May 2010 Archives

The AFT and NEA might want to start rethinking their "we're special and should be protected from budget cuts because we're there for the kids" strategy. Kevin Manahan, of the Newark Star-Ledger editorial board, wrote a column last week suggesting that, at least in New Jersey, the union shtick has worn thin. His beat down of the New Jersey Education Association may serve as a useful cautionary flag for teachers unions across the land. (Just check out the raft of reader comments Manahan has attracted; a quick scan seems to suggest they're running strongly anti-union).

I'm not in the habit of telling anyone how to angle for a raise, but the unions might want to think about the risks of misplaying their hand and whether that will cost them crucial goodwill as states wrestle with tough budget choices in 2011 and beyond.

So what did Manahan have to say? He wrote: "In an astonishing fall from grace that has taken only months, [New Jersey's] teachers have gone from respected and beloved members of the community to some of the most reviled. In a blink, they have trashed years of good will."

He continued:

"At Saturday's rally in Trenton, teachers wondered when the Earth started spinning in the other direction.

"It's like we woke up one morning and the world had changed," said Linda Mirabelli, a music teacher in Livingston. "We were liked and respected, and now, overnight, people have turned against us."

How did it happen? That's easy: One bad decision, one stupid miscalculation: An overwhelming majority of teachers refused to accept a pay freeze. They could have won taxpayers' eternal gratitude, but instead demanded their negotiated raises and fought against contributing a dime toward budget-breaking health insurance benefits. Teachers could have pitched in, but they dug in.

They thumbed their noses at taxpayers, who have lost their jobs, had their pay cut, gone bankrupt and fallen into foreclosure. As taxpayers made less, teachers demanded more. You do that, you become a villain. Fast. It doesn't matter how many stars Junior gets on his book report.

Teachers listened to their overpaid brain trust, the architects of this disastrous public relations strategy. Together, NJEA president Barbara Keshishian, executive director Vincent Giordano and spokesman Steve Wollmer earn more than a million dollars. Keshishian, who has been outmaneuvered by the governor at every turn, earns $256,450 annually. Giordano, with salary and deferred compensation, earned $550,203 in 2009, and Wollmer makes $300,000."

Finally, Manahan concluded:

"And now the NJEA is now running TV commercials, attacking Christie (again), this time using cops and firemen for cover, hoping the public still likes those guys. The firefighters union, realizing the teachers union is now toxic, says it never would have approved the commercial, but the NJEA never asked.

NJEA leadership should have seen the backlash coming. Tenure, raises, pensions, health care benefits and an aversion toward merit pay have irked taxpayers for years. The recession ignited that anger, and no last-gasp advertising blitz will change the perception of insensitive teachers who told taxpayers to eat chalk.

So, the question is: Was it worth it?

The average public school teacher makes $63,000, and the average raise this year was roughly 4 percent, so teachers traded $2,520 for these scars, which never will heal. And because Christie and taxpayers asked only for a one-year pay freeze, it's money teachers could have recovered next year.

Imagine how differently teachers would be perceived today if they had agreed to a pay freeze and willingly offered a few bucks toward their health policies. They'd be heroes."

As one wit observed, "If people think you are rude and obnoxious in New Jersey, you know you have a problem." Dennis van Roekel, you might want to get hold of that new speechwriter I'd suggested.

Posted by Rick Hess at 9:00 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Regular readers know that I'm highly skeptical of the proposed $23 billion bailout championed by Senator Harkin and Secretary Duncan and now being carried forward in the House by Representative David Obey. Happily, the prospects for this ill-conceived proposal seem to be sinking. The legislation ignores the fact that many states flew through two years of stimulus money in the first year, rewards states and districts for the hiring binge they've been on, reduces the impetus for districts to make serious management decisions, violates the President's pledge to embark on a discretionary spending freeze, and merely kicks the can down the road on crucial challenges. The Washington Post's opinion pages are also all over the story today, running a fatuous op-ed in which Christina Romer, chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, tries her hand at political hackery, as well as a no-holds-barred editorial that slams the proposal.

But let's set all that aside for the moment and consider that the $23 billion is being touted for its ability to save as many as 300,000 education jobs and then do the math. That works out to $76,700 per job preserved. Now that's peculiar, because the Bureau of Labor Statistics tells us that K-12 teachers only earn about $50,000 a year. Even including the extravagant benefits that teachers enjoy, the figure works out to something less than $65,000 a head (and, it's worth asking, even if we're eager to subsidize these jobs, do we really want to borrow dollars so as to preserve unaffordable, generous benefits?). Meanwhile, most of the other jobs being preserved appear to be for individuals who earn less than teachers do. So I'm just curious as to how on earth it should cost that much to keep each employee in place--especially when prevailing "last hired, first fired" policies mean that most teachers being protected would be newer, and therefore cheaper, hires.

And all of this presumes you take the numbers proffered by the White House Council of Economic Advisers at face value. I'm pretty sure skepticism is warranted on that count. In fact, Nick Anderson's WaPo story yesterday pointed out that estimates of jobs saved vary from 100,000 to 300,000, with the unions themselves reporting that about 160,000 teacher jobs may be on the line. If one uses the 100,000 figure, for instance, the cost-per-job-saved is about $230,000. I would think that figure ludicrous, except this is Washington we're talking about--and that number is actually pretty consistent with some of the mainstream calculations from ARRA.

After carefully trying to keep its fingerprints off requests for extra unfunded spending (recall that "domestic spending freeze" and the promise to stop "kicking the can down the road" on tough choices), the White House yesterday blasted out a full-throated endorsement of the Harkin-Obey bailout. I'm curious as to whether the administration thinks the NEA, school boards, or school administrators have been more willing to accept tough measures in gratitude for the $100 billion bailout they received last year. As best I can tell, the "give now, get gratitude later" strategy hasn't done much to ease the path of reform. So, while I get that Senator Harkin just wants to placate the NEA, I wonder what our reform-minded Secretary thinks he's getting in return for his frenzied efforts to borrow and spend another no-strings-attached $23 billion? I'll tell you, for an administration with a lot of smart folks and more than its share of lawyers, these guys haven't impressed at the negotiating table.

All of this adds another depressing dimension to the administration's promise that last year's stimulus bill would be about both reform and recovery. Duncan certainly deserves plaudits for serving as a visible and outspoken advocate for reform. And the President has spoken out admirably on merit pay and charter schooling. But when it comes to the "money where your mouth is" test, we saw ARRA include about $100 billion in free edu-cash and perhaps $5 billion for reform, and now we're watching the administration push hard to borrow another $23 billion in jobs money--with no strings attached. I don't know about you, but a mix that's 4% reform and 96% status quo isn't real high octane in my book.

Posted by Rick Hess at 9:20 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Yesterday, the Aspen Institute hosted Secretary Duncan and i3 chief Jim Shelton for a lunch conversation on educational innovation. There were maybe 35 or 40 folks in attendance, including hotshot supes Jack Dale and Jerry Weast, a handful of influential wonks, a smattering of reporters, reform studs like Common Core avatar David Coleman and New Leaders honcho Jon Schnur, NEA executive director John Wilson, and other assorted heavyweights.

On the whole, I thought it was better than Duncan's formal speeches. He spoke without any evident notes, pretty much steered clear of the "it's for the kids" rhetoric, didn't filibuster, and was admirably direct in responding to some questions--issuing strong affirmative answers to questions about whether the feds should financially penalize colleges which don't graduate students and whether textbooks are an anachronism.

Not much news, but a few points of interest. As Andy Rotherham pointed out yesterday, Duncan said multiple times that he anticipates only about 70 i3 winners--which would mean that more than 95% of applicants can expect to come up empty. And Duncan indicated that he doesn't want to hear any more complaints about "Russian judges" from the losers, but does want to hear ideas for improving the quality of reviewing. Not entirely clear to me the distinction being drawn between carping and constructive feedback. His Russian judges crack sounded like a surefire way to discourage criticism from those who want to stay off the Secretary's naughty list. But we'll see.

I was struck when i3 came up by the complete absence of any mention (by the Secretary, Shelton, or the audience) about the risk that Congress's priorities and the emphasis on particular kinds of evidence might stunt or stifle the range of innovative efforts that don't fit. That's especially true given the foundation pile-on and the degree to which the limited number of i3 winners may wind up consuming a large amount of the philanthropic oxygen over the next year or more.

The Secretary also signaled that we can expect roughly 10 winners in round two of Race to the Top, and he issued a clear call for Congress to fund additional RTT and i3 competitions. He reminded everyone that the School Improvement Grant (SIG) program offers about as much money as RTT, but has garnered only a tiny fraction of the attention--and then suggested that SIG might ultimately prove to be the more significant effort. An honest and perceptive take, and a reason why it's important that we talk much more fully and critically about the various SIG models than we have to date.

Two particular points during the conversation gave me pause. First, the Secretary signaled that he's open to altering federal funding for higher education so as to reward institutions that are graduating students and containing costs. He hit the attainment point hard several different times and I'm with him on principle. My concern, though, is that there was no point at which he acknowledged that institutions of higher education can boost completion rates by doing good work...or by diluting standards or otherwise just pushing students through. Would've liked to see him raise a cautionary flag here.

Second, as he also did on Capitol Hill yesterday, the Secretary went out of his way to shill for the Harkin-Obey $23 billion school bailout. Later on, he alluded to the need to both promote cost-effective reinvention and for superintendents and states to make tough choices. But that's a hard message to sell when he's aggressively pushing another unconditional bailout and when his signature efforts like RTT, SIG, and i3 place little or no emphasis on rewarding cost-cutting or heightened efficiency. The Secretary never so much as acknowledged that a windfall might blunt the need to move on costs. Nor did I hear him use questions on charter schooling, the anachronistic nature of textbooks, or plaintive calls for more dollars as an opportunity to call for innovation geared to rethinking the cost structure of schooling. And there wasn't a murmured word about how old-school ESEA provisions governing "maintenance of effort" or "supplement, not supplant" might stifle innovation or deserve a fresh look in a world of constrained spending.

On the whole, not a bad performance. Certainly a more serious and substantial discussion of innovation than I ever heard from any of the Secretary's predecessors. So he deserves props for that. But I do worry that a lot of this discussion feels like shilling, because there's a decided inattention (at least in public) to anticipating potential problems and preparing to counter them.

Posted by Rick Hess at 9:03 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

California Congresswoman Judy Chu's office has issued a fierce indictment of the School Improvement Grant (SIG) program. The report, with pretensions of quasi-scholarly cred, has attracted the notice of some SIG advocates. Chu's analysis, with the assistance of a couple dozen exceptionally vague citations, argues, "Instead of providing teachers and administrators with the tools necessary to build better schools, the [SIG] models deprive schools with the flexibility necessary to respond to the specific needs of their students." Chu references the Commission on No Child Left Behind approvingly, arguing that the Commission "has asserted that it is critical to fully understand and to comprehensively address students' behavioral, social, and emotional needs as well as their academic needs," and she argues that any such effort should precede "punitive" measures.

Chu wants us to back off the teachers and to promote the "bigger and bolder" crowd's call for increased attention to the students' mental health, community engagement, and so on. In her own words, "Research has shown that the environment a child grows up in will have a powerful influence on how they will approach school. Support and wraparound services for children not only have to be provided, they have to be integrated into a school's strategy for success." Not surprisingly, her document has been greeted with enthusiasm by the likes of NEA chief Dennis Van Roekel, who wrote, "NEA applauds Rep. Judy Chu for her school improvement framework, which promotes collaboration, removes barriers to student success, and encourages community-supported solutions that will last."

In truth, I have a fair bit of sympathy for Chu's premise. Her document makes at least three valid points. First, it's absolutely fair to say that no one has any real idea how to systematically intervene in or successfully improve lousy schools. Second, it's true that the billions in SIG funding are based on being broadly prescriptive about permissible models when we honestly don't have any reason to be confident that the measures will have the intended effect. Third, Chu's "bigger and bolder"-esque assertion that stuff like family engagement and community health care can play an important role in boosting school success has an obvious plausibility.

Now, that said, there are a number of substantial problems with Chu's stance. First, the standard of evidence posed is massively inconsistent. It's true that we don't know how to transform or turnaround lousy schools, but it's at least as true that no one knows how to use community health services or spur parental engagement in a fashion that yields consistent school improvement. Second, focusing attention on lousy schools and creating political cover for overhauling staffing, leadership, norms, and program design makes good sense. Chu's model would excuse the status quo and allow educators to shirk accountability for student learning, while throwing responsibility for improvement onto everyone's (and, therefore, no one's) shoulders.

Third, Chu's preferred community-centric reforms are indistinct, largely beyond the control of educators, and reliant on community programs that have wildly divergent track records (with results that depend mightily on implementation and the willingness and ability of community groups to make them work). Finally, the track record of schools using the kinds of "flexible" approaches cited by Chu is certainly no better, in any systematic sense, than schools using more edu-centric improvement strategies. And, when it comes to that, we don't have even an inkling of the metrics to gauge whether dollars funding community efforts are being spent as intended.

My bottom line? I'm fine with more calls for flexibility under SIG, so long as states and/or districts have to meet some kind of performance criteria if they're permitted to spend SIG dollars on non-school services. Truth is, so long as an approach is producing desirable results, I'm fine with providing enormous flexibility. But that means the efforts need to deliver, and I'd like to see a claw back provision to recapture funds from those who were allowed to spend SIG dollars on non-school interventions and then fail to deliver results.

Posted by Rick Hess at 8:49 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

We're watching a slow-motion disaster unfold in the Gulf, as BP and Transoceanic fumble around with booms, siphons, and talk of "junk shots" while hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil a day spew into the Gulf. Our attention is focused on public hearings and how to contain the damage. Fair enough.

But we might want to take a moment to think about how we got here. We're drilling in deep-water and, at least up until a few weeks ago, were aiming to do a lot more of it because of our enormous appetite for crude oil. Perhaps the most elegant solution to this dilemma was offered back in 1993 by the Clinton Administration, when it proposed to help balance the budget by taxing Americans for the energy they actually consumed (this was Gore's "BTU" tax). The proposal would have used simple price incentives, rather than heavy-handed rules or mandates, to curb our energy appetite and ensure that the cost of oil more accurately reflected its actual social cost.

Of course, the BTU proposal went down, just as most calls to raise gas taxes typically do. So, today, we've wound up with massive ethanol subsidies and with Congress debating a convoluted "cap-and-trade" scheme--all so our elected officials can do something about energy without it being so transparent as directly raising our costs at the pump. Now, having failed to do anything to address the root causes, we are constantly on the march for more fuel (hello "drill, baby, drill!" and alliances with unsavory Middle Eastern monarchies). These measures are inevitably only short-term solutions (even a major offshore oil well will typically supply only a fraction of one percent of our oil needs for a limited period of time) and each creates new risks, but it's an easier course than actual self-discipline. So we avoid making tough choices, again. Because we refuse to restrain ourselves, we're still confronting our voracious appetite as well as these horrific consequences.

Now, analogies are always a tricky business because they depend on one's angle of vision. But, if you're standing where I am, this looks like a disheartening parallel to the world of school spending. There are crises brewing offshore: underfunded pensions and health care systems, unsustainable promises, and a delivery model that can only envision improvement if vast new sums are committed. That party train is eventually going to come crashing to a halt. Yet, instead of finding ways to address the root maladies, we're flailing about for new ways to prop up an undisciplined and unaffordable system. Rather than finally taking our bitter medicine, ARRA borrowed $100 billion to kick the can down the road on school spending. And Senator Tom Harkin, with the administration's vocal support, is proposing another $23 billion for the same purpose. Meanwhile, rather than embracing the opportunity and the challenge, superintendents are begging for waivers and new revenues that can help them forestall tough choices.

For me, the big lesson is that it's better and wiser to suck it up and deal with causes. We're going to have to pay the piper eventually anyway, so isn't it better to do so before states are eyeballing bond defaults and we've little energy left for anything other than blame-casting and public hearings? Indeed, the penalty for procrastinating on hard choices in a case like this is that we often end up with the worst of both worlds.

Posted by Rick Hess at 9:20 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

So long as we recognize that it is no wiser to romanticize them than to demonize them, we absolutely ought to welcome for-profits into the education sector. For that reason, recent administration moves to favor nonprofits and public operators and to marginalize for-profits, in areas such as i3 and higher education, are problematic.

For-profit providers rarely make an explicit case for their own existence, because they're so busy trying to curry favor with public officials and because parents are so worried about for-profits' public image. There's much discussion of choices and love of at-risk children, but little adult discussion of the benefits implicit in for-profit provision. While I've spent my entire working life in the employ of public entities and nonprofits (making me a peculiar defender of for-profits), I thought it's worth taking a moment to say a few things about for-profits that really should be said.

While they certainly boast their own set of potential weaknesses, for-profits also have unique strengths. Several of these are particularly relevant today. First, because for-profits seek to earn competitive returns for investors, promising entrepreneurs are positioned to tap vast sums through the private equity markets. Second, for-profits have a relentless, selfish imperative to seek out and adopt cost-efficiencies where nonprofit managers will typically move more gingerly (witness last week's hand-wringing about whether districts can possibly find ways to trim five or six percent of their teacher workforce). Third, for-profits have self-interested cause to expand (e.g. "scale") more rapidly than nonprofits. Fourth, a focus on the bottom line means that for-profits are more willing to shift their efforts or reallocate resources when circumstances warrant. In short, the discipline of being for profit can make organizations more nimble and quick-footed, whether the question is growth or a change in strategy.

Nonprofits have little incentive to become "early adopters" of cheaper or more uncertain tools and techniques. For example, if substituting online training for in-person professional development is found to be almost as effective and far cheaper, it seems only sensible to adopt it and redirect the new dollars to more useful pursuits. Of course, such shifts are often slowed up because managers may have personal relationship with trainers, veteran employees may like their workshop travel or distrust online training, and clients may resent the perception that they are being short-changed. Such pressures exist at both for-profits and nonprofits, of course. Without investors to reap the benefits of new efficiencies and push aggressively for cost savings, nonprofits tend to make the switch much more slowly (typically, they instead retain old training methods and layer a bit of the new on top). Self-interest tends to encourage a more aggressive pace at for-profits.

Of course, the uneven record of the private sector in the last decade reminds us that for-profits have significant limitations--to say the least. The incentive to cut costs can translate into an incentive to cut corners. The urge to grow can lead to unacceptable compromises in quality. These are real concerns that require careful attention. Nonetheless, while ideologically-inspired opposition, unproven business models, and the uneven financial results of some for-profits have raised questions about for-profit ventures, we should not therefore imagine that nonprofits can readily match their dexterity, capacity for scale, and aggressive cost cutting. There is an important role for public entities, nonprofits, and for-profits alike in the vast expanse of American schooling.

Posted by Rick Hess at 10:00 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Hey, nothing particularly funny, interesting, or incendiary today. Just an announcement, straight up, that I'm looking for a new research assistant as part of my AEI team. If you're just starting out, are intrigued by the chance to plunge into an array of K-12 and higher education issues, and want to see the world of education policy from a prestigious D.C. address (17th & M, to be exact), please shoot a note to my crack research assistant Daniel Lautzenheiser at dlautz@aei.org. One of the few perks, for those who might be interested, is that Daniel, along with his colleagues Jenna Schuette and Olivia Meeks, are three of the smartest and nicest folks with whom you could imagine working. Oh, and AEI is famous for its terrific chocolate chip cookies, too.

Posted by Rick Hess at 9:00 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

In Monday's Washington Post, education columnist Valerie Strauss took issue with Arizona superintendent Tom Horne for promoting legislation (focused primarily on ethnic studies classes) that "pretends to be about education but is all about politics." Strauss wrote, "If you think Arizona state government officials would have something better to do than go after an ethnic studies program they don't like, you'd be wrong."

Strauss reports that Horne is so over-the-top that he thought it inappropriate for a Hispanic activist to tell Tucson high school students that "Republicans hate Latinos." Maybe it's because I'm some kind of bitter partisan, but I totally understand why Horne might find that troubling.

So, what was Horne's big offense that set Strauss off? What pernicious agenda did he foist on Arizona's schools? Horne championed the recently enacted House Bill 2281, which states that "a school district or charter school...shall not include in its program of instruction any courses or classes that include any of the following:

• Promote the overthrow of the United States government.
• Promote resentment towards a race or class of people.
• Are designed primarily for pupils of a particular ethnic group.
• Advocate ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment of students as individuals."

The bill stipulates that the State Board of Education can withhold a portion of state aid that would otherwise be due to offending district or charter schools until the school is back in compliance...Radical stuff, huh?

Time was, oh, like last Tuesday, when charter critics were expressing concerns that charter schooling could lead to the balkanization of America and voiced fears that charters might promote racism or bias. In fact, charter proponents have been attacked as closeted racists because the absence of such prohibitions meant that conservative whites were free to use choice as an opportunity to flee to their own enclaves where they would indoctrinate students with racist sentiments. Talk about a no-win situation...Heck, even Strauss had previously written, "Few people would support a class that promotes resentment of a race [or] class of people, or the overthrow of our government."

So, now I'm just confused. I'm pretty sure Strauss doesn't think it's okay for schools to urge kids to overthrow the government or for them to fan ethnic or racial passions, so what's the beef?

Whatever Strauss thinks of Horne, whether she likes his politics or not, the four prohibitions seem to make pretty good sense--whether applied to district schools or charter schools. They give shape to the widely shared belief that public schools of any stripe ought to serve the public weal, promote mutual respect, and honor that which unifies us as Americans. Unlike Strauss, I don't see anything in there that would stop teachers from exploring "the role of Hispanics in the Vietnam War" or "emphasiz[ing] Latino authors." Indeed, I'm not sure I see anything that stops Latino activists from teaching Latino children that Republicans are the enemy. I merely see some reasonable boundaries to help ensure that schools and instructors don't go too far in pursuing their particular "pluribus" at the expense of our "unum."

Posted by Rick Hess at 8:42 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

I was out last week at the Education Writers Association conference in San Francisco. Impressive production, first-rate assemblage of veteran education writers (including Greg Toppo, Richard Colvin, Nick Anderson, Ben Wildavsky, Linda Perlstein, Scott Stephens, Dale Mezzacappa, and on and on), and an auspicious backdrop for the news that the uber-respected Lisa Walker is stepping down as executive director and passing the torch to the razor sharp Caroline Hendrie.

I spent some time talking to reporters about important stories that have thus far received limited attention. In that spirit, I here offer eight story ideas that reporters or bloggers might do well to check out more fully.

1. There's been a rash of stories about budget cuts and layoffs but little effort to put this in context. For one thing, school spending soared during the 2000s, as districts eagerly spent the windfall generated by the real estate bubble. This included a hiring wave that outpaced growth in student enrollment and outsized promises on pensions and health care. Now, as many private sector firms cut pay and as public agencies reduce staff and furlough workers, we see educators railing against proposals to trim teachers. Some context would be helpful. How much has district spending and hiring grown in recent years? How do state or district budget cuts compare to those in higher education or libraries? Do voters or parents support the irate teachers, or do they think teachers are demanding special treatment?
2. There is terrific and path breaking work being done by an array of new and not-so-new specialized providers like Citizen Schools, Tutor.com, ConnectEDU, Teach Plus, and so on. While most media attention has floated to the "whole school" providers (like KIPP and Green Dot) or to prestigious talent operations like Teach For America or New Leaders for New Schools, this burgeoning population of smart problem-solvers is creating new possibilities that have received little mainstream attention. (If interested, check out Education Unbound for possible ideas, as I flag dozens of these in the course of the volume).
3. As I reported a few weeks back, just 40% of votes cast in the New York City UFT election were from practicing classroom teachers. The biggest bloc of votes was cast by retired educators, and the balance by school employees who generally aren't in classrooms. This math gives lie to the notion that the unions are focused on today's classrooms, and helps explain why the UFT might care more about funding pensions than instruction. How common is it for unions to do business this way? How large a role in your local union do retirees or non-educators play? These are intriguing but generally unexamined questions.
4. There are vast opportunities for more cost-effective delivery that have not been exploited by states or districts. What are districts doing to stretch their dollars? How do districts measure up in terms of cost efficiency on the more than 100 operational functions according to the metrics devised by the Council of Great City Schools? How defensible are their outlays when subjected to scrutiny by analysts such as Marguerite Roza or Karen Hawley Miles? What are states and districts doing to make themselves more cost-effective and efficient?
5. What are the implications of the i3 collaboration between the U.S. Department of Education and a number of major foundations? The way foundations work, there's a natural pressure on grant officers to promote grantees that pass muster with their board. Given the opportunity to push for grantees who have been vetted and endorsed by a federally backed i3 process or to explain why they want to fund ventures that didn't win, there's going to be a real temptation for grant officers to play it safe. The results could only too easily stack the deck against ventures which don't happen to map onto the four Congressionally-mandated assurances from ARRA, and those that don't focus on boosting grades three to eight reading and math scores or high school completion rates. That strikes me as a huge problem, especially as it will inevitably focus dollars on the kinds of popular providers--like KIPP or TFA--that are hugely dependent on talent and sheer muscle and are therefore most difficult to scale.
6. The role of sophisticated and impressive advocacy efforts mounted by outfits like Democrats for Education Reform, ConnCAN, and EdVoice that are countering the teacher unions and playing a critical role in marshaling support for merit pay, charter schooling, and the reform of teacher tenure.
7. Will the new wave of education propaganda--such as emotionally-powerful movies like Waiting for Superman, The Cartel, or The Lottery--have a real impact, or will they simply spark water cooler chatter among the school reform set? If they do have a broader impact, will it spur action or just talk? Will they energize the debate or might they dumb it down amidst hyperbolic assertions and manipulative imagery?
8. Are efforts to engage younger teachers in advocacy and policy starting to change the terms of the teacher debate? Teach Plus, in particular, has managed in Boston and Indianapolis to organize young teachers and get them writing and talking about teacher-fueled proposals for merit pay, teacher dismissal, and so forth. That means the relevant debates no longer look like a case of "reformers" attacking "teachers," but feature teachers speaking out on both sides of the issue. In Indianapolis, a few weeks back, this yielded new rules on "last hired, first fired" that were crafted and championed by Teach Plus teachers. How much of this is going on and what does it portend?

Posted by Rick Hess at 10:47 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Best quote of the day yesterday was Mass Insight CEO Justin Cohen telling me his take on the Central Falls deal. "There are deals and there are good deals," he said. "This is a good deal." I think that's just right. The point of tough management is not to collect scalps but to change the tenor of the deals that get struck.

And that's what happened when the Central Falls High teachers endorsed their new deal yesterday. The final accord makes it clear that not only was there no compromise, but Central Falls Superintendent Fran Gallo, who started the negotiation asking for six big concessions, wound up pocketing more than a dozen. If the Central Falls teachers play poker like they negotiate, they might be advised to just mail their Visa card to Vegas and call it a day.

The success of the Central Falls deal rested significantly on Rhode Island super-chief Deb Gist's aggressive moves last fall, in which she interpreted the basic education program (enacted last summer by the state's Board of Regents) to mean that seniority would no longer be a factor in school staffing. That decision critically strengthened Gallo's hand, by putting real teeth in her threat to fire teachers without their having recourse to privileged placements or bumping rights.

Yesterday, Gist took a little time to answer a few questions about what to make of the Central Falls deal.

Rick Hess: The deal turns critically on the teacher evaluation component that'll be introduced next year (with unsatisfactory teachers targeted for termination). How will we know whether the evaluation is sufficiently tough, or whether it becomes a fig leaf for backing away from more painful measures?

Deborah Gist: There are a couple of ways that we'll know. One is that the administration has the complete authority to put the evaluation into place. The agreement says the evaluation will be put into place solely by the management. And the Board of Regents passed regulations that define what the evaluations have to look like in this state. The guidelines are good and strong, and everything that we're doing is based on those.

RH: Okay, but suppose that, at this time next year, we see that just five or six of the school's 93 teachers are removed. Would observers be right to be skeptical that the process was toothless?

DG: It's not about removing any particular percentage of teachers. It's hard to know what the proper percentage would look like. But I strongly encourage people to be skeptical. We should be skeptical. I want people to take a hard look at us, and I'm going to do the same with the district and with my staff. But it's not about the percentage of teachers we remove. It's about the quality of the evaluation and about performance. I expect there will be turnover, but how much there is remains to be seen.

RH: Why in the world would the teachers have ever opposed some of Gallo's demands, like the request that they eat lunch with students once a week? Why didn't some teachers publicly break with the union and say, "Hey, I'm happy to do that?"

DG: I can't speak to that. But I have had teachers approach me and say that they're already doing these things that Gallo wanted. So I'd say to them, "Then, what's the problem?"

RH: What do you say to critics who might ask how you can leave the faculty intact for another year at a school that you've identified as profoundly low-performing?

DG: We don't take this decision lightly. We take it very seriously. But there are some great teachers at the high school and, because teacher evaluation is so poor around the country and in the state, we don't have good evidence as to who should stay and who should not. This deal gives us the opportunity to make those decisions in a more informed way and gives folks the opportunity to be a part of the reform movement. There are examples of groups of teachers coming together to turn their schools around in various communities, and there's no reason to assume it can't happen here. We're going to give teachers that chance. Our expectations are high. We'll be watching carefully. If they're not ready to deliver results, we'll act upon that rapidly.

RH: When I read the press release yesterday on the settlement, it was pretty mealy-mouthed. It wasn't until I got additional information on the deal that I felt okay with it. Why such a weak press release?

DG: Because we didn't want to get ahead of the agreement. We knew we needed to put something out to let people know the deal was happening, but it wouldn't have been appropriate to give specifics since the teachers themselves hadn't even seen the deal.

RH: Were you worried that the release might make the deal look like less of a reform victory than many thought it to be?

DG: That's just not the focus. We're concentrating on the substance. We want people to have all the facts, but we're confident with what's happening. Even if folks are skeptical, and I'm fine if they are, they'll see that we mean business when things start to change in the school and these reforms are put into place. We're more concerned with walking the walk than with talking the talk, and that's what we're focusing upon.

RH: Any idea what explains the union's change of heart?

DG: I really don't know. Maybe because they finally knew that we were serious. Something like this had not ever happened in the state before, and the only thing I can think is that perhaps the first time around they didn't realize we really meant business.

RH: Were you surprised by the union's shift?

DG: This has been many weeks in the making. There were times when it would look promising and then grim, and then promising, and then grim... Ultimately, I'd say I was not shocked but was pleasantly surprised.

RH: Are you concerned this might be viewed as a retreat or that other low-performing schools in the state might see this deal as setting a precedent?

DG: Yeah, that's already started. We're just dealing with it. There are rumors that this was all about Race to the Top or a deal or something else. People speculate. We expected that. All I can do is give people the facts. If they want to draw other conclusions, then we'll just take it from there. I'm confident with what we've done and that's what I have to go back to.

Posted by Rick Hess at 8:00 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Big news yesterday out of Rhode Island's Central Falls--the city where Superintendent Fran Gallo dusted off the dreaded "turnaround" bomb earlier this year--as the Central Falls Teachers' Union folded and acceded to Gallo's demands. In return, Gallo backed off the mass firing she'd launched. Some observers might regard Gallo's move as a disappointing reversion to powder puff school management, especially after reading the weak-kneed press release stuffed with promises that all the union ever wanted is "what is best for our students." But such concerns are misplaced. Gallo's play shows how stiff-spined management is supposed to work--by forcing unions and other claimants to come to their senses.

In February, Gallo had fired every teacher at Central Falls High School after teachers at the school refused to get on board with her efforts to transform the poorly performing school. This was after they had embraced the transformation model because it would protect their jobs, so long as there weren't any transformational measures that would, you know, actually transform the school.

Gallo had asked Central Falls High teachers to agree to a series of school improvement measures: nutso stuff like lengthening the school day, adding ninety minutes per week of common planning time, asking teachers to do a week of paid summer professional development at $30 dollar per hour (the union wanted $90 per hour--or at a rate of a mere $187,000 per year), and asking teachers to eat lunch with students once a week. The teachers rejected the proposals out of hand, triggering Gallo's escalation.

Gallo's move worked just like tough-minded management is supposed to, creating the conditions where a sensible deal could be struck. Just yesterday, word came that the Central Falls Teachers' Union ultimately opted to fold when it came down to it. The union agreed to accept all of Gallo's initial requests, including two weeks (rather than one) of summer professional development at her preferred rate. (Now, some of us might think that having to coerce teachers to do summer P.D at a rate better than $62,000 per year is ludicrous, but that's a debate for another day).

Crucially, the agreement stipulates that Gallo and the new principal will have the authority to select an outside evaluator next fall. The evaluator will provide support and intervention where needed, and identify teachers who need to be removed. Teachers will not be able to grieve the evaluation process, and fired teachers will have no bumping rights. In short, Gallo and the principal will have everything they need to identify weak teachers and get them out of the system. Some might fret that this is too slow a pace, but with a new principal on tap for next fall, this offers the chance to determine who should stay and who should go and to start recruiting early. It also gives the new school head a chance to eyeball current staff in changed circumstances.

Frankly, it's not clear how many teachers should be fired at Central Falls High. The school is doing poorly overall, with a 48 percent graduation rate, but we don't know how much value a given teacher is contributing. Rather than randomly clean house, smart management starts by surveying the assets and talent in place and making sure they are being put to good use.

What brought the union's change of heart? Well, for once, the union saw that management was serious. Between Gallo, rock-ribbed R.I. Superintendent Deborah Gist, and supportive words from U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, it became clear that no one was going to bail the teachers out. More than 800 applications had already flooded in for the school's 93 teaching jobs, meaning the fired teachers saw they were going to have stiff competition if they reapplied for their old jobs. Also, while no Central Falls High teacher dared to publicly say that they thought eating lunch with the kids was a good idea, folks in R.I. report that many teachers privately murmured support for much that Gallo proposed.

The R.I. story is a really hopeful development. As with Michelle Rhee's new contract in D.C. or Commissioner David Steiner's ability to win new language on teacher tenure in New York last week, this shows how leaders with backbone can eventually force union leadership to accept a new reality. Good management is about discipline, not blood lust. The point of school turnarounds is not to count scalps, but to win necessary changes, force out lousy teachers, and reset the board. Check.

Just saw an ad for the new A-Team movie. It put me in mind of "Hannibal" Smith, George Peppard's iconic character, who used to light a cigar and then growl near the end of every episode, "I love it when a plan comes together." I wonder if Gallo is a cigar smoker.

Posted by Rick Hess at 8:59 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

On Tuesday, the Education Next website released Robert Pondiscio's new piece on Edutopia (full disclosure: I'm an executive editor of Ed Next). In "Edutopian Vision," he takes clear aim at George Lucas's educational foundation, Edutopia. Pondiscio, a former fifth-grade teacher who writes about education at the Core Knowledge blog, skewers their six "core concepts" and slams Edutopia for promulgating a particularly problematic version of 21st century skills.

As Edutopia asserts, it has six core concepts based on evidence of "what works," but Pondiscio takes a look and finds "little proof" to back Edutopia's claims. What are the six core concepts? They'll not surprise anyone familiar with constructivist learning: project-based learning, technology integration, social and emotional learning, integrated studies, teacher development, and comprehensive assessment.

Particular revealing, and more than a little disconcerting, is the sense that Edutopia's staff may think they're walking on virgin ground. Pondiscio explains, "One senior Edutopia executive was genuinely surprised to learn that project-based learning is neither a new or revolutionary concept in education." This is worrisome because it's one thing to recognize that these ideas have been around, haven't delivered as promised, and to then proceed accordingly. It's another thing to imagine these notions are brand new insights and that they're bound to work.

Edutopia's doing some neat stuff. And I'm all in favor of anyone who's pushing forward on thinking about how to better use technology. But there's a difference between creative minds at work and claiming to have discovered "what works"--especially when the evidence one has assembled is less than compelling. Ultimately, I agree heartily with a point Pondiscio made in discussing his piece on the Ed Next blog: "If there's anything in education that raises my eyebrows (and occasionally my ire) it's the True and Only Solution." Well said, chief.

Posted by Rick Hess at 9:30 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

On Tuesday, over at the National Journal blog, AFT honcho Randi Weingarten blasted those who would use Harkin's unfunded $23 billion bailout as an opportunity to overhaul problematic, industrial-era labor practices that inflate costs and consume scarce dollars. She termed the Education Trust's proposal--that federal bailout aid be made contingent on states striking down strict "last hired, first fired" policies--to be a harmful and "academic" example of "Washingtonitis." Now, there are reasonable questions to ask about the proposal (does it just apply to state statutes? Would it impact contracts?), but it's a smart idea that would lend hard-pressed districts essential flexibility as they scramble to close yawning shortfalls. And, for the record, I'm not at all sold on Weingarten's assertion that thinning the teacher ranks--if done sensibly (which is what the proposal helps make possible)--would hurt students.

Now, it's one thing for Weingarten to argue that the proposal is a bad idea. But notice that she carefully avoids doing that, because it would be one more blow to her effort to market herself as a "reformer." Instead, she plays a too-clever-by-half lawyer's dodge, in which she claims that now is not the time to worry about anything other than pushing cash--and that only those suffering from "Washingtonitis" would think otherwise. The unspoken catch, of course, as Weingarten well knows, is that it's only when the feds have the leverage offered by an imminent $23 billion bailout that they can provide state and local reformers with the muscle needed to overcome NEA and AFT resistance to altering "last hired, first fired." Quite a little irony. If it weren't such a transparent flim-flam, I think I'd admire Weingarten's chutzpah.

And just what is the batho-infused calamity that Weingarten depicts, anyway, in her litany of impending woe? That districts which didn't plan ahead, spent every nickel they could in good times, and overhired and overpromised, are struggling to adjust to reality now that the good times have come to a halt. I'll readily stipulate that it wasn't the teachers' fault that management acted this way, but I also don't recall them complaining about excessive hiring or questioning whether their districts could afford the benefits and raises they've been offering. In any organization, public or private, for-profit or non-profit, we take the bad with the good. I know it stinks, but such is life.

Posted by Rick Hess at 11:21 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Big news yesterday out of the West. While at the NewSchools Venture Fund Annual Summit, got word that Mike Johnston's path-breaking teacher quality bill (SB 10-191) had made it through the Colorado House on a 36-29 vote. This, as I've said previously in the midst of the fight over Florida SB 6, is "seriously big stuff." Indeed, Pam Benigno, director of the Education Policy Center at the Independence Institute, called it a "landmark day in Colorado," saying the bill "will align evaluated teacher and principal effectiveness more closely with student academic growth and weaken tenure protections for consistently ineffective teachers."

This changes the game when it comes to teacher tenure in Colorado. It sets a crucial marker in shifting teacher evaluation from paperwork and seniority to a focus on performance. Mondo credit is due to Mike and the entire Colorado reform community. I remember talking about the bill's prospects with Mike about three months ago and it was unclear whether he'd be able to move even a severely compromised version of this legislation very far. The bill even then looked like something of a long shot. I saw him just over a week ago and it was still, even after State Senate passage, real unclear whether they'd get the votes. This is a remarkable feat of politicking by a freshman State Senator, and just a remarkable accomplishment for the reform community, including Colorado chief Dwight Jones, Jones' crack team, and a coalition that just did a remarkable job of changing the landscape. This also positions Colorado supremely well going into round two of Race to the Top, and now makes it almost inevitable that Colorado is going to emerge as a round two winner. Big congrats all around.

Posted by Rick Hess at 8:46 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Between the National Journal debate over Senator Tom Harkin's $23 billion bailout, the European Union ponying up a cool $1 trillion to stanch the bleeding in Greece, Mike Petrilli getting frisky on teacher firing, and my own dalliances in NYC teacher policy (see here or here), this is turning out to be quite the week for bailout mania.

Four different thoughts spurred by all this. First, I was struck by this gem from the Washington Post story on the Greek bailout. George Perros, member of the executive committee of the Pan-Hellenic Workers Front, sounded for all the world like he was channeling UFT president Michael Mulgrew when he explained why Greek workers were rioting against the cutbacks imposed by a government scrambling to stave off bankruptcy: "The rights of workers are not 'privileges.' The privileges are being enjoyed by the industrialists and big businesses," he said. "Our position is clear: stable and enduring work for all." Paging Dennis Van Roekel or Randi Weingarten: one of you ought to get Perros on staff, pronto.

Second, even the news coverage of all this is funny in its earnestness. I'm struck at how deferential the tone is in the reporting of even the slightest teacher givebacks, as compared to the Joe Friday reporting that has accompanied news of substantial real salary cuts at many news organizations or private firms. For instance, in a paean to teacher selflessness, the New York Times breathlessly reported yesterday:

In Pelham, N.Y., where schools are the center of town life, some residents began speaking up at school board meetings last year to ask why teachers were not doing more to help. "I have never heard such accusations against teachers," said Frank Orfei, a social studies teacher for 32 years. "Many teachers feel like we've been made scapegoats of an economic crisis that we didn't have anything to do with." In response, Pelham teachers voted 205 to 26 in favor of taking smaller raises of 2.9 percent and 2.7 percent over the next two years, instead of the 3.5 percent and 3.8 percent in their contract -- a savings to the district of more than $850,000.

Sorry, but I'm just not that touched by unions accepting token reductions in the size of their raises in the midst of a historic budget crunch. I'd be much more impressed if Mr. Orfei seemed to understand that private sector employees have routinely seen actual year-over-year cuts in pay, or that civil servants and employees in higher education have taken furloughs that resulted in real losses.

The same NYT story reported:

John Yrchik, executive director of the Connecticut Education Association, which represents 37,000 teachers, and has spent $300,000 since January on statewide television ads and billboards in Hartford, said that teachers had been treated like automated teller machines by government officials and taxpayers. "Whenever there have been shortfalls in revenue," he said, "teachers have been asked to make up the difference. The climate has not been one of collaboration or respect for teachers."

From any responsible reading of the record, that's a really problematic assertion. As any number of legislators, governors, cops, librarians, highway workers, or parks officials would be only too happy to point out, K-12 has generally been protected. And K-12 spending has grown steadily, year in and year out, so it's hard to recall previous occasions on which teachers have been ATM'd. And, just to be a little snide, perhaps if the CEA stopped bombarding Hartford's billboards and airwaves, they could trim dues and help teachers navigate these rough budgetary waters.

Third, all of this brings to mind a piece that Iron Mike Petrilli, Checker Finn, and I wrote back in January 2009:

"Those who worry about K-12 education should be asking: will [ARRA] be good for education reform? And to date there's ample reason to suspect that the answer will be "no"...To [teacher unions and the school establishment], the argument for sparing schools from painful budget cuts--currently appearing on editorial pages nationwide--is self-evident. One influential Washington-based lobbyist recently explained that education spending is smart because "it actually has the strongest possibility of being able to pay back" the government... In concept, of course, well-delivered education eventually yields higher economic output and fewer social ills. But there's scant evidence that an extra dollar invested in today's schools delivers an extra dollar in value--and ample evidence that this kind of bail-out will spare school administrators from making hard-but-overdue choices about how to make their enterprise more efficient and effective.

Naturally, the leaders of any organization would rather sidestep problems than confront them. In good times, budgets expand, payrolls grow, new people come on board, and managers delay difficult decisions. Tough times come to serve as a healthful (if sour) tonic, forcing leaders to identify priorities and giving them political cover to trim the fat.

What's unique about public education is that, unlike their private-sector counterparts, few school districts ever face this day of reckoning. Superintendents squawk when they are told to hold spending growth to "just" one or two percent the next year.

Per-pupil spending today is roughly double (in inflation-adjusted terms) what it was in 1983, when the U.S. was declared "a nation at risk." That huge increase in public outlays has funded all manner of questionable practices, including ever-shrinking class sizes (popular with parents and teachers, but mostly unrelated to student achievement), an ever-growing number of teachers and other school employees, a uniform salary schedule that treats incompetents and all-stars identically, an unsustainable pension-and-benefits system, and a tenure system that protects instructional dysfunction. In other words, taxpayers have spent decades funding an enormous, inefficient jobs program."

Finally, my feelings haven't changed a lick since then. But, if we do go ahead with Senator Harkin's ill-advised $23 billion, thank heavens that the Education Trust and The New Teacher Project are doing their best to insist that the feds, at a bare minimum, condition the aid on states taking steps to dismantle expensive, destructive, industrial-era "last hired, first fired" policies.

Posted by Rick Hess at 10:10 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

After yesterday's post on NYC teachers and the fiscal crunch elicited such an appreciative and cheery response (or not), thought I'd stay with the theme for another day. This week, over on the National Journal's "Education Experts" blog, there's a debate about what conditions (if any) ought to be attached to Senator Tom Harkin's $23 billion education bailout. For those of you who thought yesterday's post to be harsh, fair warning: my stance is harder-edged than most.

The first rule of holes is: When you're in one, stop digging. Well, we're in a massive hole. And Senator Harkin's solution seems to be to call for another shovel.

Mike Antonucci does a nice job laying out the problem with Harkin's premise. In the past decade, states and districts spent the windfall that inflated property tax rolls generated during the good times. Now that the bill's come due, Harkin is calling for the feds to subsidize this inflated level of spending even as the economy clanks and grinds its way out of the bubble years. Other organizations, public and private, for-profit and non-profit, are responsibly cutting staffing, salaries, and benefits in light of changed circumstances. Indeed, that willingness to do some overdue belt-tightening is what economists are crediting for the eye-popping productivity gains we've seen in the last few quarters.

Harkin wants to allow school systems to keep living beyond their means, relying primarily on hackneyed metaphors intended to signal urgency. Borrowing more dollars to put off the day of reckoning is a bad idea. It's a bad idea even if it purchases some modest relief from costly, anachronistic policies (though at least we'd have some fig leaf of justification to tell our kids and grandkids when asked why we kept making promises we could no longer afford).

It's a particularly egregious move on Harkin's part because it violates Congress's own recently adopted "pay-go" guidelines. And it's disheartening to hear Secretary Duncan voicing support, as the proposal violates the "domestic spending freeze" that President Obama announced with so much fanfare in the run-up to the State of the Union. We need to start getting our house in order somewhere. And Harkin's $23 billion cash drop, lacking in offsets or funding, is a terrific place to start.

Look, we're spending at least $1.3 trillion that we don't have this year. No one likes to make tough choices. Those decisions only get made, in any organization, when times are so tough that it's easier for leaders to say no than to keep kicking the can down the road. Rather than give districts one more reprieve by claiming "it's for the kids," let's tell states and districts to tighten their belts--by trimming salaries, dialing back benefits, scrutinizing staffing, and doing those things that responsible employers do.

Posted by Rick Hess at 9:17 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

On Friday, I penned a modest op-ed for the New York Daily News which argued that, in light of New York City's budget crunch, it was reasonable to lay off up to 6,400 teachers (potentially 8% of the teacher workforce). I wrote, "Not only would the layoffs of thousands of teachers not mean the sky is falling...thinning the teacher ranks, done right, could be a very good thing."

I further asserted, "Smaller classes would be good if a school district could hire all the great teachers it wants and if funding were unlimited. In the real world, neither of those is true. In practice, smaller classes make it harder for districts to recruit enough talented teachers while soaking up dollars that could otherwise reward good teachers or fund crucial services." I went on to note that if NYC teachers want to protect jobs, "They have an easy solution. They did well through the economic boom of the 2000s, with average teacher salary rising by 35% from 2001 to 2009. Meantime, the city's teacher ranks grew by more than 12,000. If the UFT wants to protect all those new jobs, a simple way to forestall layoffs is to simply give back a modest portion of those hefty raises."

The reception from NYC teachers was not enthusiastic. But what caught my attention was the degree to which their tone brought to mind Greek protesters rioting against the notion that a nearly bankrupt government had to trim jobs, generous salaries, and unaffordable benefits. You'd have thought that NYC didn't have a teacher for every 12.5 students or that only agenda-driven crazies would seek to trim jobs and/or salaries in a grim fiscal environment.

One Daily News commenter opined, "This clown has obviously never stepped into a NYC Public School. Classrooms are already overcrowded, and this guy wants to put more students into those rooms? ...Teachers deserved every penny of those raises that were given between 2000-2009." Another quipped, "This author is promoting a lie. I must ask has this person ever taught a class? Of course not, or he would have included his credentials. Any idiot, except apparently Mr. Hess, would understand that class size matters a great deal." A third offered, "Here we go with another powerful idiot and deciever [sic] who has never set foot in a modern day classroom weighing in on educational matters. This is the type of sick hypocrite who for some reason wants to influence the public's opinion by telling public school parents what is acceptable."

The problem is that states and districts overextended themselves in recent decades, spending the windfall generated by soaring property taxes through the 2000s without ever contemplating the possibility that the good times might end. Today's teachers and public servants may feel entitled to the salaries, benefits, pensions, and perks they're currently receiving, but a glance at the looming federal deficits, unfunded health care and pensions, and grim state and local projections indicates that, even with higher taxes, cuts are going to have to be made.

The really unlovely part is when a sense of entitlement gets wrapped in the cloak of self-righteousness and moral umbrage. As one anonymous woman rioting in Greece explained, "The measures aren't fair for workers, because they didn't cause the crisis, and they want money from the loan to pay the banks." Another Greek rioter told the press, "We must protest and continue the struggle until we take back what they are trying to take away from us." When those paid from public coffers cease to feel any obligation to recognize that public resources are limited or that others, suffering through the same turbulent times (or those that won't draw their first paycheck for awhile yet), must foot the bill, it raises questions about whether public servants have morphed into public claimants. Something seems fundamentally off when irresponsible spending is justified as a matter of "fairness."

NYC's teachers may not believe it, but they have been the beneficiaries of unaffordable and unsustainable generosity. Average teacher pay in NYC jumped more than 35% between 2001 and 2009 (a period bookended by two devastating recessions), increasing from $51,000 to $70,000 per annum. At the same time, the City's teaching ranks grew by 12,000, reaching 80,000 teachers, for NYC's one million kids (a student-teacher ratio of about 12.5 to 1 for those keeping score).

If "it's for the kids" (gag!) and if we think (as the NEA and AFT repeatedly explain) that educational success is largely a factor of home and community environs, then I'd think the teacher associations would be eager to trim raises and forgo extravagant benefits in order to cushion the severe cuts being visited upon libraries, parks and recreation, departments of youth services, police, and so on. As another Daily News commenter noted, school performance is impacted by "homes, neighborhoods, lack of role models, peers, socio-economic levels, and self-inflicted deviant behaviors."

While policymakers may wish to cater to the mob by ladling out fresh goodies, as Greek politicos did for so long, the piper eventually comes calling. As that day draws closer, will educators step up to the plate and concede the need for cuts in staffing, salary, and benefits, like their neighbors at so many public and private organizations (including Education Week), or will they caterwaul like the Greek rioters? The early returns aren't promising.

Posted by Rick Hess at 11:16 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Today, the National Association of Charter School Authorizers (NACSA) released its second annual survey of charter school authorizers (full disclosure: I'm a member of the NACSA board of directors). The survey included all authorizers with ten or more schools--accounting for nearly two-thirds of the nation's charter schools--and a sample of smaller authorizers.

The report offers some terrifically informative data even before one gets to the survey results (even more disclosure: I'm a member of the research advisory board that assisted with the survey). Discussions of chartering and charter authorizing are frequently clouded by confusion as to just what they entail. The report addresses this with a snapshot of the nation's authorizers, and the picture may surprise some casual observers; of the nation's 872 authorizers, 89 percent are local education agencies (e.g. school districts). Five percent are institutions of higher education. And all the rest of the authorizers combined, including state boards, mayors, non-profits, and so on, barely amount to 5 percent of the authorizer population.

That said, districts account for well under half of the big authorizers (again, those with 10 or more schools), while state education agencies make up roughly a quarter of them. More than 85 percent of large authorizers conduct face-to-face interviews with charter applicants and use the results in gauging applications. Ninety percent of large authorizers report signing formal contracts with each of the schools they oversee, and most include in their contracts specific performance expectations and goals (such as student growth scores, comparisons with similar schools, or AYP status). During 2008-09, the closure rate among schools up for renewal by large authorizers was about 14 percent, meaning that one in seven was shuttered during the review process. The report points out how critical the renewal process is, as just 1 percent of schools were closed outside of it (whether under duress or voluntarily).

One possible takeaway is the pursuit of a "best practices" playlist for authorizers. Beyond efforts to sketch sensible guidelines for accounting, contracts, and monitoring, I'm not especially taken with that tack as I think it's real easy to get into red tape and small-minded box-checking.

What I'd rather see, in a maturing charter sector, are plans that recognize and take advantage of the fact that all charter operators aren't the same. As we know, a charter operator running 30 or 35 impressive schools with strong track records is in a real different place from an operator with two or three relatively new schools. We'd be well-advised to start crafting regulatory frameworks and authorizing practices that more fully recognize and address those distinctions. The first operator might get fast-pass treatment focused on the cursory nuts-and-bolts, allowing authorizers to devote more resources to scrutinizing and supporting new ventures. It's also a good time to start asking what role authorizers should play in creating hospitable ecosystems and nurturing their portfolio of schools. This report encourages such ruminating.

Posted by Rick Hess at 12:47 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Props to sly Mike Johanek, director of UPenn's midcareer Ph.D. program and Race to the Top reviewer extraordinaire, for this post's title. Only question for you, readers, is the identity of the fascist. I will say that I may have been the only conference attendee in chilly Denver wearing flip-flops. Result: I did a panel with University of Wisconsin's Michael Apple and he probably looked more like the D.C. policy wonk, while I probably bore more than a passing resemblance to the stereotypical critical race theory prof. Keep reading, and I welcome comments on who you think Johanek's fascists are.

Anyway, last Friday, while I was in another room trying to be a good team player and do my duty on the American Educational Research Association's annual meeting policy committee, the AERA governing council voted to wade into the impassioned debate over Arizona's controversial new immigration statute.

The near-unanimous resolution (one council member abstained) said the law "is so broad in its reach and enforcement powers that it can have an adverse impact on the freedom to travel or assemble" and announced that AERA "will no longer hold meetings or conferences in the state of Arizona." Well, okay.

I had a much more adverse reaction, though, to the Saturday news conference held to announce the resolution. At that event, CU-Boulder professor Kris Gutierrez, AERA's president-elect, wore a modified conference name badge that read "I could be illegal" (these were widely seen that evening, making them AERA's hottest 2010 accessory). In the announcement, Gutierrez flatly declared that AERA would use its resources to disseminate research on the negative effects of the law. UCLA education professor Patricia Gándara, co-director of UCLA's Civil Rights Project, sought to provide a researcher's measured take, opining, "We are very concerned that Arizona is turning into the new apartheid South." (Deb Viadero discusses on Ed Week here).

Gutierrez said, "As education researchers, we need to be concerned about the effects this new law may have on fostering an environment of fear with consequences for students' learning, educational achievement, and attachment to and belief in the social institutions of society."

Fair enough. But I'd like to think that education researchers would be equally concerned with the impact of illegal immigration on the educational circumstances of native-born students; the impact on states and districts already coping with fiscal shortfalls; and the effect on teachers and principals forced to cope with a slew of non-English speaking students. This strikes me as a balancing act in which one will be steered by personal values and experiences. I have no problem with AERA members choosing to denounce the law. I am troubled by the organization formally embracing one side and by the notion that "educational researchers" can find questions only on one side of the issue.

The role of research organizations is to inform rather than to dictate public deliberations. The announcement will unavoidably raise doubts about the credibility and bias of AERA's research. This could undermine broad-based support for the education research enterprise, make education research look like a partisan exercise, and undermine the credibility of a field that has long struggled to gain public respect.

The announcement reflected a broader AERA mindset. One reason I rarely attend sessions is that, in the kinds of sessions in which I tend to participate, there's a routine in which the audience cheers and applauds familiar anti-accountability, anti-market, pro-empathy tropes. So, at the session I did with Apple and USC's Dominic Brewer, we were repeatedly treated to bursts of applause when audience members asserted "rather than support charters, we should ensure that all schools succeed," suggested that Brewer and I ought to employ critical race analysis in our work, and so on.

The irony was that the session was introduced by remarks bemoaning how rarely AERA hosts conversations among scholars of competing perspectives. Few in attendance seemed to recognize that this might be, in large part, because accomplished policy thinkers and "right-of-center" scholars have little incentive to attend a conference where the audience isn't even going to pretend to be interested in what they have to say.

It's strange to me that so many AERA attendees spend much of their time talking about the importance of creating hospitable, welcoming, and nonthreatening school and university environments, but that their efforts to create "safe spaces" don't extend to their own scholarly conference. In fact, when I raised this issue on the annual meeting committee, one colleague observed that, "Well, people cheer at football games, don't they?" So, is that the operative analogy? Sure, we do. And if the assumption is that AERA discussions are like football games or political rallies, then no sweat. And that's of a piece with Gutierrez's Saturday remarks. However, if AERA aspires to be an intellectual forum, then environment and context matter.

Look, AERA doesn't have to actively welcome divergent views, but it ought to promote a culture that's not inimical to the free exchange of ideas. This is an area where I have some experience. In my time at AEI, I've hosted public forums with individuals such as Sharon Robinson, Jim Cibulka, Alex Molnar, Kevin Welner, Randi Weingarten, Dennis van Roekel, John Podesta, Susan Fuhrman, Jim Shelton, Kati Haycock, Hank Levin, Diane Ravitch, and many others who disagree with me on questions big and small. If I have managed to ensure that none of these individuals was ever subjected to booing or one-sided cheering, I'm convinced the nation's premier educational research association can manage the same--if it chooses to.

Posted by Rick Hess at 9:47 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

The lifeblood of efforts to rethink schooling or devise new solutions is the money it takes to make them work. These dollars can come from three sources: profit-seeking investors, philanthropy, or government. To date, the lion's share of the bucks have come from philanthropy. In a new piece published today in Education Next, "Fueling the Engine," I explore why entrepreneurs have had trouble raising funds and how the philanthropic sector has sought to tackle that challenge. (The article is an excerpt from my new book Education Unbound).

This is all of particular relevance today, as more than 2,000 districts, schools, and nonprofits have notified the U.S. Department of Ed that they'll be submitting applications for i3 grants. "We're making an unprecedented investment in cutting-edge ideas that will produce the next generation of school reforms," Secretary Duncan said when he announced the grant competition. Over $650 million in funds will be awarded, and a coalition of foundations announced last week that it will offer up to half a billion dollars to match the federal grants.

This is an intriguing development. Whether this federal investment deepens the pool of resources for new providers (especially in light of the "collaboration" between ED and twelve major funders) or swamps the sector and enriches some while making it harder for others to get a hearing remains to be seen. Remember, the i3 investment probably amounts to a third or more of school reform investment in the U.S. this year, and the follow-up $500 million will increase its impact even more. This could be a substantial boon to innovation and a spur for new providers to take evaluation and scale far more seriously, or it could result in cementing the status of popular outfits that know how to write grants, land influential consultants, and afford high-priced evaluation. Ultimately, it will probably be something of each, and we need to do what we can to tilt that mix in the right direction.

To do so, it's useful to note why entrepreneurs have so often struggled to land support and the role that venture funders have played. The key problem historically has been that when funding is scarce, the leaders of an entrepreneurial venture have to spend too much time fundraising and not enough time leading their organizations. Here's hoping that i3 can change that, without raising new concerns about groupthink, the influence of politically connected players, or the tyranny of overly narrow evaluation metrics.

Posted by Rick Hess at 11:55 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Much as I'd feared, preparations for round two of Race to the Top (RTT) seem to be impelling states to overshoot the mark when it comes to teacher evaluation and pay. Generally laudable proposals like Florida's Senate Bill 6 and Colorado's Senate Bill 10-191 suffer from the "fix the world in one pass" syndrome. Advocates who are waging an admirable fight to end or dramatically scale back hyper-rigid, industrial-era state policies governing teacher tenure and compensation display a worrisome tendency to mandate that, henceforth, teachers will be evaluated in large part on (thus far) largely nonexistent, hyper-rigid, value-added metrics. This is all playing out in Colorado right now, where SB 10-191 passed the state senate on Friday and goes to the state house this week.

Now, don't get me wrong. I supported Florida's Senate Bill 6 and heartily support Colorado's more measured 10-191, but the impatient rush to "fix" teacher quality in one furious burst of legislating is leading to troublesome overreaching and putting the cart before the horse. The result: hugely promising efforts to uproot outdated and stifling arrangements get enveloped in crudely drawn, sketchily considered, and potentially self-destructive efforts to mandate a heavy reliance upon value-added assessment.

We have trouble with the notion that unwinding a century's worth of accumulated policies needs to be a staged process. The first task is to uproot anachronistic policies and structures to create room for smart new solutions to take root. (Think of the first decade of welfare reform in the 1980s). Only after a couple years in which we've given districts a chance to feel their way, and after a handful of alpha locales have crafted some promising approaches, does it make sense for state legislatures to start offering more direction. I blame a lot of this current "one fell swoop" mindset on Race to the Top.

As I've said before, "It's rarely been noted that RTT actually embodies two schools of reform. The first type of reform cracks open systems hampered by anachronistic statutes and policies." Measures such as those tackling tenure, step-and-lane pay scales, or data "firewalls," which prohibit the use of performance data to evaluate teachers, are all to the good. These measures don't tell states or local officials what to do with the newfound freedom; they merely create the space in which to act. However, as I observed, RTT also pursues "reform by specific prescription." I've noted that these prescriptive measures account for the lion's share of RTT. This, to my mind, is precisely what we're seeing as states hustle to emulate Tennessee's round one RTT-winning promise to have as much as 50% of teacher evaluation based on value-added calculations.

What matters most is uprooting the old intrusive superstructure, not the frenzied efforts to impose a new one. In particular, there are three big problems hampering the "fix it now" approach, even if one stipulates on the front end that all of the technical challenges to reliability can be readily resolved.

First, and least important, there's the question of small n sizes for many teachers and the challenge of devising good value-added assessment metrics for a raft of subjects. These challenges aren't necessarily susceptible to technical fixes and will require a little time, adjustments, and workaday compromises to take shape.

Second, systems built around individual value-added calculations can stifle the kind of smart personnel use that reformers are trying to encourage. Principals who have their best 3rd grade reading teacher step in for grade-level colleagues, rotate faculty by strength, or augment classroom teachers with niche providers or online instruction are going to clash with a system predicated on evaluating how teachers are doing in their classroom with their students. If teachers are only teaching their kids 75% of the time, or if key instruction is being provided by others, then the results will be muddy.

Third, none of this matters yet. Florida's SB6 went down over resistance to value-added calculations based on tests that don't yet exist and that won't exist until the middle of the next decade. Colorado's system won't be functional for years, given the need to create assessments and build out the data systems. Rather than using statute to impose systems that are currently nothing more than concepts, it makes more sense to strip out troubling mandates, create room for new solutions, and then build out the tests and data systems. This way, by the time those tools start to come online, we will have experience that can inform the deliberations of state lawmakers.

What to do right now? The best move is to insist that districts base a substantial part of teacher evaluation and pay on measures of performance, that states flag indicators deemed legitimate, and then that districts and providers have leeway to employ metrics. Over the next few years, this will begin to shift norms, allow value-added systems and evaluation models to develop and ripen, and set the table for adoption when value-added metrics are more readily available. If advocates are nervous that this is their big window, then they can write a trigger into the statute that will force the legislature or state board to revisit the question in 2013 or 2014.

I understand the frustration with the status quo and union resistance that has fueled "fix it now" thinking. I understand fears that nothing much will change if states don't mandate it. But K-12 schooling is a big, complex exercise. Large, hurried solutions have a way of working less well than hoped. Impatience and lashing out in frustration can lead to bad policy--as with NCLB's 100% target for 2014 and its Kafkaesque remedy cascade. Both helped undercut support for the law's more sensible provisions and are now consigned to the trash heap. The patient path of welfare reform--create opportunities, nurture and monitor successful efforts, and then talk about new policy requirements--is the more promising one.

Posted by Rick Hess at 11:14 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend