First up on this week’s labor blog roundup:  Becks’ is right to ask why, on Black Friday, we need to make retail workers get up before 4 AM?  No wonder H&M workers have decided to join UFCW. 

The Broadway stagehands have ended their strike. And the writers are staying strong.  So are most late night talk show hosts. David Letterman’s paying his writers through the end of the year, and Jay Leno has been on the picket line for the writers.  It turns out that Leno would cancel a personal appearance rather than be associated with the union busters at Jackson Lewis. (Do we know anyone who may lack this character? hmmm). The rest of these shows have stopped production, with one exception. Not only is Carson Daly a rat, he’s suborning his family to scab. Friend of the blog Elana Levin has some links to the best WGA videos for you to check out as well.

Nurses in Kansas City bucked a management “no” campaign to vote to join AFT’s Nurses United, and we’ve got more on charter school organizing in New York here.  In other news dealers at Foxwoods have voted to go union. And, for my friends in the building trades, there’s a better chance that charter schools in New York will at least be built at union wage rates.

Also, a couple of people asked me about my post with the giant inflatable rat. For the uninitiated, it’s a traditional prop used to demonstrate at non-union construction worksites (think “rat contractors”).  It also has a cult following.  The Late Show Writers' Blog has more. 

I want to leave you with a final thought from an op-ed in the Detroit News by David Hecker, president of AFT-Michigan: 

We hear it all the time: Organized labor is just a "special interest. They only care about themselves." Why single out unions in a negative way as a special interest?

It is an attempt to turn the union into a "third party," to undercut support. The intent is to make people think the union is something other than its members, and that the union looks out for "itself" and nothing else.

The truth, of course, is that a union is its members, and the members are the community.

Have a good weekend everyone

Posted by Ed at AFT at 02:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

'Tis the season to bust out every working mom's friend, the ole Crockpot. Speaking of pressure cookers, I have been musing on the NCLB policy divide during this eerie lull before Congress takes up reauthorization again. On one side are those who believe we should leave NCLB unchanged because it keeps the pressure on states, districts and schools to improve student achievement, particularly that of poor and minority students.  On the other side are those who say NCLB must be fixed to relieve some of this pressure and prevent unintended consequences like the lowering of state proficiency standards and teaching to the test.

I understand the perspective of the "keep the pressure on" crowd, but the problem is that it's not meat and potatoes inside the Crockpot, it's teachers and students who are feeling the heat. Do we need to keep the focus on closing the achievement gap? Absolutely. At the same time, do we need to acknowledge that NCLB must be changed so that teachers and others can feel hopeful, not hopeless, about meeting achievement goals? Yes.

Schools, like all organizations, function best when goals are clear and achievable; otherwise a dangerous sense of powerless takes hold. I think an argument can be made to turn the pressure down on the Crockpot without sacrificing the education of our most vulnerable students. Perhaps, given the implosion of Miller-McKeon, folks in Congress are now poised to listen to this argument.

Posted by Michele at 06:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

David Ritchey of the Association of Teacher Educators wrote in with a few kind words and, even better, an improved version of my weak attempt at photo-shopping on this post about all gaps other than the achievement gap.

Here's David's new and improved image:

Thanks!

Posted by John at 06:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Disney has disappeared Leo Casey from the records of its American Teacher Awards.  Because he thought John Stossel was a jerk and did something about it.  I hate to think what Disney wants to do to Paul Waldman or David Schultz.

I'm making light of this, because when a corporation uses its power in a petty and arbitrary way to punish people, well mocking them is a good first step.  For those of you who don't think working people really need protection from arbitrary acts by corporations in the workplace, this is the sort of story that should make you think again.

Update: Mike Antonucci has raised some points about this and Leo has updated his post to respond. Andy Rotherham calls me out for being in full mode moralizing here. Perhaps I'll respond by watching the Tonight Show.

Photo by Flickr user Bossanostra used under a Creative Commons license

Posted by Ed at AFT at 04:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

On good days I get to blog about people who are coming together, standing up for themselves and for the kids they teach.  So today I’m celebrating the news about educators at Merrick Academy, a charter school in Queens NY.  The staff there have united to petition for a recognition of a union in their school.  Edwize has more, and the New York Sun reports on it as well.  In addition, I wanted to let you know about the staff of the South Buffalo Charter School deciding to join our union in October.  And Green Dot is coming as well. Things are starting to move on this front. 

The Sun quotes Peter Murphy (that Peter Murphy) of the New York Charter School Association (yes that NYCSA) saying he doesn’t care if charter school teachers unionize. Murphy’s still on Atlantic Legal’s charter program’s advisory board.  That’s a program that’s still distributing materials from the union busters at Jackson Lewis. Yet Murphy’s quote intimates that his only problem with unions is that we’re liars. Of course, it’s Jackson Lewis that says it’s ok for union busters themselves to lie. Congratulations Pete, you’re anti-union rhetoric has entered the 21^st Century.

Posted by Ed at AFT at 02:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Russlynn Ali of Ed Trust-West and Richard Rothstein of the Economic Policy Institute are debating the NCLB's effect on California’s achievement gap.

Ali doesn't actually say NCLB is the best thing since sliced bread, but she does call it "the boldest step our nation has taken on issues of education and race since 1954's Brown vs. the Board of Education of Topeka." Holy hyperbole, Batman!

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

I thought we'd be able to leave Patrick Byrne alone for a while. I've blogged about his law to protect Overstock from naked short-selling that was repealed during the same session that it was passed, wherein he called his chief ally a "yellowbelly."  Of course, we blogged about the defeat of his voucher initiative and his saying it was an IQ test that Utahans failed.   And who could forget the political trick known as the 65 percent deception?  Now, Overstock may have turned out the reserves in an effort to win back customers who are unhappy with Byrne's attitude.

Posted by Ed at AFT at 03:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

 Jobs with Justice is accepting nominations for your favorite greedy Grinch who "does the most harm to working families."  Last year, Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company nosed out Smithfield Tar Heel, a pork slaughterhouse in North Carolina, for the title, but my guess is that Smithfield may take the crown (or elf hat) this year. The Justice at Smithfield campaign has done a great job of drawing attention to their issues by going after the Food Channel's Paula Deen, a spokesperson for Smithfield.  Just this morning, Diane Rehm put Deen on the spot about Smithfield while Deen was trying to hawk her new cookbook.  dhfsfc at The Daily Kos covers the Rehm show interview here, Anna Burger at The Huffington Post last spring here.  I think The Reliable Source is right--Deen may be the next Kathy Lee Gifford. And, as a commenter at the Daily Kos notes, "You should boycott Paula Deen simply because her dishes equal heart disease on a plate."

Be sure to cast your vote before November 30th! (I voted for Deen.)

Posted by Michele at 02:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

 
I’m not one for the whole schtick of finding a strange bedfellow to add to your coalition, or making explicitly right-left coalitions.  In part that’s because I don’t think it’s a good idea to extend whatever credibility you might have to people who simply want to defund public services.  Then there's this weird conceit that I need to get over about the innate power of ideas. So when Ralph Nader started making kissyface with Grover Norquist over the issue of transparency in state spending, I rolled my eyes.  Pathetic in the way that the Spice Girls reunion tour is pathetic, the fact that said tour is selling out notwithstanding. 

Which is a shame given the importance of the issue. States are in the habit of not only giving away their own tax base, but also school district tax bases to corporations in hare-brained attempts to lure or retain companies that might move down the road instead. And outsourcing is often a source of hidden costs, sweetheart deals and poor public service.  But my friends at Good Jobs First have issued a report evaluating each state's disclosure of both its contracts and corporate subsidies. 

They look at how easy the site is to use, the level of detail and the currency.  The average score is a “D-”, so we have a long way to go.   It’s a great report for more reasons than that I’d rather be associated with GJF’s Greg LeRoy and Phil Mattera than Grover Norquist and Ralph Nader.  

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

UPDATE:  While working at ED, Mike Petrilli recused himself from decisions involving K12 grants.  See below for a clarification.

The Fordham Foundation is looking for a Research Director.  Judging by Fordham's recent tinkering with a report on IB and AP courses, candidates won't be chosen based on their knowledge of statistics.  The key criterion for Fordham researchers: a willingness to manipulate data to achieve a desired outcome.

The Washington Post reports today that Fordham "reversed [a researcher's] judgment of which of the two college-level high school programs had the better math course."

The Post's Jay Mathews, whose Challenge Index relies heavily on IB and AP participation, took the Fordham report at face value a few weeks ago.  But he followed up with the story of the dissenting researcher because, as he writes in his online column, the dispute "is a useful reminder that research organizations using outside experts occasionally encounter views at odds with their own rules and values."

Fordhamites seem to have a penchant for arithmetical monkey business.  Back when the U.S. Department of Education (ED) was being run by Rod Paige, now a Fordham board member, ED overrrode reviewers' evaluations in order to award a contract to K12, a company then run by William Bennett.

That decision was defended by Michael Petrilli, a political appointee at ED, who had worked at K12 and Fordham before arriving at ED and has since returned to Fordham.  [Mike Petrilli wrote in to say that he recused himself from the K12 grantmaking process and that he didn't remember defending the decision.  He's right.  He never defended the K12 grants.  The Ed Week story I was thinking of (here $) referred to a different grant for which ED overrode grant reviewers' recommendations.  That grant went to the American Board for Certification of Teacher Excellence.]

Posted by John at 12:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I was just reading a fascinating poli-sci paper. The whole question of why Americans even bother to vote, given the nil probability that they’ll actually cast that one vote that decides the election, is one of the sillier traditional vexations of the discipline.  This paper, by James Fowler and Christopher Dawes, poses a really fascinating answer: some of us are just more genetically predisposed to vote than others. Apparently, there’s a correlation between polymorphisms of two genes and likelihood to vote.  Also fascinating is that an interaction between one of the genetic traits and a social factor, church attendance, is correlated with voting.

Having vaguely paid attention to the latest Bell curvish eruption on the blogosphere, I almost shudder to think about what mischief can be done with actual genetic analysis when we start talking about learning.  I also am a bit disturbed at the thought that my political or other propensities really are genetically pre-programmed to any extent.  And the idea that learning disabilities are things we can start to diagnose better using gene patterns gives me both hope and pause.  

The paper is still in the discussion draft phase, and perhaps there’s something not nailed down yet, but it's well worth a look.  And Fowler’s web site has a host of other interesting work, the kind I could spend days reading,  but I’ll leave you with one tongue in cheek tidbit – a potential explanation for all the links that Eduwonk is able to garner.

Photo by Flickr user Jonny Bronwbill used under a Creative Commons license

Posted by Ed at AFT at 09:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In a post this morning, Eduwonk calls performance pay for teachers, which has been the hot education topic in presidential debates, "just one piece of the school improvement puzzle."  I'd take that a step further: Performance pay, even the broader issue of teacher compensation, is only a piece of the teacher quality puzzle.

Here are 10 recommendations for teacher preparation and induction, that, taken together, would have a much greater positive effect on teacher quality than tweaking teacher compensation:

1. Requre core liberal arts courses
2. Institute higher entry criteria
3. Institute a national entry test
4. Require an academic major
5. Devlop core curricula in pedagogy
6. Strengthen the clinical experience
7. Institute a rigorous exit/license test
8. Take a five-year view of teacher preparation that would include more opportunities early in pre-service training to observe and work in schools and an intensive clinical training (and paid) internship, conducted in close collaboration with the public schools.
9. Strengthen induction so that it includes a quality selection process for identifying and training mentor teachers; adequate training and compensation for these mentors; and time for them to genuinely teach, support and evaluate beginning teachers.
10. Require high standards for alternative programs.

It's easy to turn teacher compensation, and even education policy, into a litmus test: Will you buck the unions on performance pay?  Easy, but wrong.  It's harder -- and smarter -- to identify ideas and implement policies that will have an impact. 

The good news is, you don't have to start from scratch: These recommendations are in "Building a Profession," which the AFT published way back in April 2000, and there are other good ideas here. These recommendations may not be as sexy as performance pay, but they might actually, you know, make a difference in the classroom.

Posted by John at 11:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Love it, hate it, but there's no doubt NCLB is driving more articles like this one, from Sunday's Washington Post, "'No Child' Law May Slight The Gifted, Experts Say." 

NCLB's staunchest supporters will argue that NCLB opponents and ignorant media types are pushing the notion that NCLB is leaving gifted students behind.  But the percetion exists, and,real or not, perception exists, and, real or not, it could lead parents of gifted students to pull their kids from public schools.

Incorporating growth models into NCLB's accountability system could bring gifted students into NCLB's sphere, but I'm skeptical* that growth models will be a cure-all. 

Independent research could help answer the question of whether gifted children have received less attention since passage of NCLB, but that's a tough question to get at.  University of Chicago researchers took a shot back in July.)  But pro-NCLB forces will chip away at any research with such a finding, and anti-NCLB forces, along with advocates for gifted children, will attack any research that finds the opposite.

With no research consensus, parents will make their decisions based on media reports and conventional wisdom.  (That may be how they make decisions even if there is a research consensus.)  In any case, if the CW is that NCLB is leading public schools to slight gifted children, parents with means will opt for private schools, regardless of whether they provide a better education. 

*I'm probably more skeptical of growth models than the AFT brain trust is or was; they're part of our NCLB recommendations.

UPDATE: bigswifty notes a typo and some formatting problems.  (Thanks!  I've fixed them.) BS also  laments that I haven't included a study saying NCLB was just peachy and the kids, bubble and gifted, are alright.  He's right.  I left out that study, which appeared in Education Next and was, I believe, funded by the Smith Richardson Foundation.  It could be a good study, but I doubt it, and my point was that, no matter what the AFT or Ed Next says, it's going to be hard to buck the conventional wisdom that NCLB shortchanges certain kids.  That train has left the station.

Posted by John at 09:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

You can tell it's Thanksgiving week, because there has not been much buzz in the edublogosphere about Hillary Clinton's recent comments on pay incentives for teachers. Clinton is correct in saying that most teachers perceive merit pay to be "demeaning" and insulting in that it presumes teachers will only work hard if you dangle the carrot. The term has a negative connotation and arouses teachers' suspicious nature over, as Clinton notes, "who decides." And, as Joan Snowden reminds us in her recent paper for the Center for American Progress, the single salary schedule was developed, in part, to get away from:

"a system where arbitrary favoritism was rewarded, men made more money than women for the same work, whites made more than blacks, and high school teachers made more than elementary school teachers."

Given this history, it is understandable that most teachers want to proceed with caution. At the same time, Clinton recognizes the kind of incentives that teachers are more open to and that can work in the school setting: pay for shortage areas, tough assignments and for successful collaborative work. It's time the teacher compensation debate moved beyond the confines of "merit pay" to a fuller discussion of paying teachers as the professionals that they are.

Update: Edwize here, Campaign K-12 here, Sherman Dorn here.

Posted by Michele at 11:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Forget what I put in that post below. Maybe some of us really do have too many words.  The economist responds. While you're at it, read him on Social Security. Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

Posted by Ed at AFT at 10:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sometimes the blogosphere seems to me to be a fever of words. That’s a phrase that Richard Nixon used in his first inaugural, supposedly decrying overly partisan rhetoric, but probably really decrying rhetoric aimed at him. Reading blogs, you might think we have too many words. And there are days that I agree.

But really, too many of us have too few words.  If you caught Richard Rothstein’s rap at NYSUT’s conference, this was one of his main points about the creation of the achievement gap.  Our friend Mr AB has a great post on how the number of books his kids reading aren’t a great indicator of the number of words they were learning.  A good book is more than the sum of its words, but the words do matter.  And, of course, there’s the National Endowment of the Arts report.  I understand the argument that NEA didn’t measure on-line time properly. But even if that affects aggregate reading, I suspect that there’s still a digital divide there. And things like E-books and Kindle, in the near term, have the potential to widen the gap not narrow it.  As we enter the Thanksgiving weekend, I’m thankful for the words we have, but I’m eager for us to get more. 

Posted by Ed at AFT at 09:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Anyone who doesn't think that NCLB stacks the deck against diverse, urban schools should take a look at the recently-released NCLB implementation report. According to data for the 2003-04 school year, researchers at AIR found that:

• Even after controlling for poverty, 39% of schools with six or more subgroups did not make AYP, compared to 10% of schools with only one subgroup
• At every level of poverty, schools with six or more subgroups made AYP at a rate at least 30% lower than those with only one subgroup

Gee, I wonder why some states are "gaming" the system? 

Posted by Michele at 10:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Last weekend I was a discussant on a panel at the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management meetings here in DC.  The most worrisome moment was when Dominic Brewer referred to me as one of three sane people in the union movement.  I may need to show up at USC with a giant inflatable rat or something to regain my street cred.

One paper, by Mike Lovenheim, examined how unionization affected drop out rates.  It updates a Carolyn Hoxby paper arguing that unionization creates an increase in drop outs.  The federal data set on unionization that Hoxby used had a 30 percent error rate in the states Lovenheim looked at. That’s not Hoxby’s fault (and I think she’s got plenty of faults). Correcting for this, Lovenheim found no direct relationship between unionization and drop outs (or teacher pay). But he found unionization increased the educational return on class size. Having smaller class sizes had more of a payoff in unionized districts.  This kind of nuanced analysis of how unionization affects implementation of specific inputs is a nice wrinkle that might allow us to potentially learn a lot more about what we are and aren’t doing right.

Posted by Ed at AFT at 01:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

If ED is trying to combat the perception that NCLB has led to more testing, why choose this picture for the cover of the national NCLB implementation report? It looks to me like the kids are filling in bubble sheets for the state assessment under the teacher's watchful eye. Maybe it's an accurate depiction of what the Bush Administration thinks classrooms should look like.

P.S. I will have something substantive to say about the report, once I have read it (200+ pages).

Posted by Michele at 12:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

About William Bennett's K-12, Inc. and similar companies. 

Sure, they have a pleasant-sounding mission statement: "To provide any child access to exceptional curriculum and tools that enable him or her to maximize his or her success in life, regardless of geographic, financial, or demographic circumstance." 

But I've always been suspicious, and I can't ignore Reed Hundt's take on William Bennett.  It's from an old TPM Cafe blog post by Hundt, the former FCC chairman.  The title is "A true story about Bill Bennett." 

When I was chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (1993-97), I asked Bill Bennett to visit my office so that I could ask him for help in seeking legislation that would pay for internet access in all classrooms and libraries in the country. Eventually Senators Olympia Snowe and Jay Rockefeller, with the White House leadership of President Clinton and Vice President Gore, put that provision in the Telecommunications Law of 1996, and today nearly 90% of all classrooms and libraries do have such access. The schools covered were public and private. So far the federal funding (actually collected from everyone as part of the phone bill) has been matched more or less equally with school district funding to total about $20 billion over the last seven years. More than 90% of all teachers praise the impact of such technology on their work. At any rate, since Mr. Bennett had been Secretary of Education I asked him to support the bill in the crucial stage when we needed Republican allies. He told me he would not help, because he did not want public schools to obtain new funding, new capability, new tools for success. He wanted them, he said, to fail so that they could be replaced with vouchers,charter schools, religious schools, and other forms of private education."

So, I am not agnostic about a company led by someone who wants public schools to fail.  I think such a company should not receive public funds.

Posted by John at 09:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I just took a look through Mike Podgursky and Robert Costrell's latest on pensions.  Mike is a state based right wing think tanker/professor who has attacked the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards as a cartel, and Costrell is at the Walton school of Every Day Low Benefits or whatever they're calling Jay Geene's gig, so you would think that their work would have some entertainment value.  I got it, along with a blue pill which I just swallowed.

It turns out pensions are bad because they simultaneously help retain young teachers and allow experienced teachers to retire. Seriously. I'm suddenly concerned! Aren't you? The report criticizes subsidizing the second careers of teachers who retire in their fifties and get a pension.  Sometimes these people even return to the school district under rules to allow this to happen! It is true that these programs -- called DROPs or deferred retirement option programs -- are hard on pension funds. And while I wish Podgursky and Costrell would emphasize that the reason this system is hard on the pension fund is that it is subsidizing the employer's salary costs, well, that's a quibble! And I had no idea the whole thing was so immoral sounding.  As to why Podgursky and Costrell are focusing on public school teachers who return to the school district, rather than say, retired soldiers who become Blackwater security operatives or retired public school teachers who went to work for the charter school down the street or sold insurance, well, that doesn't really trouble me at all! 

The report also says health care costs are high.  Wow!  And when times are good, pension benefits improve. Double Wow!  I can think of cases where benefits change when times are bad, but that doesn't seem to matter anymore.  I just had no idea that this all was so evil! Also it says pension formulas can be complicated!!  And there were recent changes to the accounting standards for the public sector.  So True. So True.  And gripping stuff. But the costs existed before the accounting rules changed. If I was cynical, I'd say that this change just gives Podgursky and Costrell the opportunity to complain about other people's healthcare. But that couldn't be. Could it?

Hold on with the blogging, John has just come down with a beaker labelled "Antidote." Yuck.

As you could probably guess, the real disagreement I have with Podgursky and Costrell is the idea that the retirement system is an "incentive" as opposed to a retirement security program and their seeming discomfort with the idea that people should get good pensions in the first place.  (Are there no workhouses for retirees?). They also seem to think that all retention and incentive issues would be solved by simply shifting all the risk for retirement security from the employer to the teacher or by creating cash balance plans where teachers get to share in none of the benefits of risk while getting a minimum benefit.  But I could have told you that without reading the paper. Podgursky's "Show Me Institute" in Missouri has the slogan "Market Solutions for Missouri."  When all you've got's a hammer...maybe you should retire and go to Home Depot.

Posted by Ed at AFT at 04:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)

If you read Daily Kos you know that Trapper John is one of the front page bloggers there, and that the man knows organized labor. He also seems to know a fair bit about education policy. His critique on CNN's treatment of education from last night's debate:

Why the hell is "merit pay" the only ed issue in this debate? Why does Wolfie hate working people?

It was kind of my thought too. Maybe they're  spending too much time reading Charlie Barone's blog and not ours.

Posted by Ed at AFT at 11:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Over at the Swift & the Changeable, former Miller staffer Charles Barone claims that the teacher unions are running around taking credit for the demise of Miller-McKeon, while Eduwonk charges we haven't taken enough bows.

I find all of this blogging about whether the teacher unions should "crow" to be quite silly. Did Congress listen to the concerns of the AFT? Sure, because we represent MEMBERS, the people who are actually in the classroom, dealing with this law.  Duh. Plus, what is there to really crow about? Our members want to see changes in NCLB, so prolonging the law's reauthorization hardly serves them well.

The truth of the matter is that Miller-McKeon was hoisted on its own petard, crushed by its own weight--pick your metaphor. And, as I have written before, the "discussion draft" had a lot more wrong with it than the performance pay language, namely that it did not fix AYP.

And, really, what's the point of crowing? Politics is about relationships, so it's hard to see where slash and burn lobbying really gets you in the long run.  We all will be here for another day of NCLB 2.0 and, as well we should, the AFT will continue to represent the interests of our members to Congress.

One thing is for certain in the aftermath of Miller-McKeon--I doubt we will see another "discussion draft" in the near future for any piece of federal legislation that is up for reauthorization.

Update: Check out Sherman "The Oracle" Dorn.  The man makes sense.

Posted by Michele at 10:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I started watching The Wire through Netflix, so my inital reaction to Ed Sector's new report on how states "game" the NCLB accountability system is--as Avon Barksdale would say--"Play or get played." It's no surprise that in the face of federal requirements that they view as unfair and punitive, states look for ways to make their state accountability systems look good. That said, whether everything that states are doing constitutes "gaming" is subject to debate.

I strongly agree with one of the report's recommendations: that the U.S. Department of Education needs to improve the peer review process. States were clearly told different things by ED, and they quickly learned to ask for what other states had gotten. You feel me?

Posted by Michele at 03:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

I want to call attention to a post there [at the Education Policy Blog] by Philip Kovacs (haven't met him yet -- though I've met a few of the others there).  It's an important reminder about gaps other than the achievement gap.  Kovacs, focusing on the gaps between African Americans and whites, is right to point out that not all of society's problems begin in school and many of them cannot be solved without addressing out-of-school factors.  He includes the  incarceration gap, the homeowner gap, the healthcare gap, the earnings gap, the poverty rate gap, the unemployment gap, the murder gap, and even the happiness gap. 

(And, yes, there's a huge gap between my Photoshop skills and those of the average blogger, but I'm working on it.)  UPDATE:  David Ritchey of the Association of Teacher Educators took pity on me and sent in a better image.

Posted by John at 10:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I’ve had good things to say about work by both Kati Haycock's Education Trust and, of course, my friends at the Economic Policy Institute. But I’ve also questioned some of the Education Trust’s proposals on teacher policy, and defended EPI’s Richard Rothstein from the charge that he’s an enabler of the achievement gap.  Haycock and Rothstein have become almost living symbols of different perspectives on NCLB, accountability and helping at risk kids.

The two of them appeared last month at a conference in Albany put on by the New York State United Teachers on closing said achievement gap. They were both in fine form, and while it wasn’t a debate per se, you could see them responding to the other's work in their presentation. In the  spirit of the conference, rather than try to find a synthesis or throw my interpretation at you, I'll just ask you to watch ‘em both and think about what we should be doing that we aren't doing now. (Click on the pictures to go right to the presentations).

The NYSUT web site has video from other speakers as well, including NYSUT President Richard Ianuzzi, Donna Brazile, Richard Mills, Pedro Noguera and James Crawford.  There is a lot to see, and a lot to think about.

 

Posted by Ed at AFT at 11:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It’s early still, but I've seldom seen a strike being carried out as effectively as the one by our brothers and sisters in the Writer's Guild.   WGA is doing a great job of explaining their issues. They understand their struggle. They have organized themselves from top to bottom, with folks like Tina Fey, Julia Louis Dreyfus, Wanda Sykes, Zach Braff etc all on the line along with folks who wrote for Mr. Ed and are focusing just on keeping their health insurance.  They've been  media savvy and funny. They’ve built their coalitions well. Not only are the stars walking the picket line but Teamsters are turning their trucks around rather than cross.

It helps that the writers appear to be getting screwed. I hope that where we are as a country right now makes a lot of people more appreciative of the act of standing up for yourself and those around you than might have been the case a while ago. As for the Steve Carell reference, God bless him. Russo asks if  the strike is getting better coverage than teacher strikes because the media are writers too. It doesn’t hurt. As for why David Duchovny isn’t walking the line in Seneca Valley or Lehman? It’s a long commute and he’s never asked any teachers to take notes on how to punch up Mulder’s dialogue.  Really, it’s not his community, so it’s not fair to expect it to be his beat.

In other labor news, professional union baiter Richard Berman told a meeting of right wingers in Nevada that he’d secured funding from some sucker opponent of teacher unionism to run a lot of negative tv ads about teacher unions. Can’t wait. Berman’s gig is starting to remind me of this.  In happier news, Green Dot is in fact coming to NYC and the UFT is working with them. More on that to come.

Last month the National Labor Relations Board took another step to make it harder for workers in the private sector to have a union.  These are the same people who brought us this word from Steven Colbert.   On November 15, we’ll be rallying at the NLRB. You should be too.

Finally I want to link to a blog put together by Alan Lubin, who is one of the leaders of our New York State affiliate, NYSUT. Alan’s blog is about a trip with a labor delegation to the US-Mexico border in El Paso. One exerpt:

“One worker showed us his pay sheet for the day. He picked 73 baskets of chili peppers. He worked 7 hours today and was credited by his employer for 5 hours. He can't complain or go elsewhere because he would be blacklisted if he did.”

And that's in America. We'll have another labor blog round up in a week or so.

Posted by Ed at AFT at 02:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

What's missing from this unconvincing piece by Michael Tobman arguing that both Democrats and Republicans would be wise to support school vouchers?  Well, for starters, any pretext of an argument that school vouchers are good for children.

The most offensive part may be this: 

Further, supporting education policies that benefit families who send their children to Yeshivas would provide candidates with something worthwhile and productive to speak about in committed Jewish communities other than the usual and predictable comments on Israel and the Middle East.

And with Utahns' overwhelming vote yesterday against vouchers, Tobman's argument that vouchers are a political winner for anyone is laughable.

Tobman has broken new ground with this piece: It is as cynical and shallow as education commentary can get and still be publishable.  Even by the Weekly Standards' standards.

Posted by John at 10:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Rep. Miller issued a statement today citing President Bush as an obstacle to improving NCLB.

When it comes to No Child Left Behind, President Bush has just one message, and it boils down to this: Stay the course.

All across the country, teachers, school administrators, school board members, and parents are voicing their concerns with the law. They don’t think it makes sense to stay the course. They don’t think it makes sense to preserve the status quo.

They think the law needs significant improvements, and they are right. Unfortunately, the President couldn’t see it more differently. He thinks the law is nearly perfect….

It is difficult to see how we get a reauthorization bill done in this Congress as long as the President continues to oppose both common-sense improvements to the law and additional education funding.

Full statement is here.

Posted by John at 04:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Posted by Michele at 11:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Utah's voters said "no" to vouchers.  The count, with 97% of precincts reporting was 62% to 38%.  This editorial in today's The Salt Lake Tribune calls on voucher supporters to accept the vote and turn their attention to supporting public schools.

"Vouchers are dead. It's time to move on.

The perennial pet legislation of the Utah Legislature's deeply conservative leaders was soundly defeated by a power greater than they: the people of Utah. Now we'll see whether the Republican-controlled legislative branch will see the vote as the anti-voucher statement it is, or ignore the result and try to foist another version of this far-right invention on Utah's more sensible electorate.

We urge the proponents of taxpayer-funded private school vouchers to graciously admit defeat of their effort to create an expensive and constitutionally suspect public/private system and, instead, to invest the same wholehearted effort in adequately funding Utah's public schools...."

Update:  AFT's statement here. 

And here (!) Patrick Byrne insults Utahns because they voted down vouchers, saying the referendum was a "'statewide IQ test'" that Utahns failed."  That kind of thoughtful analysis should be a real asset to future efforts to pass voucher referenda.

Posted by John at 09:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Center for American Progress has just released yet another report calling for performance pay for teachers.  Ezra Klein wrote about the event for the release:

Showing yet again that all discussion of education reform and pay-for-performance is brutally squelched on the Left, I just got an invite to a Center for American Progress panel on...education reform and pay-for-performance. For now, I'm assuming it's a trap.

It was a double decker trap, given that one of the papers was by Joan Snowden, who used to work with us here at AFT as the director of the Educational Issues department.  Given that Joan and I are pretty much in agreement on the need to change the way teachers are paid and on the importance of doing it fairly and carefully, I think everyone should read this.  And if you’re new to this issue, her look at four ways to change teacher pay – based on skills and knowledge, extra responsibility, shortage areas, or performance – is a nice lens for viewing something that people usually oversimplify.  Notice that these range pretty much from less to more controversial.  I’d also recommend the section on “doing it wrong” and “what have we learned”  in particular.

Sherman Dorn notes that this paper doesn’t lend support to a broad brush federal approach on pay for performance.  I do think, though, that it does point the way to how we can continue to make some progress on this. And if you like to get your hands on the original research, track down Joan’s reference to Murnane and Cohen’s piece “Why Most Merit Pay Plans Fail and a Few Survive.”  It’s from back in the ‘80s, but it is a classic.

Posted by Ed at AFT at 08:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

With study after study failing to show that school vouchers have a positive effect on student achievement, advocates have moved the goalposts and tried to establish "parental satisfaction" as the new criterion.  But the recent GAO report on the DC voucher program points out the problem with using parental satisfaction. 

The U.S. Department of Education's complained that GAO had failed to cite "the high levels of parental satisfaction."  GAO's rebuttal was spot on:

A balanced picture of parental satisfaction would also include views of parents whose children no longer participate or comparisons to school satisfaction among parents who elected not to participate...."

There's a built-in bias in many parental satisfaction surveys because they survey only parents who decided to stick with the program.  Dissatisfied parents pull their kids out of the program, and their opinions don't get counted. 

Another GAO finding hints at a pretty high level of parental dissatisfaction:

For example, in year one of the program, 32 percent of students offered scholarships did not use them, and of the 68 percent that did, 31 percent did not use them in all the years.

That means most parents (32% + 31% of 68% = 53%) did not take full advantage of the program's offer of free tuition to a private school.  Even if a few families became ineligible because of changes in family income or a move away from D.C., it seems clear that a significant number of families, probably close to half, voted with their feet and rejected vouchers that were offered to them.

Voucher advocates aren't going to stop distorting survey results to support their claim that parents are satisfied -- after all, that claim keeps the foundation money coming in and fools the press from time to time -- but it isn't any more accurate than the discredited claims about vouchers' effect on student achievement.

To find out whether Utah's voters are satisfied with the voucher proposal on the ballot, check the blog tomorrow.  To see an example of voucher advocates' predictable, disingenuous view of satisfaction, click here.  And finally, to experience Devo's unusual take on satisfaction, click here.

Posted by John at 03:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

One of the big pieces of news in the world of labor this week is that Governor Bill Ritter of Colorado announced that he would sign an executive order to allow state employees in Colorado the right to a form of collective bargaining.  I thought this was very good news, but Dean Singleton, the owner of one of Colorado’s major newspapers, seems to have  disagreed.  The Denver Post had a frothing front page editorial that left readers feeling spittle flecked after they were done with it.  My favorite part: 

"When Coloradans elected Bill Ritter as governor, they thought they were getting a modern-day version of Roy Romer, a pro-business Democrat. Instead, they got Jimmy Hoffa."

And you didn’t think the Teamsters were going to try to represent state employees. Oops, that wasn’t what the Post meant.  Instead they were engaging in some good old fashioned union baiting. Because, you know, it hurts the bottom line when state employees have a voice at work.  The Post even called Governor Ritter a “bag man.”  I didn’t know that the man purse was such a controversial item in the Rockies.   Yes, I kid. Because this needs to be mocked.  

Jerome Armstrong has a nice bit of summing up with links to a number Colorado blogs.   Check out Jim Spencer  (“Who does he think he is, Hearst?”), Colorado Confidential has reaction from the governor’s office, and Square State looks at how the actual plan, as reported in the Post, is really not the criminal conspiracy that the editorial implies. 

Joe Williams once wrote that he didn’t realize there were so many union busters until he started reading this blog.  Well Joe, by now it won’t surprise you to find out that Dean Singleton is another.

Posted by Ed at AFT at 09:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I’ve been thumbing through a number of studies of competiton in education. From EPI (and yes, AFT supports EPI), there’s Martin Carnoy et al’s latest study, "Vouchers and Public School Performance." It finds that you can’t make the case that school choice has caused public schools in Milwaukee to improve.  The conclusions dovetail those of Wisconsin’s conservative/anti tax think tank the Wisconsin Public Research Institute (and yes, AFT usually doesn’t have a kind word for WPRI).  WPRI estimates that just 10 percent of parents in Milwaukee are smart school shoppers who make decisions based on real indicators of school quality.  Their method is a kind of Jacob’s Ladder of assumptions that I’m still pondering, but the conclusion fits with other work on why and how parents choose.

In addition to these Milwaukee reports, Hank Levin’s Center for the Study of Privatization in Education has two new reports on charter schools and competition. One by Mathew Carr and Gary Ritter and finds that charter schools in Ohio have a small detrimental effect on nearby traditional public schools.  Yongmei Ni, examining charter competition in Michigan over time concludes: "The effect is small or negligible in the short run, but becomes more substantial in the long run."  Ni notes this is "consistent with the conception of choice triggering a downward spiral in the most heavily impacted public schools." 

There are kids in these schools. And competition not only doesn't seem to help them, but it is likely hurting them.

For those who said more charters couldn't make things worse in Detroit Public Schools, this is a pretty sound rebuttal.  One important note: Wisconsin, Ohio and Michigan are similar cases. I don’t know that the same effect would be found in a high-growth state like Florida, or in a giant district like New York City to the extent that it retains mega economies of scale. But there are plenty of other cases like Ohio and Michigan. The results should trouble everyone involved in promoting charter schools.

A long time ago, Howard Nelson, Rachel Drown and I wrote a piece about charter schools and school districts that used the metaphor of an ecosystem. I still think that metaphor holds, and that we’re doing a pretty lousy job of managing the ecosystem.  Change is needed.  Which, mind you, is different from saying "get rid of charter schools" (although I’d get rid of vouchers where they exist in a heartbeat.) I would like a new deal as far as the relationship of charter schools and traditional public schools. Part of that is a better mutual understanding of school finance and the effects of how we fund charters on traditional schools and vice versa. Part of it is an understanding of the limits of competition and the possibilities of cooperation.  The idea that competition between districts and charters would just be about educational quality, particularly when the evidence suggests that this wasn’t quite what parents were shopping for, was always ridiculous.

As for cooperation,  I could go on about Kropotkin here, but suffice it to say I think we'll do a better job helping kids if we build structures to help us focus on doing that together. Underlying all of this is the understanding that, for a variety of reasons, parents send their kids to poor schools (traditional, charter and voucher alike), and that fact should reaffirm our commitment to creati