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News & ArtsThursday, April 2, 2009
City The Education Secretary Disagrees With Me (But I Still Think I'm Right)
Posted by Erica C. Barnett on Thu, Apr 2, 2009 at 11:34 AM
In this week's In the Hall, I critiqued mayoral candidate Mike McGinn's three-point campaign platform, which includes a promise to take over the Seattle schools in two years if they haven't shown measurable improvement. I noted in my column that "taking the schools over is hardly a panacea. According to a recent report by the Milwaukee, Wisconsin, school district, which is contemplating a mayoral takeover, governance reform doesn't have 'sustainable impacts on student achievement' and 'requires repeated efforts over several years.'" I concluded that McGinn's two-year timeline for improvements seemed either "wildly optimistic—or wildly cynical."
For the record, I suspect the former—turning around our schools, even if it can be done (and the data suggests otherwise), would take a new mayor more than two years under the best of circumstances (and right now, with the state education budget under siege, Seattle schools are in the worst). However, this morning, McGinn alerted me to an AP story that ran in the Seattle Times about Obama's education secretary Arne Duncan, who told a forum of mayors and school superintendents this week that mayors should be allowed to seize control of big-city schools.
Urban school superintendents generally last three years or less, Duncan noted. He acknowledged Baltimore schools chief Andres Alonso, asking how many superintendents the city had in the past 10 years. The answer was seven."And you wonder why school systems are struggling," Duncan said. "What business would run that way?"
After the forum, Duncan told The Associated Press that urban schools need someone who is accountable to voters and driving all of a city's resources behind children.
"Part of the reason urban education has struggled historically is you haven't had that leadership from the top," he said.
"That lack of stability, that lack of leadership is a huge part of the reason you don't see sustained progress and growth," Duncan said.
Of course, mayors can be voted out of office after four years—accountability to the voters hardly ensures stability. My sense is that as long as we keep cutting funding for education (the current senate budget, for example, cuts spending for K-12 and higher ed by $2 billion), no one—not an appointed school superintendent who serves at will, or a mayor accountable to the voters every four years—will be able to reduce the achievement gap. Our schools need leadership—but they also need money.
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Union 'educators' come to see school systems as jobs programs rather than places where children are to be educated. It takes a drastic wrenching of control away to alter the status quo in a meaningful way.
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Will, how has a mandated public good being unionized worked out for children's education over the past 30 years?
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I am a teacher and i have to say yes, the unions are certainly part of the problem. As long as the NEA has a stranglehold on the profession there will be no innovation, and the kids suffer.
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If "teacher's unions" are so powerful and have so much influence, then why are public schools the first places to see cuts and why do teachers bear the brunt of layoffs?
Schools work just fine when teachers and parents with plenty of resources are given the space to do their work - it's when the state and federal governments impose requirements that have nothing to do with educating kids and everything to do with getting votes that we run into problems. Millions of dollars in (redundant) training, limited grants, and special programs reduce the amount of money that is spent on essentials like textbooks and TEACHERS. Legislators (and voters) can't admit that they don't know anything about educational systems, so rather than cut their precious programs, they cut essentials.
Expect more school closures, up to 50 kids per classroom, and declining student performance as we continue to pile on standardized testing, standardizing curriculum, and make most funds available to schools through grants. We've regulated all the good out of schools.
Schools work just fine when teachers and parents with plenty of resources are given the space to do their work - it's when the state and federal governments impose requirements that have nothing to do with educating kids and everything to do with getting votes that we run into problems. Millions of dollars in (redundant) training, limited grants, and special programs reduce the amount of money that is spent on essentials like textbooks and TEACHERS. Legislators (and voters) can't admit that they don't know anything about educational systems, so rather than cut their precious programs, they cut essentials.
Expect more school closures, up to 50 kids per classroom, and declining student performance as we continue to pile on standardized testing, standardizing curriculum, and make most funds available to schools through grants. We've regulated all the good out of schools.
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If only it were so simple. Yes, unions are a part of the problem, but also, public education over the past thirty years has a lot of bright spots too. One of the things the conservatives never talk about is special education, whereby difficult students are educated no matter how expensive, whereas in the past they were just locked in back bedrooms forever. That's a cost that homeschoolers and charter advocates and expensive private schools never bear.
What I don't understand is this: who's the mayor going to appoint to run the schools? Because he's sure as hell not going to do it himself. He's going to be drawing applicants from exactly the same pool as the current superintendant searches. So I don't see a gain there, which kind of craps on Duncan's argument.
There might be some administrative gains, and there might not.
What I don't understand is this: who's the mayor going to appoint to run the schools? Because he's sure as hell not going to do it himself. He's going to be drawing applicants from exactly the same pool as the current superintendant searches. So I don't see a gain there, which kind of craps on Duncan's argument.
There might be some administrative gains, and there might not.
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mcginn's answer is simplistic, but smart politically. nobody likes the way the schools are run, anybody with a handful of duckets sends their kids elsewhere, and the school board is a part-time joke.
the response of, "give them tons of money" is equally simplistic and data doesn't prove it helps.
there are many factors, but doing what we're doing today isn't working.
the response of, "give them tons of money" is equally simplistic and data doesn't prove it helps.
there are many factors, but doing what we're doing today isn't working.
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Costs per pupils at non-union secular private schools are more expensive per student then public schools. The only reason religious schools are booked cheaper per student is because the Church covers capital expenditures--that cost isn't factored in. See:
http://angrybear.blogspot.com/2008/07/ed…
The EFF and others don't actually crunch the data, they just provide emotional rhetoric. But I guess it's more cost effective to memorize talking points then it is to do actual research?
http://angrybear.blogspot.com/2008/07/ed…
The EFF and others don't actually crunch the data, they just provide emotional rhetoric. But I guess it's more cost effective to memorize talking points then it is to do actual research?
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If you ask me, I think the problem is not JUST with funding (which is by far the biggest problem) but ALSO with the superintendent/school board governance structure, which diffuses power and authority and bogs things down.
When we talk about governmental and political structures, checks and balances make a great deal of sense, which is why we have mayors and councils and Congress and the President.
But school systems are excessively politicized, and the governance structure actually promotes this politicization and resultant inefficiency.
One thing that plagues big school districts also is the disproportionate influence of a vocal minority who oppose this or that new policy at each turn. I'm all for parental involvement in the schools, which is essential, but Seattle's school system bureaucrats really live in fear of parents going bonkers over any little thing--to the point where the uproar about a given math curriculum results in the same paroxysms as the uproar about racism or child abuse. Proportionality of response is totally absent. I think we need to reduce parents' voice on school district issues and increase their voice on issues in specific schools where their kids go.
It would work far better, in my opinion, if we thought out of the box on school system governance and moved away from the superintendent/board system.
For instance, why not disband the schoolboard and move to one elected superintendent (maybe a 6 year term) who appoints an "education cabinet" with city council approval. This then rests some responsibility for schools with the council, but creates a school district system that is at once responsible to the voters but also empowered to make innovative changes. Also, it can't be paralyzed by hysterical opposition. Just an idea.
More...
When we talk about governmental and political structures, checks and balances make a great deal of sense, which is why we have mayors and councils and Congress and the President.
But school systems are excessively politicized, and the governance structure actually promotes this politicization and resultant inefficiency.
One thing that plagues big school districts also is the disproportionate influence of a vocal minority who oppose this or that new policy at each turn. I'm all for parental involvement in the schools, which is essential, but Seattle's school system bureaucrats really live in fear of parents going bonkers over any little thing--to the point where the uproar about a given math curriculum results in the same paroxysms as the uproar about racism or child abuse. Proportionality of response is totally absent. I think we need to reduce parents' voice on school district issues and increase their voice on issues in specific schools where their kids go.
It would work far better, in my opinion, if we thought out of the box on school system governance and moved away from the superintendent/board system.
For instance, why not disband the schoolboard and move to one elected superintendent (maybe a 6 year term) who appoints an "education cabinet" with city council approval. This then rests some responsibility for schools with the council, but creates a school district system that is at once responsible to the voters but also empowered to make innovative changes. Also, it can't be paralyzed by hysterical opposition. Just an idea.
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@9 I never said that the NEA discourages people from becoming teachers. What the NEA does is squelch any attempt to hold teachers and administrators accountable for their performance. And they are dead set against merit pay and vouchers (which aren't perfect ideas, but hell, whats the harm in trying something new?) One size fits all education does not work, we need more options. What we're doing now is not working. Not even close.
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The problem could be that the whole universal education thing is based upon one big false assumtion, that everybody can be educated and during one certain span of life.
Or put another way, perhaps the real problem with compulsory education is that it is compulsory.
Or put another way, perhaps the real problem with compulsory education is that it is compulsory.
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The problem with the teachers unions is that, generally, their first priority is what's good for the union itself (perhaps more specifically, the union leadership), the second is what's good for teachers, and the last is what's good for students. Which is, if I were running a school, exactly the opposite of what my priorities would be.
There was just an instance last year, where the WEA shot down a proposal to pay bonuses to teachers whose students performed well on AP tests. If I were a teacher in Washington, I would have been pretty upset by this -- it was basically free money for the state (from a foundation grant) that could have put more money in my pocket. The union was just concerned that the whole thing would sap their power -- negotiating/controlling pay is their primary purpose, and if they don't control that process, what do they do?
There was just an instance last year, where the WEA shot down a proposal to pay bonuses to teachers whose students performed well on AP tests. If I were a teacher in Washington, I would have been pretty upset by this -- it was basically free money for the state (from a foundation grant) that could have put more money in my pocket. The union was just concerned that the whole thing would sap their power -- negotiating/controlling pay is their primary purpose, and if they don't control that process, what do they do?
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It's not just special education. At my private high school, you could be permanently expelled just for skipping class for a week. The public school system has to put up with endless amounts of bullshit from students because those students are entitled to an education.
One of the things the conservatives never talk about is special education, whereby difficult students are educated no matter how expensive, whereas in the past they were just locked in back bedrooms forever.
It's not just special education. At my private high school, you could be permanently expelled just for skipping class for a week. The public school system has to put up with endless amounts of bullshit from students because those students are entitled to an education.
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@12, merit pay for teachers is a retarded idea (and opposed by the NEA) for a few reasons:
- Who sets the criteria that they are measured against?
- Who conducts the evaluations?
- Who manages the process?
It would add a layer of bureaucracy to our educational system that is not needed.
Administrators should be held accountable for their management of resources, no doubt. But, again, the same questions arise.
I'm with #11 on this one - the problem lies with how the system is governed. When schools were managed at the local level, before the state stepped in, performance was the rule. We've created a system so unwieldy with multiple levels, none of which have any real decision making authority, that creating a performance-based employment system is untenable and too costly.
- Who sets the criteria that they are measured against?
- Who conducts the evaluations?
- Who manages the process?
It would add a layer of bureaucracy to our educational system that is not needed.
Administrators should be held accountable for their management of resources, no doubt. But, again, the same questions arise.
I'm with #11 on this one - the problem lies with how the system is governed. When schools were managed at the local level, before the state stepped in, performance was the rule. We've created a system so unwieldy with multiple levels, none of which have any real decision making authority, that creating a performance-based employment system is untenable and too costly.
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Fnarf - good point about special ed, but one minor nitpick. Charter schools accept all comers (if there are more applications than spots, a lottery is held), so they have Special Ed departments just like traditional public schools.
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@13, Agreed.
@14, Do you know how AP testing works? It's run by the same company that handles the SATs. They get paid a shitload of money for installing their programs in schools and then get paid a shitload of money for administering the tests. The WEA is right to keep the College Boards as far away from teacher pay & performance as possible - standardized testing companies are the Blackwaters of education.
@14, Do you know how AP testing works? It's run by the same company that handles the SATs. They get paid a shitload of money for installing their programs in schools and then get paid a shitload of money for administering the tests. The WEA is right to keep the College Boards as far away from teacher pay & performance as possible - standardized testing companies are the Blackwaters of education.
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@16 - I have to disagree about merit pay. Plenty of academic studies have shown that the students of teachers with masters degrees don't necessarily perform any better than those without. And, the value of experience in terms of student performance has generally been shown to taper off after about 4-5 years (i.e., new teachers make significant performance gains in their first 1-2 years, but the difference in performance between a 5th year teacher and a 10th year teacher is minimal). So, why do we invest the most resources in places where we see little to no return?
To look at it from a more personal/human angle, my aunt has been a teacher for over 30 years, and just received a national teacher of the year award. Is it fair that she makes the same amount of money as the mediocre teacher across the hall who probably hasn't even written a new lesson plan in 10 years?
There have been plenty of instances of schools that have successfully employed merit pay for teachers (see Minnesota's Q Comp program, Denver's ProComp program, or the Vaughn Next Century Learning center in LA). Is it easy? No, of course not. It's much easier to look at the experience/degree table and have pay be formulaic.
To answer your questions... The most successful schools have generally set up an evaluation committee, comprised of administrators and (most importantly) teacher leaders. This usually involves implementing some sort of teacher career ladder (which will pay teachers more for taking on leadership roles). Best practices include giving teachers the change to have meaningful input into the design of the system, having both classroom evaluations/observations and student performance goals play a role in the program, having different evaluators assessing teachers multiple times throughout the year, having a fair/effective appeal process, etc.
Frankly, I think merit pay is the key to raising teacher pay as a whole. If it was me making policy decisions, I would not be inclined to invest more money in teacher pay, knowing that all teachers, regardless of how good they are, would be getting those funds. If I had my own school, I would be happy to have higher starting salaries (and more rapid salary advancement) for teachers, if I knew that I could get rid of the bad ones and direct funds to the high performers.
More...
To look at it from a more personal/human angle, my aunt has been a teacher for over 30 years, and just received a national teacher of the year award. Is it fair that she makes the same amount of money as the mediocre teacher across the hall who probably hasn't even written a new lesson plan in 10 years?
There have been plenty of instances of schools that have successfully employed merit pay for teachers (see Minnesota's Q Comp program, Denver's ProComp program, or the Vaughn Next Century Learning center in LA). Is it easy? No, of course not. It's much easier to look at the experience/degree table and have pay be formulaic.
To answer your questions... The most successful schools have generally set up an evaluation committee, comprised of administrators and (most importantly) teacher leaders. This usually involves implementing some sort of teacher career ladder (which will pay teachers more for taking on leadership roles). Best practices include giving teachers the change to have meaningful input into the design of the system, having both classroom evaluations/observations and student performance goals play a role in the program, having different evaluators assessing teachers multiple times throughout the year, having a fair/effective appeal process, etc.
Frankly, I think merit pay is the key to raising teacher pay as a whole. If it was me making policy decisions, I would not be inclined to invest more money in teacher pay, knowing that all teachers, regardless of how good they are, would be getting those funds. If I had my own school, I would be happy to have higher starting salaries (and more rapid salary advancement) for teachers, if I knew that I could get rid of the bad ones and direct funds to the high performers.
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@16
Your objections are merely procedural, and never do you say persuasively argue that there are no workable answers to the questions you raise.
Never do you say that merit-based wouldn't achieve results. Does anyone seriously think that students would suffer if teachers were paid based on merit? If so, please explain why students would receive a worse education.
Your objections are merely procedural, and never do you say persuasively argue that there are no workable answers to the questions you raise.
- Who sets the criteria that they are measured against>How about the School Board? How about the principal? How about a local school oversight board comprised of parents and local community members?
- Who conducts the evaluations?How about the principal? A local oversight board?
- Who manages the process?Does this matter? How about the principal?
Never do you say that merit-based wouldn't achieve results. Does anyone seriously think that students would suffer if teachers were paid based on merit? If so, please explain why students would receive a worse education.
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@23 - Good points... Just a thought in response. One of the critiques of merit pay is that Principals shouldn't wield all the power. Principals have a reputation for playing favorites, and, knowing that, many teachers doubt their ability to fairly manage the process. That's why a committee is generally viewed as most acceptable by teachers/other stakeholders.
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Look, my line of thought is this: the system is fucked, and I would be willing to throw everything against the wall to see what sticks. The NEA is inflexible and doesn't want to try anything new. And that, my friends, is why I am anti teacher union (add to this the fact that the fuckers take 80 bucks out of every paycheck).
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@23 - I don't raise any ideological objections because performance-based pay works. It works like a motherfucker. BUT IT WORKS IN NON-BUREAUCRATIC/NON-GOVERNMENTAL SETTINGS.
I have enough experience in the world of bureaucracy & education to believe that the system needs a complete management overhaul before this can ever work. There's a reason that civil servants don't have performance-based pay and it has everything to do with scaling, and as our system is currently constructed teachers are civil servants.
And don't even get me started on principals and everything that's wrong with that job and the people who take seek it out...
And Julie in Eugene, I agree in principle. But I just don't see it happening practically, and not just because of the WEA, but because our legislature will never let teachers and community members have that much control.
I have enough experience in the world of bureaucracy & education to believe that the system needs a complete management overhaul before this can ever work. There's a reason that civil servants don't have performance-based pay and it has everything to do with scaling, and as our system is currently constructed teachers are civil servants.
And don't even get me started on principals and everything that's wrong with that job and the people who take seek it out...
And Julie in Eugene, I agree in principle. But I just don't see it happening practically, and not just because of the WEA, but because our legislature will never let teachers and community members have that much control.
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@28, isn't the fundamental reason for that because of the way schools are funded?
http://social.jrank.org/pages/965/Trends…
http://social.jrank.org/pages/965/Trends…
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@25 - I'm glad you've never had to use your union for protection and that you've never benefited from a collective bargaining agreement. Do you work in a closed shop?
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@4 - I don't know, how has being constantly angry at the world continuing to ignore your existence worked for you?
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@28
You say that, and you rail against principals. Sounds to me like you're just anti-management. That's fine, you probably have your reasons. But what exactly do you propose? How should management of schools be changed, and why would your proposed changes in management benefit public-school students?
There is no law of physics or law of economics or law of anything that says merit-based pay does not work in governmental settings. In most employment situations, managers attempt to reward good employees (pay raises, promotions, etc) and punish bad employees (no raises, firings, etc). They do the best they can, applying subjective standards (e.g., "Does this person get along well with the team?") and objective measurements (how do Charlie's sales compare to the other sales representatives). It's a human endeavor, so evaluations of employee performance will inevitably be imperfect, regardless of whether the setting is a business or a school. But should we discard a good thing simply because there isn't a perfect way to measure teacher performance? I say no. The potential benefits are substantial---increases in teacher pay and improvements in overall teacher quality.
And look, there is a basic political reality. Taxpayers WILL NOT keep opening their wallets for schools without concomitant school reforms. If taxpayers are going to agree to substantially increase expenditures on schools, teachers and our political leaders need to demonstrate that they will deliver results. Doing the same old thing won't cut it.
I have enough experience in the world of bureaucracy & education to believe that the system needs a complete management overhaul before this can ever work.
You say that, and you rail against principals. Sounds to me like you're just anti-management. That's fine, you probably have your reasons. But what exactly do you propose? How should management of schools be changed, and why would your proposed changes in management benefit public-school students?
There is no law of physics or law of economics or law of anything that says merit-based pay does not work in governmental settings. In most employment situations, managers attempt to reward good employees (pay raises, promotions, etc) and punish bad employees (no raises, firings, etc). They do the best they can, applying subjective standards (e.g., "Does this person get along well with the team?") and objective measurements (how do Charlie's sales compare to the other sales representatives). It's a human endeavor, so evaluations of employee performance will inevitably be imperfect, regardless of whether the setting is a business or a school. But should we discard a good thing simply because there isn't a perfect way to measure teacher performance? I say no. The potential benefits are substantial---increases in teacher pay and improvements in overall teacher quality.
And look, there is a basic political reality. Taxpayers WILL NOT keep opening their wallets for schools without concomitant school reforms. If taxpayers are going to agree to substantially increase expenditures on schools, teachers and our political leaders need to demonstrate that they will deliver results. Doing the same old thing won't cut it.
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@33 - I typically don't respond to no-name commenters, but you're not actually trolling so here goes:
I'm not anti-management. I'm all about effective people management. Principals are not hired to manage teachers they way a sales manager is hired to manage sales people. Principals (and educational administrators) are hired to manage resources and programs. They deliver the mandates of the legislature to their schools. They are also expected to manage the disciplinary programs of their schools - and in small schools, all sports and extracurricular programs.
Twice a year (sometimes once a year or not at all, depending) they sit in a teacher's classroom and observe instruction. They note what part of the instruction meets the state standards, what doesn't, and, if it's a brand new teacher, whether or not to keep them. Beyond that, their interactions with teachers have very little to do with instruction and student performance and have more to do with managing "problem" students and teachers who cause serious problems (see: perverts, jackasses, rapists). There's no "development" of teachers with potential, it's pass/fail.
I don't think that kind of management would validate performance-based pay.
I think that a 360-degree eval system could work. But who manages the process for a school? The principal who already has the day to day operations and ongoing fight for resources to deal with? Some district level person whose job is to manage performance? Who delivers the reviews? THESE ARE IMPORTANT DETAILS TO MAKE PAY-FOR-PERFORMANCE WORK. And these are the details that people pooh-pooh. For performance-based pay to be successful, you need to have people close to the ground doing the work.
Principals are the last people that we should be looking at to manage teachers, just like the last people that should be deciding student performance standards and curriculum are politicians. They just don't have a clue.
More...
I'm not anti-management. I'm all about effective people management. Principals are not hired to manage teachers they way a sales manager is hired to manage sales people. Principals (and educational administrators) are hired to manage resources and programs. They deliver the mandates of the legislature to their schools. They are also expected to manage the disciplinary programs of their schools - and in small schools, all sports and extracurricular programs.
Twice a year (sometimes once a year or not at all, depending) they sit in a teacher's classroom and observe instruction. They note what part of the instruction meets the state standards, what doesn't, and, if it's a brand new teacher, whether or not to keep them. Beyond that, their interactions with teachers have very little to do with instruction and student performance and have more to do with managing "problem" students and teachers who cause serious problems (see: perverts, jackasses, rapists). There's no "development" of teachers with potential, it's pass/fail.
I don't think that kind of management would validate performance-based pay.
I think that a 360-degree eval system could work. But who manages the process for a school? The principal who already has the day to day operations and ongoing fight for resources to deal with? Some district level person whose job is to manage performance? Who delivers the reviews? THESE ARE IMPORTANT DETAILS TO MAKE PAY-FOR-PERFORMANCE WORK. And these are the details that people pooh-pooh. For performance-based pay to be successful, you need to have people close to the ground doing the work.
Principals are the last people that we should be looking at to manage teachers, just like the last people that should be deciding student performance standards and curriculum are politicians. They just don't have a clue.
35
Soupytwist – You are absolutely right about the role of the Principal needing to change from more of an administrator to a manager of people (focused on developing teachers) in order for merit pay to be successful. But, there’s no rule or law that says that how a Principal’s role is currently defined is how it needs to be. Principals that are more people managers do exist, particularly at places like charter schools where they are able to operate “outside the system” to a certain extent. Some charter schools are even experimenting with breaking up the Principal role into two positions – a financial/operations-oriented position, and a “Head of Instruction”-type position.
In the spirit of full disclosure, I should probably add that about half of my job entails working at the school level on designing/implementing performance pay-type programs… I know performance pay can work, but, like you, I’m worried about the details of performance pay getting lost in the shuffle. I strongly believe that the idea is a solid one, but, it is definitely possible to screw it up if you get the details and implementation wrong. In that way it’s similar to NCLB – accountability itself is not a bad idea, but the devil’s in the details, and they sure didn’t get the details right on that one.
So, I’m hopeful that with a new administration, they’re not going to screw up the details. I’m honestly curious how Obama is going to go about getting merit pay to happen on a federal level…
In the spirit of full disclosure, I should probably add that about half of my job entails working at the school level on designing/implementing performance pay-type programs… I know performance pay can work, but, like you, I’m worried about the details of performance pay getting lost in the shuffle. I strongly believe that the idea is a solid one, but, it is definitely possible to screw it up if you get the details and implementation wrong. In that way it’s similar to NCLB – accountability itself is not a bad idea, but the devil’s in the details, and they sure didn’t get the details right on that one.
So, I’m hopeful that with a new administration, they’re not going to screw up the details. I’m honestly curious how Obama is going to go about getting merit pay to happen on a federal level…
36
Julie in Eugene - I kind of guessed that you were shill when you pulled that research out. ;-)
I strongly believe there is a need to overhaul the management of schools and that there are better ways of doing things - the skeptic in me doesn't believe that the legislature will ever let it happen, because it would require more staff at the school level and it would give teachers and administrators too much power over their own destinies.
So, it's all well and good to talk about performance-based pay, but until we address the management issues and money issues passed down by the legislature, it's just talk.
I strongly believe there is a need to overhaul the management of schools and that there are better ways of doing things - the skeptic in me doesn't believe that the legislature will ever let it happen, because it would require more staff at the school level and it would give teachers and administrators too much power over their own destinies.
So, it's all well and good to talk about performance-based pay, but until we address the management issues and money issues passed down by the legislature, it's just talk.
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