Student's First- a take on evaluation

Michelle Rhee's new advocacy group, Student's First,  just came out with a rather extensive list of priorities.  I don't always like the tone- but I unfortunately find that much of what her organization says contains too much truth in it.   These are criticisms that unions should not take lightly.   Viewing this simplistically as a war on teachers might galvanize some, but will hurt the political clout of unions in the long-run.   There are valid criticisms here.  And to simply ignore them does a disservice to the majority of teachers unions pruport to represent.   I believe the following: that teacher unions will be better politically situated if they do not simply do what is best for teachers, but when they do what is best for teachers and students.   The public is perfectly willing to pay teachers more for what they do.   But they have reached a boiling point- they want to pay effective teachers more, not ineffective ones.   And until we acknowledge and address our faults- we willl  leave not only the public wanting- but the profession.   We will also in effect turnover political muscle and decision making to reformers- those who often have little educational experience.   This is not the fault of those reformers, as some would like to argue, but rather this is due to our own failure to address valid criticisms in a forthright and proactive manner.

The following  provocative ideas come from the Student First website.   Ideas that as I said, contain too much truth.  I can only imagine the union response to these "attacks."

Union leaders are legally obligated to represent the interests of all of their members, including ineffective members. Although union leaders express an interest in quality, they have a fiduciary responsibility to their organization to enhance unity and protect low performers. As a result, union leadership, or the vocal minority of teachers, disproportionately influences the evaluation process to skew toward interests that conflict with those of high-performing or promising teachers. The majority of rank-and-file teachers deeply value strong colleagues and a culture of excellence. The ethic of high standards becomes lost in the process when the union dedicates time, effort, and money fighting for the lowest performers. Simply put, labor leadership has a conflict of interest when it comes to evaluation of their members. Recognizing this conflict, steps should be taken to balance the mission of school districts against the collective interest of district employees. A school should not be impaired in its ability to serve families by an evaluation system negotiated to protect the jobs of poor performers.




In school districts across the country, superintendents have no choice but to accept the teacher evaluation system codified in local teacher union contracts. This practice has become the norm over the past 20 years, resulting in weak evaluation systems in district after district. Meanwhile, even the most forward-thinking superintendents rarely have the political backing to negotiate better systems, since school board elections can be easily influenced by highly motivated union organizers. In this way, unions often hold a controlling interest in both sides of the negotiating table. This conflict of interest creates a barrier to developing and implementing meaningful evaluations that are based on what practices will most benefit the students. By including teachers in the evaluation process and simultaneously taking it off the bargaining table, districts will have new opportunities to build on teachers' strengths, drive professionalism, and demand great results for their students.

How we got in this mess

Teachers, their unions, and others all want to know how we got into this educational mess.  Dianne Ravitch spends day and night defending educators from the "reformist" voices of Bill Gates, Michelle Rhee, Arne Duncan and the like, who argue for the use of  student achievement in teacher evaluations.  The reformists say we need to look at the "value-added" that a teacher brings to the classroom.   My union (along with others), cries foul, and goes here there and everywhere to testify.  They regurgitate claims that value-added modeling used to measure student achievment gains is huey.  And they take up the fight against movies made by directors who know more about global warming than education.  But why?   Why has this turned in to an all out war on education?  How did we get here?   Why are we still here?

Clear the air, and you'll realize this  fight is one that should have been over long ago.    The real fight is over seniority based rules that pay the most tenured teachers more money than the most effective teachers.   The same rules call for new teachers to be fired before the least effective teachers.    They are calls for reform that have fallen on deaf ears for many, many years.  They are calls for reform that were ingored.  But they are rules that could have been, and should have been, addressed by the unions themselves.   Had simple but thoughtful reforms been made or even attempted, the foundation upon which "reformers" built their castle would have fallen into the sea.  But like an old stubborn mule, the unions, led by the eldest teachers that control their ranks and benefit most by the imposition of the rules they defend, refused to change.

The result, is a fight that never had to be.   A fight that has now morphed itslef into an us vs. them fight over the use of testing.  We're fighting over the rediculous standardized test data that was released to the public by a newspaper more concerned with selling a few papers than fixing education.   We're fighting over the relaibility of value-added modeling- a topic about which most teachers and politicians and common folk care to know very little.   We're fighting over the merits of movie directors and chancellors of education.     It's a fight that never should have happened.   But it's a fight on grounds where the unions- and Diane Ravitch-  stand a much better chance of winning.   

Don't be fooled by what you hear and read today.   The real fight is over seniority.

School Reform Debate

The current debate over school reform seems to have divided itself into two irreconcilable camps: the Rhee and Klein types chirping about the evil unions blocking reform at the expense of students across the country, and the Diane Ravitch and union sympathizers crying afoul as teacher names are published in newspapers without so much as a wink of recognition that the standardized tests that produce these lists are not only unreliable, but are single handedly ruining any chance of improving our education system.   What do these two sides have in common?   They're both wrong.   Or I suppose if you're an optimist- they are both right.

As someone who doesn't care about power- because I have none- I think I can speak on this subject with atleast some degree of authority.   The sides described above are concerned about what's best for education just like our United States Congress is concerned about creating a nice well-rounded bill that reflects sound judgement rather than partisan politics.   So I'll do my best to dissect both sides of the argument.   A few items I'll try to discuss of over the next month- maybe after the elections.

1) Teacher unions have not been effective in policing their own profession.
2)  There are outside the classroom factors that have a large impact on what goes on inside the classroom.   But they are not an excuse for what goes on inside the classroom.
3) Due process is not an all or nothing proposition- it can coexist with fair and robust evaluation systems.
4) Value Added Modeling has the potential to be a useful feedback tool, but has severe limitations.
5) Standardized testing is not the root of all evil- nor a cure all- but when done 50 different ways in 50 different states- creates an extraordinary amount of wasted resources in the form of duplication.
6) Pay for performance will not likely impact student acheivement- however seniority rules protected by unions likely do more harm than good.