Date of Award

8-1980

Degree Name

Doctor of Education

Department

Educational Leadership

First Advisor

Dr. Richard E. Munsterman

Second Advisor

Dr. Uldis Smidchens

Third Advisor

Dr. Charles Grove

Abstract

In the 1960's teachers obtained the right to bargain collectively with local boards of education. During the succeeding 20 years, some teachers' collective bargaining groups evolved from a single local union to a regional unit. Macomb County and Grosse Pointe, Michigan, teachers evolved in the manner now represented by the MEA/NEA Local I regionalized group.

The purpose of this study was to investigate regional bargaining and its impact on local control of schools as perceived by school board members, superintendents, principals, union presidents, and teachers. The negotiating goals of MEA/NEA Local I was also investigated in relationship to local control of schools in Macomb County, Michigan.

To investigate the problem, 22 school districts in Macomb County and Grosse Pointe, Michigan, were used. The total population of school board members, superintendents, and union presidents was used. A random sample of 155 principals was used as well as a systematic sampling of 400 teachers from the aforementioned school districts. The total sampled population of 753 was used for this study.

To obtain data from the sampled groups, the technique of survey by questionnaire was employed. The questionnaire was developed largely from information gathered in the review of literature and contained 24 items. These items were designed to obtain data on regional bargaining under MEA/NEA Local I. Items were presented in five major categories on the instrument. A 5-point Likert-type rating scale enabled mean scores to be established on "greatly increased," down to "greatly decreased" continuum for each item. Differences of mean scores, for each item under a category were totaled for use with the one-way analysis of variance. Where significant differences were found, a least square post hoc test was applied. In total, the survey sought information on regional bargaining and its impact on local control of schools.

In March of 1980, the questionnaire was mailed. Eighty-four board members, 21 superintendents, 125 principals, 21 union presidents, and 208 teachers returned the questionnaires. A total of 459 questionnaires were returned and provided the data for the study. Data were compiled and analyzed by subgroups.

The data results of the investigation indicated that the five groups in general have very definite and varying degrees of perceptions concerning regional bargaining and local control of schools in relationship to increased salaries, fringe benefits, and negotiating the conceptual clauses involved with preferential hiring, due process, and just cause. Further, null hypotheses 1, 2, 4, and 5 were of a magnitude to be rejected. Based upon the results of the analysis of variances, and the least squares post hoc tests, statistically significant differences were found between the groups. Analysis of the results of the findings for hypothesis 3 showed that when the total responses of the five groups were compared, this null hypothesis could not be rejected. Therefore, no post hoc analysis was done. It was concluded that there were differences in perceptions between board members, superintendents, principals, union presidents, and teachers regarding regional bargaining and its impact on local control of schools, salary, fringe benefits, preferential hiring, as well as due process and just cause clauses in the master agreement.

Findings and conclusions were necessarily limited to districts in Macomb County and Grosse Pointe, Michigan. Therefore, caution is advised in generalizing results to the other regional or coordinated bargaining units in Michigan.

Access Setting

Dissertation-Open Access

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