July 2011 Archives

By guest blogger Liana Heitin

Four out of 10 new public school teachers hired since 2005 came through alternative teacher-preparation programs, according to a survey just released by the National Center for Education Information. That's up from 22 percent of new teachers hired between 2000 and 2004.

In addition, the survey found that alternative-route teachers are more in favor of using reforms such as performance pay, elimination of tenure, tying student achievement to teacher evaluations, and market-driven pay to strengthen the teaching profession than are their traditionally prepared counterparts.

However, nearly all teachers, regardless of certification route, support removing incompetent teachers without concern for seniority. And all teachers "are slightly more satisfied with general working conditions and are more satisfied with the status of teachers in the community than were teachers surveyed in 2005, 1996, 1990, and in 1986," according to "Profile of Teachers in the U.S. 2011."

This result stands in contrast to the sentiments expressed by those teachers attending the Save Our Schools rally in Washington this weekend.

The survey also found that the teaching force is becoming younger, less experienced, and increasingly female.

The proportion of teachers younger than 30 doubled between the 2005 and 2011 surveys, from 11 percent to 22 percent. And the proportion of teachers 50 and older dropped from 42 percent in 2005 to 31 percent in 2011. "Clearly, the older teachers are retiring and being replaced once again by teachers in their 20s and 30s," states the report.

In 2005, 18 percent of public school teachers surveyed had five or fewer years of experience. That proportion went up to 26 percent in 2011. The proportion of teachers with 25 years experience or more went down from 27 percent in 2005 to 17 percent in 2011.

And 84 percent of public school teachers are female, up slightly from 2005.

The public K-12 teaching force is still overwhelmingly white at 84 percent, according to the survey--though that is down from 91 percent in 1986.

Alternative-route certification programs bring in both more male teachers and more minorities than traditional preparation programs, according to the report.

As you can imagine, there are plenty more details included in the 86-page report, which you can find here.

This item first appeared on the Teaching Now blog at Edweek's Teacher website.

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The Walton Family Foundation will invest $49.5 million in the national Teach For America over three years, according to a release from the Bentonville, Ark.-based nonprofit organization.

The investment, which makes the foundation the single largest private donor to TFA to date, will help to double the number of corps members placed each year, to 15,000 by 2015, the release says.

About half the investment will support the training and professional development of corps members in Denver; Los Angeles; Milwaukee; Newark, N.J.; New Orleans; the District of Columbia; and the Mississippi Delta region.

Teach For America, along with a handful of other teacher programs, recently lost an annual federal earmark, so this is no doubt welcome news to the program.

The donation also comes at a time in which the role of private foundations in public education has received intense scrutiny. Teachers' unions and other prominent figures, such as NYU professor Diane Ravitch, say that such foundations are exerting too much influence over the shape of policy.

In the release, the head of Walton's education reform team, Jim Blew, commends TFA for producing "leaders in the parental choice and education reform movement." He cites former D.C. Chancellor Michelle Rhee and the two founders of the Knowledge Is Power Program charter school network as examples. Both Rhee's tenure and KIPP have generated lots of debate in the field.

Colleague Erik Robelen has written about the Walton Foundation's philanthropy, as well as about the influence of private foundations in general. Make sure to read them for more background.

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A slew of organizations representing colleges and universities have lined up to oppose a recently introduced federal teacher- and principal-training bill, urging the the chairman and ranking Republican on the Senate's Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee not to support the proposal.

The bill, introduced in late June, would authorize grants to states to begin teacher and principal "academies" run by nonprofits, with or without participation of higher education. The academies could offer either degrees or a certificate of completion roughly equivalent to a master's degree, and would not be subject to a state's teacher-preparation regulatory apparatus.

The idea is similar to changes in New York state's approach to teacher education.

In a letter to Sens. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, and Michael Enzi, R-Wyo., the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education, the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, the American Council on Education, and other groups argue that the bill would duplicate other federal programs such as the Teacher Quality Partnership grants, and lower academic standards for preparation.

The groups' major concern is the idea that a certificate would equal a master's degree, "while not obligating the academies to meet the same requirements as traditional higher education providers," the letter says. "This bill discourages states from leveling the playing field for all providers of educator preparation."

They contend the bill would "devalue the M.A. degree," and they object that such programs would be excused from credit-hour requirements and the hiring of academic faculty with advanced degrees.

The proposal is clearly a more threatening proposition for these groups than today's alternative routes, most of which require some coursework at teacher colleges or offer only a teaching certificate, not an M.A. or its equivalent.

One has to wonder if this kind of pushback was inevitable. We've seen a few training programs of late that have sought to distance themselves from higher education altogether, as was the case with New York City's Teacher U program, now the Relay School of Education.

There is a decided lack of solid evidence about what kinds of teacher preparation seem to be the most effective. This is a real concern for those inside traditional education programs: AACTE's president recently called on M.A. programs to improve their ability to show they're effective.

There's a subtext here that also seems worthy of mention. An ongoing debate continues to rage within the educator preparation field about whether schools of education should focus on practical training, clearly the focus of this federal bill; on the production of theorists and scholars, as the author of a recent EdWeek Commentary recently argued; or on some marriage of the two.

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In an email newsletter dispatched to alumni, Teach For America officials said they were "deeply disappointed" by a recent National Education Association resolution opposing TFA efforts—but they also vowed to engage more with professional associations.

It's the alternative certification route's most explicit response so far to the NEA slap, which you may remember took place at the union's Representative Assembly earlier this month. At the convention, delegates took a strong stance against the program, saying they opposed TFA contracts in districts "where there is no teacher shortage or when districts use TFA agreements to reduce teacher costs, silence union voices, or as a vehicle to bust unions."

In its mailing, which got passed along to me, TFA countered that many of its corps members are members of teachers' unions and that "we do not and would not engage in union busting or silencing activities."

TFA also questioned the factuality of the NEA resolution, contending that TFA teachers "do not displace other teachers but rather compete for vacant positions." With respect to hiring cheaper teachers, it added that the districts pay a fee for each member they hire so that the program doesn't necessarily reduce personnel costs. And finally, it says that districts gain more than just personnel by engaging with the program, which includes a significant investment in professional development for corps members.

TFA also held out something of an olive branch: "While we are disappointed that the NEA felt compelled to take this action now, we take it as a signal that we must strive harder to build positive relationships and partner with our valued colleagues in the teaching profession so that we are all maximizing our impact together for the students and communities we serve," the message reads.

I don't get the impression from these kinds of exchanges that either TFA or NEA wants to immediately jump from their current, uneasy rapport into being BFFs. The two groups share some fundamental differences of approach about the role of teacher preparation and the nature of a career in teaching or education. But on the other hand, an outright war makes for terrible public relations and is unlikely to help either group advance its ideas for improving student learning.

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A New York state judge sided yesterday with the New York City Department of Education—and against the United Federation of Teachers, the NAACP, and other groups—in a lawsuit over the closing of some 22 public schools and the planned "co-location" of 16 new charters into buildings that now house traditional public schools, The Wall Street Journal reports.

The ruling will allow the city's plans move forward. In fact, the state commissioner of education approved the 12 closures that fall under state regulatory oversight the same day as the ruling.

This is probably just the first round, though. The ruling seems to apply only to a preliminary injunction that sought to immediately stop the closures and co-locations. The UFT has vowed to continue to litigate an underlying lawsuit about whether these school closures and co-locations lead to inequitable outcomes for public school children.

Read more about the situation in my Education Week story from a few weeks back, which explains some of the high-profile tensions brewing in this case.

The ruling stands in contrast to a similar one last year, in which another state judge sided with the UFT over school closures. (That suit did not tackle the issue of charter co-locations.)

The Wall Street Journal paints this as representative of a larger battle over whether schools should be improved or closed. But it's also, as I reported in my story, an argument about the appropriate place of charter schools in the educational landscape, especially in urban cities where a "critical mass" of operators are starting to have profound implications on the traditional models of schooling. (Think New York City, the District of Columbia, and Detroit.)

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Learning Forward, a.k.a. the Nonprofit Formerly Known As the National Staff Development Council, this morning unveiled an updated set of standards for guiding choices about quality teacher professional development.

The Standards for Professional Learning describe the "context, process, and content" of effective professional development across seven key areas. One aspect of note: The standards on professional-development content have been significantly streamlined. Take a look at the whole document, and let us know what you think of the changes.

It's been quite a year for teacher-standards revisions: The Interstate Teacher Assessment and Support Consortia released its new set a few months ago. That event was followed shortly thereafter by the inauguration of the Teacher Leader Model Standards, a project sponsored by the Princeton, N.J.-based Educational Testing Service.

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The District of Columbia plans to give raises and bonuses to more than 600 teachers and dismiss some 206 others based on data generated by its teacher-evaluation system, officials announced today.

The nationally watched IMPACT evaluation system was created under former Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee. Officials fleshed out the dismissal and bonus components of the system through a collective bargaining pact signed last year with the Washington Teachers Union.

According to this year's results, 663 D.C. teachers were rated the highest level, "highly effective," and are eligible to receive performance bonuses of up to $25,000. Of those teachers, 290 will get base-salary increases as well.

The district will terminate 65 teachers who received "ineffective" ratings, along with 141 others whose performance didn't improve enough over last year.

Another 94 teachers will be dismissed for not maintaining a valid license, and a handful of teachers who lost their placements and could not find new ones will also be let go.

Other teachers' performance improved enough to avoid being terminated. 58 percent of the 566 teachers who last year received the rating of "minimally effective," the second lowest under the system, were rated "effective" or "highly effective" this year.

The IMPACT teacher-evaluation system was rolled out in the 2009-10 school year and underwent revisions for the 2010-11 school year. It is one of the first operational teacher-evaluation systems in the nation to grade teachers using a combination of classroom observations by principals and a measure of growth in students' test scores.

The WTU has criticized the system in the past, particularly for the schoolwide student-achievement component, which bases a small portion of each teacher's score on the performance of the school as a whole.

Check back shortly for updates and reaction.

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California's independent teacher-standards board appears to be mending its ways after the embarrassing attention it garnered in the wake of a scathing review by a state auditor earlier this year, the Sacramento Bee reports.

The audit report, which came out in April, found the board had a major backlog in processing cases dealing with allegations of teacher conduct, on the order of 12,600 or more. Many other charges, including a pattern of nepotism, were also lobbed at the body.

One employee, who cooperated with the audit, lost her job along the way; the commission's general counsel and executive director left shortly after.

The commission now has a new executive director, and the state auditor, Elaine Howle, said at a state legislative hearing that there appear to be signs of progress in 11 of the 12 areas of deficiency she identified, the newspaper reports.

Not all states have a separate teacher-credentialing body, but other states' education agencies have come under similar scrutiny in terms of their oversight of the teaching force.

Reporters in Hawaii took over a year to get that state's education department to release information about teacher discipline and dismissals. The upshot: Very few teachers were disciplined or fired because of misconduct.

And in April, the Minnesota Star Tribune found that the state Board of Teaching had stopped enforcing license violations.

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Over the past year and a half, New York's board of regents has quietly approved changes to teacher education rules that promise to significantly reshape training in that state.

First, it's into opening up new avenues for the preparation of teachers: Under a competition funded partly by the state's Race to the Top win, the state created a pilot competitive program for a "graduate level clinically rich teacher-preparation pilot program," which would allow both higher education and non-higher-education institutions to operate a teacher-residency program and grant masters' degrees in teaching.

A teacher residency is a yearlong apprenticeship in which candidates spend much time in schools. I just wrote a long EdWeek story about the model, so make sure to check it out.

The idea of a nonprofit offering a graduate teaching degree is quite a new one. The only other instance I can think of in which a non-IHE is permitted to mint teachers is the High Tech High program, in California.

The state competition was informed by innovations from the Teacher U partnership, a novel collaboration that involved several charter school networks and the Manhattan-based Hunter College—a City University of New York outlet. (Teacher U recently decided to separate from Hunter; its new name is the Relay College of Education.)

The regents just released the winners of this pilot competition. Only one of the winners is not a traditional school of education, but it's a really interesting one: New York City's famed American Museum of Natural History.

The competition has had national implications, too: It helped to inform a recent federal teacher-training bill.

Second, this competition comes on top of major changes in the state that will affect all preparers of teachers. In 2009, the regents announced plans to overhaul its system of tiered certification for teachers.

Recall that for a teacher in New York to move from an initial to professional certification, (s)he must earn a master's degree. Now, as part of that process, they'll also have to pass a series of performance-based assessments.

There are interesting implications to this change: A teacher could receive tenure, but potentially fail to meet the bar and therefore not be permitted to receive professional certification.

Again, this model was informed by the Teacher U/Relay concept of requiring all teachers-in-training to show evidence of student-achievement growth before they are allowed to graduate.

I have phone calls out to the regents, some of the winners in the state teacher-preparation contest, and other figures working in New York teacher education, who will be able to help me flesh out the meaning of all these changes. So check back at edweek.org for a fuller story on these changes in the next week or so.

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Well, readers, it was a wild ride: This year's National Education Association convention was full of twists and turns. We're happy that you were able to follow along with our coverage here at Education Week's Teacher Beat blog.

There are a few loose ends that I wanted to follow up on before we return to our regularly scheduled programming. I mentioned many of them in my "preview" item from a week ago, and didn't want you to think I had forgotten about them.

• At Intercepts, Mike Antonucci notes an NEA development that somehow got lost in all the action this year. During the convention, the NEA removed the sentence from its resolution on compensation that prohibits performance-based pay or merit pay. Make sure to read this important update, which potentially gives the union more flexibility in how it handles compensation changes.

• On the Common Core State Standards Initiative, NEA President Dennis Van Roekel told me that the union is fully supportive of the effort and hopeful that the new generation of tests will be much more sophisticated. He said he has, however, gotten some queries about teachers uncertain of what to do because they are now expected to teach to the new standards, while their students are being assessed on the former ones! This is a really good question, one I wrote about in a bit more depth in EdWeek's Quality Counts a while ago.

At the same time, Van Roekel acknowledged that stopping annual testing until the new assessments are in place could jeopardize students who have gotten more attention under the NCLB-required disaggregation of data. "We have to attempt to find a solution," he said. "There's got to be something in between."

• On the final day of the Representative Assembly, the chair of NEA's Commission on Effective Teachers and Teaching, Maddie Fennell, made a short presentation to delegates. (Remember, this was a separate body from the one that crafted the union's teacher-evaluation policy statement.) The commission's report, she said, will come out sometime in October. One interesting tidbit: Fennell said the best and most successful teachers should work with the toughest students, just as the best doctors see patients with the most challenging symptoms. Will the NEA as a whole go along with that idea? Stay tuned.

• Also on the final day, Christy Levings, the chair of NEA's ESEA commission, gave an update. The union is now pushing for regulatory relief from elements of the No Child Left Behind law (like the 2014 deadline, the sanctions cascade, and the "highly qualified teacher" designation), but without the strings that the Obama administration plans to attach.

• In a video presentation, NEA members gave a moving farewell tribute to NEA's executive director, John I. Wilson, who will be retiring in August. The video included comments from Gov. Bev Perdue and former Gov. Jim Hunt, as well as family members and friends of Wilson's. It included some fun tidbits about the long-standing NEA staffer. (He's apparently a terrible driver.)

Many thanks to those members who stopped by to introduce themselves over the course of the week and to NEA's press folks for their help.

We'll see you again at next year's convention, which will be held here on my home turf in the District of Columbia.

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In the union's strongest stance yet against the popular Teach For America alternative-certification program, National Education Association delegates approved an item that accuses TFA of taking jobs from other teachers in locales where positions are scarce.

Until now, the NEA had no formal position on the organization, though many of the union's internal resolutions stood in contrast with such TFA practices as its short formal training program. There has long been friction between the two groups, though.

The item calls on the NEA to "publicly oppose" contracts with TFA when they are used in districts with no teacher shortages, or to save money on salaries.

Even before this item got to the floor, its drafters added stronger language, saying that some TFA contracts could be used to "bust unions."

The sponsor, Marianne Bratsanos of Washington State, praised the program for filling hard-to-staff positions but said it has gone too far by placing recruits in districts with no teacher shortages. (She was probably referring to headlines earlier this year out of Kansas City, Mo., where the district was laying off some educators while bringing on others trained by TFA.)

"While this may temporarily suffice when you cannot fill a teaching position, it is not OK where hundreds of experienced teachers have been pink-slipped and are clamoring for limited positions," she said.

She added that the program hurts local colleges of education. And finally, she said "antiunion foundations and corporations substantially fund TFA," naming the Walton, Broad, and Gates foundations. "These corporations work to silence union voices," she said. (The Broad and Gates foundations are past providers of grant support to Education Week 's nonprofit parent corporation.)

TFA will, no doubt, dispute the NEA's characterization. I have a request for comment out to TFA now, and will update the item when I hear back.

UPDATED (8:42 p.m.): TFA spokeswoman Carrie James sent along this statement:

"This year, Teach For America received record interest from schools and districts wanting to hire our teachers, and a record number of applicants for the fourth consecutive year. We will continue to work hard to meet this growing demand for our teachers, which we believe is a reflection of the dedication and effectiveness our teachers bring to the classroom."

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An NEA mystery solved!

You'll remember a few days ago, NEA's policy statement was mysteriously amended before it hit the floor of the Representative Assembly with a sentence that was a lot more specific about what NEA would accept with respect to test scores. Well, I've been poking around, trying to figure out what exactly went down.

Today I spoke with Dean Vogel, the new president of the California Teachers Association, who was tapped to co-chair the NEA committee that crafted the proposal. Vogel explained to me that after the original statement had been approved by the board of directors and sent to state affiliates, the committee started getting some pushback from groups in the states about the original test-score language.

The National Council of Urban Education Associations, an NEA caucus of sorts with about 250 urban locals, was also less than happy with the language as originally drafted. The group carries some weight in the NEA, since it represents about 800,000 members.

"We clearly had issues" with the original proposal, said Tripp Jeffers, the eastern regional director for NCUEA and the outgoing president of the Forsyth County (N.C.) Association of Educators. He said his organization decided internally not to support the statement unless caveats were made about the use of test scores: "What NCUEA does most effectively is vet."

So, the teacher-evaluation committee worked with representatives from these groups and others to add additional qualifiers, here in Chicago right before the RA got started. NEA's board of directors subsequently approved it.

"We were actively engaged with people who were discouraged with the language, trying to craft language that would work," Vogel told me. "It probably changed four or five times prior to completion."

But without the changes, the evaluation proposal might never have passed at all on the RA floor, he noted.

This may be inside baseball—but it's a good reminder of how internal workgroups, internal advocacy groups, and coalitions exert pressure on how the NEA goes about doing business. The union prides itself on being the largest democratic, deliberative body in the nation, and this kind of back-and-forth is all part of the process.

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I've been getting lots of queries about the NEA's new teacher-evaluation policy, and the best way to address this is to list some of the common assertions I'm reading out there and to try to parse their "truthiness." Without further ado:

The policy statement adds nothing new to NEA's position on evaluations. FALSE. Your intrepid blogger dragged NEA's 450-page handbook all the way to Chicago for just this kind of question! And under perusal, I found that current resolution D-20, which governs existing policy on teacher evaluation is fairly unspecific as to what should be reviewed in evaluations.

The new policy statement, in saying that teachers' evaluations must include a measure of the teacher's ability to improve student learning, is a step more specific. Also, D-20 opposes students' scores being used for evaluation. Under the new policy statement, the door is now open on that front—although there's a bit of a catch-22 in that no current tests meet those criteria. This resolution, and others, will have to be updated to reflect the new policy statement.

Another good example: The policy statement says that remediation before due process kicks in shouldn't last longer than a year. I can't find anything that specific in the existing policies.

The policy statement forces state affiliates' hands. FALSE. Resolutions are statements of the national union's beliefs, but not dictates. States are supposed to support them, but they're also allowed to set their own internal policies.

If state affiliates do something not sanctioned in the national policy resolutions, they supposedly can't get financial or other support from NEA in doing so. But President Dennis Van Roekel has loosened things up somewhat, saying he'll support state affiliates that bargain performance pay through the Teacher Incentive Fund, for instance.

NEA's policy doesn't address education support personnel, such as paraprofessionals, counselors, and so on. TRUE. Those areas were outside the drafting committee's scope of work, according to Secretary-Treasurer Becky Pringle.

NEA affiliates are broadly supportive of the statement. FALSE. Though the policy statement passed fairly comfortably, some state affiliates, like Michigan, did not support it. And some delegates are also unhappy.

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Despite a lot of hand-wringing, delegates to the National Education Association's Representative Assembly approved an early endorsement for President Barack Obama, and by a good margin: 5,414 delegates, or 72 percent, voted in favor, according to results that were just released here.

It looks like I was right after all. (The measure required a 58 percent "yes" vote in order to pass.)

The approval triggers the flow of NEA PAC dollars toward Obama's re-election campaign.

And that's not all: 70 percent of the body, or 5,258 delegates, approved the amendment to the bylaws that authorize the $10-per-member annual assessment, 60 percent of which will be used primarily to support the Ballot Initiative/Legislative Crisis fund, and the other 40 percent for national and state media efforts. These funds can't support political campaigns but can support messaging and action against things like anti-collective bargaining legislation.

There was some real doubt about whether the Obama endorsement was going to go through this year or next; I spoke to a number of delegates who did not particularly want to go forward with an endorsement right now, figuring they'd have more leverage with the president if the endorsement was delayed until next year's RA.

And at least a few felt that the NEA should call for the removal of U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan as the price for an early Obama endorsement—the delegates earlier approved a measure listing 13 frustrations with the secretary—but the call for Duncan's ouster didn't come to pass.

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The National Education Association just approved a policy statement on teacher evaluation theoretically permitting use of standardized-test scores as one measure of teacher performance—but the union's leaders underscored that no existing standardized tests currently meet the criteria for inclusion spelled out in the policy.

The move was urged by the union's leaders as a way of putting forth a coherent vision for the place of evaluations in promoting teacher effectiveness. It amends all the union's current resolutions dealing with teacher evaluations, support, and due process.

As Teacher Beat reported earlier, the union's board of directors put many qualifications on the use of test scores in teacher evaluations even before delegates got a whack at the proposal.

In introducing the proposal, NEA Secretary-Treasurer Becky Pringle made it clear that the NEA's main focus is on teacher improvement. "The decision is whether we will define a truly high-quality evaluation and accountability system that honors our profession," she said.

Given that no existing tests currently meet the requirements as stated, she said the union would engage in "ongoing work to ensure they are created."

On the convention floor, delegates added a few additional amendments. Let's take a look at them:

• Objective evaluators must now "be agreed to by the local affiliate," which would, for example, not permit evaluators like the district-hired "master educators" used by the District of Columbia's IMPACT teacher-evaluation system.

• On tenure-granting (or as the union calls it "career status"), the original proposal said that teachers after receiving two "meets" or "exceeds" ratings on evaluations should earn tenure. But the final version says tenure should be granted for a good evaluation "at the end of their probationary period."

• On top of all the other requirements, standardized tests used in evaluations would now have to be "developmentally appropriate," too.

Strong statements both pro and con during the debate on this item. Here's a delegate from Michigan, speaking on behalf of his state's delegation:

"It is disturbing that the largest labor union in the U.S., the largest teachers' union 3.2-million members is flipping on this position. ... Standardized tests narrow our curriculum. Standardized tests are not an accurate measure of teacher performance or student achievement."

And here's Ken Swanson, president of the Illinois Education Association, speaking on behalf of the union's board of directors, in favor of adoption:

"We act on many things every year at the RA. Some are somewhat trivial, some are important, some are profound. But occasionally we act on something that fundamentally charts the course of the organization and fundamentally changes the national debate about public education. This is one of those items. This is a change to get off of defense and start playing offense. ... Now it the moment, now is the opportunity. ... It is time to act. It is time for us to talk about what makes for effective teaching and effective evaluation."

An interesting subtext also emerged during the debate. A few education support personnel were not happy that the statement does not reference how they should be evaluated.

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Confetti cannons at the NEA's Fourth of July celebration!

I am such a happy camper.

Photo credit: Stephen Sawchuk/Education Week

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UPDATED

Here at the 2011 NEA Representative Assembly, we've reached the cutoff for new business items and we now have the full list available.

Most of them toe the line of years past (support for national-board certification, condemnation of "privatization"), but there are a few that caught my eye.

Here's a list of four to watch:

• New Business Item 37, which just passed a few moments ago, calls on NEA to inform members about the "anti-public education agenda behind the ill-informed intrusion of billionaires on education." (The NEA's independent foundation, by the way, receives funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, but never mind. Disclosure: Education Week is also a former recipient of Gates Foundation funding.)

• New Business item 46, which we'll get to this afternoon, would require the NEA to organize a "national campaign" to seek a U.S. constitutional amendment guaranteeing all workers the right to organize a union and bargain collectively with their employer. The resolution carries a price tag of $300 million for the NEA!

UPDATED, July 4, 11:33 a.m. The item was amended on the convention floor to direct NEA President Dennis Van Roekel to send a letter to members of Congress and state legislators in support of such a constitutional amendment. With the hefty price tag all but eliminated, the item passed easily.

• New Business Item 59 would require NEA to use unionized employees for services provided to delegates at future RAs, or pay nonunionized ones a prevailing wage and overtime. Apparently, a delegate chatted with one of the bus drivers that ferry delegates to and from their hotels and discovered he wasn't unionized and wasn't being paid overtime. Oops.

UPDATED, July 4, 5:25 pm: The item passed by a standing vote.

• New Business item 93 would require the NEA to publicly oppose Teach For America contracts when they are put into place in districts with no teacher shortage, to "reduce teacher costs," or to "silence union voices." (Not sure I get that last point; TFA teachers are members in mandatory-bargaining states.)

UPDATED, July 5, 5:49 pm. A modified version of the item passed.

Check back to this page to see how these items fare later in the convention.

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Well, the National Education Association's delegates may not be very happy with U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, but they don't want to call for his ouster—at least not publicly.

The delegates to the Representative Assembly voted down New Business Item 22, which would have required the union to call for Duncan's removal.

Had it passed, it would have been the first time the union approved such a policy at a Representative Assembly—but not the first time it's called for the removal of the agency's head. Recall its reaction in 2004, when then-Education Secretary Rod Paige called the union a "terrorist organization."

There was a distinct feeling that delegates rejected the item primarily on the grounds of bad PR. Even those who spoke against the item didn't exactly praise Duncan.

"We are not union thugs; let's not give those who would destroy us any ammunition," one Delaware delegate said.

The NEA has been pretty vocal in its criticism of Duncan. Yesterday, the delegates approved New Business Item C, which states, "NEA is appalled with Secretary Duncan's practice of ..." and lists 13 frustrations with the education secretary.

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Ever wonder how the NEA's state affiliates keep their members in line on votes on new business items and the like?

Each state delegation designates someone who holds up signs indicating whether delegates should shout "aye" or "no" at the opportune moment. Also, a green "yes" or red "no" sign can specify whether the opinion is that of the state affiliate's leadership or its caucus. There's also a "your choice" sign.

Delegates aren't bound by these indicators, one of the sign-holders explained to me, but it helps explain why so many votes go down according to state lines.

Photo: "Yes" and "no" signs are ready for use by the New Jersey delegation. (Stephen Sawchuk/Education Week)

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In a speech to the National Education Association's delegate assembly, Vice President Joe Biden sought to downplay areas of disagreement with the union, using the metaphor of a squabble in an otherwise tightly knit family.

"In these times of change, I know you don't agree with everything we've done in this administration. Believe me, I know," Biden said to laughter from delegates. "I respect the disagreement we have. And not all of it, are you wrong about. Some of it you are. But ... this is more a fight within the family."

In rhetorical structure, the speech had some striking parallels with NEA President Dennis Van Roekel's keynote yesterday, in which he described such disagreements as "a fight over how to achieve a shared vision."

And just as Van Roekel emphasized Obama's legislative successes, so too did Biden emphasize that the White House and the union agree about things such as the right for public employees to bargain collectively, progressive tax policies, early-childhood education, affordable health care, etc.

Coincidence? Probably not. Biden said he read Van Roekel's' speech on the plane ride over to Chicago.

"Not only was it rhetorically inspiring, more importantly, it conveyed real insight that is not reflected much in the public debate about what this debate is really about," Biden said about Van Roekel's speech. "I mean it. Literally, I can say there's not a single, solitary assertion you made in that speech that I don't wholeheartedly agree with."

Here's another key section of Biden's address, basically the Why You Should Endorse Obama part:

"One thing you should not have any doubt in your mind about is that Barack Obama, he is on your side. Make no mistake about it. He will, and I will, and we will fight alongside you, and we will fight for you, and occasionally in the privacy of the family, we'll fight with you, but this is about the same fundamental vision for this country."

There was the obligatory knock against what Biden called the "new" Republican politicians: "They're decent people, [but] they have a fundamentally different view than even the previous Republican Party had. I don't think, I really don't think they fundamentally believe in public education as we do."

And in a line that was a bit surprising, Biden said that addressing poverty is an important part of education reform, a point that the NEA and some of the critics of the Obama administration policies have been hammering on lately: "Public education is as much about poverty, lack of heath care, unemployment, as it is about what goes on in the classroom. Ask any teacher."

No mention at all of U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, who is truly being made a scapegoat by some delegates. On top of yesterday's New Business Item C, delegates have submitted a new one for consideration that would call for Duncan's removal from office.

Photo: U.S. Vice President Joe Biden embraces NEA President Dennis Van Roekel, while NEA Vice President Lily Eskelsen looks on. (Kevin Lock/Courtesy of the National Education Association)

Posted by Stephen Sawchuk at 12:55 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

An item to delay a vote on whether or not to endorse Barack Obama was just voted down by the National Education Association's delegate assembly.

Now, pay attention please: This does not mean that the union will actually endorse Obama later this weekend! It merely means the vote won't be put off.

There was quite a fierce debate on both sides of the equation on this one, and some really fabulous quotes.

Like one from the delegate in favor of a delay: "We are not pregnant, and we don't need a shotgun wedding," she said. "Let's wait and not allow ourselves to be taken for granted and taken for another ride."

Or this one from Mary Bell, the president of the Wisconsin state affiliate, who criticized the proposed delay. She said that every minute of NEA support counts in the face of anti-bargaining Republican candidates: "How does delay build on our capacity to deliver?" she said to loud applause. "How does delay help the most important recommendation in years?"

Or this one, from a pro-delay delegate who (finally!) acknowledged that Obama and Duncan are on the same page: "If President Obama didn't agree with what Arne Duncan was saying, Arne Duncan would no longer have a job."

Or the one that really takes the cake: "If a better candidate comes along, can we remove our endorsement?"

(The answer, by the way, is no.)

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With a few minor amendments, the NEA's Representative Assembly today passed New Business Item C, a.k.a. "13 Things We Hate About Arne Duncan."

One of its sponsors said that unions are tired of being attacked, and they are "especially upset that the U.S. Department of Education and Secretary Duncan are part of the problems we face every single day."

No one disagreed, and there wasn't a whole lot of debate on the item, which is a pretty good indication of just how ticked off the union is right about now.

Worth mentioning: One delegate offered and then withdrew an amendment to encourage President Obama to recall Duncan—and replace him with former NEA President Reg Weaver. (The amendment, believe it or not, went to a standing vote before it was withdrawn.)

Another delegate wanted to know whether there was any new information in the item that the NEA hadn't already conveyed to the Education Department. Apparently not. "They have all been related to the secretary of education, personally, by me, face to face," NEA President Dennis Van Roekel responded. (I'll bet that was a fun conversation.)

Another delegate was really angry, saying that the item amounted to a finger-wagging, when in just a day or two the union will be asked to endorse Obama for a second term. "This item is ... talk and no action," he complained.

After the item passed, Duncan's press shop offered this comment:

"We acknowledge differing views and interpretations among some education labor leaders around the administration's education agenda. But, on the whole our partnership with labor is having a positive impact on student learning and the teaching profession—and we look forward to continuing to work with the NEA in the months and years ahead to further advance education reform."

New Business Item C, which states, "NEA is appalled with Secretary Duncan's
practice of ..." and then goes on to list 13 things, was submitted by the union's board of directors, so it carries a fairly definitive sense of the union's view.

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The delegation just passed New Business Item B, which encourages all NEA members to participate in the "Save Our Schools" grassroots rally taking place in Washington, D.C., on July 30.

As my colleague Erik Robelen wrote about earlier, the rally's organizers generally criticize things like standardized testing, teacher accountability, school "privatization," and what they deem the "corporate reform" movement. It will include speakers like historian-cum-advocate Diane Ravitch, celebrities, and other officials.

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In what is apparently the first time the National Education Association has bestowed its "Friend of Education Award" to a group rather than an individual, the union honored the Wisconsin 14," the senators who left the state for three weeks this spring to try to block a bill supported by Gov. Scott Walker stripping public workers of many collective-bargaining rights.

(That story ended with Republicans pushing the bill through as part of a budget measure. Efforts are now underway to recall both Republican and Democratic lawmakers.)

No big surprises here, obviously. The delegates all held up "Thank you 14" signs, and shouted "Recall!" and chanted "Union busting, that's disgusting," while the union's vice president, Lily Eskelsen, sang a moving rendition of "Solidarity Forever" and played the ukulele.

In all, the award reflects the larger theme of this year's convention. NEA has temporarily ditched its "Great Public Schools For Every Child" slogan in favor of a new one for this convention: "Standing Strong For Our Students, Our Schools, and America." Organizing and legislative muscle were clearly on the minds of the union's budget committee this week.

Posted by Stephen Sawchuk at 3:58 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

So will the National Education Association's delegates vote at this year's Representative Assembly to endorse Barack Obama for United States president—or won't they?

A few days ago, I wrote that an endorsement was all but a done deal. Now I'm wondering if I'll have to eat my words.

Why? Well, take a look at a New Business Item that is coming up for debate this afternoon.. Its sponsors want to postpone the endorsement and vote in January 2012 instead through an electronic or mail ballot. The NBI rationale says that it would "provide a common ground between those who want to endorse the president at this RA and those who do not."

Or read Stephanie Banchero's story in The Wall Street Journal, which points to a California advisory group that is advocating against an endorsement.

Or take NEA President Dennis Van Roekel's keynote, in which he pushed hard for an endorsement: "NEA must take a stand at this RA and support the re-election of President Barack Obama," he said. "We know President Obama's opponents are going to try to demonize him for the next 18 months."

He ticked off a list of Obama's accomplishments, including the health-care law, the economic-stimulus package, and the "edujobs" bill, that have helped many members.

In his speech, Van Roekel also acknowledged many members' concerns with his policies, but sought to underscore areas of agreement, rather than disagreement with the president. "He has never wavered from talking about the importance of education, from pre-K to college, fighting for Pell grants, fighting for the DREAM Act, fighting for struggling students.," he said. "That doesn't mean we agree with all his education ideas, and I know we'll fight like hell to fix the things that are wrong."

But would this have been an area of focus if an endorsement was all wrapped up? I'm inclined to think not.

When I had a few moments to interview Van Roekel yesterday, I pressed him to explain more about the endorsement. Why do it at this year's RA, as opposed to next year's? After all, the election's a good long way away.

Van Roekel made the point that the move toward earlier primaries and longer campaign seasons means that the union's choices are to endorse four months before an election, or 16 months before. Given the toxic political situation, its directors thought an earlier time frame made more sense. More time and cash behind the candidate that way.

He acknowledged, though, that were there any viable challengers to Obama, the union "wouldn't [endorse] this early."

He added that he doesn't mind differing with the Obama administration on some policies because they share much of their vision for America. "I don't mind fighting with the administration on how to get there; out of that will come good ideas," he said. "I don't want to go back to a time where the fight is the destination," as would be the case with a Republican president.

Bottom line: Odds are NEA will endorse Obama at some point. But it may happen NEXT year, rather than this July.

Posted by Stephen Sawchuk at 3:26 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

A very strongly worded New Business Item that will be debated sometime this afternoon at the RA makes some blistering criticisms of the U.S. secretary of education.

We probably won't get to it until after President Dennis Van Roekel's speech, but it is interesting to see that even in the face of all the anti-bargaining legislation out in the states, the union is still really upset about things like the Race to the Top program.

It would direct the NEA president to communicate "aggressively, forcefully, and immediately" to Barack Obama about all the things the union doesn't like about Arne Duncan.

Essentially, this is a laundry list of all the beef the union has with the Obama administration education policies, ranging from its support of the Central Falls, R.I., teacher firings, to its use of competitive grants, to its support for charter schools, to the four School Improvement Grants turnaround strategies, to teacher evaluations based in part on student scores, to what it describes as Duncan's practice of "disrespecting and failing to honor the professionalism of educators across this country."

It really ought to be subtitled "Thirteen Things We Hate About Arne Duncan."

The New Business Item was submitted by the union's board of directors, so it carries a fairly definitive sense of where the union stands.

I continue to be fascinated by the NEA's tendency of reserving its harshest criticism for Duncan and almost ignoring Obama himself. The same dynamic was on full display at last year's RA. The only explanation that springs to mind is that this bifurcation is a way for delegates to let off steam about policies they don't like, while still ultimately supporting a Democratic candidate.

For the full list of grievances against Duncan, read New Business Item C.

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NEA's budget committee this morning presented a modified 2010-2012 strategic plan and budget for feedback and review that would cut some $17 million from the budget that the Representative Assembly approved last year.

NEA Secretary-Treasurer Becky Pringle said the modification was necessary due to a "double whammy" of membership losses coupled with projected teacher-salary raises that didn't materialize.

(99 percent of NEA's budget is based on dues. And the dues formula for classroom teachers, for instance, is basically the number of members times the average salary of active full-time-equivalent teachers.)

The union lost 20,000 members last year, expects to lose 10,000 more by the end of this year, and an additional 30,000 in 2012. So, the cuts are based on a projected loss of 60,000 million members in total, a $14 million hit, plus a $3 million increase in the cost of its unified legal-service program, which helps protect teachers' employment.

The modified budget is just a proposal at this point; the entire Representative Assembly will vote on it in a few days.

A few things about this are worth noting. First, Pringle said that last year's losses were the first ever for the association, and that it's pessimistic about the future in part because there is no chance of another federal "edujobs" bill.

"I'm sure I don't need to tell you there will be no education bill saving our members' jobs this year," she said.

Second, although I'm not the first to note this disparity, a loss of 30,000 education jobs is not anywhere close to the 10-times-larger 300,000 figure that NEA was tossing around last year. (To be fair, the Obama administration used the larger figure, too.)

So where does NEA plan to make its cuts? A lot of different places. It's changing its strategic goals (they were school funding, improved salaries and its Priority Schools campaign; now, they are "strong affiliates" and Priority Schools.) It's cutting a lot of administrative expenses, reducing its travel budget, and cutting its publications.

Perhaps most interesting, it also expects to reduce its staff by 20 folks to save $5 million. The union hopes most of that will come from attrition, but it's not a sure thing yet.

Now, on top of all this, the union plans to levy a $10-per-member annual assessment to increase its Ballot Initiative/Legislative Crisis Fund. That was a tough decision but necessary in light of anti-bargaining action in Idaho, Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio, and other states, Pringle said.

She underscored that this increase will not be used to close the projected $17 million shortfall. It will all be sent to states that request the extra assistance.

"We cannot send our significant army to war unarmed," she said.

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