There is a lot to cover out there in the laborsphere this week. In fact we go coast to coast. and back again. 

AFT member and political science professor Carl Luna of San Diego Mesa has a blog at San Diego Citybeat. He’s been writing about the local grocery workers contract situation.  And his question is “So what do college professors and supermarket checkers have in common?” 

A number of unions began using YouTube to get out their message. My favorites from the last election were the two guys from the transit workers . The blog What’s New Media has a post about this trend along with a link to some video by OPEIU members who are protesting their treatment by Miller Brewing.

Union Review is a Florida blog I just found that has some terrific stuff on the treatment of contract employees at Nova southeastern university. Shades of the University of Miami situation last year. He has another good post about anti-union blog ads.

We’ve already blogged a little bit about the Economic Policy Institute’s “Shared Prosperity” agenda. The latest installment looks at the role of unions and the need to make it easier for them to organize.  

One of the big labor issues – if not THE big labor issue – in higher education is the rise of the use of contingent workers to replace full time faculty. I used to be full time member of this part time workforce myself.  AFT is working on a campaign in ten states to create more full time faculty slots and raise the condition of contingent staff.  Getting back to the West Coast, Stephanie Blackman, an AFT member and part timer has written about this at Blue Oregon.

Next week: EFCA hits the Senate.

Posted by Ed at AFT at 01:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The Center on Education Policy has released its third report on NCLB restructuring in Michigan. The news is good: Nearly two-thirds of the state’s restructured schools met AYP this year, and more than half met AYP for the second year in a row, meaning that they’ve moved out of NCLB sanctions altogether.

My two favorite findings:

• “Schools that reported implementing five or more reforms over the past two years were significantly more likely to exit restructuring in 2006-07 than those implementing fewer reforms.”

That tracks with the AFT’s NCLB recommendations that “schools need a range of broad, complementary interventions” in order to be successful.

• Often, schools’ success could be attributable to non-NCLB interventions such as “using data to make instructional decisions, increasing teachers’ collaboration, and sharing decision making at the school rather than relying on the principal alone.”

This also tracks with the AFT’s NCLB recommendations: “The first response to a struggling school should be supportive interventions tailored to the needs of the school and its community…Some proven interventions include extended school day, reduced class size, intensive and additional reading and math instruction, summer school, and access to early childhood programs.”

Posted by Beth at 09:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today the AFT releases the latest edition of its annual report on teacher salary. We found that teachers had a tough year in 2005 and that the 2006 data we’ve seen is not much better. And that comes on top of a decade of pretty bad news. Between 1995 and 2005 real average pay for Americans in the private sector rose by $4600. Average teacher pay rose by $487. For every dollar increase in private sector pay over those ten years, teacher pay rose by 11 cents. 

Some macro-highlights from the survey:

• The average teacher pay in 2005 was $47,602. Beginning teacher pay was $31,753.
• Average and Beginning wages didn’t keep pace with inflation in 2005
• Real salaries for experienced teachers in the largest cities rose by less than 1 percent in 2006. Average raises for beginning teachers were up by 1.3 percent.
• Between 1995 and 2005 real pay in the private sector rose by 12.7 percent. Real beginning teacher pay rose by 3.3 percent. Average teacher pay rose by 1 percent.
• When compared to professions requiring similar education, real teacher pay rose by less than 1 percent over the five years 2000-2005. Pay for other professions rose by more than 6 percent.
• A beginning teacher with the average student loan burden could expect to spend almost 9 percent of her take home pay on loans in 2006.
• In 15 of the 50 largest cities in America a mid-career teacher can’t afford the median priced home.

Teachers are already paid less than other professionals. If the current trends hold, we’re in the process of seeing teaching become a job where you are paid less than the average salary in the private sector generally. And teachers are already paid less than the average in the public sector. We’re going to continue to have even bigger problems with recruitment and retention as this becomes the case.  And it means that we are asking those who really want to devote their professional lives to teaching to sacrifice more and more in order to do so.  Which is why we need to work to see that these trends don’t hold. In fact, we think that we need to increase teacher pay by at least 30 percent.

I’m giving you the numbers. But we’ve asked a couple of our favorite bloggers to tell us more about what it means.  We’ll be linking to them as their posts go up.  Leading off is Dr Homeslice.

No, I understand that teaching is my calling, even if it won' t make me a millionaire. Like I said, I'm not here for the money. Truly dedicated teachers know that they're not walking into a wad of cash when they become a teacher, but our raises should keep pace with inflation, not lose ground to it. We need to be able to attract quality teachers who understand that while they won't be on Mtv's Cribs, they won't have to start going on food stamps and the like while they're teaching.

In the comments, Teacher Ken notes:

But at a time when there is an increasing shortage of skilled teachers, losing experienced teachers because they want to have families, to have decent lives, to have decent living accomodations and commutes that are not oppressive is something we cannot afford.

From Ms. Cornelius:

Now look, I never thought that I would get rich at this gig, nor am I really interested in getting rich. I'd like to be able to afford to send my kids to college, though (let me assure you that teacher pay has not kept up with the rising price of college, either).

From The Rain:

I can't help but wonder why I have to leave my daughter early and get home late so that we can stay even.

And if you think that pay isn't so bad because the benefits are stupendous, check out Mike in Texas.

Read them all. Also, if you are teaching and you blog, we’d love to hear your thoughts on this.  We’ll be linking back and revisiting the issue as the week goes on.

Posted by Ed at AFT at 03:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

"In 22 schools, 100 percent of math and reading exams were discounted."  Assessments for transient students is a real issue, but this is not the way to fix NCLB.

Posted by John at 02:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Kevin Carey raises a point about Master’s degrees.  The purpose of the Master’s degree is to provide a teacher with appropriate professional development.  The effort to achieve this development and the results from it are what justify the increase in compensation that teachers typically accrue from it.  Although I think you can take the argument too far, I agree with Carey that there is evidence that the Master’s is an imperfect instrument in this regard. But it is part of an accountability compact of sorts. When we tweak it, we need to bear that in mind.  So you won’t see me saying let's dump the degree to use it on health insurance payments or straight compensation instead.  That would be a tremendous political trap. And it’s just a good idea to try to link pay to professional development.

The other day I wrote that the creation of a three tiered teacher pay system in New Mexico was one of the recent education policy accomplishments in the Land of Enchantment.  Under this program a teacher’s pay status is based on whether they have an introductory license (Level I), a professional (Level II) license or an advanced license (Level III).  All teachers have to move from the introductory level to the professional level in three years. This is roughly akin to passing probation, except that it is based on successful completion of both a mentoring program and a professional development dossier that is based on the teacher’s professional development plan.

Teachers at the professional level can choose to maintain their license or to move on to Level III after a certain number of years.  It's true that a master’s degree can be a part of that process, but teachers can use National Board certification as a substitute for the Masters Degree. And there is also another professional development dossier that must be completed.  It’s a new compensation system that allows new teachers to advance more quickly and does more to link advancement to the teacher’s specific professional development needs than the traditional system.  You never need a Master’s degree, although you could still gain benefits from pursuing one. We’ve been pretty vocal in our support for this plan in large part because it links advancement to meaningful professional development.  If you want to look at ways AFT has worked to move beyond the Master’s, I’d suggest that this is one.  

Posted by Ed at AFT at 12:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Many DC suits play the Paula Abdul role, shouting "brilliant" and applauding wildly for NCLB, despite its obvious flaws.  But, as Toppo's First Law of NCLB* suggests, teachers judging the law are more likely to sound like Simon Cowell.

A Bronx teacher writing at Huffington Post calls the law "shockingly stifling and counterproductive."    While this post doesn't provide much evidence of NCLB's flaws, the teacher writes candidly and poignantly about three of his students and promises to write soon "about the multifaceted fallout of this federal policy in America's public schools...."  I'm looking forward to more posts from this teacher, and I'm hoping that lawmakers will listen to this teacher and others as they work toward reauthorization.

*Toppo's First Law of No Child Left Behind: "Start in the classroom and travel up the educational food chain. The further you travel, the more you'll find that people like the law. Mention it to most teachers and they'll just roll their eyes. Many principals tolerate it. Ask a local superintendent, a state superintendent or a governor and the assessment gets rosier as their suit gets more expensive."

Posted by John at 10:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

That’s the answer to the question “How Strong Are Contractual Provision on Seniority and Transfer in California?” according to some new research by William Koski and Eileen Horng.  One of the basic raps on collective bargaining is that the seniority provisions in teacher contracts allow experienced teachers to bump inexperienced teachers out of desirable assignments (i.e. classes with lots of middle class kids) and thus they doom the poorest public schools in each district to constantly getting the greenest and least qualified teachers. 

My colleague Howard Nelson has looked at the data in the federal Schools and Staffing Survey. He found that districts with collective bargaining had lower rates of transfer generally, and that high poverty schools in districts without bargaining had a lot more turnover.  

Now comes Koski and Horng with some new data that’s part of the big set of studies on California education policy that were released a few days back. They look at the relationship between collective bargaining and teacher distribution within and across every California district.  Here are some findings from their empirical work:

• “Districts with more determinative transfer and leave provisions have greater percentages of credentialed teachers even after controlling for a wide range of other district characteristics, suggesting that strong collective bargaining agreements may put school districts at an advantage in hiring and retaining quality teachers.”
• “Those schools with greater percentages of minority students, those with more students, those that are growing, and (somewhat surprisingly) those with smaller class sizes have fewer certified and fewer experienced teachers. Yet we find no convincing evidence that this problem is worse in those districts with strong transfer and leave provisions.”

In other words, strong contractual language on transfers is associated with higher teacher quality overall and it is not associated with maldistribution of teachers within districts.

Koski and Horng chose to measure contract provisions by creating a 14 point scale based on 6 questions about seniority, transfers and hiring that assess the extent to which experienced teachers had advantages over less experienced ones.  The average score on the scale was 4.87. No district scored higher than a 10.  This pretty much jibes with our look at contracts for our largest locals showing that seniority is not an important factor in particular for voluntary transfers. 

The research also includes interviews with HR staff, and these reveal some complaints about how contractual provisions limit management, but they also portray the labor management relationship as nuanced and pretty flexible. Apparently the California state legislature’s inability to come up with a budget on time is a much bigger problem for them than are teacher contracts.

It's also true that strong transfer language isn’t associated with having higher quality teachers in the poorest schools in a district, but I wouldn’t expect it to be. We need to evaluate other provisions such as whether contracts offer incentives or allow for teachers to have greater say on working conditions to find those kinds of benefits from bargaining. And we need to negotiate more of those kinds of provisions.

Posted by Ed at AFT at 04:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In an e-mail to subscribers earlier this week, Education Daily said it would not be publishing yesterday and today.  Why the decision not to publish?  Why do so on such short notice?  Note clear.

But a reporter called about a story for the Thursday edition, though, which actually goes out tonight after 5:00, so subscribers like me who are jonesing for their daily dose of insider news should be satisfied soon.

In e-mails and phone calls with two Ed Daily reporters, I got absolutely no information in response about what's going on over there.  Funny, whenever I don't want to talk about something going on at the AFT, they always manage to squeeze some information out of me.

UPDATE:   I'm hearing Tuesday and Wednesday were previously scheduled no-publish days.  The publisher forgot to give subscribers the usual advance notice, so it seemed to be a last-minute decision.  No truth to the rumor, then, that Ed Daily staffers were using the two days to pack up and move to corporate headquarters in Florida.

Posted by John at 08:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Too much abstract policy discussion and inside-the-beltway stuff in my work life lately, so I decided to visit the teacher blogs.  Reading these blogs is like a breath of fresh air -- and sometimes it's like a slap in the face.  Either way, it's great to get a reminder about what it's all about.

Dick Dalton writes about his conversion from general ed teacher to special ed teacher:

One could probably say that it was poetic justice and God kicked my ass for having such evil thoughts by placing me in the most special of the special education settings and by virtue of having a child of my own with exceptionalities.  I had no choice but to become more educated.  Being more educated about the people around us is the cure for a whole host of ignorant prejudices, and as educators that’s sort of what we’re called to do.  We are fighting the war on ignorance.

I'm a big fan of Dick's blog because he's a special ed practitioner and expert but also because he writes so eloquently. 

MsB, a new teacher who blogs at Edwize, is taking her students on a pilgrimage a la Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.  Her enthusiasm and optimism is infectious:

Is not the point of literature to experience it? We have written our own tales in class and will be going on a nature walk through Brooklyn’s own Salt Marshes sharing our stories. Hopefully, the reflection we do along the way will lead to some self-knowledge....We will all be Chaucer for a day and through literature we will find ourselves.

Mr. ab at Teaching from the TFA Trenches says it's time to take his students out of the classroom for a while -- to science camp.  He writes, "I love my Direct Instruction, it’s clearly right for teaching arcane math skills, but a hike at science camp is education as it should be."  Mr. ab's description of how a student with spina bifida comes to life at science camp is inspiring.

Posted by John at 02:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Danger Mouse combined the Beatles' White Album and Jay-Z's Black Album to produce the bootleg Grey Album, a re-imagining of both originals and something altogether new.  It became the most downloaded album on the Web.  I'm guessing few people will be listening to Diane Ravitch's NCLB recommendations, a mash-up of two recent NCLB proposals, one Republican, one from Democrats.

Ravitch starts with the Democrats' (Kennedy's, Dodd's) recent national standards bills and combines it with a bill, backed by 57 Republicans, that would allow states to opt out of many NCLB provisions.  The result:  NCLB would be a vehicle for creating national standards and national tests, publicizing the results, and not much ese. 

DJ DM got sued for his mash-up.  (Some problem with, you know, copyrights.)  DJ DR won't be dragged into court for hers, but let's just say the proposal doesn't sound good and isn't likely to be downloaded by many congressional Democrats or Republicans.

Posted by John at 07:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Posted by John at 03:21 PM | Permalink

We can call this a preliminary update from the Oregon legislature, since they are still in the thick of this year’s legislative session. But given an earlier exchange with Andy Rotherham on the subject (here and here), I wanted to blog about one significant accomplishment there.  Currently, the 198 school districts in the state purchase their insurance individually. A new bill, signed into law by Governor Ted Kulongoski last week, will create one purchasing agent for all of the districts that do not already self-insure. Over the next few years this will lead to millions of dollars in savings on commission payments, reduce administrative costs and allow the state to bargain better rates.   

When people talk about improving efficiency in the delivery of public education, it's sometimes a code word for privatization or for cuts in benefits and pay. Even so, those of us who are entrusted with providing public education (even tangentially) have a responsibility to see that public money really is used efficiently. That’s one of the reasons why I’ll blog about this even knowing that health insurance is an issue that will glaze over the eyes of at least part of our audience. The bill was supported by a coalition that included AFT-Oregon, the Oregon Education Association and the Oregon School Employees Association.

Posted by Ed at AFT at 02:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Virginia is scheduled to administer its Standards of Learning test in about three weeks.  Fairfax County and others have said that they won’t give the standard test to their English language learners.  They claim they’ve got a test that is fairer.  The U.S. Department of Education says fair is following the rules that have been on the books since 2002.

Last Week, Republican and Democratic members of congress introduced a bill asking for “common sense flexibility” in dealing with this issue.  Sound familiar? That’s because Secretary Spellings used it back in 2005 when she talked about her approach to NCLB. 

Did we mention that Secretary Spellings is a resident of Fairfax County and sent her daughter to the public schools there, and that Fairfax could lose $17 million in NCLB funds if it does not follow the rules?

So, who is going to blink first? I’d guess Spellings.

Who is uncharacteristically silent on this issue?  Eduwonk.  He’s on the VA Board of Ed, so he must have an opinion.  As a blogger, he’s in the business of sharing his opinions all of the time.  C’mon, Eduwonk, tell us what you think.

Posted by Beth at 11:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, writing today on the Washington Post's op-ed pages, lays out his view of NCLB's  history and reauthorization.  There are no surprises, unless I missed a subtle policy shift, but what struck me is that much, though not all, of the op-ed echoes the rhetoric of Bush administration officials. 

Broadly speaking, Sen. Kennedy and Pres. Bush are in agreement that NCLB has led states to improve their "standards, assessment and accountability procedures." It would surprise no one to hear Pres. Bush utter this line from the op-ed: "We owe it to America's children, parents and teachers to reinforce our commitment, not abandon it."  Both men seem to want many elements of the current law -- AYP in some form, teacher quality provisions, test results reported by subgroup -- to remain in place.

The difference between the two men's views centers on funding.  Judging by Pres. Bush's recent education budget proposals, he is unlikely to share Sen. Kennedy's view that more funding will make NCLB work better.  On the need to "expand and fortify the teacher workforce," Sen. Kennedy writes, "a greater federal investment is needed."  On the need to help schools improve rather than just label them inadequate," Sen. Kennedy writes, "Assessment and accountability without the funding needed to implement change is a recipe for failure."

So why would Sen. Kennedy write this op-ed now?  A hint may lie in Sen. Kennedy's penultimate paragraph, in which he alludes to a recent bill, backed by some Republicans, that would undercut the law under the guise of increasing "local control."  In the penultimate paragraph, he writes, "Don't let their rhetoric fool you.  Local control means nothing without the resources for improvement.  Increasing flexibiliity without preserving accountability is fiscally irresponsible and educationally unwise."  Reportedly, the White House also is opposed to the bill.  A public statement like Sen. Kennedy's, combined with White House opposition, might be enough to cut off the effort to abandon NCLB and refocus attention on getting NCLB right.  Now, let's get to work on providing adequate funding and making AYP reflect actual progress....

Posted by John at 08:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Posted by John at 04:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I've read the AP story about the recent GAO report on Reading First.  I'm plowing through* the report itself. And I'm not seeing anything new.

And speaking of lightweight scandals, this article described a payola punditry involving Oregon schools that is reminiscent of Armstrong Williams.  But when I read the article, I found out two of the three articles appeared in In Business, "a Pennsylvania-based magazine focused on sustainability, with a circulation of 2,000." Portland Schools should withhold payment until the contractor places a puff piece in a publication with at least 20,000 readers.

*Okay, I'm skimming.  It's Friday

Posted by John at 03:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Adele Stan – who used to work for AFGE – has a great post about the relationship between the Bush administration’s anti-union stance and it’s “my way or the highway” ethos.  On the decision to strip airport screeners or representation rights, she writes:

After hearing directly from screeners about the many abuses to which many were subjected -- extreme levels of mandatory overtime, delayed paychecks, bait-and-switch hiring deals, lack of training, lack of such basic equipment as protective gloves (the types and degrees of abuses varied from airport to airport) -- it became clear to me that the Bush administration barred the screeners from representation simply so it could run the TSA -- with your money -- any damn way it pleased, thank you very much.

Her point is that unions play a key role in not just in preventing petty bullying but in also allowing staff to be professionals.  I want to tie this bit of blogging to the story of the teachers who were fired at Celerity Nascent Charter school for joining their students' polite protest of the principal’s ban on using a poem about Emmett Till. I also want to tie it to the case of the NYC charter school teachers who were fired after raising questions about the legality of their principal’s decision to expel kids. And to the case of Nichole Byrne Lau, who was fired for sharing the salary schedule for traditional NYC public schools with her charter school colleagues.

AFT originally saw charter schools as a way to enable teachers to escape the heavy hand of management and build real professional communities. That’s happening in some places. And some charters may have great administrators. But in too many places you can apply Stan’s critique of the Bush administration to charter school managers. You can juxtapose the things happening to charter school teachers in the examples above with  the recent case of an NEA local in California that began working to the rule to protest the administration’s decision to arbitrarily inflate some students’ grades. At their best, unions are the vehicle by which professional values are upheld in workplaces and this is one of the reasons we are working to help organize unions in charter schools.

Posted by Ed at AFT at 11:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

In January, we wrote, perhaps excessively, about Bush administration officials' inappropriately using NAEP statistics to support their claim that NCLB was "working."  The outright lie was to call 1999-2004 "the last five years" or "the past five years."  The misleading statement was to mention this five-year period in the context of NCLB's five years (2002-2007).

In early March, Education Week ($) made a similar observation about the discrepancy between the administration's rhetoric and reality.

From what I've seen on ED's Web site, the administration continues to fudge the two five-year periods a little, but they are no longer falsely claiming scores rose during the "last five years."  That's a very small step in the right direction.

Posted by John at 10:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Since Julie at School of Blog scooped me in blogging on some good education happenings in New Mexico that I was hoping to get to next week, I’ll do it now.  Lots of states claim to have part-time legislatures.  New Mexico really does, with a session that lasts just 60 days – among the shortest in the nation. That means the entire session is a nonstop roller coaster ride. It's like nothing I’ve seen in any other state capitol.

A lot of good things have come out of New Mexico in recent years including a three-tiered pay plan for teachers based on licensure, the restoration of collective bargaining rights for public employees and some important improvements in school financing.  There’s also been a pretty big expansion of state support for early childhood education.  

One of the pieces of this was the passage, a couple of years ago, of a pilot extended year program called Kindergarten-plus.  The idea was to give at risk kids a leg up on kindergarten by bringing them in early, so that when the year started some of the gap between them and the other students had closed. You also kept them longer at the end of the year to reinforce what they had learned and to cut down on opportunities for summer learning loss.  K-plus was championed by AFT New Mexico and its President, Christine Trujillo. The bill was sponsored in the legislature by Mimi Stewart, who, in addition to being a legislator. is an Albuquerque reading teacher and AFT member. The initial evaluations were promising. 

You should check out Julie’s post on how this year the program was expanded to grades K-3.  And the minimum wage was increased to boot. For those wondering, the changes described here all were signed into law by Governor Bill Richardson.  

Posted by Ed at AFT at 04:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

When states get cited by the U.S. Department of Education for not complying with NCLB, what are they most likely to get cited for?

1. Not reporting AYP results in a timely fashion
2. Not complying with the highly qualified requirements
3. Not having complete standards and assessment systems in place
4. None of the above

The correct answer is D.   According to the Title I Monitor, the top two citations of states from ED are not complying with NCLB’s parent involvement and private schools provisions. Not to make light of either of these provisions (parental involvement is essential to school success, and the rules governing the distribution of funds and services to private schools are complicated), but maybe states deserve a pat on the back for focusing on NCLB’s major provisions. 

Implementing the standards, assessment, AYP and teacher and paraprofessional qualification requirements is a huge lift for cash and personnel-strapped states. Complying with these major requirements demonstrates that states are appropriately focusing their attention on the provisions most likely to benefit students and schools.

Posted by Beth at 09:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Stephen King is alright with me.  If you’ve read the writer Joe Hill’s book The Heart Shaped Box, you might have thought it funny that he had the same name as Joe Hill aka Joseph Hillstrom – the turn of the century labor activist and song writer.  The original Hill wrote “There is Power in a Union” among other songs. It turns out that The Heart Shaped Box was written by Joseph Hillstrom King, the son of writers Stephen and Tabitha King, who named their child after the legendary labor activist.  The pseudonym “Joe Hill” came from the younger King’s desire not to trade on the family name.

The Blogging of the Employee Free Choice Act. In this week’s edition,  DR at the Bellman takes up the issue of EFCA opponents who, like the Washington Post, agree there is a problem with managers firing union-friendly employees but don’t like the remedy of majority recognition (aka “card check”).  DR appears to be offering Mickey Kaus the alternative of having every worksite in America conduct a secret ballot representation election every five years.

The Healthcare Hustle. Working for America – which is the community action affiliate of the AFL-CIO – has a new campaign on healthcare. They are looking to hear from people who have been the victims of our inability to provide healthcare for all. Most AFT members have pretty good healthcare benefits, but there are some – particularly lower wage school support workers – for whom this is still not the case. If you know someone who has had a tough time with our healthcare system, tell them about the site, called the Healthcare Hustle.  For more, see Daily Kos.

Speed Matters.  Do you know how slow your Internet connection really is? The Communications Workers of America wants you to know and they’ve set up a site that lets you test it out. My speed was pretty good for an American network, but not a Japanese one. CWA is hoping to use this site to promote the need for new investments to expand broadband.

Posted by Ed at AFT at 04:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The AFT has joined forces with the Washington Teachers' Union and the AFL-CIO's Building & Construction Trades Department to launch a media campaign focused on the renovation of D.C. public school buildings. The ads, which will run in the Washington Post and Washington City Paper, are part of the AFT's Building Minds, Minding Buildings campaign.

For a readable (and big) pdf of this ad, click here.

Posted by John at 12:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A lot of bloggers are blogging about teacher unions this week.  Kevin Drum pretty much identifies conservative love for vouchers as simply a desire for nonunion schools.  Given the track record, that’s a much more logical argument than one that is built on improving student outcomes. A good starting place for catching up on this issue in fact is Matt Yglesias’ American Prospect article The Verdict on Vouchers. You can find more research on vouchers in Chile here and here; New York City here; Cleveland here and here; Milwaukee here and here or Florida here. For private vs. public schools generally, see here and here.  AFT does believe that public programs to improve schooling for poor children should – with proper accountability - cover private schools as well as public ones. But we do oppose vouchers, and I’m quite happy about that.

I am sad, however, that Yglesias would sell us out in exchange for whatever he wants. But he’s right that people do have some very odd views of the AFT and the NEA. I’d recommend taking a look at Diane Ravitch’s views on the benefits of unionization in the latest edition of the American Educator (an AFT publication) if you are trying to actually learn something about this issue.

Ezra Klein notes that John Kerry and Al Gore both supported federal investments in teacher compensation that had elements of merit pay.  I think it's also important to note that the AFT supported both the Gore plan and the Kerry plan.  While we have a lot of concerns about using student test scores as the sole vehicle to evaluate teachers, both plans had a lot to recommend them. Take, for example, the Kerry plan. First, the pay for performance part was a supplement to base pay.  No one was going to suffer a diminished standard of living as a result of the plan. Second, it included an element that would give districts resources to encourage qualified teachers to move to high poverty schools and provide them with new roles and responsibilities in those schools. One example of these responsibilities would be metoring new teachers. Both Kerry’s and Gore’s plans had a lot of overlap with AFT’s recommendations on teacher pay (which might undermine Ezra’s underlying argument).

Yes, you can look for us to oppose quota-based systems (where only the top 5 percent of teachers are meritorious) rather than standards-based systems (where everyone has an equal chance to clear the bar). And our affiliates will generally oppose systems that base pay predominantly on test scores. But teacher compensation is a big subject, and while there are a lot of things we do oppose, that’s different from opposing everything.  The NEA gets punked a lot in the blogosphere, I often think unfairly. But this is an area where there are real differences between us.

In fact, a lot of my own suspicions of conservative proposals on pay for performance are that they actually don’t want, you know, to pay for performance. I’ll also note that there are, in fact, state programs that provide for some form of performance-based pay in Minnesota and Florida. California had one that evaporated in the mists of fiscal crisis. Numerous local contracts, including Denver's, Washington DC's, and, I believe, Philadelphia's, have incorporated elements of pay for performance, and the UFT in NYC had an experiment in a couple of community school districts as well not too long ago.

Update: I hadn't seen Scott Lemieux's post until this moment. Just to be clear, I also think of him as a big time blogger. 

Another update: Andy Rotherham makes some good points on the pay subject as well.  And Sara Mead makes some on vouchers too. 

Posted by Ed at AFT at 08:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (10)

If I hadn't decided to quit teaching math 20 years ago, I might be attending meetings of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, and I still have enough teacher in me to be intrigued by the title and description of one of the workshops at an NCTM meeting this week in Atlanta.

The presentation is "Parents Are From Venus, Or Is It Mars?" Here's the description as it's printed in the program book:

"Actually, parents live among us, here on Earth. Parents are one of our most precious resources as teachers. And, like any precious resource, they must be mined with the right tools. Like a pickaxe. Okay, well, maybe not that. But come have some fun with us as we talk about the very important issue of parents' involvement." 

Sounds like an entertaining and informative discussion that would have been useful to me when I was working at Boone Grove Junior-Senior High School.  I still have regrets about my interactions with a parent who was also a school custodian and a parent who swore to me her daughter would NEVER cheat on a test. 

The presenter is Joshua Fisher, who has been researching parent involvement and working on various parent involvement programs for several years. The presentation is on Thursday, March 22 at 12:30 p.m.   Alas, I'll be in Washington, eating at my desk.

Posted by John at 02:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Dick Dalton, a special ed teacher and blogger, was encouraged when he started reading a recent Washington Post article about two congressional bills that would undercut NCLB.*  But then he kept reading and learned that states could "exempt any education program but special education" from NCLB.

Dalton's response, "So this means that special education still has to be shackled and cuffed to this leaky, stinky bureaucratic barge?" 

I spent a couple hours at a congressional hearing on NCLB last week and didn't hear any language as lively as that.  For that reason, if for no other, Congress should invite more teachers to testify about NCLB.

*The AFT opposes the bills and, for the record, doesn't think NCLB is a "leaky, stinky bureaucratic barge." After hearing from members who, like Dalton, are frustrated with the law, we've proposed these changes.

Posted by John at 08:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Former Education Secretary Rod Paige's new book includes sweeping claims about teachers unions, but they don't have much to do with reality, according to Judy Schaubach, president of Education Minnesota (the merged AFT-NEA state affiliate).

Appearing on a Minnesota radio show, Schaubach addressed Paige's contention that unions' concerns about NCLB made them obstacles

"Our folks are the front line people in the classroom trying to make these things work.  And when a law is passed that actually impedes their obligation to do things, it's our obligation to let people know that this isn't helping our kids and we need to make changes."

In her appearance on WCCO's Jack Rice Show, Schaubach also responded to callers' stereotypes about teachers and their unions, providing counterexamples to several of the commonly held beliefs about unions.

(For a less enlightening interview, listen to Rice's conversation with Sec. Paige.)

Posted by John at 05:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I came across some great writing over the weekend on a blog I hadn’t read before called Dangerously Irrelevant.  The writer, Scott McLeod, was making an argument that has some serious echoes of David Berliner’s Manufactured Crisis:

And yet, somehow, despite our educational system’s long history of alleged mediocrity, our country and our economy keep chugging along quite nicely.… Despite our country’s creativity-stifling schools, our citizens and workers continue, quite astonishingly, to build upon our nation’s well recognized and long-standing traditions of innovation and excellence to create new products, new systems, and new markets.

McLeod pivots to make this point:

It’s easy to throw stones at glass houses. It’s much harder to replace a venerable system that’s served us well for a century with something else. The old saw, “Never make a complaint without offering potential solutions” applies here in spades. Just for argument’s sake, let’s say that we “tore down the walls” tomorrow. What would education look like instead? 

This argument appeals to me. It's a more eloquent version of my response to Kevin Carey on the subject of why simply attacking Richard Rothstein doesn’t accomplish anything.  But I think it's important to note the almost dialectic relationship between the status quo and some of the critiques of schooling that McLeod reviews. For example, the attention to science in the wake of Sputnik was, I believe, very important for legitimizing a larger federal role in schooling.  Also, A Nation At Risk was in many ways a touchstone for the creation of the entire standards movement.  

It’s difficult to understand the effect of events in which you are taking part. But, I wonder if the changes to public education that are a result of the current efforts to reform the system will have a similar beneficial dialectic. I’ve seen signs for the good. But I also see signs that the current policy debate is becoming a symbolic act in which the currency is not improved instruction, but the degree to which education policy makers can be tough, either with each other, with kids, with school boards, or with unions and their members.  And that’s how you get policy with little real meaning. 

Posted by Ed at AFT at 12:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Does NCLB need a major overhaul, tweaking or something else?  Sunday, the Washington Post  embraced Education Margaret Spellings' "tweak" rhetoric.

An editorial stated, "No Child Left Behind certainly needs tweaking," calling for stronger state assessments and help, rather than punishment, for poorly performing schools.

Of course, it's possible that those calling for a major overhaul and those calling for tweaks are closer than the rhetoric would make it seem.  The Post's help-not-punish line echoes recent congressional testimony from AFT President Edward J. McElroy, who has called AYP "fundamentally flawed" and said that the law is "burdensome and demoralizing to teachers."

In any case, there's at least some consolation for those hoping for a serious approach to NCLB reauthorization:  At least, the Post editorialists didn't follow Sec. Spellings' lead in saying NCLB was 99.9 percent pure.

Posted by John at 11:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The world might be flattening in India and China, but I’ve just returned from a vacation in Honduras. Maybe I got too much sun, but I’ve got to say, I am not too worried about American competitiveness, especially in term of schools providing equal access to technology and the global economy.

In Honduras, most kids we saw that appeared to be more than 10 or 12 years old were working, and the schools that I saw lacked textbooks, let alone high speed internet connections.  The power went off for a few hours most days. Schools are free but families have to pay for books and uniforms, making education cost prohibitive for many. Contrast that to the U.S., where thanks to public programs like E-rate and private donations from companies like Microsoft, the poorest children in the poorest schools have access to quality technology.

For those interested, here are some other fun facts about Honduras:

• It is against the law to jail a pregnant woman or anyone over 60;

• The police patrolling the streets carry machetes but those protecting banks carry big guns;

• Although many are illiterate and/or have had little schooling, everyone we met could convert dollars to lempiras or lempiras to dollars in their heads with lightning speed and accuracy.

Oh, and snorkeling, kayaking and swinging in a hammock in 85 degree weather sure beat wintry mixes and NCLB hearings.

Posted by Beth at 08:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

New York Times columnist Nicholas D. Kristof wants to raise awareness about extreme poverty in third-world countries, and he's inviting a teacher to accompany him and see it firsthand. Kristof has written silly op-eds about education and called on "American students to stop trying to ban sweatshops, and instead campaign to bring them to the most desparately poor countries." But if you think he might be a decent traveling partner (especially since he's buying), you can apply to go with him.

If you're not sure what a 6-year-old in extreme poverty looks like, click here for the photo accompanying Kristof's op-ed.

Posted by John at 05:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Then you'd better cough up some money for Education Daily (or try the free two-week registration) so you can read Stephen Sawchuk's March 9 article, "Voluntary national standards raise technical questions."

The headline is understated, but the article makes it clear that getting a bill through Congress would be just the beginning of the hard work for advocates of national standards.

One obstacle is aligning tests to national standards. The AFT reported last year that just 11 states had managed to create tests aligned to strong state standards.  Using NAEP frameworks as the basis of national standards -- part of some proposals -- may create additional problems.  Sawchuk quotes an official from Missouri, who explained the difficulty the state had in trying to align its tests with NAEP frameworks: "It's not intended to cover every one of the grade-level objectives.  We'd be testing kids for a week to try to catch all of that."

Another obstacle, even if tests are aligned with the national standards, is establishing cut scores for proficiency levels for each state. Researcher Robert Linn told Sawchuk, "There would still be the major issue of what the academic achievement levels are, which at present are just all over the map." Again, some have proposed NAEP as a model, but a Louisiana official said the state's attempt to link NAEP and its assessment relied on "a procedure that was not technically sophisticated because of the lack of our ability to link those two tests toegether in a psychometric or statistical sense."

Some of these problems have to be tackled whether tests and standards are national, state or local.  The AFT has a proposal that lands between the state and national levels.  We call for NCLB reauthorization to include grants for voluntary consortia of states to develop common academic standards, curriculum and assessments.  The technical and political problems don't disappear altogether with our proposal, but they might be somewhat easier to handle than with national standards.

Posted by John at 02:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Below is Brendan, the latest addition to Michele's family.  Mother, father, big brother and Brendan are all doing well. 

(Is it just me, or does Brendan look like he's doing some kind of dance move?)

Posted by John at 02:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

From the Washington Post's Amit Paley, on today's online NCLB chat: "We're getting mostly anti-NCLB voices. Anyone reading who wants to write supporting the law?"

UPDATE:  Someone responded to this request.  The NCLB supporter thinks teachers are overpaid, don't work hard, and want to avoid accountability.

D.C.: Yes, I will support the law. Teachers salaries continue to rise, while they only work 9 months year and work less hours per-week than most private sector employees.

If they are complaining about NCLB, it is because it actually wants to hold them accountable. The NEA and the other teachers unions will do anything to say it isn't our fault, its the parents' fault. The parents say it is the teachers fault, so who looses? THE KIDS.

Obviously, 100 percent isn't possible....but you have got to have lofty goals if for nothing else than the kids.

Amit Paley: Here's a defender of No Child Left Behind, tapping into a common refrain among some politicians and others that the teachers unions are the major roadblock to educational reform. Ask teachers, of course, and they'll say that the unions are the only groups making sure public education doesn't collapse.

Posted by John at 12:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It will take more than money to get the No Child Left Behind Act right, AFT president Edward J. McElroy told a joint session of the Senate and House education committees earlier this week.

Here are a few key points from McElroy's testimony:

On AYP:

• "Any discussion of NCLB should begin by addressing the flaws of the adequate yearly progress system."
  
• "Schools that are improving should not be penalized."

On NCLB's interventions, or sanctions, for schools that fail to make AYP: 

• "The law must distinguish between schools that need intense, multiple interventions and those that need only limited help."
• "Struggling schools must get help when they need it."
• "punitive, ideological and not evidence-based."

On testing and over-testing:

• "State tests must be aligned with the state standards and the curriculum used in classrooms."
• "Instructional time should not be replaced by testing and drill-and-kill preparation, and a narrowing of the curriculum to only those subjects being tested."
  

On SES: 

• Supplemental service providers are "not being held accountable for results and for the way they use tax dollars."

On some proposals to remake NCLB's "highly qualified" requirement for teachers:

• "NCLB in its current form is burdensome and demoralizing to teachers, and yet they continue to adhere to changing requirements so they can continue to teach. But it is unacceptable to impose on them another unfair accountability measure."

On school building conditions:

• "NCLB's stated goal of closing the achievement gap cannot be fulfilled without improving conditions in schools."
  

Mr. McElroy's written testimony is available here.  

[Thanks to AFT staffer MR.  Photo by Michael Campbell]

Posted by John at 08:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I see Andy Rotherham has once again accused the NEA of hanging out with a quasi neo confederate states rights crowd.  Now, I'm not an NEA member. But if I was still paying dues to either UFT or the Professional Staff Congress at the City University of New York I would in fact be an NEA member right now, my old locals having been part of the New York merger.

If that were the case, I'd be asking why Andy Rotherham -- who is on the board of an organization that is directly tied to some of the most reactionary conservatives in America - thinks that this sort of thing is going to accomplish anything other than make his readers wonder if he is lacking some basic self-awareness.

To put the conversation on a more substantive level:  I actually agree with Andy that the state opt out in the Hoekstra bill is a bad idea.  I want a reauthorization of NCLB that gives help to schools and hope to teachers. And this isn’t the way to get there.  And note to NEA: Please get a blog.

(Note post updated to adress my inability to keep the various funders of EducationSector straight -- my apology to Andy Rotherham and to our readers for that -- but the underlying point that Andy is not one to talk about who runs with a bad crowd does remain.).

Posted by Ed at AFT at 05:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Why not pass laws that override due process provisions in teacher contracts?  Why not give principals more power to hire and fire?  Why not end tenure for teachers?

Because of this.  From the New York Post (via Edwize's comments section):

"Reading, writing - and wrongful firings.

"That's the curriculum at a new charter school in The Bronx, where an "out of control" principal axed three teachers in a month, refused to pay the salaries of two and was found guilty of expelling students without due process, according to furious former employees."

Posted by John at 03:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Thanks to a reader who passed along this AP story about soon-to-be-released recommendations for California's schools.  The lead:  "Overhauling California's schools will require tougher teacher standards and lots of money - as much as a mind-boggling $1.5 trillion per year, according to studies released Wednesday."

$1.5 trillion.  Annually.  If California has 30 million people, that's $50,000 in taxes from every citizen.  Yes, that's "mind-boggling."  And apparently it's not an early April Fool's hoax. 

The article attempts to put the $1.5 trillion figure in perspective: "...one estimate in the documents obtained by the AP says California might need to spend as much as $1.5 trillion a year to meet its performance goals, an amount equal to about half the annual federal budget."

Half the annual federal budget.  Not half the annual federal budget for education.  I'm trying to come to terms with this:  The recommendation is for California to fund its schools to the tune of half the TOTAL annual federal budget.

Nope, I still can't wrap my head around it.

UPDATE:  The LA Times tackles the $1.5 million figure: "The most eye-catching detail in three funding reports was the calculation that $1.5 trillion more each year would be needed to make all students academically proficient under the current system. That's about 25 times more than present spending for the K-12 and community college systems, which consumes about half of the state budget."  UPDATER:  MassParent comments: "Hey, I think I can achieve 98% proficiency at 20% of that cost.  Can I get the contract?"

Posted by John at 12:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I recall a story about a teacher in NYC in the 1970’s who noticed a stu