Paying to get the job done

From Dr. Martin Kennedy's editorial in the 10/7/07 edition of the Tennessean:

When considering how best to improve educational outcomes, what we pay teachers is not nearly as important as how they are paid. In 19th century England, the treatment of prisoners became a matter of great concern. Too many were dying on voyages to penal labor camps. The clergy called it a scandal. Parliament questioned the morality of ship captains. Then came a small policy change. Instead of being compensated per trip for transporting prisoners, ship captains were to be paid according to how many live prisoners were delivered. Problem solved.

Teacher compensation should be driven more by merit, productivity, and less on the level of education and seniority.

Clergy have already called the outcomes for poor and minority students a scandal. Hopefully, we'll recognize the need to make the next step.

Martin frequently comments on MNPS at his blog. I encourage you to visit regularly.

SBOE agenda for November

Just bumped into this link at the State of Tennessee's Education Department website. Back in August the State Board of Education approved a new set of science standards for K-8th grade. It's public comment time. The deadline on the web page is 'November' so you might want to read through those and comment very soon as it'll be taken up during their quarterly meeting on Friday, November, 2nd, in Legislative Plaza, Room 12, beginning at 8:30 a.m. Here's the agenda.

Also on the agenda, among other things, are 9-12 science curriculum standards (1st reading) rules for diversified pay plans, updated school bus specifications, and specific learning disability standards.

Oh, and 7 teachers may have their licenses pulled. Nancy Brown-Gearheiser may have her's reinstated. It was revoked in April of 2006 and the SBOE's minutes make no mention of why. In fact, the agenda doesn't provide any information about why the license status of any of these teachers is being changed. I think some comment would be in order.

Incentive to quash

From today's Wall Street Journal comes this nugget of truth:

The desire to learn disappeared down the bottomless well of centralized public-school bureaucracies.

The article goes on to describe the incentive pay plan in Little Rock, AR that was a model for the NAPE Inglewood/Alex Green incentive plan that was so throughly quashed by the MNEA. The local union in Arkansas is fighting back by getting their own candidates on the school board--and they're succeeding. Sounds familiar.

How many teachers?

Again, the MNEA voted on incentive pay. The Tennessean reports:

Members of the Metropolitan Nashville Education Association voted 70 percent to 30 percent to participate in the $10 million scientific study, in conjunction with Vanderbilt University's new National Center on Performance Incentives.

My question is how many is 70% and 30%? How many of the 4,983+- teachers employed by Metro and how many of the MNEA membership got to decide whether these 300 teachers would be allowed to participate in this study? Was the voting process improved after they rejected the NAPE project? Or was that unnecessary since the MNEA had already made it clear they were for this version?

Education 2.0

This week's must read comes from the New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce. While I'm wary of business interests helping shape education policy (Chambers of Commerce come to mind) I am certainly willing to at least give their POV a listen/read. I do frame their comments with the fact that their interest is in obtaining worker bees and consumers. Yes, that's a very narrow description but this study group's own site states something similar:

The final report proposes a restructuring that America’s economic preeminence hinges on the preeminence of our educational system. Skills Commission.org

There are certainly some things in this report that I can support and would encourage others to seriously consider. The first being to dump what I call 'time in seat'. Too often the educrats are appalled at the mere mention of the fact that it is possible for a child to obtain a normal K-12 education in less than 13 years. I've advocated for years that these children be allowed to take the appropriate tests to prove their skill level and then be released to go on and get the skills/education they and their parents determine is best for them. There are many children out there that consider K-12 a jail sentence. If they knew that it was possible to shorten the jail term I believe they'd be energized and encouraged to pass those tests in exchange for their freedom. This report echoes my thoughts this way:

One of the biggest proposed changes - the state board examinations that would allow qualified 10th graders to move on to college - would eventually add up to $67 billion in savings that could be reallocated elsewhere, the report estimates. Christian Science Monitor

Further they suggest:

Improve school salaries in exchange for reducing secure pension benefits, and pay teachers more to work with at-risk kids, for longer hours, or for high performance.

I've always advocated for paying great teachers great wages. And I'm all behind allowing people to handle their own pensions. I certainly think that some sort of 'combat' pay to reward teachers for successfully taking on the really hard jobs is right.

The article on this study goes on--

"We've squeezed everything we can out of a system that was designed a century ago," says Marc Tucker, president of the National Center on Education and the Economy, and vice chairman of the New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce, which produced the report. "We've not only put in lots more money and not gotten significantly better results, we've also tried every program we can think of and not gotten significantly better results at scale. This is the sign of a system that has reached its limits."

He's right. It's been some 100 years since those industrial giants created our current education system for an economy that hardly exists anymore. The trick will be to persuade those whose livelihood or political power depend on the current system continuing as is to put the needs of the children at the forefront.

I do not agree with their recommendation to scrap local school funding for state-wide funding. I am a firm believer in local control of schools. See "Local Control is a Must" regarding our own Tennessee Comptroller's reach.

You can order the entire study here for about $20.

We've got some Nashville mayoral candidates who've already made the education of the children here part of their political platforms--let's hope they're willing to use that bully pulpit to encourage some legitimate reform.

Update: This was done before.

The commission is the second of the same name. In 1990 the first commission released a report similarly detailing the failings of American education, and its influence helped advance the standards movement that culminated in the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act, which became law in 2002. Stateline.org

Blair, here's a suggestion...

Well, the incentive pay plan for Alex Green & Inglewood Elementary schools is dead--thanks to the MNEA's insistence on running the effort.

The City Paper quotes Blair Wilson, the public face of the donors, as saying:

“Exactly what we’re going to be doing, I can’t tell you,” Wilson said. “Are we still interested in pay for performance? Yes. Are we still interested in all other types of plans that could be for public education? Yes.”

My suggestion is that you consider a partnership with the Education Consumers Clearinghouse and/or Save Our Students.

ECC already has a Value Added Achievement Award. Amqui Elementary School Principal Brenda Steele was last year's local recipient. I've known it's head, ETSU Professor of Human Development and Learning John Stone for over a decade and have appreciated his group's information and insight.

Metro Councilman Eric Crafton represents the Save Our Students group. As promised earlier this year they'll be reviewing and collating the latest DOE information about our school systems as it's released in the next few weeks in order to compare it with last year's information. So far this volunteer effort has provided very valuable information about our schools system and they could certainly use some money to continue their effort.

We can't reward excellence in education if we don't know where it is. Both of these groups can help us determine who is doing excellent work and the Anne Potter Wilson Foundation can provide the financial rewards.

Shameful

Add this to the information released late on Friday in order to have it cold by the time folks are paying attention Monday morning.

Metro schools' teachers union rejected a $400,000 donation that would have bolstered teachers' pay based on the performance of their students.

This is all about protecting their membership numbers and their power and certainly NOT about rewarding excellent teachers for excellent work. This is about preventing 'dissension' in the ranks according to the union reps at the negotiating table back in August.

School board officials said questions to union representatives about the number of members and how information about the program was disseminated to union members went unanswered Friday.

And I'm willing to bet that they'll remain unanswered. This union is NOT about to stand in the light of day and be accountable for their actions. This was a close vote of 51.3% to 48.7%. Can we demand a recount?

Calls to union representatives Eric Huth and Jamye Merritt were not returned before press time.

No suprise there. Mr. Huth is often awol.

So let's review. The union complains that teachers aren't paid enough. A private donor comes forward and offers to pay them more--based on performance. This is clearly a pilot program that is laying the groundwork that may eventually allow everyone to participate. The general union membership rejects the offer because, based on previous statements, they don't want the rest of the members to be left out. Making union members happy is the mission--not ensuring that excellent teachers get excellent wages.

This all certainly flys in the face of the teacher union's published mission statement:

Our mission is to promote excellence in the Metro School system, seek community support for public education, secure economic and professional security for educators, maintain a strong united teaching organization, advance human and civil rights in education, and empower teachers!

• How does this rejection of incentive pay promote excellence in our schools?
• How does rejecting $400,000 of 'community support' encourage additional community support?
  
• How does rejecting this pay increase secure economic security for these staff members?
• How does it advance human and civil rights for these staff members?

I'm betting they've shot themselves in the foot and it will certainly not even help maintain a 'strong united teaching organization'. Maybe they feel empowered--but I think they paid too high a price for what will quickly become a bad investment.

Here's part of the MENA official statement.

Dr. Jamye Merritt, president of MNEA, said, “There were several things in the Memorandum that I and other leaders were not thrilled with; however, we felt it was solid enough to be put to our members for their decision. And they have spoken.”

MNEA Vice President and Negotiations Chair Erick Huth, a teacher at Middle College High School at Nashville State Community College, commented, “Even though the MOU included several of the criteria that TEA (Tennessee Education Association) recommends for alternative pay plans, teachers were apparently skeptical about this particular plan.”

Delores Jones, a teacher at Tusculum Elementary School said, “I voted no for three reasons: 1) the bonuses themselves were too small, especially the ones for the teachers; 2) I’m against paying teachers based just on test scores, and 3) I’m concerned about how this plan would handle the impact of English Language Learners on the test scores.”

Both MNEA and the school board’s team agreed that the bonuses finally included were too small. The board attempted to convince the donor of the $400,000 available for this plan to increase the amount; however, he declined.

Merritt added, “I’m sure that we’ll continue to talk about diversified pay plans. But this particular plan was not acceptable to our members.”

Bonuses were "too small" isn't something better than nothing? It's a pilot program folks. Did anyone expect that we'd get it 100% the first time out? I didn't. I expected that based on this trial we would know for sure what needed to be tweaked. I'm sure we'll continue to talk about diversified plans--but remember talk doesn't spend at Kroger or pay the mortgage.

And note the arrogance of asking the donor to kick in more money. How does abusing our donors in this way encourage others to step up?

It's going to take an exodus of members (and not that many more I'm told) to decertify this union before we will actually get a professional organization that is more concerned about ensuring quality members over quanity. I encourage teachers to check out a legitimate alternative Professional Educators of Tennessee.