the country. It's time that Gov. Martin O'Malley (D) and the General Assembly did something to change it.