BETWEEN THE LINES
Jonathan Alter
Obama’s No-Brainer on Education
Moderates would respond to a Democrat willing to slip the ideological stranglehold of a liberal interest group.
One of the best things about the democratic primaries was that horse-race-obsessed reporters rarely asked the candidates about education. Why was that good? Because hundreds of delegates who were at stake are members of Paleolithic teachers unions, ready to pounce on any challenge to the failed system they dominate. When the subject did arise, it quickly became a pander party with President Bush's (and Ted Kennedy's) No Child Left Behind (NCLB) as the piñata.
But with the general election underway, Barack Obama has a chance to show that he can move at least as far toward real change in education as John McCain. Obama deserves kudos for drawing scattered boos earlier this month for mentioning merit pay when appearing via satellite before the National Education Association. (He was expected to be received more politely by the other big union, the American Federation of Teachers, at its convention last weekend.) But that was just a baby step. Now Obama needs to embrace a Grand Education Bargain—much higher pay for teachers in exchange for much more accountability for performance in the classroom. Good teachers need to be rewarded with more pay and respect for being members of our noblest profession. They need more resources. But they also need to be removed from the classroom when they fail to improve. Obama occasionally says as much, but goes fuzzy when it comes to how.
The stakes couldn't be higher. The United States now ranks 25th among 30 industrialized countries in math. "If I told you your basketball team finished in 25th place, you'd be outraged," says former West Virginia governor Bob Wise, president of the Alliance for Excellent Education. When the landmark "A Nation at Risk" report was issued 25 years ago, the education system was ailing, but the United States was still No. 1 in college-graduation rates. Now we are No. 21. "We simply have not progressed," says former Colorado governor Roy Romer, who heads a commission that recently updated the report. "The rest of the world has." For example, the average European nation has 13 more school days than we do.
The irony is, we know what works to close the achievement gap. At the 60 KIPP (Knowledge Is Power Program) schools, more than 80 percent of 16,000 randomly selected low-income students go to college, four times the national average for poor kids. While KIPP isn't fully replicable (not enough effective teachers to go around), every low-income school should be measured by how close it gets to that model, where kids go to school from 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. and part of the summer, and teachers are held strictly accountable for showing student improvement.
Railing against the tyranny of tests is fashionable, but it isn't going to save our children and our economy in the 21st century. Nor will more money for important programs like art and music. The more basic problem is that we have no way of determining which teachers can actually teach. That's right: teaching is arguably the only profession in the country with ironclad job security and a well-honed hostility to measuring results. Because of union resistance, NCLB measures only schools, not individual teachers. The result is that school districts fire on average only one teacher a year for poor performance. Before recent reforms (which have boosted test scores), New York City dismissed only 10 of 55,000 teachers annually. What business could survive that way?
Teachers unions bristle at the business comparison. But they should listen to Andy Stern, head of the nation's fastest growing union, the SEIU: "Education is like any business. You need a return on investment. Outcomes do matter. Paying people according to outcomes does matter. I don't care if a teacher has a high-school degree, college or a Ph.D. if he or she can produce results." Stern is worried that if his brethren in the teachers unions don't embrace accountability now, "parents will vote with their choices" and the unions will begin dying, as they already are in reform-minded cities like Washington, D.C., and New Orleans.
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Member Comments
Posted By: tallredteacher @ 09/04/2008 6:43:13 PM
Comment: Our school system is moving toward a business model, providing accountability for process and product in the classroom. While it is tedious and time consuming at times, it does focus the classroom teacher on what measurable difference is being made by our application of curriculum and methodology.
But one factor is still missing in the equation, no matter what changes we make in the schools and the classrooms. The parents have to be held accountable for the behavior and performance of their students before real, measurable success can take place. If we have no buy in from the parent we rarely get buy in from the student.
I have lived in Europe, and my children have attended European schools. The family knows from the first day in preschool that their child's behavior and performance will determine their future. They DO NOT see the educational system as a right, they recognize it as a priviledge, and treat it as such. Teachers are held in high esteem and their reports and input to the family hold their weight because teachers are looked upon as trained professionals. When the school has to buckle on standards and put up with destructive and disruptive behavior because parents might sue, we lose the power in the classroom to be effective and constructive.
America as a whole has to change their perspective on what a free, appropriate public education is before we can make progress toward excellence. Standards for ALL of us, teachers, administrators, parents and students, need to be defined and enforced without exception.
13 years in this business has taught me one thing. I can and do make a difference with my students every day. Almost all of them show measurable academic progress. Some of them soar. And some find that they are valuable in the eyes of at least one person in their life. It can't be measured, but I know it's there, from the look in their eyes to the enthusiatic hugs and thank you's I receive when I run into former students "in the real world." That's the greatest reward I will every receive from teaching.
If I wanted to be rich, I would have been a lawyer!
Posted By: msksteel @ 08/02/2008 3:17:51 PM
Comment: <a href="http://es-kay.net/?p=465">Snake Oil</a>
Posted By: c.noonan @ 07/31/2008 6:34:13 PM
Comment: Mr. Alter says hostility to measuring results of student performance and to reform of job security is the teachers??? unions??? fault, leading to weak public schools.
Untrue. In actual fact, state education departments played a large part in identifying the vague NCLB requirements that each state put into practice. In California, tables are presented each year in the summer after Spring testing, and comparison proceeds. District with district, school with school in the district and in the state, proficiency for each grade, proficiency levels for each teacher???s class, and individual student scores. Surely, in California, teachers are accountable. Not taken into account are the obstacles low-performing schools must move aside before students reach proficiency. That???s why teachers feel anxious.
Three steps are needed to ensure student success in the public schools, requiring the constant effort of the entire school community. First, NCLB requirements need to be funded, including higher salaries, enough teachers to address the difficulties for students, support staff like counselors to address transiency and attendance. State education budgets and federal education monies must be stabilized. Student success can???t be provided on the cheap.
Second, schools and school districts must provide a consistent curriculum, especially for young children, taught with effective strategies. Although teachers have different styles, the structure of the day and the techniques they use can make nearly every teacher highly qualified to teach state academic standards (another requirement of NCLB). Then the school district must spend money to make sure the curriculum, whichever one is chosen, is used consistently and fully.
Third, each school district and school must provide support for teachers to work together, communicating with each other and with parents, with student success the goal. Professional development to learn how to read assessment data and make decisions for student, teacher, and school improvement is the key to accountability.
Last, Mr. Alter dismisses ???the tyranny of tests,??? but standards, teacher preparation, and evaluation reflect the current student assessments, one test that drags on for days and labels students for a year. A testing reformation is a worthy task for the national and state departments of education.