August 2008 Archives

As urban and suburban school districts experience annual recruitment pangs, the numbers of overseas teachers recruited to teach hard-to-fill subjects is on the rise.

Attracted by better pay than they get back home, more Filipino teachers than ever before are flocking into the United States, according to this article from the Philippine Daily Inquirer.This week, 93 teachers who will teach math, science and special education landed in Washington en route to Prince George’s County in Maryland. They followed a batch of 115 teachers that arrived in July to teach in the county.

Other districts also have offered jobs to potential recruits from the Philippines, including Jefferson County, La., which offered jobs to 60 teachers from the island nation for the 2008-09 school year.

An average of 73 Filipino teachers per year arrived on America's shores from 1992 to 1999, and that number doubled to more than 221 teachers per year from 2000 to 2004. More than 10,000 foreign teachers are recruited annually to fill the United States' demand for teachers in hard-to-fill subjects.

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"Obama and the NEA: If elected, will he be willing to part ways with the union?"

Or that's what the Rocky Mountain News wants to know. And here at Teacher Beat, we think it is a question worth examining.

It is true that so far Obama has expressed support for merit pay, which the NEA is famous for not liking. But does anyone even know what Obama means when he talks about supporting performance pay? So far, at the convention in Denver, we've heard many other Democratic voices endorse it without actually going into any specifics, and many others have denounced the unions for opposing it.

Here's what Obama said at the NEA convention in July when he was greeted with boos: "Under my plan, districts will be able to design programs that give educators who serve as mentors to new teachers the salary increase they deserve. They'll be able to reward those who teach in underserved areas or take on added responsibilities. And if teachers learn new skills to serve students better, or if they consistently excel in the classroom, that work can be valued and rewarded as well."

Meanwhile, the NEA's Reg Weaver has said time and again in recent months that his union supports "enhanced pay" for teachers who are national-board-certified or who agree to teach in high-risk and hard-to-staff schools.

Now am I the only one who thinks Obama and Weaver are saying mostly the same thing?

Maybe they don't need to part ways. All they need is a new term for merit/performance/enhanced pay. That should make everyone happy.

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In Denver, it's been all about performance pay for the last few days. First the school district and the teachers' union settled a long-running dispute over changes to the teacher merit-pay plan, and now the Democrats at their national convention are all set to embrace performance pay as a party-platform issue.

For the teachers' unions, which are out in full strength at the convention, this has not been a blessing, exactly. In fact, they have been looking like everyone's favorite punching bag.

The unions have long disliked any deviation from teacher tenure and seniority, and the National Education Association has been vehemently opposed to any form of merit pay based on student test scores. The American Federation of Teachers has been slightly more open to the concept, and new President Randi Weingarten even negotiated a merit-pay plan in New York City last year.

But on Sunday, speaking at an education symposium, Washington schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee, who is embroiled in her own performance-pay dispute with the Washington Teachers Union, blamed the unions for standing in the way of reform.

Al Sharpton also took a potshot at the unions and their refusal to change with the times, saying they were more interested in protecting their interests than in uplifting children.

Read more about opposition to the unions at the Democratic convention from my colleague Michele McNeil here.

But having long covered performance-pay plans nationwide and the unions, I wonder: Isn't everyone being a little too quick to judge here?

The national unions may indulge in rhetoric against performance pay and refuse to endorse it outright, but many locals around the country, including Minneapolis and New York City, have partnered with their districts on performance-pay plans, and many more are working on them.

In states like Arizona, which has long had a career-ladder performance-pay plan in effect, the teachers' union has been fighting to expand the program. In Denver itself, the performance-pay program was created jointly by the union and the school district. Groups like the Teacher Union Reform Network of NEA and AFT Locals exist to help progressive local leaders partner with districts on school reform.

Change may be slow in coming to teachers' unions, but it is coming, and maybe they deserve some credit for that. Or don't they?

You tell me.

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If money is any measure, the teachers' unions certainly have a thing for Hillary Clinton.

According to data from the Center for Responsive Politics, the 3.2-million-member National Education Association may have endorsed Barack Obama for president, but Clinton got just a little more of their money: $23,000 compared with the $22,000 received by Obama.

And the American Federation of Teachers, which first endorsed Clinton for president, gave her a whopping $32,000 compared with just around $11,000 for Obama, whom they later endorsed.

The NEA made it into the top 10 "heavy-hitters" list of political givers since 1989 as the seventh most generous giver, handing out contributions adding up to $28 million, including 7 percent to Republicans. The American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees was the biggest giver, with $39.6 million in contributions. The AFT ranked at number 15, with nearly $25 million in contributions.

So far, in the 2008 election cycle, the NEA has given out $746,000 to Democrats and nearly $72,000 to Republicans.

The AFT, while the smaller union with 1.4 million members, has given out more in political contributions this year: nearly $1.3 million. Of this, only $1,000 has gone to Republicans.

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The saga between the Washington Teachers' Union and District of Columbia public schools took another interesting turn last week.

WTU filed a lawsuit against the school system over the dismissal of more than 70 probationary (nontenured) teachers. The union seeks to restore these teachers to employment.

George Parker, the president of the union, said the district dismissed these teachers even though they were meeting the expectations of their probationary period, thus the dismissals violated due process guaranteed educators as part of the current contract.

The lawsuit is illuminating, given the state of current contract negotiations, which hinge on a two-tiered plan for compensating teachers. Under the "green" tier, teachers would agree to give up tenure for the opportunity to earn performance bonuses. They would have to win their principals' approval to regain tenure.

Mr. Parker is a proponent for instituting a grievance process for green-tier teachers to prevent against arbitrary dismissals under this system.

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This story on New Jersey's progress toward meeting the goal of putting a "highly qualified" teacher in every classroom is interesting.

The state has 99 percent of teachers meeting the HQT standard. That's impressive, but not unique: Almost every state is past the 90 percent mark now, and North Dakota actually reached 100 percent last year.

What's telling is that the state is having a particularly hard time getting middle school educators highly qualified.

Under NCLB, middle and high school teachers are essentially held to the same standard: They need to hold a major or have completed coursework equivalent to a major to demonstrate subject-matter competency. But a number of states still grant broad K-8 licenses, and middle school teachers are much more likely than high school teachers to teach in more than one content area, meaning they would have to demonstrate subject-matter competency in multiple areas.

Some groups, such as the National Council on Teacher Quality, think middle school teachers of multiple subjects should only need to hold a minor (or coursework equivalent to a minor) to be considered HQT.

Is this a problem in your state? Are states readjusting their middle school certification fields in response? Or are they finding other ways to get these educators to be deemed an HQT in multiple subjects (such as through the alternative standard for veteran teachers)?

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Just in time for the Democratic convention, Denver schools and the teachers' union have come up with a tentative agreement on ProComp, the city's performance-pay plan for teachers.

The contract would give all teachers 3 percent pay raises and allow teachers who don't want to be part of ProComp to drop out by October this year. But some veteran teachers could also see their pay raises vanish, which has left them feeling pretty dissed, according to this Denver Post story.

One teacher said the change would cut yearly raises for veteran teachers to $350 a year from a possible $1,300 a year now.

The school district got what it wanted: an increase in starting teacher salaries to $42,000 to make Denver more competitive with surrounding districts, and increased bonuses for teachers who agree to teach in hard-to-staff schools and hard-to-fill subjects.

It's not exactly clear which of the union's demands were met, and there's nothing yet on the local's Web site, but President Kim Ursetta said teachers were "overall pleased."

Meanwhile, follow coverage of the Democratic convention by Michele McNeil and David Hoff here. Delegates are set to endorse performance pay at the convention.

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In its fight to resist major changes to the performance-pay system ProComp, the Denver Classroom Teachers Association doesn't seem to have any friends.

First there was a report from the citizens' commission, A-Plus Denver, issued this month that said ProComp contributes too much toward salary base-building, which the union favors. Instead, the report said, the money should be driven more directly toward the elements that contribute to improving student achievement.

Then, a splinter group of about 275 teacher members went public saying the union leadership was not representing the view of the majority within the union, and called for a settlement.

Now, it's the turn of two local newspapers to admonish the union.

"The union's stance is difficult to square with ProComp's initial objectives," says the Rocky Mountain News in an editorial headlined "Union misleading public regarding original intent of ProComp."

"We hope union members will acknowledge how generous an offer the district has made in a troubling economy," the editorial adds.

The Denver Post, meanwhile, takes issue with the union's threat to strike, particularly at a time when the nation's eyes are on the city as it hosts the Democratic national convention. Denver schools opened earlier this week. The teachers union and district officials are now in negotiations to resolve differences over ProComp.

"Could it be it's trying to wring concessions out of the district by threatening to embarrass DPS Superintendent Michael Bennet in front of the political world?" the editorial says. "The stunt is transparent and shameful."

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A quick update on the murky saga of the Chicago Teachers Union.

Yesterday, the union's executive board voted to get rid of Ted Dallas, the vice president who had been accused of financial improprieties. Dallas had in turn filed suit against the union, accusing President Marilyn Stewart of similar misdoings, including spending half a million dollars on food over a year. Read the Chicago Tribune story here.

Dallas had been a member of the union since 1970, and had run on Stewart's slate for the last two elections. But the two fell violently apart over the past several months. At the AFT convention in Chicago last month, as Stewart shared the platform with top national union leaders, Dallas was downstairs handing out fliers condemning her.

Will he go away now that the local's executive board has found him guilty of financial wrongdoing? Stewart, who said it was time to close the chapter, sure hopes so. But let's wait and watch, shall we?

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I wrote about the pending "tenure-for-pay swap" proposal in the D.C. schools contract here. About the same time the story went up, a copy of some of the results from the poll conducted by the American Federation of Teachers of Washington Teachers Union members wound up on this Web site.

The findings, on the face value of things, don't appear to bode well for the plan: 44 percent of WTU members polled expressed unfavorable opinions about the proposal; just 23 percent supported it.That was without hearing any details. When told about the "red" and "green" tier, the percentages were 58 percent unfavorable to 33 percent favorable.

A couple of thoughts on this. First, this poll data isn't "disaggregated" (the popular, but only quasi-grammatical term for breaking out data) by teachers' age, tenure status, etc. So it's hard to tell which teacher characteristics are correlated with stronger support for the contract.

Second, it seems to me there are three big questions about the contract and that the answer to each is much more nuanced than a simple "yes" or "no":

1. Does the plan eliminate tenure rights? Yes, for one year for green-tier teachers already in the system, in exchange for the opportunity to earn bonuses. For new teachers, it pushes the granting of tenure back from two to four years. Red-tier teachers' tenure is unchanged.
2. Would it rate teachers based on test scores? Hard to say, since that part won't be negotiated until after a contract is set. Both Parker and Rhee say it will be based on student academic growth. It would apply only to green-tier teachers.
3. Does it eliminate seniority rights? Technically yes, but practically, perhaps not, since some argue that the district's dwindling enrollment has permitted principals to bypass it anyway under a series of emergency rules, lawsuits, and district laws established between 1997 and 2000.

So how does the poll play into these dialogues? Well, Parker said he felt that AFT was justified in doing the poll, but expressed concerns about its accuracy given accusations of push-polling from some observers.

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They probably don't look like Michelle Pfeiffer or clown around as voraciously as Jack Black. But the most successful teachers in real life do share some of the maverick and eccentric qualities seen in Hollywood's most famous teacher depictions.

That's what Catherine Cornbleth, a University of Buffalo professor, found after studying teachers entering urban classrooms with students from different racial, ethnic, cultural, and socioeconomic backgrounds and with varying levels of academic ability and motivation.

In her book, Diversity and the New Teacher: Learning From Experience in Urban Schools, Cornbleth says teachers who succeeded in these challenging environments have some of the same qualities as those seen among the large-screen's maverick teachers. They view obstacles as challenges and not brick walls, they're proactive and resourceful, they demonstrate respect and care for students, and they persist and take risks.

Cornbleth also throws in a top-10 list of maverick teacher movies. including The Blackboard Jungle, where Glenn Ford plays an idealistic teacher, Dead Poets' Society, where Robin Williams portrays an educator who inspires a love for literature and poetry in his students, Dangerous Minds, where Pfeiffer is a former U.S. Marine-turned-teacher to children bused in from an East Palo Alto, Calif. ghetto, and School of Rock where Black plays a flamboyant substitute teacher who helps his students discover the power of rock music.

Cornbleth says what led her to explore the maverick teacher model were concerns that standardized test scores and curricula were pressuring teachers to conform to an average that didn't serve most students very well.

It's the right time, too, with the No Child Left Behind reauthorization looming. But is Congress listening?

Maybe members just need to go to the movies more often.

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Less than a week before the national spotlight turns on Denver, which is playing host to the Democratic National Convention, school district officials must be praying really hard.

Starting tomorrow, for three days, union and district officials will negotiate proposed changes to ProComp, the city's highly lauded performance-pay plan, which both sides had blessed at its creation. For now, that camaraderie is moot as the district and the union fight bitterly over what to change, and to what extent.

You can read about those proposed changes in this story and in a chat we recently hosted with teachers' union President Kim Ursetta and University of Colorado at Denver's Dean of Public Affairs Paul Teske.

Here's why the district would want to really, really settle this before the convention begins: as my colleague Michele McNeil writes on her blog, convention delegates are all set to embrace performance pay at the convention as part of their party's platform.

But touting teacher pay even as the nation's model plan falls to pieces right under their noses is not exactly going to look ... ahem ... reaffirming. And it's going to be more than a little embarrassing for the district itself, especially if the union carries out its threat of a strike.

This one's going to be a nail-biter. Stay tuned as we bring you more.

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Teachers in one Texas district will be able to bring more than school supplies when they return to school this month.

They could be packing heat.

That's right. Under a new school policy in Harrold County, teachers on the 110-student district's sole campus will be allowed to carry guns to thwart any threats of gun attacks.

"When the federal government started making schools gun-free zones, that's when all of these shootings started," Superintendent David Thweatt wrote on the Fort Worth Star-Telegram's Web site. Teachers who bring in guns, he added, would have to undertake crisis- management training first. They'd also, of course, need to have a license for the firearm.

The policy has provoked a firestorm of protest from school safety proponents. "There is a huge difference between having trained ... law-enforcement officers that are armed ... versus having teachers, custodians, cafeteria workers and other non-public safety professionals packing a gun in school with hundreds of children," said Kenneth Trump, the president of the National School Safety and Security Services, who also warned about the possibility of an accidental shooting.

In Harrold, there appears to have been no threat so far that would require such a step. But Mr. Thweatt says he's worried the school could be a target because it sits near a busy highway.

And who could argue with that?

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There were almost as many journalists as there were teachers at the protest at the Washington Teachers' Union headquarters this morning, which was organized by supporters of the two-tiered pay-reform plan proposed by D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee. I'll come back to that in a minute.

The crucial sticking point has been that under the plan, teachers electing the green path, in exchange for much higher pay, would revert to probationary status and lose some of their tenure protections. They could, in essence, be easier for prinicipals to dismiss.

Washington Teachers Union President George Parker told reporters today that teachers who elect this pathway must still have "due process" protections against arbitrary dismissals. He said he believes Rhee will agree to some type of appeals process in the contract negotations.(No word yet from Rhee's camp on whether she's willing to support such a process.)

I queried Parker: Are there really that many arbitrary firings by principals?

"It happens all the time," Parker responded. "Anytime you have the human element in decisionmaking, there's human frailty."

This year, he said, 78 teachers in probationary status have been dismissed, and the union is examining whether those decisions were legitimate.

So if that issue is fixed, is the deal a go? Don't bet on it.

Take a member of the union's board of trustees, Candi Peterson. She says the national American Federation of Teachers has commissioned a legal study of the plan and that elements relating to teacher excessing and seniority, in both the red and the green path, violate sections of the D.C. municipal code. (Excessing is when the building reduces slots and a teacher loses her job there, but is still employed by the district.)

I've put in a request for that document, but haven't heard anything back yet.

I asked Parker about these potential legal problems. His answer: "We're certainly going to ensure that the union and D.C. Public Schools are in compliance with the law. Period."

Given these types of internal divides within the union, I have to ask the question: What is your average rank-and-file D.C. teacher hearing? And from whom? I think it's possible that this contract could be swayed by the quality of information teachers have, and its source.

Parker said most teachers he's heard from want more details on how the tiers will operate. He said he expects to submit a tentative contract to a member vote "sometime before early September."

The teachers who came this morning, most of whom support the green tier, seemed buoyed by the promise of this vote.

I'm wondering if it will be enough for the 4,500 other teachers in the district. This morning's low attendance could be a sign that they're reserving judgment for now, or that they've already made up their minds.

(Guess who else wants to know? The national AFT has commissioned a poll of WTU members to determine where they stand on the contract. Parker said he didn't have the results yet.)

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A lot has been said over the years on the need for mentoring new teachers, and whenever I am among educators, I almost always hear at least one young teacher speak up for it.

Now, a study of the effects of mentoring on New York teachers, which appears this month in the National Bureau of Economic Research, finds that mentoring can improve retention when the mentor has prior experience in the school. In other words, when the mentor has school-specific knowledge.

Jonah E. Rockoff, an assistant professor of economics and finance at Columbia University, looked closely at a mentoring program the city put in place in 2004. He finds that student achievement in math and reading was higher when their teachers received more hours of mentoring.

However, he also found that a mentor whose subject-matter expertise matches that of the teacher did not necessarily produce better student outcomes.

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I could easily have written twice as much about the fascinating Teacher Incentive Fund initiative.

The theme of district-teacher collaboration came up again and again in the course of my reporting. If we know that collaboration is key to good plans, there's a follow-up question here that needs exploring and that is: What are the methods for creating this collaboration and sustaining it over time?

Though the American Federation of Teachers, in general, remains wary about peformance pay, it isn't backing away from the TIF challenge. The national office counts a full-time employee, Rob Weil, who spends a good amount of his time working with local affiliates on the plans. He provided support to AFT locals in Houston, Philadelphia, and Chicago on plan development.

In the TIF application, the U.S. Department of Education gave a competitive priority to applicants that could show evidence of buy-in from local communities. It did not, however, explicitly require grantees to submit plans to the collective bargaining process.

Weil says that he thinks incentive plans work best when they are collectively bargained. Evidence of collaboration, he told me, "is not just getting a letter of support or some perfunctory thing."

But do we know that collectively bargained performance-pay plans are of higher quality or last longer than noncollectively bargained programs?

The subtext here is clear: Should the federal government require performance-pay grantees to show more evidence of collaboration between teachers and administrators? What forms should that evidence take? If not collective bargaining, should there be a buy-in agreement?

(The National Institute for Excellence in Teaching, which oversees the TAP model, requires a 75% teacher-approval vote, for instance.)

At an NCLB hearing last year, edu-reporters were treated to the sight of Rep. George Miller, the chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, and National Education Association President Reg Weaver thundering away at each other about this issue. (Mr. Weaver said he couldn't support performance-pay language in a draft bill that didn't specify collective bargaining; Mr. Miller said the NEA had vetted the language and agreed to it.)

Seeing two heavy hitters go after each other like that is pretty memorable. (After three cups of coffee and a Power Bar, it's absolutely unforgettable.) If Congress gets going on NCLB next year, I have to wonder: Is Round Two far behind?

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California's Commission on Teacher Credentialing just announced that there are more than 11,000 out-of-field English-language-learner instructors in the state. That's an increase of 88 800 percent since the commission's last review, when the state reported only 1,450 out-of-field teachers for those students. (UPDATE -- A commenter below pointed out that the percentage increase is much higher than the figure listed in the report. It's probably a good thing that I don't cover math education.)

The data cover the years 2003 to 2007; the previous review covered 1999 to 2003.

Commission officials, though, said the larger number does not necessarily reflect an increase in the number of out-of-field teachers over those years, merely better data-reporting instituted in the wake of the 2004 settlement in the Williams v. State of California educational-adequacy lawsuit. (You can read more about the settlement's effects here .)

"The significant rise in numbers for this report cycle is a result of more rigorous monitoring conducted by county offices of education," commission officials stated.

This reminds me a little bit of one of the problems with our data-driven school environments: As data-quality and data-reporting procedures improve, the picture in question often looks even grimmer (or better) than ever (consider states' "highly qualified teacher" counts, for instance). It can, therefore, be hard to isolate improvements in state practices.

But in 2005, California began reporting annual data on teacher qualifications of certified employees in schools that score poorly on the state accountability model. The report finds a substantial decrease in misassignments after a year.

So, does that mean things are actually getting better? What do you think?

You can find the full report here.

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A few weeks back, the two national teacher accreditors, the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education and the Teacher Educator Accreditation Council, were asked to work together to come up with a unified accrediting system in the best interests of the teaching profession.

The first thing they agreed on, it appears, was to drop the word "unified."

The idea for a unified accrediting body came from a task force set up by the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education, which has for a long time wanted a single accreditor. In the past, it has made no secret that that accreditor should be NCATE, which passes judgment on more than 600 colleges and which has had a long relationship with AACTE.

But TEAC, the younger organization, now accredits nearly 60 colleges, and President Frank Murray was not about to abandon ship.

In a joint press release issued weeks after the AACTE report, NCATE and TEAC sportingly agreed to work together on a "system with multiple pathways." The word "unified" had disappeared from the mix, and the word "multiple" was highlighted in the TEAC announcement on its Web site.

Murray said in a separate release that there will be no merger of the two accreditors. Instead, he said, the plan is to coordinate the work of NCATE and TEAC, unify the profession, and learn from each other, among other things.

Now I know I need to wait and see how this one plays out. Still, I can't help but feel a little fuzzy in the head right now. Wasn't creating a unified system supposed to be the point of this whole exercise?

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Among the new teacher provisions in the reauthorized Higher Education Act are "teacher development" requirements for programs that prepare teachers. Now, these programs are to set annual goals for increasing the number of teachers in shortage subjects and fields, such as math, science, technology, English-language learners, and students with disabilities.

Progress toward the goals gets reported annually by the states.

I'm not sure how these will affect schools of education. I did hear from one party that programs, and sometimes states, tend to allocate a number of teaching "slots" based on specialization area. A number of them may need to reorient how that's done, probably at some cost. (Perhaps that's the point of these new provisions.) But I'm not well versed enough in these types of operational details to comment. Anyone out there have an idea of how they'll play out on the ground?

These provisions coincide with what appears to be an increased federal emphasis on grooming more teachers in shortage subjects/fields:

1) Last year's budget-reconciliation measure created the TEACH grants, which would subsidize costs for prospective teachers who agree to teach in shortage subjects in high-need schools for four years.

2) The new HEA contains an Adjunct Teacher Corps to bring professionals to teach math and science part time in high school. President Bush proposed this a number of years running, and it never aroused much interest. All of a sudden—and under Democrats, no less—there's a program authorization.

3) HEA also promotes Teach For America, a long-standing source for some districts for teachers of shortage subjects.

There is a general sense of relief that the teacher-development requirements don't contain penalties, if the programs don't meet their annual goals. And the requirements offer leeway for states and education programs to determine which fields are most in demand of new teachers and come up with plans to address those shortages.

Sharon P. Robinson, the president of the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education, told me her organization viewed the goals as "doable," not merely "aspirational." Sounds to me like she might have been comparing them with teacher-quality goals in another behemoth education law.

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Several former Teach For America alumni are campaigning for Sen. Barack Obama, my colleague David Hoff reports in this week's edition of Education Week (check back here on our Ed Week homepage tomorrow for the full story). Sen. John McCain, too, has said he wants to increase the number of alternative-route teachers in America's classrooms.

Meanwhile, there are a bunch of new legislative plugs for the program, which puts high-achieving college graduates from top schools into some of the nation's toughest schools.

The bipartisan, newly reauthorized HEA bill authorizes $20 million for TFA for fiscal 2009 and $25 million for fiscal 2010. And there's a new TFA grant in the NCLB-improvements bill introduced recently by Rep. Michael Castle, R-Del.,

Rep. Castle's bill would require an evaluation every three years of the performance of students taught by TFA-ers compared with those taught by non-TFA teachers "in the same schools and positions."

I wonder what Obama's adviser Linda Darling-Hammond, who's no fan of TFA and has done a couple of critical studies on the program, thinks of all this attention?

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The D.C. imbroglio over Chancellor Michelle Rhee's proposed plan to boost the salaries of teachers willing to give up tenure rights has been like watching a nail-biting show on performance pay unfold.

Only now it could be headed off the cliff.

The proposal from the district would more than double some teachers' salaries over a period of five years if they agree to go on probation for a year. For instance, a teacher with 10 years of service could see his or her annual salary go from $56,200 to as much as $122,500. Gasp!

Of course, during this one year, the teacher could be fired, which would bring that salary down to a big fat zero.

Yesterday, Washington Teachers Union President George Parker ruled out the possibility that teachers would accept the plan. The "tenure issue," he told the Associated Press, is going to be the determining factor. And he wants it taken off the table.

The city and the union, Mr. Parker said, might have to settle for some kind of "traditional agreement."

If that happens, I for one want my ticket money back.

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Welcome to Teacher Beat! My colleague Vaishali is the veteran who came into edu-journalism through a traditional journalism program. I’m the novice who fell into it through what amounts to our profession’s version of an “alternative route.” We’re sure to have a lively discussion! And what better way than to start off on a controversial topic: class-size reduction.

One of the participants in the ongoing NewTalk.org discussion, Ryan Hill, from TEAM Schools, a network of KIPP schools in Newark, N.J., has this to say about the intervention:

“I can attest to the fact that the smaller a class is, the easier it is to teach. As a principal, however, I also know that it is harder to find 30 teachers who can expertly teach 20 kids in a class than it is to find 20 teachers who can expertly teach a class with 30 students. The major class-size studies I’ve seen draw conflicting conclusions, and part of the problem is that we don’t have a common measure by which we can judge class-size initiatives.”

Randi Weingarten, the newly elected leader of the American Federation of Teachers, responds:

“If [research doesn’t prove class size matters], why do so many charter schools, private schools, and successful public schools lower class size as a means to differentiate instruction and ensure kids are not anonymous?”

Charles Barone has written about the tension between fewer highly qualified, experienced teachers vs. more novice teachers over at Swift and Change Able so I won’t get into that here. But the other points are worth exploring.

Mr. Hill is correct in saying that we don’t have a common yardstick for measuring class-size efforts. The Department of Education doesn’t collect data at a fine-enough grain size to tell us what federally funded class-size programs look like. In 2006-2007, districts reported spending 47% of their $3 billion in teacher-quality improvement funding to support smaller classes. (A year later, the figure had dropped to 27%, which to me seems like an awfully quick reallocation. But you can interpret the findings for yourself here under "additional resources.")

The best-known research study on class-size reduction, the Tennessee STAR, found positive student-achievement benefits but only under a precise set of conditions. Those conditions were not required in NCLB’s teacher-quality program.

It’s certainly hard to argue with Ms. Weingarten that there are clearly anecdotal cases where reducing class size can make all the difference. (i.e., a writing workshop or math lab). What we don’t know is how many teachers are well trained to profit from smaller classes and how cost-effective the strategy is relative to other strategies to raise student improvement.

During the No Child Left Behind reauthorization attempt last year, class size didn’t really enter the discussion much. But for those of you who still have your Miller-McKeon discussion drafts (I sleep with mine under my pillow), take a close look at the Title II section. Tucked away there are some interesting—and to my mind contradictory—proposals for district class-size spending. (Is that a cap? A hold-harmless? Can you have both at the same time??) Chances are this will come up at some point when Congress gets moving on teacher-quality issues.

What are your success stories with class-size reduction? I’d love to hear from teachers on this. You can post on our discussion feature below, or e-mail me directly at ssawchuk@epe.org.

Posted by Stephen Sawchuk at 11:34 AM | Permalink | No Comments | TrackBacks (0)

Three local affiliates of the National Education Association this week joined the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, or AFL-CIO, the umbrella group’s blog reports.

The locals, from California, Massachusetts, and Wisconsin, will add 3,000 dues-paying members to the AFL-CIO and will take the total number of NEA members in the labor group up to 12,000.

It was two years ago that NEA President Reg Weaver announced that the 3.2 million-member union would allow its locals to join the AFL-CIO, after years of resisting such a move. Although there hasn’t been a stampede since, the slowly growing numbers of NEA locals choosing to affiliate with the labor giant are indicative of the troubles facing organized labor today.

“We need to work together, building coalitions and fighting back with a unified voice,” President-elect Dennis Van Roekel was quoted as saying on the blog.

The AFT, meanwhile, has been a longtime member of the AFL-CIO. Earlier his week, Randi Weingarten, the president of the AFT, was elected to the AFL-CIO’s executive council.

Posted by Vaishali Honawar at 4:29 PM | Permalink | No Comments | TrackBacks (0)

Welcome to Teacher Beat, the blog where we'll talk about the policy and politics of teachers: their preparation, quality, salaries, unions ... if it has to do with that part of the teacher world, you can be sure we’ll be writing about it.

But if it's lesson plans and pedagogy discussions you want, you'll be better served going to our sister site here.

This blog was conceived after the stunning response from readers to our NEA and AFT convention blog. That response also told us that there appears to be a deep need for a forum chronicling the various bits of policy and politics surrounding teachers.

Rarely has the spotlight been so focused on educators as it is today. Federal law has led to deep changes in the ways teachers work and what they are held accountable for. Every day we see debates and changes at the federal, state, and local levels on issues ranging from teacher salaries to teacher preparation to teacher recruitment.

While we go about blogging, don’t be shy yourselves. Feel free to share your thoughts with us in the comments section, as well as any ideas or news you might have for us.

We hope to see you around!

Posted by Vaishali Honawar at 4:24 PM | Permalink | 1 Comment | TrackBacks (0)