News that the Colorado Education Association won’t endorse Colorado’s round two Race to the Top application may just be the best thing that could have happened to the state’s chances to grab a share of federal largesse.
Yes, the U.S. Department of Education sent mixed signals in its round one awards, favoring states that pushed major change AND won buy-in from unions. But Colorado got stuck in a weird in-between place, with the CEA endorsing the bid, but many local affiliates declining to sign on.
If the legislature passes Sen. Mike Johnston’s bill in the face of stiff CEA opposition, the state will demonstrate its willingness to forge ahead with bold reforms. If Arne Duncan and Co. act as tough as they talk, this should help Colorado climb back toward the front of the pack.
Of course, then there’s the question of how feasible it is to implement major change when teachers’ unions dig in their heels and resist. So this drama has several more acts to go.
Popularity: 28% [?]
Well I hope cooler heads prevail in the CEA leadership ranks. Seems hard to believe that CEA would want to leave $175M on table given the budget crisis while going after Dwight Jones and Mike Johnston…two guys that have deep experience in CO and nationally on moving the needle for kids. We are talking the opposite of the typical and sometimes appropriate “defund and voucherize” far right republicans. They picked the wrong guys to go after.
No, Alan, the union buy-in was and is still not as important as you and a lot of other critics claim it was. Did you not read any analysis of the data and the weighting of each category? Several states did better than Colorado with similar buy-in scores. http://www.tntp.org/files/RealRaceBegins.pdf
Why is the union resisting? In a previous post, I offered one perspective on this issue and I don’t even want to join the union. My objections to Johnston are based not on politics but theoretical design. It is too vague. There are no benchmarks. And the only quantitative variables are ones Johnston seems to have grabbed out of thin air. Everything else is left up to some kind of political commission. To wit:
“Key provisions of the bill include annual teacher and principal evaluations, with teacher evaluations to be based 50 percent on student growth and principal evaluations based two-thirds on student growth and the demonstrated effectiveness of a principal’s teachers.”
One of the closest other professions to education, seems to me, is that of psychological counseling. Do you suppose psychologists would agree that their evals (say they work for Kaiser or some similar corporate health care) be based 50% on client improvement?
jj,
I don’t think Johnston would be offering his bill if teachers (or the union overall) would come forward and put their own plan for evaluation (which included academic growth) on the table. If you believe in evaluation, why not put forth the system you would like instead of just striking down other proposals as inadequate? If teachers in a school can agree on a evaluation system, then apply for innovation status and use it. If it is a reasonable system, I can’t see how anyone would oppose that.
I’d personally prefer to see schools/teacher design an evaluation system themselves, but given the extreme reluctance to submit to any reasonable system at all (and I think we all agree the current system does not qualify), I think it’s necessary for the legislature to move forward.
And just of interest, given the wide choice of comparisons, do you really believe psychological counselors in large managed care organizations are the best proxy for public school teachers? If that is true, I think things must be even worse than I thought.
When my husband and I sued DPS and certain administrators in 2001 over labor activities affecting the classified work force, we named also as defendants, his in-house “labor union” and its officials.
The answer will not be found in choosing a side between “the union” and “the administration” but rather in understanding that both have potential benefits and insights to add to the dialogue — and both are equally wayward. So much so, that one is inclined to use the other end of the pencil, really really hard.
We’re doing just that and yesterday it occurred to me that our timing might be really bad. I suppose the order in which things happen will matter but I can imagine a collision between the waiver we have requested and the Johnston bill if it passes. Which one sticks in the end?
By “doing just that” I meant proposing a new evaluation plan, not suing anyone. Kathy must have posted about the same time which just demonstrates my statement, “the order in which things happen will matter.” I’ll go ponder the meaning of all this over a barley pop.
Thanks Alex. Well, psychologist was what I thought of at the time. And I know what Jeff Buck’s comments were on another thread, so I’m just thinking out loud. I do think it is an interesting notion–what other profession is most similar?