Marie Blistan, Immediate-Past President, New Jersey Education Association (NJEA): Helping Students Thrive through Labor and School Management Collaboration
The Big Idea:
● Marie Blistan is a collaborative leader who always strives to make a difference – from her experience in the classroom and as an elected leader. As President of the New Jersey Education Association, Blistan helped create a “collaborative” between educators, labor leaders, and administrators to solve problems, improve professional environments, and boost student outcomes.
● New Jersey Public School Labor-Management Collaborative was piloted in more than 20 schools. It builds shared visions for schools and districts, shared decision making, and formal collaborative processes that help support innovation and advance student learning.
● The positive results from these collaboratives attracted state-wide and national attention, and $3.5 million in funding from the National Education Association to provide training across New Jersey and other states.
Background:
● The labor-management collaborative Blistan spearheaded creates a formal partnership between labor and school management, leading to solutions by the people closest to the problems. The focus is on building a strong process for collaboration, trust, and respect.
● Blistan was inspired to pilot these collaboratives after speaking with Dr. Saul Rubenstein, a professor in the Rutgers School of Management and Labor, who had been conducting research and found two positive effects from labor-management collaboration: 1) an increase in student achievement including economically challenged districts, and 2) lower educator turn-over in those districts.
Fun Fact:
When collaboration in schools is high, data shows that 12.5 percent more students test at or above language arts standards, and 4.5 percent more students test above math standards. Teacher retention is also statistically the same in high-poverty and low-poverty schools. In contrast, when collaboration is low, teacher retention is 3.5 times lower in high-poverty schools than in low-poverty schools.
Their Take:
Mari Blistan
“New Jersey’s schools are ranked number one in the nation, and one of the reasons our public schools perform so well is because local associations and school district administrators in our state work together in areas where we share common ground.”
- Mari Blistan, Immediate-Past President, New Jersey Education Association
