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Loco control

Sunday, August 29th, 2010

Defeat often begets a scapegoat.  In the wake of the twice-short Colorado application to R2T, this has now solidified: the judges were “perplexed by local control” which led to a lack of objectivity. This is a familiar refrain — them pointy-headed Eastern elites jest don’t git the way things work out West, what wid our frontier sensibilities ‘n all.  So local control is the Western value we refuse to sacrifice to appease these high-fallutin fiscal brutes.

Except I think it would be prudent to entertain, at least briefly, one small possibility:

Um… What if they are right?

Colorado has 178 independent school districts, and the differences in size are staggering.  Using CDE data (Fall 2008), let’s look closer at these 178 districts that contain over 800,000 students:

  • The average district has 4,560 students.  But because there are a few large districts and a lot of small ones, a better metric is median district size, which is just 603 students.
  • The largest district has over 85,885 students, the smallest has just 54.
  • 106 (60 percent) of districts have fewer than 1,000 students. 79 districts (44 percent) have fewer than 500 students.
  • The largest 10 districts combined house 56 percent of total students.  The smallest 100 districts combined house 4 percent.

Now, say what you want about Eastern elitism and impenetrable Western values, but these numbers show a control system that is loco, not local. When the median school district contains just 600 students — the same size as many urban schools, it’s not local — it’s microscopic. We are, after all, the United States, not Cities, nor Towns.  But for school districts, we somehow ended up with micro control — the Districts of Individual Buildings (and not very large ones at that). Is it really so wrong to dock points in a competitive competition for this system?

The most lucid discussion on R2t and local control was from Robert Reichardt who makes several excellent points and highlights a central contradiction. Reichardt writes that Colorado “can’t draw that straight line of authority from the Colorado Department of Education to classrooms” and this bumps up against the pervasive belief that ”top-down command and control is the way for states to get things done in school system.” This, in turn, discriminates against Colorado’s local control system which is a “tight-accountability, loose-compliance model.”

But I don’t buy it: R2T was geared to move many districts away from command and control systems, and favored “tight-loose” models (for example, charter school expansion). Moreover, Colorado is clearly a national leader with the Innovation Schools Act which provides school-level autonomy within a broader system of district accountability.  So the conventional defense — that it is the reviewers judgment, not our system which is at fault — rings hollow.

There are, of course, plenty of ways to have a “tight-loose” system, but when a super-majority of 60 percent of  school districts have 1,000 students or fewer and combine for fewer than 5 percent of Colorado’s student population, I think it fails a basic logic test, and I don’t need to blame a complicated judging system. That two of five judges took off significant points for this actually makes sense to me.  Colorado’s single largest school district has more students than the combined population of the 136 smallest districts.  So forget the technical arguments for a minute, and let’s admit that our district arrangement is nuts.

Now I’m expecting (and encourage) some worthwhile discussion here, and I am certainly no fan of large school bureaucracies, but I have yet to encounter a single person who, given the choice, would set up Colorado’s system of local districts in the same way.

Yes, local control has somehow become a given in Colorado, and any change seems off the table of discussion  – not because it has merit, but simply due to the same old education demon of politics. Maybe in the wake of the R2T decision we should take a hard look at what the Western value of local control could mean, instead of what it is. Because schools districts of 600 students it ain’t.

And Colorado already has an interesting model – the Charter School Institute (CSI) which is not counted among the traditional 178 districts, but governs 19 schools and 5,728 students in various regions across the State.  CSI has a different organizing factor: It is the district for numerous charter schools, regardless of location. As a district, it groups its schools by their governance structure (charter), not by location.

Because the idea that geography is the primary defining characteristic of any organization has been in decline for almost 15 years, yet it remains the single way we define school districts.  What would happen if we instead, like CSI, organized school districts around something other than geography?  Could we not have a single governing body for the 79 school jurisdictions with 500 students or fewer (which would comprise a total of 19,000 students)?  Could we not have one for schools receiving increased autonomy under the Innovation Schools Act (which might even encourage more to do so)?

For many of the 41 middle-sized districts with between 1,000 and 5,000 students, should we consider school districts that encompass factors other than geography — whether it is instructional emphasis, grade levels, or something else?  This would not be mandated — schools could have the choice of belonging to their geographic district, or finding a district model that would provide better services and support.

For my guess is that many of those 79 jurisdictions with 500 or fewer students actually have a lot in common, and might benefit from not creating 79 versions of many similar things.  In fact, I bet most of the smaller districts have more in common than many of the schools clustered within larger districts (for example, what does the selective-admissions, 10 percent FRL, Denver School of the Arts high school have in common with open-enrollment, 95 percent FRL Cheltenham Elementary?).

Perhaps the R2T decision offers one of those moments where we can look at a legacy system with new eyes. If we were to preserve the idea of a “tight-loose” system, could we have a more sensible method of local (not micro) control districts structured around something other than geography is one thought.  Any others?

–
8/31: Paul Teske’s posting from almost two years ago deserves more prominent placement than his comment below. It’s a good read, and one wonders why this obvious issue was somewhat glossed over during R2T.

Popularity: 20% [?]

Posted in Accountability, CDE and state board of ed., Governance, The national stage | 6 Comments »

R2T: 2, Colo: 0

Tuesday, August 24th, 2010

I confess my interest and knowledge on Race to the Top is at some small distance: I did not follow the nuances closely, believing (correctly) that the Colorado bid was in good hands, and (incorrectly) that the hard work of many skilled people would prevail.  And in the wake of disappointment, while I understand the temptation to either complain about the judging, or — far worse — celebrate the defeat as some sort of divine personal vindication, neither make much sense.  For I think the R2T decision is a harsh but helpful reminder of two very important, and often overlooked, truths:

1. Outcomes matter most. For all the rhetoric over the ample list of reforms both instituted (ProComp, the Colorado Growth Model) and pending (CAP4K, SB 191), the hard truth is that overall outcomes in Colorado have not improved. To paraphrase Auden, reform – in and of itself – makes nothing happen.  Waiting for a single reform panacea (or cocktail) remains the dream of a weary Godot.  Reforms — by themselves — mean little. Outcomes, and the changes in the trajectory of individual lives, are everything.  In the wake of this disappointment we should redouble our efforts to examine the places where outcomes are changing, and give these our continued attention and support.

2. Money matters less. Always eclipsed by the lure of a big payday, the hard truth is that since 1970, per-pupil spending in the US has doubled while there has been no improvement in academic results. Money may help a success already in place, but it is never the catalyst for substantive change. Colorado is simply not dependent on largesse of any kind to improve.  There is a lot of money already in the public education system, and in many ways adding additional funds postpones some of the difficult conversations and choices that are necessary. Scarcity usually reveals more than abundance, and tends to sharpen one’s focus: we need to choose between strategies, not continue to add layers of them on top of each other.

So what now?  I suggest: Think local, act local.  Education reform was here before R2T, and it will be here long after the winners have exhausted their checks.  Examples of state-wide successful reform are few and far between, and when the last dime of R2T rolls down the register, there will likely be one or two more — but far less than the number of grantees (12).  And I am pretty confident that there will be an equivalent success somewhere among the nine finalist states that were disappointed, so it might as well be here.  There are instances of real, meaningful, and inchoate reform happening across Colorado (and even scored high on some rewardless lists).  Look locally, focus on outcomes, and remember that in education (as in most things) expense rarely correlates to quality.

After all, as anyone bearing the scars of education reform in Colorado can tell you, it is not now — and never was — a race.

Popularity: 14% [?]

Posted in Reform, The national stage | 5 Comments »

What’s missing from the DPS pension dispute?

Tuesday, August 10th, 2010

What’s missing? Teachers.

And that’s a little odd, isn’t it, since it is their pensions primarily at issue, and individually they have the most to gain or to lose.  Now mix in that the same people crying foul over the pension deal are usually leading the charge for this constituency: on blocking direct placement reform and the evaluation provisions of SB 191, and even on individual teacher dismissals. So why not call in the teacher brigade on the pension refinancing?

Well, because one can’t. No matter how one tortures the financing numbers, or claims willful ignorance on the 30-year-old, four-syllable practice which comprises an “interest rate swap” (which, just to clarify, is when two parties, um, swap interest rates), it’s pretty much impossible to argue that DPS teachers are anything but significantly better off as a result of the pension refinancing.

Before the refinancing, DPS’s pension faced isolation, a $400 million shortfall and demographic quicksand of just 1.2 active employees per retiree (more on this later). After the refinance and merger, DPS teachers now have their pensions funded at a higher rate than any other part of PERA; enjoy portability (so taking a job in a different Colorado district no longer means losing benefits); and are supported by a more diversified and stable funding base, as PERA at the time of the refinance had 2.5 active employees for every retiree (and I suspect that ratio has increased).

What is completely absent from this dispute is anyone clamoring for DPS teachers to return to the previous pension system — because even in the dark-clouds-and-lightning claims about the refinancing, absolutely no one can make an argument with a straight face that teachers should go back to what they had before (and if someone asks, I’d like to see their request honored).

So where are Denver’s teachers, and particularly their union, the DCTA? Well, DCTA publicly endorsed the very board members who are most vocal about the financing.  DCTA clashed strongly with the Democratic Senate primary candidate who has the most to lose. And while officially neutral until the primary is decided, when the NYT pointed out that DPS is hiring teachers at a time when most districts are firing them, DCTA head Henry Roman preferred his cloud with a dark lining, stressing that DPS hired fewer teachers this year than in previous years. All of which means DCTA is uncharacteristically silent on an important and highly visible policy issue that is clearly and overwhelmingly in the best interest of its members.

This situation recalls the face egg of the most recent labor negotiation, where DCTA gave the then-superintendent Bennet a vote of “no confidence” on a proposal that was eventually endorsed by their members by a margin of more than 3:1. I would anticipate an even higher portion of their membership would support their current pension deal compared to the old one. So DCTA can’t credibly argue to its membership that the pension deal was bad for teachers. But given their political bedfellows, they also can’t bear to publicly admit that it was very good for teachers. Hence their roar of silence.

For Colorado has not seen a farce with this much hot air since Balloon Boy (which also had as its genesis a staged PR campaign).  And like six-year-old Falcon Heene, the absent teachers seem far more sane then the perpetrators.  Where are teachers? Well, part of their absence might be that they have work to do. As noted above, one of the main impacts of the refinancing and merger was to keep pensions solvent by increasing the base of active employees to retirees.

Overshadowed by the rise in political humidity was the announcement last week that 350 more DPS students graduated than the previous year. Those 350 students mean an additional 12-14 teaching jobs. Which mean 12-14 more people paying into PERA. Which means recent and soon-to-be retiring teachers have an even larger base to fund their pensions.

In fact, reversing a long trend, DPS enrollment is growing, with an increase of over 2,400 students in the current year, which roughly equates to 100 additional teaching jobs. Now a large part of that is preschool (which is a new group, not incremental growth), but these teachers pay into PERA regardless. In fact, one could argue that enrollment, and the corresponding teacher base, is the most important pension variable under direct district control.

Perhaps teachers understand this all too well. Build better schools, attract more students, hire more teachers. The district administration has put its efforts fully behind these measures. Teachers seem largely on board. Were that this was everyone’s focus.

Popularity: 19% [?]

Posted in Legislative/political follies, Pension morass, Teacher unions | 6 Comments »

Political fiddling while pensions burn

Thursday, August 5th, 2010

Gretchen Morgenson, the current dean of financial reporting, covers the DPS pension debate as part of a series on private and public debt.  This particular political pigskin has been kicked enough to shame Jason Elam, but I’m glad it is getting more attention, because the critical issue — underfunded pensions — is not going away on an election cycle.

Why do I think the critical issue is underfunded pensions and not any specific financing? Well, follow the money.

First, here is the part of the article I think most parties will gloss over while trying to estimate their political pundit hang time:

While it is possible that the annual costs of the Denver deal will come down in the future, they are now roughly in line with what the school system would have paid in a fixed-rate transaction.

Let me paraphrase: right now it’s a wash, and there is some chance costs will decline.  The district has not lost money as a result of the transaction, and may still benefit. So the first number is currently pretty close to zero.

What’s the other number? Well, as of a year ago, PERA was underfunded by an estimated $27.5 billion (yes, that is a “b”).  I’ll try to find the 2010 estimate, but I have not yet seen it published.  But for fun, let’s round down to, oh, $25 billion.

Now, anyone care to argue that zero is a bigger problem than, say, $25 billion?

And just to cover all the bases here, I’m no one’s political hack, paid or otherwise, and if there is someone out there who publicly raised concerns about the DPS transaction earlier than I did, I’d like to see it.

But what I don’t get is this: the pension problem (on which I have written here, here and here) is primarily the creation of our elected officials, including yes, Denver school boards — who have largely hidden their collective heads in the sand (some deeper than others).

DPS got into this problem, as Morgenson notes, because there was a $400 million gap in its pension fund.  Now, $400 million is also a lot greater than zero.  But accountability for that $400 million gap is apparently not an issue — because in the bureaucratic black hole of previous superintendents and school boards, no one is responsible for much of anything. Say what you want about the debated transaction, but it was the first time in years that the DPS Administration confronted the pension shortfall directly, instead of just kicking the can hard and long into the future. And some school board members looking to cast stones might want to look a little harder at their historical counterparts.

I thought first (and still think) that the DPS transaction was more complicated than need be, and I don’t believe school districts should be engaged in complex risk management.  But I’ve looked at this issue in considerable detail, and I find the criticism of the DPS transaction a lot like a crowd on the beach complaining — well after the fact — that the lifeguard who jumped in and saved people from drowning was a little too rough.

The DPS transaction enabled the merger of the DPS retirement plan with PERA, and if you think PERA looks bad, well you should have seen the other guy.  The merger with PERA helped a lot of DPS teachers (current and former) avoid future financial waterboarding, and bought a little time — very little — with which to tackle the larger pension problem.

For PERA is indeed in bad shape.  PERA’s School Division is currently underfunded by about 30% and is predicted to be insolvent within 50 years.  That time frame is well out of the range of anyone in or vying for elected office, but there are a lot of 20- and 30-something teachers who will be retiring about then.

So perhaps our political fiddlers, and their accompanying public wails of regret, might find this an opportunity to step up and confront the very real and far greater problem of overall pension reform. For this is an issue that requires far more political courage than mud.  If now is asking too much, than maybe starting on, oh, August 11th?  No, well maybe November 5th?

Um, anyone?

—

UPDATE Aug 6th: The other cogent article in the NY Times on pensions and Colorado http://nyti.ms/9ic6Lk

Popularity: 35% [?]

Posted in Accountability, Business involvement, Pension morass, Politics | 9 Comments »

Tenure: An idea whose time has gone?

Monday, July 26th, 2010

Megan McArdle’s recent piece in The Atlantic makes this claim.  My favorite part was her response to the argument that it is tenure that allows professors to produce important research:

How about valuable scholarship?  Well, define valuable–in many liberal arts fields, the only possible consumer of the research in question is a handful of scholars in the same field.  That sort of research is valuable in the same way that children’s craft projects are priceless–to their mothers.  Basically, these people are supporting an expensive hobby with a sideline business certifying the ability of certain twenty-year-olds to write in complete sentences.

Another point is equally compelling: tenure is supposed to encourage professors to take risks.  But because the process of applying for and receiving tenure is highly political and consumes one’s early career, it often has the opposite effect: scholars early in their professions, when they are most likely to produce groundbreaking work, are far more risk-averse; by the time tenure is granted, a professor is more definitively committed to a specific academic trajectory with far less chance of groundbreaking research.

Lastly, McArdle points out that the process does not do much for the vast majority of tenure applicants who are not successful:

At the end of the process, most of the aspirants do not have tenure; they have dropped out, or been dropped, at some point along the way.  Meanwhile, the system has ripped up their lives in other ways.  They’ve invested their whole youth, and are back on the job market near entry level at an age when most of their peers have spent ten years building up marketable skills.  Many of them will have seen relationships ripped apart by the difficulties of finding not one, but two tenure-track jobs in the same area.  Others will have invested their early thirties in a college town with no other industry, forcing them to move elsewhere to restart both their careers and their social lives.  Or perhaps they string along adjuncting at near-poverty wages, unable to quite leave the academy that has abused them for so long.

The entire piece is well worth a read, but it also made me think: if the arguments for tenure are so fragile for higher education, why in the world is it a fixture in K-12 education?  (and commenters, please let’s not have a pedantic linguistic fight about “tenure” vs. “non-probationary” – duck, walk, quack, etc.)

The most cogent arguments for tenure in higher education almost uniformly do not apply to K-12.  McArdle, in her discussion of tenure, notes:

I’m sure it’s protected more than one scholar from getting fired after making stupid remarks to a class.  And we would all of us–not just academics–like to be immune from getting fired for making stupid remarks.

Tenure in higher ed can at least appeal – correctly or not — to the importance of of university research. It’s the rare argument that tenure improves undergraduate teaching.  K-12 has no such shield, and the claims that tenure improves student learning seem to me to be even more sparse.  I sure understand why K-12 teachers like the protections of tenure.  I’m just not sure its benefits accrue to anyone else within the system.

—

8/12 Update: A similar and expanded view in Slate

Popularity: 16% [?]

Posted in Higher ed, Teacher evaluation | 4 Comments »

Low-income students and college

Wednesday, July 7th, 2010

An evil twin to Paul’s earlier post about the continuing economic benefits of a college education is the depressing news that fewer and fewer low-income students are both attending and graduating from college (see full article):

Fewer low- and moderate-income high school graduates are attending college in America, and fewer are graduating. Enrollment in four-year colleges was 40 percent in 2004 for low-income students, down from 54 percent in 1992, and 53 percent in 2004 for moderate-income students, down from 59 percent over the same period, according to  a report recently submitted to Congress by the Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance. [...]

Persistence through four-year colleges dropped to 75 percent in students entering in 2003 for low-income students, down from 78 percent in students entering in 1995, while persistence for students from moderate-income families remained at 81 percent. Persistence rates for low- and moderate-income students in two-year colleges, however, fell 10 percentage points to 49 percet over the same period.

A significant part of this is economics.  As the article notes, the net price for a low-income student attending a four-year college is 48 percent of family income, compared to 26 percent for a moderate-income student. Combine this with the tendency of students to pile on more and more debt, and the opportunity of college can quickly become financial quicksand.

Public K-12 education is increasingly focused on students attending college. As the study that Paul cited shows, that can be a catalytic factor in improving incomes.  But as the focus on college as a partial solution to basic issues like income inequality increases, it is equally important that the students are college-ready, and that college is affordable. We do no one a favor by praising the benefits of a college education for which a student is unprepared and unable to finish, and then sticking them with the bill.

Popularity: 11% [?]

Posted in Higher ed, Poverty | No Comments »

Student debt data chilling

Thursday, June 3rd, 2010

A chilling article in the NYT on both the ease and amount of debt for many students who choose higher education:

Today, however, Ms. Munna, a 26-year-old graduate of New York University, has nearly $100,000 in student loan debt from her four years in college [...] So in an eerie echo of the mortgage crisis, tens of thousands of people like Ms. Munna are facing a reckoning. They and their families made borrowing decisions based more on emotion than reason, much as subprime borrowers assumed the value of their houses would always go up. [...]

How many people are like her? According to the College Board’s Trends in Student Aid study, 10 percent of people who graduated in 2007-8 with student loans had borrowed $40,000 or more. The median debt for bachelor’s degree recipients who borrowed while attending private, nonprofit colleges was $22,380.

The Project on Student Debt, a research and advocacy organization in Oakland, Calif., used federal data to estimate that 206,000 people graduated from college (including many from for-profit universities) with more than $40,000 in student loan debt in that same period. That’s a ninefold increase over the number of people in 1996, using 2008 dollars.

As the article points out, there and numerous similarities with the recent mortgage crises, but more important are the differences.  One cannot walk away from student debt and toss the front-door keys to the lender.  And while many people chose to live in houses that they could not afford, we have in large part based the very premise of social advancement and wealth on education — which remains highly correlated with income.

Particularly given the focus (rightly, in my opinion) on for-profit education — the finances here bear some scrutiny.  Many of the non-proft institutions of higher education are acting as conduits for for-profit loan providers.  I don’t quite see the demarcation of the two — in some ways, the for-proft colleges are more transparent and upfront with students about their costs (and their students are often more cost-sensitive).

The Obama administration has passed major changes to federal student loan programs which should eliminate some of the excess rents (in economic terms).  But, in my view, there still needs to be price pressure on many IHEs.  College education in many elite institutions is simply pricing itself out of the market for too many families.

6/5 Update: A piece on pending legislation to make discharging student debt easier.

Popularity: 11% [?]

Posted in School funding and finance, The national stage | No Comments »

Charter authorizer challenge

Monday, May 3rd, 2010

The NY Times had a lengthy piece over the weekend on charter schools.  Readers of these pages will find little new in the data disagreement (CREDO v Hoxby), or the trusim that the mere designation of “charter” is no guarantee of success, but there was one point of agreement that I found  compelling:

What most experts can agree on is that charter school quality varies widely, and that it is often associated with the rigor of authorities that grant charters. New York, where oversight is strong, is known for higher performing schools. Ohio, Arizona and Texas, where accountability is minimal, showed up in Ms. Raymond’s study with many poorly performing schools.

This, as well, is hardly new, but the idea that the charter authorizers (usually school districts) are themselves a major determinant of charter success has largely escaped the public debate.  Now I would add Denver to the historical list of top authorizers (although the critical ability to close poorly-performing charters is nascent), but even this ability is on a political tightrope.

Critical to the continued development of local school boards (as I wrote two years ago) is a shift from acting solely as a school operator to also managing an array of independent organizations that run schools and provide services.

This is not a simple transition — school boards rarely think of themselves an managers of independent organizations, and often they have no framework for recognizing what sort of skills and tactics are required.  However it is made far harder as many elected officials (particularly those with higher political aspirations) depend heavily on the political support and contributions of groups for whom charter schools are a threat to both membership and job security.

And lastly, many of these same officials are reluctant to make unpopular decisions — like closing poorly performing charters — that might upset any members of their existing or potential future constituencies. This invites contradictory positions, with even anti-charter board members voting to keep poorly performing charter schools open — as if they desired the continued failure of these charters to serve as a useful political punching bag while pleasing the inevitable parents who want the school to remain open.

What is required instead is continued research (building on studies like this) that looks at best practices and rankings of authorizers, and then compares the schools in those top districts with their traditional peers.  Secondly might be a comparative study of charters and TPS in districts with mayoral control — where the political process that so clearly contorts some authorizers is eliminated.

Now, don’t be fooled, as some ideologues will put forward not specific ideas on improving the authorization process, but merely impediments to charters at all.  But most practically the challenge should be placed squarely on the school boards themselves.

There should be no more question about the relative success of charter schools in DPS, thanks in no small part to the history of effective authorizing.  Nor, given the overwhelming parental support and substantial waiting lists in Colorado, do I think anyone serious believes in eliminating charters all together (or political stunts such as a moratorium, which is contrary to state law).

But will elected board members in Colorado’s 170+ school districts take seriously their role of authorizer and of themselves ask: not what can we do to dismantle the authorization process, but what can we do to improve it?

Popularity: 18% [?]

Posted in Accountability, CDE and state board of ed., Politics, School choice | 6 Comments »

Two views (and students…)

Monday, April 26th, 2010

The Post today [yesterday] ran two teacher perspectives on SB 10-191 (see: pro, con).  Both should be read, if only for the contrast.  What I find really illuminating about them is how they talk about students.

One starts with a teacher engaging his students – asking their opinion. The author asks how it is that he can “demand the absolute best” from these students – it’s clear that he believes this is core to his work.

The other starts with a discussion of teacher tenure, and mentions students only in passing.  Students “blow off school” or “suffer from myriad social ills.”

Perhaps they are both outstanding teachers, but it’s clear that they think about SB 10-191, and its impact on students, in very different ways.

Popularity: 20% [?]

Posted in Accountability, Teaching and learning | 2 Comments »

A parallax view on SB 191

Friday, April 23rd, 2010

With Mike Johnston’s teacher evaluation bill headed towards a vote later today, the heightened rhetoric has now eclipsed the likely impact.  For while I wholeheartedly support this bill, I also think the fevered opinion has given it a prominence that overshadows its relative ability to produce significant change.

With the rising antagonism between supporters and opponents, both sides went for the jugular: CEA publicly attacking Commissioner Dwight Jones and flexing its substantial lobbying muscle, while supporters enlisted the cumulative wisdom of the past 36 years of Colorado governors as well as district superintendents from Mapleton, Harrison, Denver and Aurora. In order to pass/block the bill, both sides must argue to its greatest possible impact. The end result is to inflate SB 191 to an elevated importance that no single proposal could possibly merit.

For if the bill passes (without too much change), it is both unlikely to be either a panacea leading to better educational outcomes for students, or the sudden arrival of nuclear winter for teachers. In truth, SB 10-191 is only one part of the institutional changes we need concerning teachers in public education, and in my view is probably of lesser importance than some related areas.  If this is the only evolutionary step we make for education reform, we are unlikely to crawl out of our current muck and rise to our feet.

To improve the quality of teaching, we need three primary changes (and a lot of secondary ones): First, find a way to move bad teachers out of the classroom. Second, retain the outstanding teachers who voluntarily leave the profession.  And third, widen the pool of potential hires so that we can recruit the best possible candidates into the classroom. Now don’t misunderstand, there are a lot of other tasks — many of these district-related policies that prevent current teachers from being able to do their best work (I have long believed that we have better teachers than we have teaching, due to various impediments). But at a macro level, we need to address these three issues first.

Even rough numbers should help us gauge relative importance.  Colorado hires between 6,500 and 7,000 new teachers annually.  Of these, roughly 50 percent do not progress beyond their 5th year.  In contrast, the number of teachers who are likely to be “evaluated” out of the classroom is far smaller than the number of either better candidates that we might attract, or retaining the best teachers who leave. For without the ability to replace bad teachers with better ones, evaluating teachers out of the classroom will accomplish virtually nothing. While SB 191 may be a substantial change to the teaching profession, by itself it is unlikely to have significant change on educational outcomes for students.

SB 10-191 — laudable and important as it is — only directly tackles the problem of removing bad teachers (although it might help marginally with retention).  Now we all know there are teachers who should not be teaching, but in comparison to recruitment and retention, I think these numbers are fairly small.  My guess is that even if this bill is applied as aggressively as possible, the percentage of teachers affected will be in the small single digits. The impact of SB 10-191, by itself, is unlikely to move the needle of student achievement across the State.

What else should we do?  I’d posit two approaches.

To retain the outstanding teachers who leave the profession, we need to start by abolishing the collective bargaining agreement’s single salary schedule.  In no other profession are the best performers in an industry confined to being compensated at the same rate as their average (or below-average) peers. Most of the people testifying in support or against 191 have achieved professional distinction, and are both recognized and compensated for their accomplishments.  We need to extend to our best teachers the same respect. SB 10-191 may help us better recognize these top performers, but they are unlikely to remain in the profession without accompanying incentives (and this should start with, but not be limited to salaries).

In addition, we need to phase out teacher certification, which serves primarily as an artificial barrier that discourages potential teachers and diverts resources that could be better applied.  Programs like Teach For America and the New Teacher Project have shown no substantive difference between traditional teacher certification and alternative (and usually far less extensive and expensive) methods.

Other avenues of preparation should be offered – both TFA and NTP programs, and expanded teacher residencies, which provide hands-on experience and mentoring. The requirement for teacher certification, and the related increase in pay for advanced degrees with no correlation with teacher quality, primary results in tuition dollars and a transfer of wealth to schools of education that provide little to no value to K-12 students.  While it has been a few years since Art Levine’s seminal report on teacher education, little has changed.

Funding these changes will be hard, but not impossible.  Districts spend considerable amounts on new hires; reducing attrition will eventually have a positive impact on budgets.  But to start, redeploy the salary dollars we have away from fixed raises for seniority and professional certification to instead recognize outstanding teachers as determined by school leadership (which would incorporate, but not be limited by the evaluation procedures in SB 10-191).

Secondly, pursue policies that shift the substantial dollars provided to schools of education into residency and alternative training programs.  Meaningless academic educational programs – most at private universities — suck millions of dollars in tuition and valuable time directly from teachers.  This is a billion-dollar industry that provides limited value — a remarkable waste of resources in the struggle to improve public education.

Prospective teachers should be given a choice between paying for these programs – often highly expensive, particularly given teacher starting salaries – and contributing to residency and other programs (which would also provide jobs upon successful program completion).

So, in the heightened shadow of SB 10-191, here is a modest proposal: migrate teacher preparation from mandatory certification to alternative and residency programs, shifting tuition dollars that enrich private universities to public school systems.  Abolish the single salary structure, using the premium formerly paid for advanced degrees to reward outstanding teachers for the achievements in the classroom.

And in the wake of what I think will be the successful passage of a mostly-whole SB 10-191, do not, for one minute, think that the effort to improve public education in Colorado has taken more than a small step forward, with a long distance still to travel.

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Posted in Alternative pathways, Legislature 2010, Reform, Schools of ed, Teacher evaluation, Teacher pay, Teacher preparation and training, Teacher unions | 13 Comments »

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