Opportunity Knocks

Here's a new one for the ol' Reformy Thesaurus: the "Opportunity Culture" in education.

Sure sounds good, doesn't it? Who doesn't want our American kids to have more opportunities in life? Except--oops--this campaign, rolled out by Public Impact, is actually about opportunities for "teacherpreneurs" to make more money by teaching oversized classes--and of course, for school districts to seize that same opportunity to save money through "innovative" staffing models.

How did this exciting window of opportunity emerge? Public Impact explains:

Only 25 percent of classes are taught by excellent teachers. With an excellent teacher versus an average teacher, students make about an extra half-year of progress every year--closing achievement gaps fast, leaping ahead to become honors students, and surging forward like top international peers.

That's a whole lot of leaping and surging. Unfortunately, it's based on a faux statistic, sitting triumphantly on a pyramid of dubious research, prettied up with some post-modern infographics. Like other overhyped blah-blah of "reform"--the "three great teachers in a row" myth, for example, or nearly every "fact" in Waiting for Superman--it's a triumph of slick media slogans over substance. A quick look at the Opportunity Culture Advisory Team tells you what the real purpose of the OC is: cutting teachers, privatizing services, plugging charters and cultivating a little astroturf to cover the scars.

The Opportunity Culture's bold plan begins with a policy recommendation: Schools should be required by law to identify the top 25% of their teachers. Then, once that simple task is completed, OC suggests ten exciting new models for staffing schools, beginning with giving these excellent teachers a lot more students (plus a merit pay carrot) and ending with enlisting "accountable remote teachers down the street or across the nation" who would "provide live, but not in-person instruction while on-site teammates manage administrative duties and develop the whole child."

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How money buys education "research"

The Center for American Progress (CAP), which bills itself as a being dedicated to improving the lives of Americans through progressive ideas and action, recently produced a report titled "Charting New Territory: Tapping Charter Schools to Turn Around The Nation’s Dropout Factories"

The report argues for a more prominent role for charter operators in turning around perennially low-performing high schools. Among its recommendations

the report posits that five steps might improve the likelihood of successful CMO-district partnerships (all of which strengthen the CMO’s position in the district):
1) maximizing theCMO’s autonomy over staffing, budget, curricula, operations, and pedagogy;
2) staffing turnaround schools through creative agreements among education entrepreneurs, unions, charter operators, districts, and states, such as developing thin union contracts;
3) ensuring district financial support for turnaround schools;
4) relaxing state and district administrative regulations around staffing, funding, and school operations; and
5) cultivating public will for such partnerships.

At this point, you might be wondering why a progressive think tank is advocating such right wing policies that have been proven to be unsuccessful. The answer is actually quite simple to descern, and can be found on the very first page of this CAP report.

Paid for by the conservative corporate education reform outfit - the Eli Broad Foundation.

The National Education Policy Center has just released their analysis of this report, and they don't have kind things to say about this Broad funded report.

The report bases the majority of its findings and conclusions on conversations with charter school operators—including those that have not yet engaged in turnaround work—and with school district staff, researchers, and education reformers or consultants. Interview respondents included one professor of educational policy, one researcher from the Center on ReinventingPublic Education, five reformers or consultants from reform organizations or think tanks that advocate for market-based education policies, and three district administrators who were associated with their districts’ charter school partnerships.

Secondarily, the report cites evidence from the popular media, blogs, foundation reports, non-peer reviewed literature, charter operators’ external relations materials, and ideologically identifiable think tanks.

Beyond these citations, the report routinely offers a range of unsubstantiated claims that are not supported by any evidence or that ignore existing evidence to the contrary.

At the same time, no theoretical or substantive rationale behind the report’s sources of evidence is provided to justify why the particular interview respondents or literature sources were selected or how their data were evaluated. The result is a collection of weakly supported claims based on an unsystematic, unsophisticated interpretation of the knowledge base on school turnarounds, charter schools, and charter management organizations.

This is what millions of dollars can buy you. Research and recommendations that lack intellectual rigor. Designed to further corporate education reform agendas at the expense of public education, and the possibility of real reforms and changes that would make a difference to the quality of education students receive.

View REVIEW OF CHARTING NEW TERRITORY

Simple facts about Issue 2 (SB 5)

From our mailbag, some simple facts about Issue 2 (Senate Bill 5):

• SB 5 weakens collective bargaining rights for police officers, teachers, nurses and prison guards. It takes away their ability to negotiate for health care, retirement, and sick time.
• It makes our communities less safe because police officers and firefighters could lose their ability to negotiate for safer staffing ratios and better equipment.
• It threatens the quality of our schools. SB 5 prohibits school districts from negotiating with teachers for smaller class sizes.

It's time to repeal Senate Bill 5. Vote no on Issue 2!

The Dispatch should read its own paper

In an Op-ed today titled "Don't miss the chance" - the Disptach doesn't miss a chance to take yet another swipe at teachers. As usual, it is deeply uninformed and filled with the common corporate reform message

Kasich and the House have proposed merit-based systems for evaluating and rewarding teachers, but the Senate declined to include any merit-based system. A system that evaluates teacher effectiveness and uses such evaluations to determine staffing, layoffs and pay is vital reform. The current system rewards teachers for seniority, tying administrators' hands when it comes to staffing and pay decisions. The recent example of the Pickerington Local School District shows the problem with this: Of the 14 "teacher of the year" winners for 2010-11 in the district, five are losing their jobs in a round of layoffs that will hit 120 teachers. This is a system that punishes outstanding teachers and the students who will be deprived of their services. Development of merit-based systems already is part of Ohio's federally sponsored Race to the Top education-reform program, which includes 300 Ohio school districts. It should be made the policy of the entire state.

Perhaps the editors and publisher of the Dispatch should read their own paper, just once in a while, because yesterday was one of the best pieces written on this merit pay subject in a long, long time.

First, very few teachers have tenure, where they may be fired only for cause. Most teachers serve on a yearly basis, and for those, it is as simple as the superintendent not recommending a teacher for renewal by April 30. Voila, that teacher is gone. No cause needed. For teachers who have continuing contracts, it is within management's authority and control to determine whether the teacher is performing adequately. No union contract prohibits a teacher from being fired for cause. Among other things, principals can observe teachers and make recommendations, but it is generally easier to ignore problem teachers.

From a human-resources perspective, there are T's to cross and I's to dot and paperwork to process to get rid of a teacher. Then there's the process to interview and hire a new teacher. Those are bureaucratic problems, not teacher problems. The so-called bad teachers often continue to teach because management does not want to make the effort to get rid of them.

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Two Sides of the School Staffing Coin

An interesting panel discussion titled Two Sides of the School Staffing Coin: Innovative Models and Class Size Reduction Policies"

Featured presenters:
Matthew Chingos, Fellow, Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institution
Julie Kowal, Senior Consultant, Public Impact

Featured panelists:
Michael Hansen, Research Associate, Education Policy Center at the Urban Institute
Donna Harris-Aikens, Director of Education Policy and Practice Department, National Education Association

Moderated by:
Raegen Miller, Associate Director for Education Research, Center for American Progress