A lot of what passes for debate in the educational policy blogosphere is really about efforts to privilege discourse. Some people think that if a person from the union says that it’s going to rain, it’s only because they don’t want their members to be held accountable for students getting wet, no matter how many clouds there are in the sky.  In my blogging, this is often an issue with the guys at Education Sector.  The most recent case of it was over discussions of changing teacher compensation and the need to have adequate base compensation if you want your plan to last.  After going back and forth with Kevin Carey on this for a bit, I got this from Andy Rotherham:

AFTie Ed is all worried that the momentum for incorporating performance into teacher pay might be jeopardized by poorly designed plans. I had no idea these guys cared so much!

To which I’d like to respond by writing this:

But regardless of the evaluation system, teachers aren’t going to buy into a performance-pay system that pegs a substantial percentage of their compensation to their performance evaluations. Unlike on Wall Street, where large sums of performance pay often are stacked on top of already generous base salaries, teachers, who earn an average of about $50,000 a year in the United States, want the majority of their pay in the form of a fixed annual income.

That’s one reason why the members of the Cincinnati Federation of Teachers in 2002 rejected by a vote of 1,892 to 73 a performance-pay plan based on the city’s Danielson-inspired classroom evaluation system.

Except I didn’t write that.  Who did?  Hmm. Given that they haven't been put in their place with a snarky aside, it must be someone that Andy thinks should have the privilege to say a hard rain’s gonna fall when the clouds are in the sky.  Early next week, we'll give a shout out to the first blog that can solve the riddle.

Posted by Ed at AFT at 10:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Sara Hathaway is not your usual second career teacher in that before teaching she was the mayor of Pittston, Massachusetts.  As such, she’s got a unique take on teachers unions and their roles. She took a shot at explaining how her thoughts about unions have developed over at Blue Mass Group the other day. It is a remarkable read for a variety of reasons, including the descriptions of life in the classroom and her development of ideas on how teachers see their unions, and the difference between that and how others – both political elites and the general public – might see them.

Posted by Ed at AFT at 07:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Or in the words of Education Minnesota member and Congressman Tim Walz:

"I'm pleased that this was President Bush's last State of the Union speech. The American people are demanding change in Washington's priorities and while the Congress has made some progress, the President has been a consistent roadblock. Tonight we heard more of the same from the President. What we need is a change in priorities.

AFT President Ed McElroy's statement is printed in the post below. As for me, the paragraph of the speech that struck home was:

"The No Child Left Behind Act is a bipartisan achievement. It is succeeding. And we owe it to America's children, their parents, and their teachers to strengthen this good law… I ask you to support a new $300 million program called Pell Grants for Kids. We have seen how Pell Grants help low-income college students realize their full potential… now let"s apply that same spirit to help liberate poor children trapped in failing schools.”

Matt Yglesias' reaction is a classic bit of snark:

I like that Bush explicitly linked his plan to destroy the public school system with the idea of Pell Grants. That's appealing to liberals. And, of course, conservatives like George Bush are always shortchanging the Pell Grant system just as once they're done using poor kids as a bludgeon with which to beat down teachers they'll lose all interest in funding vouchers and return to their usual starve the poor attitude.

For a less snarky but more data-filled and equally spot-on analysis of the SOTU, the must read is over at the Drum Major Institute, which turns each such address into an opportunity to try to broaden the conversation.  The education part has some nice stats on how much more work needs to be done.  And, if you're an educationista who wants to get a good overview of the other issues, it's one-stop shopping.

Posted by Ed at AFT at 08:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Posted by Ed at AFT at 11:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I saw something awhile back from a blogger implying that the AFT had helped kill NCLB reauthorization last year, and I've seen a few similar comments from other bloggers and even in the media.  So, I want to set the record straight.

My colleagues sweated blood trying to find an honorable way forward on this bill, because, well, Our members really, really don't like the current law. Our members want it changed, which is, you know, what happens during reauthorization.

So, in 2005 and 2006, AFT officers and staff held townhall meetings with AFT members (and also at times with Members of Congress) to discuss the effects of the current law.  AFT's policy committee, along with AFT staff, then used the information from the meetings to produce recommendations for reauthorization.  Officers and staff ran the recommendations by a task force of affiliate leaders, revised them, worked out the kinks, and produced a final document, which was sent to Members of Congress.  Oh, and we started a blog, too.

In 2007, with Democrats in the majority, there was a push for reauthorization.  AFT staff met with congressional staff, and AFT officers met with congressional leaders, talking about what changes were needed and going back and forth with possible legislative language.

On Labor Day weekend last year, while I was enjoying the three-day holiday, many of my colleagues were in the office, analyzing the first portion of the discussion draft that was released.  They weren't crazy about what they saw in the draft.  Also in early September, AFT Executive VP Toni Cortese and our director of legislation were preparing congressional testimony. 

The discussion draft for the rest of the law came out shortly after, which meant another round of caffeinated analysis of legislative language.  Class-size reduction?  There's a typo and an omission there.  Really, you didn't know that?  Maybe you should've read the discussion draft as carefullly as my colleagues did. Think the language on comparability is clear?  Think again.  Have you done any runs on the effects of multiple measures to see if anything would change?  Our researchers and policy people did.

There were more meetings between AFT staff and congressional staff and meetings between the big guns.

My colleagues Cheryl, Tina, Toni, Jane, Michele, Justin, Tor, John (not me), Patty, Howard, Nancy, Earl, Beth -- and probably a half-dozen others I've missed -- ate, breathed and slept NCLB last fall and for much of the past two years or so.

In 2001-02, it took presidential leadership, arm-twisting, etc. to get bipartisan backing for the bill. But where was the bipartisanship this time around?  Rep. McKeon seemed to run away from the draft even though his name was on every page.  Who was going to get the Republicans to fall in line?  Who was going to get them to agree this time to accept, again, an expanded federal role in exchange for greater accountability? The AFT?

I learned this:  Reauthorizing a seriously flawed law is hard, but pointing fingers after reauthorization fails is easy.  If you weren't there every step of the way, if you haven't thought through the consequences of every line of legislative language, if you haven't heard from people who work in classrooms, if you think that changing AYP always equals  "weakening accountability," then you're just talking out your wazoo when it comes to NCLB reauthorization.

In any case, my colleagues, who apparently are gluttons for punishment, are back at it again, ready to work with Congress to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, first enacted during LBJ's tenure.  And they're hoping the song turns out better this time.

Posted by John at 04:48 PM | Permalink

Once upon a time Richard Murnane and David Cohen wrote a paper that examined existing pay for performance programs in schools. They wanted to know why some lasted and some failed. One of the factors that led to persistence was adequate base compensation.  It’s a very nice piece of research.  And I’ve taken it’s lesson to heart here, when writing about what it would take to make a long lasting change in the compensation of teachers.  Kevin Carey responds:

“That said, insisting that "adequate base compensation" be a prerequisite for pay for performance is, functionally, the equivalent of being against pay for peformance.”

Posted by Ed at AFT at 01:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Based on Kevin’s response, I suspect I wasn’t actually being clear enough here. I wasn’t actually advocating against new compensation models on the grounds that pay isn’t intrinsically motivating. There’s a line to be drawn here of course as I really don’t want Gordon Gecko teaching my kids. He’ll just falsify the test scores take his bonus and head to a country where we don’t have an extradition treaty. But that wasn’t where I was going.  My baseline position wasn’t “we’re not in this for the money, give us more money.” Instead it’s “we don’t have the option of being in it for the money, and trying to introduce that option without making the pie bigger isn’t a smart idea.”

What I was trying to argue is that we don’t have in place one of the essential preconditions to having an effective variable pay structure: adequate base compensation (Next time, less KRS-One, more Murnane and Cohen. I'm sure they too can rock the mike).  As a result, you get a system where people are being driven to a large extent by the intrinsic rewards of the work, and by the external rewards that come from a kind of cult of teacherdom.  I don’t know if it’s chicken or egg, but uncompetitive pay is a factor keeping this dynamic in place. Since I don’t want the people I work for to have to be the public employee equivalent of nuns,  it is something I worry over a fair bit. Which is why I think we need to keep thinking about how to change the compensation system fairly. 

Posted by Ed at AFT at 10:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Joe Nathan has a really interesting look at what’s going on in Cincinnati schools over at Edweek. He describes a remarkable change in the district's graduation rates.  Nathan's crowing a little bit, but it seems he has some reason to do so.  I’m in agreement with him on nine and a half of his top ten reasons why reform was able to take hold in Cinci.  We’ve been working with school districts on projects like this for about a decade now,  and a lot of the points here ring true.  That includes exposing staff to models that work,  making sure that your professional development is actually helping accomplish real goals,  making a plan and sticking to it, not chasing the flavor of the month, and treating teachers with the respect that is their due.  I could write extensively on just the importance of the professional development part of it, and of fidelity to a plan.  Nathan also has nice things to say about the involvement of the leadership of the Cincinnati Federation of Teachers.

I don’t know if Nathan’s characterization of the district overall as “welcoming” charter school competition is spot on. Ohio’s charter schools are poor. Their proliferation has harmed the Cincinnati district’s ability to provide services. And the research is building that such competition leads to diminished student outcomes. I've blogged a fair bit about the need to find a better model for traditional/charter relations than the one we have now, and I'm well aware that charter schools are handed their own challenges from this system as well. But given the facts and what I hear about those facts, “welcoming” is not the word I’d use to describe folks' (and not just union folks) reaction to the status quo.  Instead I take the lesson to be that you can’t let such challenges keep you from doing your job to help kids as best you can. And that is an important lesson. 

I'm very aware that a blogger can easily spend too much time talking about differences, but sometimes we need to take them out and look at them if we're going to be able to make our agreements matter.

Posted by Ed at AFT at 10:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Ezra Klein, meet Working America - the 1.6 million member community affiliate of the AFL-CIO.  I hope this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.  

Posted by Ed at AFT at 02:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Edweek's Quality Counts for '08 is on your newstands now. As usual, there is a wealth of good information and a lot to think about. I'm particularly fascinated by the state rankings on teacher professionalism.  But I want to start blogging on the piece I know the most about: teacher pay.   Quality Counts does a state-level analysis of how teacher pay compares to pay for folks in comparable professions.  They find that teachers are making 88 cents on the dollar overall.  If you look at the AFT salary survey you'll find this is the result in part of recent trends wherein growth in teacher pay has lagged growth in pay in the private sector.  Simply put, we're falling behind. 

It leaves open the question of why people go into teaching. As the song says "it's not about a salary, it's all about reality, teachers teach and do the world good..."   I think the results here should concern people whose main focus is on incentivizing the current pay structure.  If fiscal incentives matter, the first decision for a lot of people is going to be to go into a different field.  People motivated by salaries will, rather than wanting to climb to the top of 88 cents on the dollar, go get the dollar itself.

I'm of the belief that we're going to have to make changes to how teachers are paid in order to raise compensation broadly. And that this could be a really good thing for education overall.  I do have a lot of concerns about how to do it right.    My experience with pay for performance is that you can't trust that the investment will be real and sustained.  What you get then, are new burdens, but really no new rewards.  As for the song, click on the pic to go old school with KRS-One and DJ Scott La Rock (and note that this implies no endorsement of either side in the bridge wars -- Wikipedia is a strange and sometimes marvelous place)

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

One of the beauties of bloggery is following the links wherever they take you.  I started out at Alexander Russo's blog, where he does a helpful daily blog roundup. That links to an Eduwonk piece about Education Secretary Margaret Spellings, which links to a Sherman Dorn post linking to (last one) a Miami Herald blog, which reported Spellings's response to a question about whether evolution should be included in state science standards.

The top federal education official said "Of course it should be.  Evolution is accepted science, and it should be presented to our children as such."

Nah, just kidding.  The Herald blog reports that Spellings said "it wasn't her job to make policy decisions like that," which, loosely translated, means "I'll say anything to appease my party's base."

Posted by John at 04:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

From AFT President Edward J. McElroy's statement on NCLB's 6th anniversary:   

"Enacting a better law will require strong leadership from the White House, but President Bush refuses to acknowledge the law’s flaws and was AWOL last year while Congress was attempting to rewrite NCLB...."

More here. 

Posted by John at 03:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Washington Post columnist and former Bush administration official Michael Gerson must have gone back to the White House last night for about a gallon of Kool-Aid. 

His take on NCLB makes Armstrong Williams look like a skeptic, his thinking about teachers and their unions suggests that he has never set foot inside a school, and his understanding of what motivates teachers is breathtakingly uninformed. 

Also, if George Bush is Abraham Lincoln, then I'm a dancing chicken.

Posted by John at 12:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

From a New York Times article about a school visited by NYC Schools Chancellor Joel Klein.

Mr. Klein...emphasized in his remarks that the school did more than the basics, and had robust arts, music and computer programs. In one fourth-grade class, he encouraged students to tell him what they liked about the school. And he seemed surprised when Andrew Xu, the first boy to raise his hand, replied, “They help us get ready for the state ELA test.” Andrew, 9, was referring to the test for English Language Arts to be taken next week by all students in grades three through eight. “They teach us what methods to use and how to write.”

There's one 9-year-old who's absorbed the lesson.

Posted by John at 11:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I maintained my state of denial even through the holidays, but I now have to acknowledge that Michele McLaughlin, my longtime partner in bloggy crimes, has jumped the AFT ship. 

Although my posts didn't have her name on them, she often helped shape them, especially in the blog's early days.  If I wrote about a substantive report on education, there's a better than even chance that Michele sent me the report, summarized it for me, or reviewed what I wrote before it went up on the blog.  Sometimes all three.  More than once, she steered me away from certain subjects when my emotions otherwise would have led me beyond the facts at hand.  And, if I've put up a stupid post, check the date -- Michele probably was on leave.

For my part, I corrected Michele's occasional misspellings.  (Note to Michele's new employer:  She has no idea how to spell "dreidel.")  And I made a slightly greater effort than Michele did to understand the technical aspects of blogging.  But that doesn't begin to offset the help Michele gave me.

As AFT employee-bloggers, we don't have the freedom to write about certain subjects or express certain views.  Campaign finance law, for example, limits what we can write about political candidates. Scatological humor, swearing and sexual innuendos aren't appropriate, meaning that Michele and I couldn't go where many other blogs go.  But, on the days when we suspected few people at AFT headquarters were paying attention, we wrote a little more freely.  (Michele, I still can't believe you put up that !@#$% post.)

Michele has left not only the AFT but also the blogosphere, so her time playing the celebrity look-alike game is probably over.  But I'm sure she'll find other fun and rewarding work at Teach For America, where she has landed.  I understand the TFAers already think highly of her, and I can assure them that the more they work with her, the more they will like and respect her. 

But enough about her.  What about me?  I am forsaken and forlorn.  The blog will never be the same.  Readers can expect weaker stuff from me until I finish mourning and figure out how to do this without Michele.  Beth and Ed, of course, will continue to write good stuff, and maybe we'll get some sucker to try to fill Michele's shoes. Still, we're unlikely to find anyone who is in Michele's league when it comes to weaving folkster-hipster-alternative-classic rock into blog posts.  All we can do is try our best.

Posted by John at 03:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)