November 4th promises to be a crucial and historic moment in American history for more reasons than just the headliner presidential election. Also at stake are more than 150 ballot initiatives and referenda in 36 states. Many astute observers are already aware of the most prominent among these initiatives such as California’s proposed amendment to ban gay marriage (currently polling almost neck-and-neck) and South Dakota’s amendment to ban abortion part II, but there are also a host of important ballot proposals that have not quite made the popular news media radar screen.

There is more at stake in the voting booth than just these state level initiatives too; in many towns and cities voters will have to choose between increasing taxes for various services or abiding by the pressure of a slowing economy and cutting local spending. In California alone, for example, there are more than 50 local education-related ballot initiatives having to do with teacher salaries, new text books, new school buildings or building repairs, and so on. Most of these local education spending bonds pass during ordinary election cycles, but during this economic downturn, it is anyone’s guess how much voters will be affected.

Chief among the crucial state initiatives concerning education are four categories: gambling for education proposals, proposals to end affirmative action, a set of controversial initiatives aimed at curtailing union power in Colorado, and a really controversial initiative in Oregon aimed at drastic reform of how teachers are paid throughout the state.

The first set of interesting ballot proposals are in play in Missouri, Colorado, Maryland, and Arkansas. Depending on how one looks at them, they are either pro-gambler’s rights proposals or proposals to supplement or modify existing school spending structures. Basically the states propose either to expand state lotteries, extend casino hours and gambling limits, allow slot machines, and raise casino taxes to fund education. In Missouri, for instance, there is a state cap limiting the amount of money that individuals can lose by gambling in a certain time period ($500 per 2 hours) that would be lifted, with all additional revenues turned over to schools—an amount estimated between $100 and $130 million per year.

Sounds like a pretty good idea, right? The primary concerns that have been expressed against the law are either the pretty standard anti-gambling argument, which may be true—but how much we should prefer to protect irresponsible folks who are pretty wealthy from harming themselves over providing better schools to kids is an open question. The second concern with these proposals, however, is a bit more on point: what if state legislatures decide to use the revenue generated from these plans to replace, rather than add to, current school funding plans? If this is all that the initiative would amount to then it’s not as clear that it’s worth supporting, and there are no guarantees in the actual law to ensure that new revenues would be added to the school funding pie.

In Colorado and Nebraska there are ballot proposals to end affirmative action. These are hardly new ideas, as similar measures have passed in California, Washington and Michigan all within the past decade. Both states’ anti-affirmative action measures look likely to pass.

Colorado has 5 more interesting ballot initiatives of its own, in addition to the affirmative action measure. Amendments 47, 49, 54, 58, and 59 propose collectively to limit the power of teachers unions and marginally increase taxes on industries such as oil and gas to further fund education. 47, 49, and 54 in particular have drawn the ire of teachers unions, for they attempt to stop unions from requiring that teachers join the local union in order by, among other things, making it illegal for a school district to automatically detect union dues from a pay check to be paid to the union headquarters. These "right-to-work" laws already exist in a handful of states which has brought down rates of union membership, though it is hard to say if this has led to any major gains for students. Amendment 54 would prevent anyone who receives a no-bid contract from the government from making a campaign contribution to any candidate. The idea seems pro-democracy in spirit, since wealthy corporate donors wouldn’t be able to buy influence from candidates, but some groups such as the teachers unions and firefighters who would be proscribed from contributing under the law have attacked it as an amendment limiting their free speech rights. More on these amendment proposals here; an argument against them from a Colorado teacher here.

Lastly, a pair of extremely interesting initiatives are on the ballot in Oregon courtesy of initiative-proposer-extraordinaire Bill Sizemore. Measure 58 would prohibit non-English-language teaching for more than two years, and Measure 60 would switch teacher pay to a performance-based rather than seniority-based system. You know these measures are controversial just by following the money: already Oregon teachers unions have spent over $6 million fighting these two initiatives.

Of the two, Measure 60 is especially worth watching, since it basically calls for the exact kind of paradigm shift in how teachers are paid that prominent education experts have called for in recent years—a proposal that even Barack Obama supports in principle. The idea, backed by a group called “Preserve Our Best Teachers” is simple, that classroom performance and not seniority should determine teacher pay raises. Unions object ostensibly because of data concerns with evaluating just which teachers are providing the best educational instruction to their students, but the concept of a professional being paid based on how good they are at their job, if it is discernible, is a tough value to oppose.

Posted by Aaron Tang at 11:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

An insightful report was released this week by Steven Wilson of the Education Sector, an independent non-profit that does educational policy analysis. The report raises a major question about the numbers game facing school reformers: namely, how are we going to get more high-quality teachers into the schools where kids need them the most? Wilson presents the numbers question from the perspective of succesful charter schools that are emerging throughout the country.

Put succinctly, Wilson finds that teachers in widely-renown high-achieving charter schools (such as the 75 schools that belong to three celebrated charter networks--the KIPP schools, Achievement First schools, and Uncommon Schools) are so rare in terms of academic background and other qualifications that it would be virtually impossible to replicate these schools' high quality teaching staffs in other schools.

He draws this conclusion by starting with an analysis of the high achieving schools and what percentage of the teachers there come from selective colleges (as just one proxy for talented young teachers). It turns out that somewhere around 80% of the teachers in high-performing charter schools serving low-income youth graduated from colleges that are regarded by Barron's profile of American Colleges as "very competitive". By contrast, in the public schools writ large, only 19.2% of teachers graduated from the "very competitive" colleges.

What does that mean? Well for starters, it clearly means that we need to get more of our nation's brightest young people into teaching, and programs like Teach For America can help with that. But Teach For America currently has 5,000 corps members--barely 1% of the total number of teachers in just the public schools employed by 66 school districts in the Council of the Great City Schools. Moreover, only 140,000 students graduate each year from colleges ranked by Barron's as "highly competitive" - and even if half of them chose to spend two years teaching in these low-income city schools, only 33% of classrooms in the schools would have such a teacher.

Wilson goes on to suggest trying out programs to turn existing teachers who do not fit the elite college typecast into high-performing teachers as a way to out-flank the sheer numbers shortage. As a principle, he is absolutely right to suggest that nothing about a person's college inherently makes someone a qualified (or unqualified) teacher. After all there are plenty of book-smart people who would not have the personal skills to thrive in low-performing schools, and plenty of very educated and thoughtful people in schools that Barron's hasn't blessed with it's "highly competitive" label.

But Wilson's suggestion to focus our dollars, policies, and political capital on improving existing teachers is an interesting choice, since it has a clear alternative: spending the money and political energy to attract and retain high quality educators from all educational backgrounds. Put another way, what if instead of assuming a two-year teaching commitment from today's talented college grads we could recast the financial incentives and work-place conditions of the teaching profession to encourage them to spend 10 or 15 years teaching? What if instead of paying the oldest teachers the most and forcing talented young teachers to leave because they're not earning what they are worth, we flipped compensation on its head and paid the best teachers the most no matter what their age? Wouldn't a 25 year old making $55,000 teaching because they are getting tremendous learning gains for their students be more inclined to stay in the field than one who makes $35,000 as is the case these days? It's a numbers game when it comes to fixing our schools... but the trick is choosing among a load of options as to how to make the numbers work.

Posted by Aaron Tang at 09:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As the roller coaster ride that is the United States and global economy continues, one need look no further than to your neighborhood public school to see how the financial crisis will affect ordinary Americans. Stories are emerging across the country (New York here and California here, for instance) of states and local school districts passing emergency mid-year budget cuts which will result in delayed school construction projects, reduced classroom budgets, and squeezes on teacher salaries. An Education Week article published this week lays out in great detail many of the practical implications that will be felt in America's schools.

There are effectively three broad categories of losses that schools will incur in the coming years, each of which will have significant impacts on school children. The first category is direct losses that school districts have sustained as the result of a significant portion of their operating and capital budgets being held in stock assets that have lost tremendous value. The most obvious examples are school districts such as the 26 in California's San Mateo county which had budget resources tied up in Lehman Brothers at the time of the company's collapse. More than $60 million is now tied up in bankruptcy court proceedings from the county's 26 districts, with the schools likely to lose a significant portion of that total.

Making matters worse is that some of the affected districts will need those dollars in the near-term in order to finance school repairs, make payroll, and other day-to-day operations. Sequoia Union High School District, for example, estimates a loss of $6 million from the county's decision to invest its savings in Lehman Brothers--money that will have an impact on the district's 8,200 students this year.

But even those school districts without huge direct losses from falling asset values are getting pinched as well. The overall downturn in the economy, evidenced by reduced economic activity, falling property values, and home foreclosures will also have an impact on school district pocketbooks by reducing annual tax revenues that all schools rely on, at least in part. Since local property tax funding accounts for as much as 70% of many school districts' revenues, district leaders across America are watching with a weary eye as home foreclosures and falling property values persist. This is the second category of trouble that the financial crisis is threatening upon schools.

This effect is compounded by the fact that reduced property tax revenues may, in some cases, affect the credit scores that rating agencies give to districts who try to sell bonds to finance their school budgets -- meaning that schools will have to pay investors higher interest rates to raise money for building fixes, books, and other expenses. A half point interest rate increase on a $250 million, 6-month loan would amount to an extra $1.2 million that a school district or state has to spend on things other than teachers and school improvement efforts.

Thirdly, many schools are running into short-term problems associated with the nature of their budget receipts. School districts that receive property tax revenues in lump-sum payments once or twice during the year typically finance the early months of their budget cycles with safe, short-term loans. But as banks increasingly hoard cash reserves, the rates that schools have had to pay have increased drastically, leading to further cuts in order to make payroll and finance other school necessities.

The federal government's $700 billion rescue / bailout may help to address some of the structural issues, but as long as the economy itself is contracting, schools will have to bear some significant brunt of the nation's losses. Which means that the only sure-fire long-term investment that America can make to ensure a healthier future economy--an investment in our children--will undoubtedly take a backseat.

Posted by Aaron Tang at 10:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Philadelphia student activitists made the news in a terrific Philadelphia Inquirer article this week for their efforts to ensure that ongoing teacher union negotiations with the school district would focus on what matters most: student learning.

At stake in the union contract negotiations are some pretty typical issues: teacher pay, length of contract, work hours. Specifically, the city's new schools superintendent, Arlene Ackerman, wants to increase the length of the school day and raise pay for teachers in hard-to-staff subjects and schools. While both ideas are widely regarded as having positive impacts on student achievement and closing the gap between wealthy and low-income students, the unions have been reluctant on both fronts. The union is also bargaining for a long-term contract, while Superintendent Ackerman is looking for a one year deal--purportedly because she would like to become more familiar with the district before signing a longer teacher union contract.

Commenting on the ongoing negotiations and how they have tended to miss the issues that matter most for students--such as getting high quality teachers into every Philly classroom regardless of the school's achievement levels, socioeconomics, and racial breakdown--one student observed, "I've seen students cut class and come to my classroom to avoid bad teachers. The system of teacher distribution in Philadelphia is broken."

What is fascinating about this news item is that the student protestors, more than two dozen organized by the Philadelphia Student Union who gathered outside an elite magnet school in the city to deliver their message, got quick responses from the negotiating parties. The Superintendent's spokesperson issued a statement saying, ""The district's top priority in negotiating the current contract is ensuring that we place teachers where children most need them." She went on to say that Superintendent Ackerman would welcome sitting down with students and parents at the negotiating table if the unions approved it.

Unfortunately, the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers union president, Jerry Jordan, did not express his support for the idea of student participation in the negotiations, although he pointed out that the union "has always taken a position of watching out for kids." One may wonder how this position of watching out for kids can possibly be consistent with refusing to let them have a voice in these issues that direly affect their education.

What might it look like if low-income and low-performing schools were staffed by caring teachers who are committed to their students? Maybe something like this (a staff video made to congratulate graduating students in a Bronx middle school):

Posted by Aaron Tang at 09:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Bold statement from Washington Post's Jay Mathews in his most recent column touting the vital importance of firing bad teachers as a step to improving schools. His argument--an increasingly common one in light of proposals made by DC Chancellor of Schools Michelle Rhee--is that school children in low-income, chronically low-performing schools will not experience significant achievement gains until administrators have the power to fire the manifold bad teachers who disproportionately work in such environments.

Mathews's inspiration for writing the article is the experience of a principal at a DC charter school called KIPP DC:KEY Academy, where two low-performing teachers were fired before Christmas and replaced with what Mathews describes as, "proven talents" who turned around their classrooms to the benefit of students. In ordinary public schools, because of union protections for teachers, principals do not have the freedom to act this quickly and unilaterally. Instead, in traditional public schools the principal would likely only have the power to authorize mentorship and professional development for the struggling teacher, make negative comments on evaluations, and then recommend not rehiring the teacher at year's end (or in some cases, after a period of years of probation).

Mathews is right to point out the powerful lever that charter school principals have to weed out hopeless teachers, but he misses an equally important, if not more important issue: what good is it to be able to fire teachers if there aren't higher quality alternatives to replace them? In the DC KIPP academy example that Mathews cites, it only helps that the principal can fire the two bad teachers because she has access to two better teachers who can replace them!

The problem is, most schools don't have a deep reserve pool of high quality job-seeking teachers in wait, should their initial staff members prove ineffective. Indeed, from my own teaching experience, where our school was able to fire three teachers mid-year (15% of the full time teaching staff), the challenge of taking over an often times dysfunctional classroom from the previous teacher can prove insurmountable to even the most hard-working replacement. If that replacement is not a "proven talent" as was the fortunate case for the DC KIPP principal, the power to fire a teacher is only half of the solution.

The other half, of course, is increasing the pool of high quality teaching candidates in low-performing school districts--a challenge which is much more complicated than the power to fire. It incorporates licensing rules, pay structures, workplace rules, and other issues that have plagued K-12 public education for some time. In other words, the power to fire is only a part of the equation--truly fixing our struggling schools will also require a fundamental shift to the human capital picture in public education.

Posted by Aaron Tang at 07:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)