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CAN WE PROTECT JOBS AND REFORM SCHOOLS?
I missed this last week, but after The New York Times editorial board came out in favor of attaching tougher accountability standards to the education dollars in the stimulus package, Eduwonk Andrew Rotherham highlighted a major tension at the heart of education reform: Free-market, pro-charter school, and pro-merit pay types want to fire ineffective teachers. But there's a recession going on, so teachers' unions are, quite rightfully, focused on saving jobs.
I've been optimistic about the ability of unions and "reformers" to find some common ground, but this is a big deal. As I wrote in my column two weeks ago about various merit-pay plans, a big difference among them is whether they are conceived of as primarily a recruitment device for talented teachers (Denver's ProComp is a good example), or whether they are sold as one facet of a larger plan including lay-offs (this is what's going on right now in D.C.). The stimulus package focuses the majority of its 100 billion education dollars on stemming budget losses, which means that preventing lay-offs will be a higher priority for most states than fostering innovation and reform -- despite the Obama administration's many supportive hat tips toward performance-pay plans and charter schools.
In reality, the recession represents a set-back for aggressive reformers such as Washington, D.C., superintendent Michelle Rhee. Not only are they facing a less friendly climate in terms of raising the private-sector money their movement depends upon, but they are also facing down unions on their home turf: protecting middle-class jobs in an uncertain economy.
--Dana Goldstein
COMMENTS (5)
The home turf of teachers unions is not protecting jobs in an economic downturn, but rather ensuring fairness in the workplace throughout the business cycle.
DC Chancellor Michelle Rhee has used "agressive reform" as rhetorical cover for closing schools and firing principals without public hearing or even the appearance of due process or logic.
Posted by: Michael A. Shea | April 15, 2009 10:08 AM
The whole discussion is absurd. Schools and teachers are "counter-cyclical" in a depression or a recession. Lots of other needs go down in a recession or a depression but the need of good schools and lots of teachers and classes either stays the same or goes up. As families hit unemployment more kids move into the public school sector and need good classrooms. As families hit unemployment and lose health care more kids come to school stressed and needing extra medical and social attention.
The *last* people who should be fired or trimmed back in a recession or a depression are teachers *even if* you think they are not good at doing their job. If you are not planning on replacing them instantly with some mythical better person you are simply proposing to trim back the staff at the school while maintaining classroom size and increasing student needs. This is a recipe for disaster. There is no reason for the teacher's union, or individual teachers, or families to support such plans.
Michelle Rhee and her "agressive reform" is a massive fake out and should be called on it every chance everyone gets. The very notion of trimming public budgets by bleating for private money is intellectually and morally bankrupt. Only an idiot would pretend to believe, for the sake of the argument, that any private funding could begin to make up the shortfall in public funding reliably. So, if Rhee isn't an idiot, she's a liar. I can't understand why the press and the pundits let her get away with this fictional "plan" when it amounts to no more than a pack of self serving lies aimed at destroying public education.
Our kids need a top quality education in safe, clean, well stocked schools. They and their families need the certainity that the schools will be adequately staffed from year to year by enthusiastic, well paid, well rested, teachers. They need on site nursing care, dental care, working libraries, sports, dance, foreign language and good science programs. If those things aren't being properly funded now cutting them and firing teachers simply can't be a "solution."
aimai
Posted by: AIMAI | April 15, 2009 10:30 AM
You rich ,entitled bastards keep avoiding the obvious issue:
You can't reform schools so long as schools are funded in the manner they currently are. As long as you let rich school districts pay 10-20x the money that inner citties school districts do, you will never fix anything. Firing teachers won't do shit. Try distributing school finding properly. It's the only thing that will work. Right now, most kids know nobody gives a shit about them but their parents. Not the school. Not the government. Nobody.
Since you all grew up in those rich school districts however...
Don't bother AIMAI, these people know the solution. They just care too much about class-solidarity to do anything about it. Read anything these guys right about the bail-out here, or progressive taxation. Anything. 'It's all soak the poor, it's the obvious solution!'
Posted by: soullite | April 15, 2009 11:42 AM
I don't understand. Why would we want to protect reform schoo...Oh.
Posted by: Patrick Nielsen Hayden | April 15, 2009 1:34 PM
May I suggest something, inspired by a line from the movie "Monsters v. Aliens"? The blob named Bob says at one point: "I may not have a brain, but I have an idea."
Commenters in this thread have premised their points on opponents being idiots or rich bastards. Or as Mr. Elephant4life said in another thread yesterday, "imbecilic."
Even idiots have ideas- good or bad. I'd rather argue over ideas than mental capacities. And let's leave the term imbecilic for Scrabble, where it actually would score you points.
Posted by: Michael A. Shea | April 15, 2009 1:49 PM