Incompetent Corporatists Shouldn't Run Schools!

When I see that America's business titans are making education policy while teachers are kicked to the curb, it makes me crazy. Partially because I'm angry that we're being excluded; partially because these guys shouldn't get tax gifts to amass the billions they spend to remake schools the way they want them.

But what really makes me nuts is that these "titans" shouldn't be allow to run anything until they clean up their own messes! Take James Crown of Chicago:

It remains unclear how much JPMorgan's risk committee knew about the trades that led to the massive loss, and whether a chief risk officer was reporting to the committee, Clayton said.

His group wants the bank to replace James Crown and Ellen Futter, who are members of the board's three-person risk policy committee, with individuals who have deeper experience in banking and financial regulation.

"Having somebody with regulatory experience - whether it's the SEC or the Fed or another regulator is very valuable," Clayton said.

According to JPMorgan's annual report, a chief risk officer oversees risk management at the firm. The official reports to Chairman and Chief Executive Jamie Dimon, and is accountable to the board of directors, "primarily through board's risk policy committee." Responsibility for overseeing liquidity and interest rate risks is a duty of the chief investment office - the unit that ran the "London Whale" trades.

Crown, the policy committee's chairman, is a lawyer and former vice president at Solomon Brothers who heads the private investment firm James Crown & Co.

Futter, president of the American Museum of Natural History, is a former director at the New York Fed who served as its chairman between 1992 and 1993. A corporate lawyer by training, she also served as a director at American International Group Inc before its near-collapse in 2008.

JPMorgan's 2012 proxy statement says Crown's experience on many boards gives him exposure to issues encountered by JPMorgan's board, such as risk management, investment management and executive compensation.

His legal training gives him "enhanced perspective on legal and regulatory issues," the statement said. He worked at Salomon Brothers in 1983 before joining Henry Crown and Co, his family's investment firm in 1985.

The proxy statement said Futter's experience on corporate boards and the board of the New York Fed have given her experience with regulated industries and risk management.

But Clayton said Futter gained no supervisory experience from her role at the New York Fed and lacked professional experience as a regulator. Her experience there is also dated, he said. "That's a good 6 or 7 years before credit default swaps were invented. It's hard to see how that provides experience to oversee risk management at a major bank."

In March 2011, CtW sent a letter to the bank urging an overhaul of the risk committee's responsibilities and Futter's replacement. That letter and another a led to an April 2011 meeting with Crown, the head of JPMorgan's risk policy committee. During the meeting, CtW's representatives urged the bank to hire outside experts to review its risks. According to Clayton, Crown said: "Why would we want to do that? We have the best risk-management people in the world."

CtW is now also calling for Crown's replacement as chair of the risk committee, because he has shown "a lack of modesty" over the company's potential problems, Clayton said. "Part of risk management is to recognize the role of luck," Clayton said. "You need to build oversight of risk management not around confidence. He didn't seem to know what was about." [emphasis mine]

Got that? James Crown was asleep at the wheel of JP Morgan when traders decided to turn the international markets into a game of roulette. He is directly responsible for a huge mess.

He is also directly responsible for screwing over Chicago's teachers, because he is one of the sugar daddies of the insufferably smug Jonah Edelman:

I've been doing this long enough to detect certain patterns. One near certainty is that corporate reform tools like Edelman always have a group of sugar daddies to fund their little adventures. Sure enough...

An out-of-state education reform group raised a whopping $2.8 million in the days leading up to historic state caps on campaign contributions. 

All of the money raised by Stand for Children’s Illinois PAC came in five- or six-figure contributions from some very major Chicago-area business types. Members of the famed billionaire Pritzker family kicked in a total of $250,000 on Dec. 29, two days before the end of the old campaign finance system, which allowed for unlimited contributions to groups like Stand for Children’s PAC.

Ken Griffin, the CEO of the Citadel Group, contributed $500,000 on Dec. 15. Griffin gave hundreds of thousands of dollars last year to Illinois House Republicans and GOP gubernatorial nominee Bill Brady’s campaign. Sam Zell, the owner of Tribune Co., contributed $100,000 on Dec. 20. Members of the Henry Crown family kicked in $400,000. And Paul Finnegan, the co-CEO of Madison Dearborn Partners LLC, contributed $500,000. 

The group’s political action committee made history last year with the single largest non-leadership contribution in modern Illinois times – a $175,000 check to Republican state House candidate Ryan Higgins, who ended up losing his race. The PAC contributed a total of $610,000 during the fall campaign to legislative candidates in both parties. [emphasis mine]

Edelman admitted he bought and paid for Illinois legislators to pass a bill that screwed them out of their collective bargaining rights. His lucre came from folks like Crown, who want to remake our schools in their corporate image.

In a sane world, Crown wouldn't have money to throw around like this; he'd be paying his fair share of taxes, and we'd all be voting on what to do with that money to improve education. In a sane world, billionaires like Crown couldn't get smarmy little jerks like Edelman to buy off politicians, because campaigns would be paid for by the taxpayers and broadcasters would be compelled to give airtime to candidates for free. In a sane world, plutocrats like Crown would be happy to see teachers get paid decently and would defer to them when we create education policy.

And, in a sane world, aristocratic failures like Crown would have enough modesty to stay out of remaking civic institutions until they got their own damn houses in order.

I know - I'll give it to Jonah Edelman!

ADDING: Mike Klonsky reminds me that Crown is actually the dude sitting next to Edelman in the infamous video confession at Aspen. So he was traveling around with his stooge Jonah, bragging about screwing teachers over, two months after he was denied there was a problem at JP Morgan Chase.

Were I a shareholder, I'd be asking why in the hell was he going off on these little excursions when he should have been doing his fiduciary duty. Maybe the London Whale knew he was busy with all of these side projects and wouldn't have time to do his job.

Seriously: is it so far-fetched to make that connection?

Zuck's Millions To Newark Ain't Free

How did Mark Zuckerberg get so much money that he can pay $100 million to remake Newark's schools however he wants?

Tax gifts:

The right-wing has been lauding Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin for his decision to renounce his U.S. citizenship in order to avoid taxes. But he isn’t the only one who’s going to slash his tax bill in the wake of Facebook’s upcoming initial public offering: both CEO Mark Zuckerberg and the company itself will lower their tax bill for years to come.

While Zuckerberg will pay a hefty tax bill right off the bat if he follows through on his plan to sell $5 billion in Facebook stock options, as the New York Times noted, he may then never pay a dime of taxes on the rest of his Facebook wealth. “Instead, he can simply use his stock as collateral to borrow against his tremendous wealth and avoid all tax,” the Times reported.

And, as Citizens for Tax Justice has noted, Facebook may use the issuance of stock options to avoid corporate income taxes, instead receiving hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars in refunds:

Nice. And don't even try to tell me that the Newark gift came before the IPO, so it's different money; IPO's are always the end game for these guys. They've been planning this for years.

It is absolutely accurate to say that at least some of Zuck's $100 million is money that rightly belongs to the American taxpayer; it seems to me we should have a say in how it's being spent. Instead, Supermayor wants to use it to set up a system where teacher workplace protections are destroyed. Supermayor has also spent it to enrich his pals, and the buds of ACTING NJDOE Commissioner Cerf. Those guys came up with, among other things, plans to close public schools and convert them to charters, even though there is no rhyme or reason to the plan.

Well, that's not true; there is a reason...

You know, I'm so old, I can remember when we used to collect a fair share of taxes from rich people. We would then all vote for representatives to decide how to spend that money; you know, on schools and stuff. Everyone got a say, rich or poor.

I think we called it democracy. Maybe we could try that in Newark some time.

Fighting for truth, justice, and America Zuck's way!

Weasels In the Department of Education

Weasel words are flying out of the Obama/Duncan Department of Education tonight. Here's the story:

First, Diane Ravitch tweeted the most important question right now in the education world:

Who will transform education: entrepreneurs or educators? goo.gl/srER4

Which links to a piece by Nancy Flanagan which, again, asks this most important question in our current education debate:

So--Sara Mead is again highlighting 17 "up and coming" edu-preneurs who will "lead the transformation of education in this country in the coming generation," in her Policy Notebook blog. Mead says she:

...built this list by asking for recommendations from people I respect in the education field, including my Bellwether education colleagues, leaders of education reform and policy organizations, writers and analysts, and, most importantly, last year's list of Next Generation Leaders.

Her list includes many "founders" and "executives" of charter schools, non-profits created to demean collective bargaining and teachers' control over their own profession, rising neo-liberal stars in higher education and psychometrics--and players in the USDOE's efforts to "respect" teachers rhetorically, if not in policy. Those up and coming in the new "opportunity culture" of the wide-open education marketplace.

Who's left out? Career teachers who want to restore their own autonomy and purpose. Creative public school administrators working tirelessly in challenging situations, under crushing policy constraints. Parents groups organizing to save their kids from endless, pointless testing. And of course, anyone who belongs to a teachers' association--or questions the chipping away of America's best idea: a free, excellent, fully public (not partially privatized) education for every child.

Why not create another list of Up and Comers, built on recommendations from readers' respected colleagues, leaders in honestly progressive, grass-roots reform, National Board Certified and other recognized teachers, important voices speaking out about media- and money-fed policy myths? Wouldn't it be much more balanced, not just edu-preneurs looking to build another start-up? [emphasis mine]

So Nancy and Diane are both asking the critical question before reformyists right now: why are policies being driven by people who aren't actual public school educators? Why is the conversation dominated by those who don't teach in public schools?

Enter Justin Hamilton, the current Press Secretary for Education Secretary Arne Duncan, with a truly ridiculous tweet:

False choice, I would hope both RT@DianeRavitch: Who will transform education: entrepreneurs or educators?

Really, sir? You're going to tell me both entrepreneurs and educators are going to be part of this "transformation"? Perhaps, then, you can explain this, via Valerie Strauss?

President Obama hosted an education roundtable at the White House on Monday and I’ll give you one chance to guess who wasn’t high on the guest list.

Educators.

Below is a list of people who were invited to the event, which was described on the president’s schedule this way:

“The President hosts an education roundtable with business leaders, Secretary Duncan, Melody Barnes, and America’s Promise Alliance Chair Alma Powell and Founding Chair General Colin Powell.”

The invitees, according to a news release from the White House, include:

· Marguerite Kondracke, president & CEO, America’s Promise

· Alma Powell, chairwoman, America’s Promise

· General Colin Powell, founding chairman, America’s Promise

· Craig Barrett, former president & CEO, Intel

· Glenn Britt, CEO, Time Warner Cable

· Steve Case, former chairman & CEO, America Online

· Brian Gallagher, president & CEO, United Way Worldwide

· William Green, president & CEO, Accenture

· Fred Humphries, senior vice president, Microsoft

· Rhonda Mimms, foundation president, ING

· Kathleen Murphy, president, Fidelity Personal Investments

· Ed Rust, CEO, State Farm

· Randall Stephenson, chairman & CEO, AT&T

· Bill Swanson, chairman & CEO, Raytheon

· Laysha Ward, foundation president, Target

· David Zaslav, president & CEO, Discovery Communications

· Former governor Bob Wise, president, Alliance for Excellent Education

· Anne Finucane, chair of the Bank of America Charitable Foundation, Bank of America

I'm still waiting for the invitation to the summit where I and twenty of my fellow teachers get to advise the President on all of the problems with American business and how they should act more like us if they want to save the economy.

The sad fact, of course, is that we educators have been almost completely left out of the debate about education. We are patronizingly told how important we are, then left to figure out how to teach in our underfunded classrooms, while the Very Serious People gather in wood-paneled rooms and figure out how to use bubble tests to screw us out of our workplace protections.

Fortunately, Diane was not taking this garbage lying down:

@EDPressSec I have never met a teacher who looked for ways to make a buck off his/her students, like for-profit orgs now prowling for $.

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2hDiane Ravitch ‏@DianeRavitch

@mlrock4 @EDPressSec I have never met a teacher who welcomes for-profit entrepreneurs into management of education. Only ALEC & allies.

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2hDiane Ravitch ‏@DianeRavitch

@JHSTL It's sad that Obama administration takes teachers for granted, continues mindless obsession with hi-stakes testing & privatization.

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2hDiane Ravitch ‏@DianeRavitch

@EDPressSec I disagree; US DOE should not be promoting for-profit entrepreneurs. It is not your role. Remember equality of ed opportunity?

Oh, snap! Well, when you get beat down this good, the only chance you have is to try to weasel your way out of what you plainly just said:

Justin Hamilton ‏@EDPressSec

@DianeRavitch so, it's not a bad word or a bad way to approach life

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2hJustin Hamilton ‏@EDPressSec

@DianeRavitch for instance, I would say you are an entrepreneur: passionate about education, but still find time for books, writing speaking

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2hJustin Hamilton ‏@EDPressSec

@DianeRavitch I know plenty of teachers and others who are entrepreneurial. It's not a hat exclusively worn in the private sector.

Now that is some high-quality weaseling. Because it's very clear that an entrepreneurial "approach to life" is NOT what either Diane or Nancy was talking about. They were talking - very specifically - about the influence of a corporate mind-set on our current education policies and debate, to the exclusion of those who actually teach the kids.

Can you tell that the patronization of teachers by folks like Justin Hamilton makes me just the slightest bit nuts? That I am so damn sick and tired of people like him patting me on the head and pretending to have my best interests at heart? That I'm done with education summits in government and at think-tanky conferences and on my TV that exclude me and my colleagues?

The only comfort I take is that I know these people can't help themselves; once in a while, they can't help but slip up - like Justin did tonight - and tell the truth about what they really think. And what they think is that the people who are looking to make a buck off of America's kids deserve to set the policies that govern schools, and that teachers need only nod their heads and say, "Yes, sir! No, sir! No excuse, sir!"

All the weasel words in the world can't hide their lack of respect.

@EdPressSec

UPDATE: Diane Ravitch herself weighs in. And just happens to add:

 I don’t have the exact sequence, but Jersey Jazzman (one of my favorite bloggers)...

I will be shamelessly repeating that sentence for years to come!

Booker: It's All About Paying Less for Teachers

It's about time Supermayor admitted what reforminess is all about (behind a paywall - Lisa Fleisher, tell Old Man Murdoch I really can't afford this on my teacher salary...):

Borrowing a page from New York City, Houston and other cities, Newark could soon use money from the foundation started by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg to offer buyouts to teachers in a cost-saving move.

Schools Superintendent Cami Anderson has approached the teachers' union with the idea, which has a twofold intent: give weak educators incentive to leave and pare what she calls the district's oversize payroll.

The effort comes as lawmakers in Trenton negotiate a bill to weaken tenure protections and evaluate teachers based on student performance, which is supported by Newark Mayor Cory Booker.
"Superintendent Anderson has two hands tied behind her back," he said at a meeting of education writers in Philadelphia on Friday. "If we could fire the 300 to 400 lowest-performing teachers, she wouldn't have a financial crisis."

In an interview, Mr. Booker said he hoped the buyouts would be a temporary fix until schools can oust teachers based on performance rather than seniority. Mr. Booker, unlike New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, doesn't have control of the schools and isn't part of negotiations over a new contract. [emphasis mine]

Notice how Supermayor doesn't justify this by saying Newark's students are suffering because of a plague of bad teachers; he's interested in addressing a fiscal crisis by cutting the teacher payroll. Good to see where the priorities are.

Of course, this is merely kicking the can down the road; eventually, the younger teachers will gain seniority and start making larger salaries. Later on, we can always turn teaching into a temp job, where youngsters hang their hats for a few years before moving on to something else. That's sure to keep salaries low; but will it be good for students?

No.

The governor took a few minutes out of his busy schedule of raising money for Mitt Romney and yelling on YouTube to comment:

The existence of teachers without permanent positions has played a part in the larger political battle to weaken tenure protections. Speaking to an advocacy group earlier this month, Gov. Chris Christie said the district was "paying them for doing nothing."

"You're paying 70 people as we speak to eat lunch, read the newspaper, do the crossword puzzle," he said. "God forbid, don't let them near any children, for the harm they would cause to those kids."

A Newark schools spokeswoman later said most of the teachers were actually teaching, and all were working. A spokesman for the governor responded that "none of them are doing what they were hired to do."

Please excuse my poor manners while I point out that no one has ever shown that these are, in fact, bad teachers. The only thing we know for sure about these educators is that they couldn't get a principal to agree to place them in a school. There are any number of reasons why that may be; yes, maybe they suck, but maybe the principals who cut them loose suck. I have no idea, but neither does the governor. That, of course, has never stopped him from running off his mouth before.

The issue here remains workplace protections and their value in the labor marketplace. Christie, Booker, Anderson, and the reformy rest want to use Zuck's money to fund a little experiment. They don't want to use the money in the classroom (heaven forbid!); they would rather spend it to set the conditions for a future where teachers don't have workplace protections, due process, or seniority rights.

They foolishly think they're somehow going to save taxpayers money and magically make the schools better by taking away teachers' non-pecuniary benefits. Well, in the short-term, they may save a few bucks; however, in the long term, this is almost certain to cost districts more.

Tenure has a worth. Howard Wainer makes the point brilliantly: when superintendents in New Jersey lost tenure, their pay skyrocketed relative to teachers. This will inevitably happen if seniority rights and tenure are eliminated from teacher compensation packages: you will have to replace their value with something else if you want teachers of equal quality. One survey suggests you'll have to replace tenure with pay raises equal to 50% of current salaries.

That is unless, again, you don't really care about teacher quality and experience very much.

This isn't that hard to understand, folks. Why doesn't Supermayor seem to get it?

"Understanding tenure's value is like kryptonite to me!"

Bad Reformy Arguments #1: Teaching Trumps EVERYTHING

I'll be reading the perfect reformy op-ed over the next few days, a compilation of the best arguments the reformyists can make to include standardized tests in teacher evaluations. Marcus Winters has actually done us a great service: he's put all of their side's best arguments into one place so we can easily explore and refute them.

So, here's reformy argument #1: we must, must, MUST test the crap out of the kids, because...

Research over the last two decades has confirmed what most parents already knew: Teacher quality is any public school’s most important asset. Taking that simple and obvious premise seriously means working to identify and remove ineffective teachers. A bipartisan group of lawmakers in New Jersey and nationwide is pursuing this path. [emphasis mine]

This is a variation on a common reformy theme: "Teachers are the most important in-school factor in student achievement." It seems that everyone says it: Education journalists. Professional union busters. Corporate edu-vultures. Presidents. Maniacs who happen to be the Secretary of Education. ACTING state education commissioners. Governors who yell at teachers on YouTube. Mouthpieces of autocratic mayors.

And even, lord help us, some teachers themselves. All agree: "Teachers are the most important in-school factor in student achievement."

Let me ask all of these fine folks one question: if you were looking for students, where would you go? A school, right?

Well, by a huge factor, the most important determining factor in student achievement is the difference in student characteristics. The student's family environment and the student's qualities determine about 60% of the differences in student outcomes. About 20% is attributable to the school; around half of that is the teacher. And 20% is just error.

The sad fact is the correlation between poverty and student outcomes is nearly perfect.

Does this mean that poor kids are doomed to failure? That good teaching doesn't matter? No, of course not. There are many things we can do in our schools to help mitigate against poverty, starting with adequate school funding. Teacher quality does vary and we ought to ensure policies to get the best teachers in front of our classrooms.

But, granting all that, Winters's argument here fails on two levels. First, there is no evidence that basing teacher evaluations on bubble tests will improve teacher quality; sadly, the anecdotal evidence is pouring in that it will probably do just the opposite.

Second, since Winters overstates the teacher's effect on student learning, he ignores the one critical thing we must do to raise student achievement: close the poverty gap. Winters gives away the game with this statement:

Anyone who understands the importance of education won’t be surprised to learn a recent study by economists at Harvard and Columbia universities showed that assignment to one or another teacher is related to later life outcomes, such as the likelihood of early pregnancy, the chances of college attendance and lifetime earnings.

Yet another misreading of Chetty et. al. (more on this later in the series). But aside from that, notice how Winters gets it backwards: he thinks we can close the poverty gap by closing the achievement gap.  He mistakes causation for correlation: he thinks low achievement is causing poverty.

This defies all common sense. Is Winters really prepared to say that the reason Chatham and Scarsdale and New Canaan and Grosse Point and Los Altos Hills have high-achieving students is because they have better teachers? And the primary difference in the lives of children in Newark and the South Bronx and Hartford and Detroit and South Central is that their teachers suck?

Let's look at Bruce Baker's table one more time:

The evidence is crystal clear: the most important in-school factor affecting student achievement is the difference in student characteristics. Stop the weasel words already.

Students First's new spokesman: "Teachers are the most important in-school factor!"

ADDING: Extra credit reading.

ADDING MORE: Even more via Paul Thomas.

Teachers Teach the Test When the Test Tests Teachers

This morning, the Star-Ledger gave me a gift: the perfect reformy op-ed. I say "perfect" because this piece brings together pretty much every ill-informed and poorly conceived argument for using standardized tests as part of a teacher's evaluation into one place. It's like a Rosetta Stone of reforminess.

The author, Marcus Winters, is a think-tanky type, but he has some serious credentials. That says to me that this is the best their side can do.

If so, they've got problems.

I'll pick apart the entire thing over the next few days. For now, let's leave it at this:

A rich evaluation system would assess a teacher’s performance using both student test scores and observations of classroom performance.

Oh, my reformy friend. Let's get this straight, once and for all:

You can pretend that the bubble test is "only part of the evaluation," but that's a delusion. It is all of the decision. When you attach phony precision to the test, it doesn't matter what kind of evaluations of teacher practice you do; the test becomes the deciding factor.


And when that happens, there is a consequence as inevitable as day following night: teachers will teach to the test.


Think about it: if you're a teacher, how could you not want to place importance on standardized tests when you know it will be the deciding factor in your evaluation? Why would you spend time teaching our children civics and history and science and all sorts of enrichment areas when you'll be judged solely on math and reading? Why would you want your kids to go to music and art and PE when you could spend those minutes drilling test prep questions?

It's your job on the line; it's your family's future. Are you really going to take a risk that your kids will do just fine on the test? I didn't think so.

What Marcus Winters wants is a world where teachers teach children that the most important thing in the world is to fill in the correct bubble when an authority figure tells you to. Lord help us if he gets his way.

Teachers Teach the Test When the Test Tests Teachers

Stand by: much more to come...

Perth Amboy Follies Update

The saga of anti-tenure-for-teachers-but-pro-due-process-for-herself Janine Caffrey and the BOE of Perth Amboy continues. When last we left, Caffrey had been reinstated as the superintendent by ACTING NJDOE Commissioner Cerf, despite the board's vote to remove her. And Cerf has retained the right to act as the final arbiter in this matter, despite the fact that it's clear the board doesn't want her.

Now, it appears that the teachers would also like her to pack her bags. From the local union's website:

As many readers know, Perth Amboy has become embroiled in a political struggle between the Board of Education and Superintendent Dr. Janine Walker Caffrey. We will not comment on the various accusations being made by the respective parties. Our role is to educate and care for children through the service of our members, not to be drawn into political squabbles. We must report, however, based on a poll of our leadership cadre, that a vast majority of those leaders, 73% of poll respondents, expressed a loss of faith, trust and confidence in Dr. Caffrey. How can anyone really lead in the absence of such crucial elements? We were the organization, on the heels of her November op-ed, urging her to consider the damage she inflicted, to heal the wounds she had caused and work to regain the staff’s trust. There was still time to do it then. We hoped to see that she could do it and really wanted to, knowing that to have any chance at redemption she needed to. Sadly, that did not happen.

Though the Federation had an advisory role, as a community stakeholder, in the selection of Dr. Caffrey’s immediate predecessors, John M. Rodecker and Dr. Pablo Clausell, we had no such role in the selection of Mr. Rodecker’s successor. Had that opportunity existed, we would have had the opportunity to offer our vision for what we thought the District’s needs actually were. Those needs are, in my view, more acute now than they were just 10 months ago. Perth Amboy has sadly regressed from being a District in Progress to a District in Crisis. In the midst of all the drama, with daily media reports and people taking sides and keeping score, our members focused on their first priority: taking care of 10,000 kids. While state testing was going on as the Superintendent was put out on leave, our members went to work as they always do. When she was reinstated, there were some who wanted us to picket, to protest, to wear buttons or union colors and to become part of the escalating fray. Our members needed to be the adults in the room. That’s what they do --- every day. [emphasis mine]

Hey Tom Moran - did you catch that? When you crowned Caffrey the Queen of Gutting Tenure in your Star-Ledger op-ed pages, it actually had an effect - a negative one. Maybe it wasn't such a great thing for you to reprint uncorroborated stories about drunk teachers on Caffrey's word alone; maybe you should have talked to some of the stakeholders who directly contradict Caffrey's story.

Unfortunately, Tom is always ready to expect the worse from teachers unions:

This is a cautionary tale about how politics can derail school reform. Because when you try to change the way schools do business, it upsets the adults every time.

Some of that is based on old-school greed. Teachers unions, for example, generally want sturdy raises every year and no accountability. Some of it is genuine, based on skepticism about charter schools or tenure reform. Some, especially in Newark, is rooted in suspicion of outside influences.

Nice. That's the reward you get for being the "adult in the room" these days.

No matter what, at least the PA teachers union can hold their heads high and say they acted better than any other party involved in this mess.

Christie: Against TEACHNJ?

I came across this trying to find something else from the blog. Chris Christie from April of 2011:

0:41: First thing is that I think we have to have some form of tenure. Because we don't want folks to be fired for political purposes, retaliatory purposes. Teachers should not have to worry about what they say in a classroom and that they'll be fired because the principal doesn't believe in their political point of view or because they've disagreed with the principal. I think that we have to have protections there for that.

This is really important: here, Chris Christie admits that retaliation from an unfair principal is a genuine concern of a teacher, and that tenure exists to protect against this very real threat. He says, "... we have to have some form of tenure." He sees it as an imperative; we have to have tenure.

Now, the bill that's currently in the NJ Senate, TEACHNJ, specifically prohibits a teacher from appealing a principal's annual review that leads to a revocation of tenure. That review need be based only partially on actually student achievement; the rest is up to the principal. If the review is bad enough, that teacher will lose her tenure. And even though the school will set up a "school improvement panel," the bill grants it no actual powers; every indication is that the principal alone will have enough power to revoke a teacher's tenure through poor reviews:

The revocation of the tenure status of a teacher, assistant principal, or vice-principal shall not be subject to grievance or appeal except where the ground for the grievance or appeal is that the principal failed to adhere substantially to the evaluation process. Any such appeal initiated by an employee shall be directed to an administrative law judge within 30 days of the revocation of the employee’s tenure status. The appeal shall be reviewed by an administrative law judge within 30 days of the receipt of the appeal. [emphasis mine]

TEACHNJ, therefore, is in direct contradiction to Christie's stated reason for keeping tenure in "some form." It offers no protection in the very scenario Christie himself describes: a vindictive principal who fires a teacher based on a personal disagreement. Under TEACHNJ, that principal can strip a teacher's tenure with one bad annual review, and that teacher can never appeal the decision as long as the principal followed procedure.

Unless Christie is prepared to disavow what he said a little more than a year ago, he cannot possibly support TEACHNJ in its current form.

That is, unless he is a huge, huge liar.