As the contract between the Denver Classroom Teachers Association and Denver Public Schools draws closer to expiration - it runs out Friday - we'd urge the union's leadership to take a fresh look at the Rocky's Leaving to Learn series published in April.

If there's any lesson to draw from the series, it's that parents in Denver Public Schools are increasingly unwilling to warehouse their children in a mediocre or failing neighborhood school if they can enroll in a better campus - whether it's in DPS, a private school or a public school outside the district.

All of which makes the combative stance taken in contract talks by the DCTA leadership discouraging, if not downright puzzling.

The union has never been bashful about criticizing the fundamental reforms sought by Superintendent Michael Bennet. But in the current labor negotiations, its rhetoric has risen to an unhealthy level of antagonism and mockery.

This posture serves union members poorly, because it pits teachers against administrators and undermines reforms rather than giving them a chance to work. Intentionally or not, it also treats the district's students and parents as an afterthought, when they are the association's actual clients.

Now that the union and administrators are meeting with a mediator to try to work out an agreement, we urge the association to tone down its rhetoric and stop pretending that the district's offer is utterly out of line. In fact, the two sides don't appear terribly far apart on the basic money issues.

The district's proposal would increase teacher compensation on average by 6.2 percent, including a 3.6 percent "cost-of-living" salary hike (which is more than actual inflation) and existing enhancements such as salary "steps." The union instead wants a 4.47 percent cost-of-living increase, and the other compensation enhancements, and has taken its demands directly to Bennet - and the public.

In a letter to Bennet, DCTA president Kim Ursetta charged DPS with being "focused on the mechanics - preprogrammed curricula designed by people far removed from the classroom, picking up on the latest fads." Even more pointedly, she accused the district of "bargaining in bad faith." Why? Because the district included that 3.6 percent salary increase in checks teachers received last month, even though a new contract hasn't been signed.

That seems like an olive branch to us. But the union is having none of it. Ursetta aired the union's grievances in a letter sent to more than 200 civic leaders last week; and union members were circulating leaflets on Saturday to residents who live near DPS board members.

The letter to civic leaders took a direct swipe at the essential reforms Bennet has instituted. In it, Ursetta wrote the union "believes the time has come to listen to teachers, not policy wonks in think tanks far from Denver." (Actually, the chief academic officer who directs the reforms not only works for the district, after moving here from New York, but his background is in teaching, not think tanks.)

Ursetta also promised that the union would roll out its own proposed "teacher-designed, child-based" reforms soon.

We look forward to seeing them. In the meantime, the disdain that DCTA has expressed toward the district's administrators and their initiatives is not good for anyone. Until the union's leaders begin to see school administrators as partners, essential reforms will take longer to implement. Slowing that pace will only punish students now enrolled in district schools.