Job & Career Security

Privatization of Education Support Professionals 

When public school employees, especially education support professionals (ESPs) are “privatized” or “outsourced,” a private contractor takes over their services and they may no longer have access to the same rights, pay, and benefits they received as a public school employee—including union advocacy. 

How does privatization cause problems for ESPs and schools?

• When ESP jobs are privatized, the primary goal becomes making a profit versus delivering a quality service.
• Private contractors may or may not use former district employees to provide the service.
• Whatever contracts, agreements, understandings, or board policies that existed between the district and their employees no longer exists between the new private contractor and his/her employees.
• ESPs won’t have the advocacy of the Association under the new employer.
• Privatizers don't underprice at-cost public employees simply by being “efficient” or having “superior management techniques.” Privatizers function by significantly reducing employee compensation, usually through the elimination or reduction of benefits such as pension, health care, and paid time off.
• Because of their employment practices in the pursuit of profit, privatizers have high turnover of staff. Most of the time these are people looking for a job, not a career. And the privatizer is typically not concerned about who might be well suited to work around children.

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ITPI Report on the Privatization of School Support Services

Much of what NEA has been saying for years about privatization was recently verified in a report by the research and policy organization, In The Public Interest. The report, “School Support Services Outsourcing: The Original Privatization of Education,” contains many insights about the value of ESPs and the folly of outsourcing them.

Read the report

Job & Career Security for Paraeducators

Across the country, thousands of paraeducators are denied basic job security. Many districts employ paraeducators year to year, and while most are hired back the following school year, their jobs are not renewed annually. This leaves paraeducators to face uncertainty as the future of their jobs falls into the discretion of their district.

 

NEA believes that districts should budget for paraeducators in the same way as they do for other faculty and staff positions. If a district is facing a budget issue, then a negotiated process would be necessary to carry out a Reduction in Force (RIF).

Sample contract language

Tenure Matters in Higher Education

Tenure inspires innovation and protects academic freedom, and NEA and its affiliates are working hard to defend and expand it. 

 

The NEA statement on tenure “affirms that academic and intellectual freedom in institutions of higher education are best protected and promoted by tenure, academic due process, and faculty self-governance. Such protection is enhanced by including—where possible—these items in a collectively bargained contract enforced by binding arbitration.”

Increasingly, institutions are excessively using part-time faculty, misusing temporary or “rolling” contracts, extending probationary periods, and establishing tenure quotas. These anti-tenure practices are dangerous to academic freedom.