Smells like school spirit

Here is a NY Times/David Brooks Op-Ed that is well worth your time to read if you care at all about certain elements in the public school system who would mislead us about the need for real reform.

Poor performing teachers in DC fired

While Kentucky doesn’t even have a formal process to follow for revoking teaching certificates for poor performance and firing a teacher is a long and drawn out affair, in Washington, DC, they are getting serious about getting low-performing teachers out of the classroom.

The Washington Post reports that more than 200 teachers were just fired for poor performance in the classroom.

Apparently, the DC school system doesn’t have the same restriction on such action that is found in most states’ teacher tenure laws. Evaluation systems in the nation’s capital are exempt from collective bargaining.

It will be interesting to see how this action plays out in the chronically under-performing DC classrooms.

Getting serious about teacher quality in Indiana

Indiana is adopting a teacher evaluation system in six pilot programs that will link pay to student performance.

Meanwhile, Kentucky talks the talk, but isn’t even crawling as adults in the school system block all efforts to do the right thing for students.

New York Times: Punish parents when kids don’t learn

What do you think?

Should schools have the right to punish parents when kids don’t learn? Check out this article from the New York Times.

Let us hear your comments.

Recognizing the value of good teachers

“Now is the time to go beyond the rhetoric and to show that all of us—including the unions—are truly behind ensuring effective teachers in all classrooms.”

“The unions’ slowness in responding to reality has stung them with surprising quickness and force as newly strengthened governors have labeled the unions as the problem. If the unions want to continue, they must now act to get in step with the new reality. Specifically, they must get out in front on the teacher-quality issue.”

Eric A Hanushek, Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution
Article in Education Week

Forced unionization's other cost

The Lexington Herald-Leader (days after legislators in Wisconsin passed that controversial legislation) has an interesting piece on the toll unions take on the professionalism of teachers, the paychecks of teachers and the resentment the public in Kentucky might someday feel toward teachers and their unions. The authors, Gary Beckner and Paula Jackson-Eaglin, represent the Association of American Educators:

The proposed legislation by the Wisconsin governor reduces the superpower status of the teachers unions by ending forced unionism — the practice in which one is required to pay the union as a condition of employment.

On the contrary, what could be more democratic than allowing teachers to make the choice for themselves whether the union meets their needs?

In no way does the legislation eliminate the union; rather, it reins in its ability to forcibly collect dues from teachers. The practice of allowing teachers to think for themselves effectively cuts off millions to union political action accounts.

With its monopoly being threatened, the union is pulling out all the stops to disable this legislation, regardless of the effect on the professionalism of teachers, children in the classroom or taxpaying citizens.

The unions have enabled AWOL legislators in Wisconsin with their rhetoric, fueled never-ending protests, trashed state capitols and left their posts in the classroom for days — all in an effort to halt this legislation. Their leaders are clearly more concerned with strikes and sick-outs than the students of Wisconsin.

For years, local educators have joined teachers unions in thinking their money was going to advance their profession. Unfortunately, the National Education Association (NEA) and their local counterpart, the Kentucky Education Association (KEA), have grown into behemoth special-interest groups that clearly do not use their member dues exclusively for the advancement of the teaching profession.

Luckily for Kentucky teachers, they can and should make informed choices on where to spend their hard-earned dollars. Many local union teachers believe that because they aren't forced to pay union dues, this behavior does not affect their membership in the KEA.

I have no problem with collective bargaining for workers in general. People have a constitutional right to organize. It's right there in the First Amendment. My problem with unions is that, at least in the public sector, people who pay for the government services do not have the ability to opt out of both consuming and paying for the unionized workers' services. The only truly essential check on the power of unions is the ability for customers to look elsewhere for goods and services.

Teacher accountability with teeth in Washington, DC

One hundred sixty five under-performing teachers are being removed in Washington DC as the nation’s capital implements its new teacher corps improvement program, called IMPACT.

IMPACT replaces a former, awkward and time-consuming process for removing poor teachers, a largely dysfunctional process similar to those typically found in virtually every school system in the country.

The Washington Post announced today that D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee is firing those 165 teachers using the new appraisal and accountability system developed by Mathematica Policy Research.

The Post says:

“Last month, union members and the D.C. Council approved a contract that raises educators' salaries by 21.6 percent but diminishes traditional seniority protections in favor of personnel decisions based on results in the classroom. The accord also provides for a "performance pay" system with bonuses of $20,000 to $30,000 annually for teachers who meet certain benchmarks, including growth in test scores.”

Thus, DC teachers accepted a significant pay increase in exchange for being willing to allow the worst performers to be removed from classrooms. But, contract or not, the union really didn’t mean it. Now, the union tells the Post it intends to fight the dismissals. Apparently, union leaders thought they could take the extra money without honoring the new responsibilities that came with it.

Rhee is not without her critics in DC, and the school situation there is apparently part of the political fight to see who will be the next mayor in the nation’s capital. Thus, the jury is still out on whether or not the IMPACT process will stick. But, it is clear that many more are growing frustrated with an educational system that continues to cover up mediocre teachers while the education of children suffers. At least in DC, they are trying to do something about it.

Meanwhile, the Kentucky Educational Professional Standards Board tells me here in The Bluegrass State we don’t even have a policy, awkward and time-consuming or not, on how a school administrator can go about removing an under-performing teacher. The board says they are unaware of any teacher in the state who ever lost credentials because of inability or unwillingness to teach at an acceptable level of performance.