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11/13/2009
Fixing schools is about more than more money

Our country – and for that matter, the world – is not suffering for lack of great ideas on improving education. So I just don’t get it. How does any individual or group or community or state or country make serious reforms, when the status quo is so darned resistant?

And ok, that means I’m talking about the darned union.

It happened here last week. The legislature passed a package of weak, watered-down “reforms” ostensibly meant to qualify Wisconsin to apply for big federal money coming down the pike.

Critics contend that the bill as drafted by Democratic legislators does little to breach the firewall between student data and teacher evaluations. In fact, they said, by making any teacher evaluation changes a mandatory subject of contract negotiations, as the measure calls for, school districts could have even more difficulty improving teacher quality.

"This is a joke," state Sen. Luther Olsen (R-Ripon) said.

It happened last week when I sat in on a discussion with a few school district superintendents. Several times questions came down to “our hands are tied – changes can only be made through the negotiating process.”

And it happens every time those superintendents sit at a negotiating table. Wisconsin’s mediation-arbitration laws, recently strengthened even further via this year’s everything-but-the-kitchen-sink budget, give a huge upper hand to the union. Match that with a community’s relatively recent fear of increasing class sizes and school boards that champion our kids before taxpayers – and you’ve got ever-increasing costs – without necessarily ever-increasing performance.

So that difficult negotiating environment sets the stage for requests for more dollars. And add to that blue-ribbon committees, associations, non-profit think tanks – all kinds of groups – begging for a change in the school funding formula – which is 100% of the time a euphemism for more money. You hear someone talking about changing the funding formula, finding the solution to school funding, making school funding more fair – or anything of that ilk – always remember – what’s being asked for is more money.

Ok. Here’s the bottom line. More money is not bad. But more money without measurable higher performance results is 100% bad and must be a non-starter. Ask a superintendent or a principle what their goals are and how they measure results. How do they know how one teacher is performing, how his or her kids are performing? And when a teacher isn’t performing, what do they do?

Just what does “performing” mean? Give us more and more money, but because of the system, we can’t promise you a darn thing about what that money will do.

America knows we must produce kids ready to take on the economic development of this country – in competition with the world – and we are failing at that. To their credit, the education community knows what needs to be done.

This piece from the Cap Times earlier this week gave me hope.

Rob Meyer [Uw-Madison] can't help but get excited when he hears President Barack Obama talking about the need for states to start measuring whether their teachers, schools and districts are doing enough to help students succeed.

…. These so-called "value-added" models of evaluation are designed to measure the contributions teachers and schools make to student academic growth. This method not only looks at standardized test results, but also uses statistical models to take into account a range of factors that might affect scores - including a student's race, English language ability, family income and parental education level.

Imagine it.

Yes, it’s all about the kids. It’s all about America’s competitive position in the world. Now if only union leadership would figure that out and become a partner in the process instead of a fighting foe. More money? Sure. Show us you are really, really making a difference in student performance, student preparedness, student success – and ultimately economic growth in the community. Just show us. It’s all we ask.

Jo Egelhoff, FoxPolitics.net

COMMENTS

Jo,

I wholeheartedly agree with you that the system is rigged to the best advantage of the union. And many administrators do a great job of putting on the Bambi eyes while claiming themselves powerless when trying to fix the system.

I also agree that there are plenty of creative and energetic individuals who actually want to implement innovative programs which will actually produce a tangible benefit to the students ... one that CAN be measured and one that the proponents would not be afraid or ashamed of being measured for real results.

Yet here we sit with some teachers who use exactly the same lesson plans from year to year, all they do is update the due dates and they're set for the new year. (Despite those ever-so-frequent 'professional development' days which are purported to stimulate creativity in these professionals.) Sometimes I wonder how much of that professional development is done at the school or conference center and how much of it is done at the mall.

But still they get paid the same or better. Too bad about the poor schlubs who lost their jobs, had their benefits cut, AND still end up paying the upward spiraling property taxes which support their 'system galvanized' benefits packages.

All this leads me to disagree with you about one specific point. You say MORE MONEY IS NOT BAD ... For the purpose of rewarding the lackluster and perpetuating the strangle-hold on the taxpayers, I have to say it is worse than bad - it's horrible.

Jeff (Fri Nov 13 08:18:02 2009)

The can you opened has lots of worms.

Superintendents need to be "brave and bold" and take on the Union for changes they feel would benefit kids. All too often school leaders hide behind the "Union" and use it for an excuse.

If a teacher needs to be fired, do it in an appropriate manner using due process.

When changes are proposed----be specific -- if the changes are to improve teaching, or if the changes are to cut staff.

Lastly, lets get back to the basics. McGuffey readers would be a good start. Real math ----without calculators---would be good. And stick to the basics.

David (Fri Nov 13 09:29:18 2009)

Good editorial Jo.
I always fo back to the stats that have been available for years now: we spend twice as much per student as the average for the entire Western World and have fallen back to twenty something in rankings in Math, Science, Engineering, etc. 35% of high school seniors are proficient in reading and 23% in math. The biggest disaster is over 1.2 million drop out of high school every year. Can you imagine what that does to the low end of the ecomomy and jobs. While these are nationals stats, I think it's necessary to take a look locally and make sure we are not in the same downward cycle as many school systems are. Union leaders destroyed the auto industry and are well on their way to doing the same to education.

John Hyland (Fri Nov 13 09:51:43 2009)

Jo:
There is a big difference between the public sector and the private sector when it comes revenue(private sector) and funding(public sector). The public sector, including schools, can pass along their increases in budget via our taxes and we can do little about it until election time.
The one thing that changes the equation for schools and brings in competition(hard to find in the public sector) is the school voucher program. To WEAC, to use an analogy, it is like showing a cross to a vampire. They will try and have tried to kill this program in Milwaukee to no avail.
They cannot close Pandoras' box no matter how hard they try because school vouchers make sense and so do Charter Schools. Even with a Democratic Legislature and a Democratic governor that were beholding to WEAC, they could not kill the school voucher system. I believe that competition not words will be the method that we can get our costs under control. We have lost the QEO and watered down the arbitration criteria to favor the union.
The election in 2010 will be critical as we look to people who represent us in Madison and fight for us as taxpayers instead of following the guidelines of special interests. Let's hope we can effect change or we as taxpayers will continue to foot the bill with no recourse except to move out of the state.

Mike Thomas (Fri Nov 13 10:13:34 2009)

It's extremely difficult to change the entrenched public school culture. More charter schools and voucher programs (parental choice) offer healthy competition. The fact is private-school students perform better on standardized tests AND save taxpayers money. Absent private schools, taxpayers would have to pay significantly more to educate those students in public schools. Parental-choice programs that enable families to send their children to private schools yield savings. Private-school teachers meet or exceed public-school teacher standards. Additionally, public schools not infrequently lack meaningful fiscal accountability due to their monopolistic nature.

Jan T (Fri Nov 13 17:06:41 2009)

Why is it that Home Schooled students score far better than their public counterparts ?
Why do Schools persist in addressing the low scoring students and forget the high achievers, further demoralizing the students who want to get ahead ?
Ask Jockey's if the statement "You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink" is true, because if it is, then all Jockeys are the same...NOT
Exposing teachers to more training sounds nice, but is as effective as watching more TV ads to become a better shopper, instead of doing the hard work of analysis.
Blaming the Union is the first sign of weak management ! ( Good management makes the employee earn his keep regardless of Union wages)

I have heard about Union Contracts many times, but guess what?
Whenever contract time comes up, the districts hire the same old attorneys and do the same old thing. They never talk to managers with experience in such matters ( and they are out there!)

Answer these questions and you will see where the problems lay, and what can /should be done.

Rich (Mon Nov 16 17:25:00 2009)

My husband is an excellent teacher because he was educated in the UK, where they spend 6 years in high school studying their specialty subjects, after which they take national exams that are based on academic performance showing understanding of same subjects.

Then they go to university, where again they study a limited range of specialty subjects, as opposed to our "cultural diversity" and "broad-based" education.
As a result, he knows his subject inside and out, and is able to get the the knowledge across to his students.

In the US, the universities, for a looong time, have been hijacked by special-interest "academia nuts", where student teachers are told stupid things like, "You're not teaching a subject, you're teaching kids." What's THAT supposed to mean?

Hubbie has been under scrutiny for daring to bring a Bible to school, and having it on his desk, where he privately reads from it. The latest is an anonymous complaint the he is "infusing religion into chemistry." No particulars, just vague accusations. When he asked what he supposedly said, there was no answer, yet he has to meet w-the principal on this.

He does at times make comments such as "he doesn't believe he came from a monkey, and that those who do, are entitled to believe they did come from monkeys." If this is what the admin is griping about, you can see how bad the public education system is, when teachers are not allowed to express their opinions openly.

EMILY MATTHEWS (Tue Nov 17 09:25:45 2009)

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