Why Are We Listening To Joel Klein?

If Ben and Jerry chaired a task force that concluded that American children needed more rich, chocolaty swirls in their diets, would anyone take them seriously?

So why does anyone care about what Joel Klein has to say about education? The man is paid millions to make Rupert Murdoch boatloads of money off of the privatization of American schools. Guess what his prescription for our made up eduction problems is?

The Klein-Rice report makes three broad recommendations to fix the stated problem.

It calls for:

* expanding the Common Core State Standard initiative to include subjects beyond math and English Language Arts;

* an expansion of charter schools and vouchers

* an annual “national security readiness audit” that would look at how schools are addressing the country’s needs through increased foreign language programs, technology curriculum and more.

The report cites lots of statistics that paint public schools in the worst possible light, and continues the trend of comparing America’s educational system with that of high-achieving countries — but doesn’t note that these countries generally don’t do the kinds of things these reformers endorse. Its recommendations would lead to further privatization of public schools and even more emphasis onstandardized testing. [emphasis mine]

In this post, Valerie Strauss rightly points out that Klein's vaunted "success" in New York City under Generalissimo Bloomberg was an illusion. He should be ashamed to show his face near a school; instead, he's putting out reports that offer America plans to buy more of the useless techie junk his company is going to spit out.

The political structure and corporate media in this country have been scarfing the corporate reform line like my wife ate Cherry Garcia when she was eight months pregnant. No one has challenged these people, so they grow increasingly brazen. In a rational world, Klein would have been embarrassed to put his name on a report that is so blatantly tilted toward his own interests.

Of course, in a rational world, no one would have ever put these people together in the same room and let them discuss schools:

Here’s the complete list of committee members. Five of the members have astericks by their names, indicating that they wrote dissents to the report.

Carole Artigiani*, Global Kids, Inc; Craig R. Barrett, Intel Corporation; Richard Barth, KIPP Foundation; Edith L. Bartley, United Negro College Fund; Gaston Caperton, The College Board; Linda Darling-Hammond*, Stanford University; Jonah M. Edelman, Stand for Children; Roland Fryer Jr., Harvard University; Ann M. Fudge; Ellen V. Futter*, American Museum of Natural History; Preston M. Geren, Sid W. Richardson Foundation; Louis V. Gerstner Jr.; Allan E. Goodman, Institute of International Education; Frederick M. Hess, American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research; Shirley Ann Jackson, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; Joel I. Klein, News Corporation; Wendy Kopp, Teach For America; Jeffrey T. Leeds, Leeds Equity Partners, LLC; Julia Levy, Culture Craver; Michael L. Lomax, United Negro College Fund; Eduardo J.Padrón, Miami Dade College; Matthew F. Pottinger, China Six LLC; Laurene Powell Jobs, Emerson Collective; Condoleezza Rice, Stanford University; Benno C. Schmidt, Avenues: The World School; Stanley S. Shuman, Allen& Company LLC; Leigh Morris Sloane, Association of Professional Schools of International Affairs; Margaret Spellings, Margaret Spellings and Company, Stephen M. Walt*, Harvard Kennedy School; Randi Weingarten*, American Federation of Teachers.

Good for Linda, Randi, and the three others; although maybe the better move would have been to shun this nonsense in the first place.

Do Older Teachers Suck?

Mitt Romney seems to think so:

The former Massachusetts governor continued his criticism of unions on Sunday at a town hall meeting in Vernon Hills, Ill. "We should pay our beginning teachers more," he said, according to Crystal Lake Patch. "The national unions are too interested in benefits for the older teachers."

I don't know why they would be: younger teachers pay the same dues as older teachers (at least, they do in New Jersey). The implication here is that the hated unions are protecting burned-out older teachers, who aren't nearly as effective and able to "connect" with their students as younger teachers.

I've tried to find some academic studies about this, but my first look has come up blank. Is there any evidence that a majority - or even a significant minority - of teachers simply give up late in their careers? Because there is significant research that shows that experience counts; for up to 30 years, it can make a difference.

Of course, there are undoubtedly some teachers who do burn out; the question is whether this is such a significant number that it's worth radically restructuring the compensation practices of the profession. Again, the burden of proof is on the reformyists: where is their evidence that large numbers of teachers are fried after 25 years on the job? And that those teachers are a significant factor in suppressing student achievement?

This is yet another example of how teaching is not treated like a "real" profession. Can you imagine anyone saying that he wants to avoid a doctor who had been treating patients for 30 years; that he wanted a younger, less-experienced doctor? That a pilot who had been flying commercially for 20 years was probably "burned out," and you'd be safer on a plane piloted by a younger, more "enthusiastic" captain?

So why do we treat teachers so differently?

Thinking...

Where My Head Explodes

Someone please save us from education "experts" like Laura Waters:

Over the past few months, the Christie Administration has intensified its focus on New Jersey's failure to provide educational equity. While our wealthier kids score top marks on assessments of national achievement, many poor students attend schools where most kids don't meet basic levels of proficiency in reading and math. In some of our neediest schools over 40 percent of third graders can't read at grade level. 

This disparity in achievement is old news, inflated by our rampant home-rule ethic, which segregates schoolchildren into 590 economically disparate school districts, and by New Jersey's relatively high test scores, which statistically compound achievement gaps. 

But here's what's new: New Jersey seems poised to formally acknowledge this bifurcation of our K-12 public education system by forging ahead with a reform-oriented agenda mostly oriented towards failing schools. 

[...] 

Reward Schools, on the other hand, are eligible for cash awards. Christie reiterated this separation of low-performing districts from high-performing ones in his budget address last month. From the speech: "[we] have great outcomes in some districts. But we have terrible performance in others. That is not right. It is not fair. It is not moral." The governor signaled his intent to deviate from court-ordered school funding compensation for poor districts because we'll see better educational outcomes from changes in tenure law, expansion of school choice, and teacher merit pay. [emphasis mine]

Let me get this straight: the more affluent districts do very well in New Jersey, but the poor districts don't do as well. Both types of districts have tenure, little school choice, and no merit pay. There is no evidence that any of these three has any effect on student achievement, and logic suggests that they are not the independent variable that leads to the disparity in test scores between wealthier and poorer districts.

But the solution to the "achievement gap" is to gut tenure, install questionable charter schools, and keep a hopeful eye out for the Merit Pay Fairy - in all districts. Because...

[awkward pause]

The incoherence continues:

The release of the state aid numbers was accompanied by acting education commissioner Chris Cerf's "Education Funding Report," which reprised the same refrain: NJ has failed to provide equitable educational opportunities to poor children through the mechanism of money, so it's time for a set of qualitative initiatives.

"In writing this Report, the Department began with a single question: Why has New Jersey's achievement gap proven so resistant to the combination of Robinson, Abbott, and tens of billions of dollars? The Department quickly found the answer: New Jersey courts, the Legislature, and past Governors only got it half-right. They took an inarguable proposition -- namely, that a school must have sufficient dollars to succeed -- and twisted it into the wrongheaded notion that dollars alone equal success."

Here, Cerf echoes Gov. Christie's lead: educational equity for poor kids won't come from increased Abbott money, but only from systemic reforms to tenure laws, teacher incentives, and public school choice.

First of all: the "achievement gap" has NOT been resistant to New Jersey's commitment toward adequate funding, no matter how much ACTING Commissioner Cerf abuses the data. Money matters, as Linda Darling-Hammond explains:

I also describe how states like New Jersey, now arguably now the highest-achieving state in the U.S. if student demographics are taken into account, raised overall achievement and cut the achievement gap in half after being pushed by 30 years of school finance reform litigation to substantially increase spending in its poor urban districts. New Jersey – serving 45% minority students and a large and growing number of new immigrants – ranks in the top 5 states on NAEP on every measure and is first in the nation in writing, having invested in quality preschool for all children and quality pedagogy, with a focus on early literacy now expanding to other subject areas. [emphasis mine]

In spite of this evidence, Chris Christie has still fought tooth-and-nail to keep these less-affluent districts from getting adequate funding. He has admitted he wants to stack the court so he can keep these former Abbott districts from receiving what they need to teach the children who are often the most difficult to educate. His "reforms" - again, which have no evidence of affecting student achievement - are actually a pretext for cutting education funding for the children who need it the most.

Everyone understands this; everyone knows what Christie is doing - except, apparently, Laura Waters, who believes that the push to strip teachers of their workplace protections is actually addressing the very real problems in the lives of poor and minority children. To convince herself of her thesis, she actually invents arguments for the reformers they themselves haven't even advanced:

This political, fiscal, and philosophical distinction between high-performing and low-performing districts also appears in new legislation like the Urban Hope Act (enacted), the Opportunity Scholarship Act (proposed), and the Christie administration's informal decision to restrict charter school expansion to needy districts. Senator Teresa Ruiz's tenure and teacher evaluation reform bill encompasses all districts, although there's been some discussion about focusing energies towards failing ones.

There has?!? I sure haven't heard it - because the notion is foolish beyond belief. Can you imagine trying to recruit teachers into less-affluent districts without tenure while teachers in more-affluent districts retain their workplace protections? Can you imagine putting in a test-based merit pay system in Newark while right down the road, Millburn negotiates its pay scales through collective bargaining? The notion is insane even for the corporate reformers, which is why no one - no one - has mentioned eliminating tenure only for teachers in former Abbott districts.

And as to this "informal decision" to restrict charters to the cities: tell that to the people of Cherry Hill and Voorhees. The plain truth is that Christie's DOE tried to foist charters on the 'burbs, and the notion laid an egg. He's been able to back off in most places, but not all. And were it not for the diligence of committed parent activists, there's little doubt charters would be coming to Princeton, Teaneck, and East Bruswick.

To tell the truth, I can't really blame Waters for her arguments; in a way, they are a logical extension of the case Christie and ACTING Commissioner Cerf have been making all along. They admit the schools in the 'burbs are doing a great job; they say all they want is to close the achievement gap. The problem, of course, is that they are concurrently pushing to "fix" schools that aren't broken; they are gutting tenure for teachers in schools that are among the best in the world.

Which begs the question: what are they really after? Why are they insisting on "reforms" for schools that don't need "reform"?

Maybe Laura needs to spend half a minute asking herself that.

How To Be a Clueless Teachers Union Leader

UPDATE: I am crossing out a paragraph below. I shouldn't be calling for anyone's resignation or firing on the basis of a single news story. Peterson may have his reasons, and they may be good ones. I may disagree with them, but that doesn't mean I know enough yet to say he should be fired. I apologize for jumping to that conclusion at this time.


If anyone has further information about this story, I am very curious about it. Leave comments below.

Oh, no. No, no, no, no, no.

Leaders of the Milwaukee teachers union are campaigning for members to sacrifice a week's worth of their pay to help reduce class sizes next year in Milwaukee Public Schools, if legislation allowing them a window of time to negotiate a salary reduction is signed by Gov. Scott Walker.

The MPS Children's Week Campaign, which will be discussed with the Milwaukee Teachers' Education Association membership beginning Saturday, is asking educators to give up 2.6% of their salary next year, or about five days of pay, to allow for class-size relief.

The campaign also is poised to ask higher-paid MPS employees as well as community members and businesses in Milwaukee to consider contributing some of their wages or profits to a nonprofit district fund. The union will be discussing the proposal with teachers in a series of meetings starting Saturday, and the membership would vote on the proposal later this month, assuming that Walker, who supports the bill, signs it into law. [emphasis mine]

Oh, dear lord. Sweet, sweet lord. Where do I even begin?

Let's start with this:

As rising health insurance costs have eaten up most of the 3.8% total compensation target, teacher salaries in Wisconsin have stagnated and even declined. As a result, Wisconsin teacher salaries fell 6.8% from 1997-98 to 2007-08, when adjusted for inflation. For 2007-08, Wisconsin's teacher salaries ranked 21th in the nation at $49,051, down from 20th the year before, and below the national average of $52,308. [emphasis mine]

This comports with a large body of evidence that shows that, nationally, teachers are hardly overpaid. But let's leave that aside, and wrongly assume that teachers are raking it in, making - wow, is it possible?!? - high five-figures! With (unpaid) summers off! That's why Wisconsin is on a hole, right?

Wrong:

One of the most pernicious myths surrounding the Wisconsin budget showdown is Gov. Scott Walker's claim that the state is "broke," there is nothing to negotiate and the only solution is to mandate massive reductions in public employee compensation and to abolish their collective bargaining rights.

This is nonsense. Wisconsin has not gone into the red because of excessively generous pay and benefits negotiated by unions for state and local employees. Our deficit has grown because the Great Recession blew a hole in the state budget, as it did in virtually every state in the country.

Nor are excessively generous compensation packages for state employees holding back the recovery: Careful studies by the Economic Policy Institute as well as University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee economists Keith Bender and John Heywood show clearly that public-sector employees are less well-compensated than comparably educated and experienced private-sector workers in Wisconsin.

[...]

The reality, of course, is that Walker's plan is not the only way to fill the $137 million gap; it is a policy choice which, to borrow from Warren Buffett, represents "class warfare . . . but it's the rich class that's making war, and we're winning." Rather than attacking the living standards of middle class teachers, prison guards and health care workers, Wisconsin policy-makers can easily close this budgetary gap - and reduce surging inequality in the state - by temporarily raising taxes on the superwealthy and corporations. [emphasis mine]

Bur Walker did exactly the opposite; rather than taxing the folks that have the money, he gave them a big, fat gift:

One Wisconsin Now Executive Director Scot Ross released the following statements regarding Gov. Scott Walker’s planned signing of the 2011-13 Wisconsin state budget on Sunday. Walker’s budget includes tax breaks for corporations and the rich that will cost the state of Wisconsin taxpayers $2.3 billion over the next decade. At the same time, they are raising taxes on the working poor by $70 million, dismantling public education by $1.6 billion and slashing the University of Wisconsin by $250 million. 

“Gov. Walker is not signing a budget bill, he is signing a document surrendering Wisconsin to Wall Street and the corporate special interests that bought his keys to the Governor’s mansion. This bill violates the values of the people of Wisconsin and is an attack on our children, our working families, our seniors and our vulnerable friends and neighborhoods. Gov. Walker and the Republican-controlled legislature’s idea of ‘shared sacrifice’ is to sacrifice the middle class so corporations can share our tax dollars. These are the wrong choices for Wisconsin. They will not create jobs. And they will drive our state in deep long-term debt.” [emphasis mine]

There's more on Walker's generosity to the wealthy here (and an accounting of the massive wealth accumulated by a small group of individuals in the state). In the mean time, public workers had already made a huge sacrifice for Wisconsin:

State employee unions made $100 million in concessions in December to ease the budgetary strain, said Bryan Kennedy, president of the state chapter of the American Federation of Teachers. But Walker's response has been "to eviscerate our most basic rights" and "end labor peace in Wisconsin."

In addition to all this, Milwaukee is home to one of the country's largest voucher programs; a program that does not get better results than the local schools, and takes $180 million out of the state and local budgets every year.

Let's review: the teachers are already modestly paid, their salaries did not cause the budget deficit, their unions agreed to big concessions, Walker gave big tax gifts to the wealthiest, there are plenty of super-rich folks in Wisconsin who could pay much more, and vouchers already suck plenty of money out of Milwaukee's schools.

And yet - in spite of all of this - the head of the teachers union wants teachers to give up a week's worth of pay... while the wealthy individuals and corporations of Milwaukee are meekly asked to "consider contributing some of their wages or profits."

Sweet, sweet lord. Is it Stockholm Syndrome? Is that it?

Let's get something straight: no one should be asking middle-class teachers to make a sacrifice before asking the very wealthiest to start paying their fair share. And don't hand me that crap about "job creators." Teachers are the ultimate job creators. Hell, that's what they keep telling us as they try to strip our workplace protections: "We have to compete for 21st Century jobs!" Well, you can't have it both ways: either we're important, or we aren't. If we are, stop asking us to take hit after hit after hit, and start demanding that the wealthiest people in this country step up and contribute.

It is insane that a union leader - a teachers union leader! - would acquiesce to the far-right frameworks of Scott Walker and the rest of the puppets of the 0.1%. No teacher should be asked to dig even further into her pocket unless and until the oligarchs who run this country start doing their patriotic duty and help pay for our society's basic needs. And union leaders should make this case over and over again; they should not be playing this game by the aristocrats' rules.

My brother and sister teachers in Milwaukee, listen to me now: you all need to go into the MTEA office tomorrow and demand the resignation of President Bob Peterson effective immediately. You and the children of Milwaukee deserve far, far better. [see above - JJ]

As for the rest of you union leaders - you need to look at this story and listen to the Jazzman:

We are in a war. These people want nothing less than to break the protections, pay, and benefits people fought and literally died for over the past century. Your members are counting on you to stand up for them and tell these people the truth.

The Great Recession is not our fault; if anything, it probably would have been worse were it not for us teachers and cops and firefighters and other public workers. The pensions and the benefits we earned are just that: earned. They aren't gifts, they aren't political kickbacks, and they sure as hell aren't what's bankrupting the country. We are middle-class, hard-working women and men who only ask for some small piece of the American Dream. We have always been willing to take less money in exchange for doing a job that we love - but we have families, and we will only be pushed so far.

Union leaders, you need to lead. It's really that simple.

Facebook Battle: Teachers Beat Corporate Reformers Again!

The interwebs have spoken!

New Jersey Teachers United Against Governor Chris Christie's Pay Freeze
77,315 likes 

B4NJKids-Better Education for New Jersey Kids
4,845 likes

As you've no doubt noticed, B4K made a huge web ad buy recently; I can't tell you how many B4K ads I've seen this last week. How's that working out?

Well, back in August, B4K had 3,180 "likes." You do the math.

NJTUAGCCPF, on the other hand, is getting all those eyeballs without a hedge fund sugar daddy to finance their marketing campaign.

Just sayin'...

(Don't look... there's a B4K ad right under this, isn't there? NO, don't look...)

Charters In NJ: One Disaster After Another

Oh, dear:

A controversy over a proposed charter school in Cherry Hill may soon be settled - in New Jersey Superior Court.

The Regis Academy charter is scheduled to open in September, but its operator, the Solid Rock Worship Center, is $20,000 behind on the rent and missed a Jan. 3 deadline to buy the property from Holy Eucharist Parish for $2.9 million. The property encompasses the church and the proposed school.

This week, the parish asked the court's landlord-tenant law division to evict Solid Rock and grant a "Judgment for Possession" of the site in the 100 block of West Evesham Road.

"They haven't been able to come up with the money," Camden Diocese spokesman Peter Feuerherd said Friday. "This is about a real estate deal that didn't work. They didn't fulfill their commitment to come up with $2.9 million, and we're in the process of dealing with the situation."

Anyone who spends five minutes looking at this story will quickly come to the conclusion that Solid Rock needs the per-pupil funds charter schools get from the state so it can pay itself rent. That rent money was going to fund the purchase of Solid Rock's new property, and it was going to come from the towns of Cherry Hill, Voorhees, Somerdale, and Lawnside - towns that have excellent schools and do not need Regis Academy to "save" their kids from low-performing schools.

At this point, even the pastor of Solid Rock admits that the demand from the community for his services is very, very low:

Surprised by news of the court action, the Rev. Amir Khan, pastor of Solid Rock, said Friday that he received a lender's verbal commitment for the funds two weeks ago and will have a written commitment by next week.

Solid Rock, a nondenominational, predominantly African American congregation, will pay the full purchase price plus the back rent at settlement, the pastor said.

"Technically, I have nothing until I have the written commitment," said Khan, who still expects to close the deal with the parish and is moving ahead with enrolling students in the charter school.

"We'll have 250 [students] at our school," he said. "We already have 80 applications and two to three a day coming in."

The only reason Regis may be getting more applications is that the state granted the desperate charter the right to recruit kids from outside of the original four school districts it was supposed to serve. But in spite of their ad campaign featuring coupons (no, seriously, they used coupons), Regis is turning out to be a bust. It's the four sending districts, however, that are paying the price: they have been unable to properly budget for their own expenses, even though they have outstanding schools, because they have to keep funds in reserve that may or may not go to Regis.

Darcie Cimarusti has much, much more on this; it turns out Regis can't even meet the simplest reporting requirements from the state.

Which begs the question: why didn't anyone pick this up in the first place? It was painfully obvious that Regis was a ploy by Solid Rock to capture school funds to pay its mortgage. Why didn't anyone point this out before approving their application?

The answer is obvious:

Khan has appeared multiple times on stage with Chris Christie, despite the fact that Christie denied knowing him - even when Khan was sitting right behind him! Khan is a member of the Black Ministers Council, a powerful lobbying group with ties to Christie that has a stellar track record of getting its charters approved (despite the fact that their president seems to have problems following the laws regarding school governance).

It's worth pointing out that the DOE had previously given instructions to its reviewers not to look too carefully at the financials of charter applications:

Carly Bolger, the former Deputy Commissioner, ran the review process, and apparently no one was very happy with the job she did. Here we can see why; did she give her reviewers the same instructions to back off when they reviewed the financials in the application for Regis? Had a reviewer with a background in school finance actually scrutinized the application, the conflict of interest here would have screamed out.

But, apparently, no one bothered to do that; does anyone doubt why? It's become increasingly clear that, under the Christie administration, educational policy has become completely politicized. Which is why, despite my misgivings, A1877 - a bill that allows voters to approve charters in a referendum - must be passed. The current DOE simply can't be trusted.

One last point: the only reason Regis is being scrutinized is because a group of dedicated citizens, working with their local school boards and teachers, stood up and told the state "Enough." Parent and school advocates like Darcie Cimarusti, Rita McClellan, SOS NJ, the students of Cherry Hill, and others are demanding that the state stop this nonsense and give them back their schools.

They are an example for us all.

Your Moment of Sanity: Pensions

Believe it or not, pensions save taxpayers money. So we should expand them:

In response, in late February California State Senator Kevin De León and Darrell Steinberg, the Senate president pro tempore, introduced legislation that would allow private-sector workers in California to enroll in a modest, state-operated retirement program financed by the workers and their employers — at virtually no cost to taxpayers.

This would increase coverage because employers would put every worker into a plan, either their own or the California plan. In the California version workers could opt out; some will, but most workers once in a plan will stay in.

Also in February, John Liu, the New York City comptroller, called for a similar plan for New York City residents. His program would pool employee and employer contributions into a professionally managed, citywide retirement fund.

Both plans would use the same professional staff and institutional money managers that invest the state and city pension funds to manage contributions made by participating employers and employees in the private sector.

This is a vital step: public pension plans usually outperform 401(k) plans and individual retirement accounts, because instead of a single worker managing a single account, large institutional plans pool workers of all ages, diversify the portfolio over longer time periods, use the best professional managers that aren’t available for retail accounts and have the bargaining power to lower fees and prioritize long-term investment.

By some estimates, costs for public pensions are over 45 percent lower than for individual 401(k) plans. Of course, since these plans would be financed by workers and their employers, there would be no cost to taxpayers. [emphasis mine]

Why, you may wonder, haven't we done this yet? Look at my last bolded sentence. Then consider that "The financial sector is far and away the largest source of campaign contributions to federal candidates and parties..."

If you were the financial sector, would you want to give up that 45%? Wouldn't you demand that the politicians you bought off support write legislation to make sure you keep getting those fees?

Teachers - and other public workers - pay a lot of money into their pensions. Wall Street looks at that pile, licks its chops, and writes another check to its favorite reformy think tank.

It's all about the kids, you know...

The Price For Screwing Over Teachers

Via Diane Ravitch, Jeff Mirel makes a point that the reformy types never, ever want to deal with:

The second case, tenure helping good teachers stay in field—you're right on this in your review of Wendy Kopp's book. If the goal of getting excellent teachers to stick around for 20 or 30 years, then they need tenure protection in no small part because they are NEVER going to get paid what they are worth financially. Without tenure, teaching school cannot compete in the economic marketplace (e.g., I know people in the business world who have only a B.A. in business and, after 10 years in the field, are making 2.5-3 times what public school teachers are making. Without good job protection we will never have long term, high quality teachers in our classrooms. [emphasis mine]

Everybody on the reformy side loves to say that "good" teachers should be paid more. Chris Christie says it. Arne Duncan says it. Bill Gates says it. Michelle Rhee says it. What they don't say is that that the "reforms" that they want to put in place are based around removing workplace protections that have an economic value for teachers.

In other words: if you're going to remove tenure and not replace it with some other sort of compensation, you are essentially paying a teacher less. It is worth something to that teacher to have tenure protections in place; it's foolish to claim otherwise. And if a teacher is getting less for the same work, Economics 101 suggests the supply of workers willing to do that job is going to shrink (unless, of course, we are willing to settle for less-qualified or less-talented teachers).

This is exactly why the wingnuts are pushing the meme that teachers are overpaid in the first place: even they implicitly acknowledge that these "reforms" are erosions of teacher compensation. So they try to develop psuedo-academic arguments that teachers are overcompensated in the first place. One of the many problems with their arguments, however, is that they themselves never attempt to calculate the worth of things like tenure.

This is all happening at the same time teacher pensions are under attack, and health benefits continue to shrink. Can you understand why teachers are demoralized? It's bad enough that all the joy is being drained from their jobs; their compensation outside of wages is simultaneously being eroded (although their wages are taking a beating as well).

There is simply no way this can continue without teacher quality paying a price. I know it's fashionable to say that "teachers should consider themselves lucky to have a job!" but you can only erode a college-educated professionals compensation so much before the theory of supply and demand kicks in.

So the question to the reformyists is this: is getting rid of tenure so damn important that it's worth coming up with compensation to replace it? Or are we just going to gut tenure and let teacher quality slide?

There is a price to be paid for screwing over teachers, folks. Is it worth it?

Reformy, Concerny Pundits

I don't know anything about Rick Green of the Hartford Courant, but this column is a perfect example of the reformy, concerny punditry about teachers that makes me nuts:

How mad are some teachers at Gov. Malloy?

State cops flanked the stage and auditorium aisles when Malloy spoke in Windham the other night after both the Senate president and the lieutenant governor took pains to remind the audience about grade-school decorum. A town meeting in New Haven dissolved at times into heckling and shouting. In Windham, a teacher derided Malloy's education plan as "utterly fraudulent" — to wild applause. [emphasis mine]

It's Teachers Gone Wild! Some people raised their voices! Quick, bring Rick the smelling salts! And when he wakes up, ask him if the governor ever makes appearances without a police detail present.

Malloy would be wise to be sensitive to the teachers' deeply felt, if misplaced, anger toward his reform package. What's more complicated is how some teachers, vitally important to education reform, have become so worked up.  [emphasis mine]

Listen, you hysterical teachers, Rick just wants you to calm down and listen to reason. We know teachers have such a predilection for being out of control maniacs...

...but he'll use soothing tones and explain it all to you:

For starters, Gov. Malloy is still trying to make up for suggesting months ago that earning tenure was akin to merely showing up for work. But much of all this is political theater. For example, one of the most contentious issues, linking teacher evaluation to student performance and tenure, has already been agreed to, in principal, by the American Federation of Teachers and the Connecticut Education Association. [emphasis mine]

You catch that? "In principal." In truth, what NEA and AFT have both said is that student learning should be part of a teachers evaluation; they never agreed to using faulty VAM or SGP models, based on unreliable tests, which yield teachers ratings with such huge error rates as to be basically meaningless for high-stakes decision making.

(An aside: I warned the NEA not to use language that gave the appearance of even considering VAM-based ratings as long as the models were so ridden with errors. The consequence, I said, was that folks like Rick Green would twist their words and make it appear that the unions supported faulty VAM-based systems.

Just sayin'...)

Further:

For the job protection provision enjoyed by public school teachers known as tenure, the governor and education Commissioner Stefan Pryor want changes made. A portion of a teacher's evaluation — just under one-quarter — would be based on how well students are learning as measured by state standardized tests. Other factors, such as parent and student feedback and classroom observation, would also be part of the process. [emphasis mine]

I don't know why this is so hard for pundits like Green to understand, but I'll say it yet again: it may be 25% of the evaluation, but it becomes 100% of the decision! When you assign a quantitative measure to any evaluation, it takes on greater importance than the qualitative measures, especially when you are making high-stakes decisions. Bruce Baker explains this better than I could.

Green continues:

Although the union continues to meet privately and negotiate with legislative leaders and the Malloy administration, the CEA — in contrast to the AFT — has told its members the governor's plan is part of a "reform environment" where "a well-funded and coordinated strategy to eliminate unions" around the country is "now hitting Connecticut." In an internal PowerPoint presentation, the union warns that Malloy's bill "will impact every public school teacher's" certification, evaluation, working conditions and salary. "We need teachers to speak up against this bill."

Looking over the CEA's explanation to its members, you would think this was Wisconsin and not a state where the governor has proposed that no school districts will receive reductions in education money. It's no surprise that Malloy told me Thursday that "this anger has been purposely stoked."

Can anyone NOT see the problem with these paragraphs? Union protections have nothing to do with school funding levels. This may come as a shock to Green, but Malloy can be for more state funding and against teacher work protections at the same time.

To invoke Wisconsin in this argument is ridiculous, because that state's battle proves the reformyists really are all about destroying teachers unions. Hell, Jonah Edelman as much as admitted that's what he was doing in Illinois when he bought the statehouse there. Why shouldn't Connecticut teachers be concerned about this? Why shouldn't they object - loudly - when there is no evidence tenure has anything to do with student achievement?

But this graph of Green's is the one that really kills me:

This idea of linking teacher evaluation to student performance isn't Malloy's. It comes from President Obama, whose Race to the Top initiative rewards states that link teacher evaluation with student performance. Connecticut, as we all know, has twice failed to win Race to the Top money, largely because of this. About half of the states have made this change and a dozen, including Rhode Island and New York, can dismiss teachers based on teacher evaluation.

Oh, I see: we're in unions, but we're supposed to like getting our protections gutted, because President Obama says we should. Even though his education secretary, Arne Duncan, is incoherent when he tries to explain his policies. That doesn't matter: we're automatically tied to Obama, because... well, we just are, OK?

I have news for you, Rick: a lot of us teachers are not happy with Obama. We think he's a hypocrite who  says he doesn't want to teach to the test, then sets up a policy that will do exactly that. We think Race To the Top was awarded to states that are moving in exactly the wrong direction. Losing RTTT is a badge of honor for many of us, and for some forward thinking governors as well.

I've got one last cliche-flavored bone to pick with Green:

Another frequent — and accurate — comment is that poverty is the real problem. Nobody, including Malloy, is debating that point. Schools still have a job to do until we agree on dramatic changes in our tax structure.

Debating about poverty is one thing; doing anything about it is something else. This is just another refrain from the same, sad song of the corporate reformer: yes, we'll fix poverty - eventually. And we'll pay teachers more! Eventually. But it's absolutely critical that we strip teacher protections away in the meantime, because that other stuff isn't politically feasible...

Translation: we think we can tamp down any objections teachers make to screwing them over. But if we try to address that massive income inequity in the country, and make the wealthy pay their fair share... well, we don't want to make those folks upset! Better to fight to implement a policy that won't make a bit of difference in children's lives - in fact, it will probably make things worse - than to actually fight a hard battle that will really affect children...

Well, if that's the attitude, what does Green expect from teachers and their unions; that we're just going to lie down and take this crap? No one else is stepping up here: not the wealthy, not the politicians, and not the media. We teachers are the only ones who are getting dumped on in this whole sordid mess, and that's exactly the problem. Why should we bear all of the blame? No one's even proved that hordes of bad teachers running around screwing up kids is even an issue in education; but we're supposed to just nod politely and give up our work protections because Malloy and other corporate reformers say we should?

No thanks, Rick. We're certainly not going to make it easy for these people to both screw up our schools and screw us over. Get used to the noise.

KIPP's All-American Values

You have to hand it to KIPP - they don't mess around:

Students in Northeast Florida have been offered gift cards, parties, even cars for their performance on the FCAT.  Continuing that long history of incentive programs in the state and Northeast Florida, KIPP Impact Middle School is offering $20 to students who reach specific learning gains scores on the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test.  If all of the school’s 160 students reach their targets for learning gains, KIPP Impact would pay out about $3,200 in private funds to the students.

KIPP Impact, which is a national network of public college preparatory charter schools that targets underprivileged students,  earned the six-county region’s lowest FCAT score last year.               

[emphasis mine]

If I were one of these kids, I'd be demanding a lot more than a mere $20. KIPP pulls in lots of government funds for each student they take, plus a mess of private donations. They were a $60 million business in 2010, with six-figure executives running the show. Seems to me that twenty bucks is chicken feed when you consider what's at stake for the adults.

I mean, if you're going to teach kids life is all about money, you may as well teach them to play hardball, right?

Local and national KIPP officials stressed that the school isn’t paying for grades, but rather just incentivizing good choices and good effort.

“We believe that it’s important to teach kids that we you make good choices in life you can earn rewards,” said Tom Majdanics, executive director for KIPP Jacksonville.  “As adults when we make good choices in life good things happen, as college students we make good choices and good things happen. Those are the good choices we’re trying to promote for our kids in the fifth and sixth grade.”

Apparently, "good things" doesn't mean an intrinsic love of learning, or pride in accomplishment, or developing strong civic values. "Good things" is money, pure and simple. The adults sure get their share when the kids all conform and fill in the bubbles correctly; we're just giving the tots a little taste so they salivate when their masters ring the bell.

This was inevitable. When corporate values guide schools, materialism will reign supreme. Good luck building a democracy, America, when we teach our kids at the earliest age that their entire worth can be expressed with pictures of dead presidents.