Education Reformers Nervously Look to State House

The Democrats in Olympia will have to de-couple themselves from the teachers union if Obama era education reforms are going to take root. But don't count on it. It may take Republicans to make the education system more accountable and more in line with voter expectations. How ironic. It's never been more clear than now that the union is the enemy of reform.

This is some really interesting writing Josh. I'm going to attempt a Cliff's notes version of your education reporting.

The failures of the status quo are the fault of teachers. Arne Duncan's race for the cash is reform which will work. It will work because we'll evaluate teachers more effectively. The failures of the status quo are the fault of teachers. Different points of view are against reform, and are for a failing status quo. The failures of the status quo are the fault of teachers.

Hey Josh – have you ever heard of General Motors? Westinghouse? Novell software? Do you think it is the fault of the working stiffs keeping their fingers in the bursting dikes that those companies … stumbled? Do you know that all those companies had lots of highly paid senior managers who cleaned out the till before the stumbles? Does this remind you of what has happened in other sectors of the vaunted business world?

And what does this private sector business as usual have to do with public education? Many powerful people are blaming the teachers for the SYSTEMIC problems that we didn't create! The failures of the status quo are the fault of teachers, NOT of the people in charge of the systems!

rmm.

The labor movement is shooting itself in the foot by propping up bad teachers. The losers in this game will be our children who suffer through an education that ranks 42nd in the nation's 50 states. WEA needs the boot once and for all. Teacher pay tied to teacher quality. Why is that so revolutionary?

That's a nice talking point with absolutely no basis in reality. The WEA took it in the shorts last year when HB2261 passed, and SB6696 (which the WEA is solidly behind) includes things like school takeover, forced reopeners of contracts, and a third year of provisional status for teachers that are traditional third-rail for teacher unionism.

“Why is that so revolutionary?”

Because we've yet to find the perfect metric for teacher quality.

The labor movement is 'propping up bad teachers' ? oh boy, you heard that on rush limbaugh, or, 1 of his clones?

For the last 30+ years, how many people working have had access to:

health care security?
retraining security?
save neighborhood security?
the security of good schools for all kids?
retirement that isn't a goldman / aig roulette security?

Only the people at the top!

For over 30 years we've been celebrating the genius of the people at the top, the masters of the private sector. Of course, does anyone bother pointing out that for each google inventor who got what they deserved, there are 9? 19? 29? who got to the top by being back stabbers and butt kissers?

We're ALL concerned with results – could I have some examples of SYSTEMIC consistent results in the private sector? Wal-Mart & McDonalds? The defense industry? health insurance? the auto industry? compaq, novell, dec and the dot.bombs?

Us working stiffs have been NOT in charge of anything for 30+ years, we've been shoveling money at the top, we've been accountable for all the bad decisions at the top, we've been blamed for all the bad decisions, and most of us have what for it?

Is anyone going to figure out what their 'reform' ideas cost in time to implement per idea, per student, per class, per adult, per day, per week, per year? Is anyone going to figure out how to pay for those ideas?

OR – it is just easier to blame teachers!

rmm.

I think education needs to be decoupled from schools. Let's use the Web to teach and learn more with video/interactive/text presentations.

Let's make schools socialization+activity (S+A). Let's get people to communicate face to face instead of being trained to sit at desks. Let's get kids running, jumping and playing for hours a day instead of 30 minutes to reduce obesity. Book learnin' is only part of an “education”.

Teachers must be Philosphers and Wise Folk and most of all Interesting People.

Ryan– Sorry I'm so late getting back into this thread. Two key elements in the Race to the Top are charter schools and linking teacher pay to student achievement. The union opposes both of these elements. Neither is a panacea but why the opposition? Protecting bad teachers and shutting out the possiblity of new ideas that might come from chartering some new schools has nothing to do with “teachers taking it in the shorts”. Teachers ought to negotiate a system that rewards the best teachers better, helps less capable teachers and weeds out those who are not cutting it. The union, however, refuses to admit that there is anyway to make a teacher accountable. Other states are figuring it out. We ought to as well.

I don't come at this from the point of view of a professional but as a parent who has had both good and bad teachers in the public schools. The good ones are invaluable. But try to have input into the evaluation of a bad teacher? It does not happen. There is a lot of dead wood in the sytem and no way to hold them accountable.

Mikos,

Here's the point breakdown in RTTT:
*

Selection Criteria

* State success factors (district participation, capacity for reform, stakeholder buy-in, progress in student achievement) — 125 points
* Standards and assessments — 70 points
* Data systems to support instruction — 47 points
* Great teachers and leaders — 138 points
* Turning around the lowest achieving schools — 50 points
* General (making education funding a priority, ensuring successful conditions for charter and other innovative schools, demonstrating other reform conditions) — 55 points

So, its an exaggeration to say charter schools are a “key element.” It's a subset in the “General” category that's worth 55 points. Also, charters have been voted down in Washington state, so it's not likely that charters are going to make it into the reform bill.

I'm not saying you don't have a point, but charters is a non-starter in this debate. The good news is, it's not one of the big gets in terms of RTTT points.

Mikos is right, and let us ask ourselves why this state was unable to participate in round one of those funds?
Because none of this was in place, and for the second round you have to at least have some policy in place to change.

How come there aren't data systems to evaluate the effectiveness of the blizzard of incessantly shifting best practices, mandates and powerpoint voodoo? LOMG! We can't question managers, because managers … went to college and have credentials!!
Hopefully the wizard will give me a diploma, a heart, and a testimonial someday!

It is rare you say anything I agree with, but, I do think that middle school and high school days need to have MANDATED burn off energy activities.

They're teenagers – they do NOT stop. We didn't evolve from the desk people. I was in the top 10% academically because I didn't mind sitting on my butt all day reading.

I think a lot of behavior problems would go away just by having them run up and down a hill 12 times day – a smarter society would put that energy into helping the elderly with their grocery shopping, or shoveling snow, or chasing around the little kids in recess games.

rmm.

I'd settle for some reasonable metrics.

By The Way – should I be held accountable for not making cake when I was handed a bag of rocks?

We're deluged with best practices and the edu-babble du jour, no one figures out how much time it costs to EFFECTIVELY implement any single best practice, much less the babble du jour – but, lets hold 'em accountable!

The systems in place to insure quality cars are junk, the systems to make cars people want are out of touch, the systems set up by senior management to reward people for hard work and better ideas just set up to insure senior management pilfering – but blame the people making a middle class wage for the junk cars!

Please, Please, PLEASE show me effective large scale merit pay systems that work for hundreds of thousands and millions.

rmm.

Baker:
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Mikos is full of shit, and so are you. “The state was unable to participate in round one of those funds” because the VOTERS took it off the table, as Josh correctly points out.
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There is no decent evaluation system for teachers because there is no way to accurately measure teacher perfomance across the board even within a district, much less across the state, where districts and schools within those districts, and student populations within schools vary widely. Better minds than yours have tried and failed. Maybe there's a reason for that beyond the usual tiresome and bogus, but oh, so fucking HIP union-bashing.
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The whole “race to the top” program is designed to cripple teachers' job security and bargaining power by starving states of federal money unless they comply with Duncan's (and Obama's — fuck him, too!) grand scheme. The WEA has been working with OSPI right along with this. They're trying, but nobody reports that.
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I'm not a teacher. I'm a public school parent, and I'll be damned if I'll let Obama, Duncan, or gullible fools like you and Mikos mess with my kid's teachers. Weed out the “deadwood” principals, superintentendents, and SPIs first, and then come talk to me about “deadwood” teachers.

“Weed out the “deadwood” principals, superintentendents, and SPIs first, and then come talk to me about “deadwood” teachers.”

Low hanging fruit. Both need to be picked.

Ad hominem attacks defending a broken system get so tiresome.

I'll tell you what gets tiresome around here, bub — it's people who should know better being apologists for corporatization of our public education.

You can call it “broken” all you want to. IMO Obama and Ducan are trying to replace it with something worse. I'm not having any of it. If you think that's “tiresome,” go take a nap.

I woudl just like to applaud the brave teachers on this comment thread. Their focus on educating real kids and bringing down the dropout rate is so beautiful; their long list of innovative plans to create change is stunning; and their just not being primarily concerned with a paycheck and a nice pension is so refreshing. In fact, notice how few times they mentioned their middle class paychecks, isn't this focus on the kids a nice role model for our kids in general?

And best of all is that they welcome debate and the need for change, instead of being all uptight, defensive, and reactive.

Certainly if they're like this in the classroom, you can understand why our schools are kicking ass and are turning out better and more graduates than Korea or China or France orr Germany, and you can definitely see why school's so great our dropout rates are falling to nothing!

Keep it up, teacher commenters, you are teaching us quite a lot!

Especially ivan! That argument (“go take a nap”) is one of the classic forms of rhetoric, it started back with the Greeks. How wonderful that he could demonstrate to us his great love of learning and pedagogy; clearly modeling this kind of exciting, vibrant discourse in the class room is why our schools are so successful!~

Stick your smug-ass sarcasm where the sun don't shine. I walk my talk. My kid has been a top student right through school and I have been an active volunteer in all her schools. I have held her, and her teachers, to a high standard of performance throughout, and have put in the time to ensure success. My daughter and her teachers have met that standard.

Schools and teachers cannot make up for slacker parents who do not value education, and yet they are being told they must bear the brunt of it. Education begins in the home, and it always has.

Good points, Ivan. But I edited out your personal attack on Faux A. Mee. Try to keep it civil.

I don't suffer fools gladly.

duncan/obama=education privatizer as predicted over a year ago:

http://www.alternet.org/story/112759/we_can%27t…

The United Nations Education Index ranks us 19th in the world. China is 81st; Germany, 31st; France, 12th; and assuming you meant South Korea, 7th.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_Index

And, if you take the long view, we graduate more kids now than we did in the 50s or 60s:

http://www.wsipp.wa.gov/rptfiles/05-03-2201.pdf

Are there problems? Surely. Is the quick fix, be it charter schools or merit pay, unlikely to cure those problems? Just as surely.

Ivan–
I have a son-in-law, a very hardworking teacher, who spent the better part of a year outside of work to get a masters degree so he could make more money. Why not just pay him more for the excellent job he was already doing? If he had put that effort into the classroom his kids would have benefitted. He himself claims the masters does not make him a better teacher (although he now makes more money). Something is wrong with that.

And I may be full of shit you are full of pure bile.

Josh–

I suspect you were in town during the charter school fights. The union killed the idea, using their power and money to swing votes. Teachers need to embrace change and shape it with their input not kill it. We all know that teachers have used the power at the ballot box to help pass good ideas, like 728 and 732. They have also used that power to shape the electoral process to kill things like charter schools.

Ryan Grant: puhleeze. Are you a teacher, too? I hope not because the link you provided has little to do with the point you're trying to make and even it did, in fact it proves my point.

I was talking about public schools in the USA, not the overall level of educational achievement, which would include from private schools, and the link you cite is about overall education, not just from public schools. So it's not really relevant. Take a place like Seattle where two thirds the parents who can either choose to live in burbs or send to private school….well the overall educational level on average might be okay, but since 40% of the students are going to private schools, it doesn't validate the public schools, and if you think it does, and you are a teacher, please just quit now before you miseducate more kids, ok?

Second point. Let's say your link was relevant. This is what it shows, and remember, you're citing it to porve how great the USA schools are:
= Australia ▬ 0.993
1= Denmark ▬ 0.993
1= Finland ▬ 0.993
1= New Zealand ▬ 0.993
5 Canada ▬ 0.991
6 Norway ▼ 0.989
7 South Korea ▲ 0.988
8= Ireland ▼ 0.985
8= Netherlands ▼ 0.985
10= Greece ▲ 0.980
10= Iceland ▲ 0.980
12 France ▲ 0.978
13 Cuba ▲ 0.976
14 Luxembourg ▲ 0.975
15= Belgium ▲ 0.974
15= Sweden ▲ 0.974
17 Spain ▼ 0.971
18 Slovenia ▼ 0.969
19= Lithuania ▲ 0.968
19= United States ▼ 0.968

You got me on a gotcha. Instead of citing the nations I did, I should have cited Australia Denmark Finland New Zealand Canada Norway South Korea Ireland Netherlands Greece Iceland France Cuba Luxembourg Belgium Sweden Spain Slovenia Lithuania.

Ok, you're trying to prove my general point — we gotta problem w our schools — by pointing me to a link saying we're TIED WITH LITHUANIA AND BEHIND Slovenia, Greece, South Korea and many others.

Hmmmm. Somehow your evidence — isn't so convincing. Is this how you teach kids in school to debate, argue and ratiocinate? God help us.

BTW we ARE above Kazakhstan. We beat fucking Borat. Congratulations education establishment and its defenders, you have amply made my point for me.

This is what passes for thinking in this group. Now do we wonder why the kids are dropping out like flies? Their solution is to point to evidence showing we're above Borat's level and tied with freaking Lithuania.

I think at this point I need only say quod est demonstratum. (Of course this will provke one of these yahoos to complain that my dative case ending should be ablative or some such…..coming up with a picky gotcha that proves nothing and ignores the main point, which they are terrified to address).

We're above Kazahkstan, woo hoo. Says it all doesn't it?

I'm glad you liked it, Faux, but you're changing horses in mid race. Your comment:

“Certainly if they're like this in the classroom, you can understand why our schools are kicking ass and are turning out better and more graduates than Korea or China or France orr Germany, and you can definitely see why school's so great our dropout rates are falling to nothing!”

In overall educational achievement, what the UN rankings we're talking about measured, the US was better than Germany and China. You chose the set to measure against, friend, not I.

At the end of the day, though, all these international rankings are besides the point. The US is a confederation of states, one of the largest countries geographically in the world, and certainly one of the most ethnically and socially diverse. Am I surprised that Lithuania, a county slightly larger than West Virginia where the ethnic majority is 85.7% of the population, does OK academically? Not really.

Oooh, angry little man behind a keyboard. Sorry, don't think I'm the one who needs a nap there, bub.

The only more tiresome than your defense of lousy teachers is your condescending attitude. Rage on into ignoreland. Bye.