The Education Gadfly
A Weekly Bulletin of News and Analysis from the Thomas B. Fordham Institute
February 21, 2008, Volume 8, Number 8
This week on The Education Gadfly Show Podcast: Little Limbaugh
Contents
Guest Editorial
News and Analysis
Recommended Reading
- Partial Win for Sunshine State
- Anchors away
- Three cheers for dead, white men
- Seattle times tables
- Speakeasy
Short Reviews
The Education Gadfly Show Podcast
Announcements
Guest Editorial
Teachers' union psychology 101
Fordham's latest report, The Leadership Limbo, is a valuable resource. It's inevitable, though, that I approach this issue from a somewhat different angle, considering what I do: focus on and cover the inner workings of the teachers' unions. I believe that to fully understand the collective-bargaining contracts that rule district-level operations, one must first understand those who implement them and the unions that help to create them.
A spate of studies have examined collective bargaining, and they all focus on the realities of running and managing a school district or school in the face of union demands and requirements. What is missing, in The Leadership Limbo and elsewhere, is any examination--hell, any mention--of the realities of running a teachers' union.
The reason teachers' unions love the traditional salary scale, for example, is not some blind devotion to their industrial union roots. It's because that's the only system that keeps member squawking to a minimum and assures the prime internal imperative: That the union be the sole source of teacher advancement, benefit, and protection. If you receive a raise or promotion based on your own performance, why do you need a union? If a math teacher in a low-income school can receive more money than a kindergarten teacher in a wealthy suburban school, the math teacher doesn't need the union (he's making more money based on his performance) and the kindergarten teacher doesn't need the union (he hasn't seen an extra dime). They both need the union only if it is the sole means by which to benefit.
Some may think I'm overstating this attitude; let me further illustrate my point. When statewide k-3 class-size reduction was instituted in California--a reform the union not only supported, but shepherded through the legislature--it actually caused all sorts of problems for union members. The k-3 teachers loved it, naturally. It reduced their workload. But what a competition for the new k-3 jobs that opened up (smaller classes means hiring more teachers)! It has been well-reported that veteran inner-city teachers fled to new k-3 openings in the suburbs, thus leaving inexperienced instructors behind. Less reported was the movement of veteran middle school and intermediate grade teachers into the primary grades. Teachers who previously wouldn't be caught dead teaching kindergarteners suddenly found educating five-year-olds desirable. Then the intermediate-grade teachers started moaning about how they had the same prep time for 34 students as their k-3 counterparts had for 20 students.
Because the California union had differentiated among its members, it had to spend a lot of time pacifying them (with contract provisions for additional prep time and teacher aide help). But of course it was motivated to do so because the main result of class-size reduction was more teachers, and therefore more union members. Without similar motivation, the union will avoid differentiation at all costs.
Aha!, you say--but the unions do differentiate, via college credits and years of experience. Correct. Notice, though, that these are virtually the only distinctions you can make among teachers based on indisputable, objective, numerical values. Teachers do not agree, despite the market's judgment, that math and science teachers are worth more than physical-education instructors. But they can accept the fact that ten is more than seven, when it comes to credits or years of experience. Even though unions lobby for and tout additional pay for nationally certified teachers, it's still a sore point in a lot of places.
Finally, I came to this recommendation in The Leadership Limbo: "Advocates, policymakers, and funders should keep pressing American Federation of Teachers and National Education Association locals to embrace the kind of rethinking and flexibility that the United Auto Workers accepted last year in its negotiations with General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler."
That's hardly a persuasive argument from the union's point of view. I understand the report's point, and most of its readers will, too. But put yourself in the shoes of the NEA president:
"I run the largest labor union in the United States, with virtually unbroken growth ever since we became a union in the mid-1970s. Together with our affiliates, our annual income approaches $1.5 billion. I have state laws that require teachers to join my union or pay the equivalent amount of dues. I have universally acknowledged political power. My locals can often dictate who will be on the other side of the bargaining table. My own members and employees sometimes double as state legislators themselves. The one downside is an awful public-relations image. My organization is seen nationwide--in both political parties--as obstructionist. In order to repair it, I'm being asked to embrace the policies of the UAW, a failing private-sector union in a perennially declining AFL-CIO-led labor movement. Hmm, what should I do?"
All of this is a long-winded way of explaining why I think you can't study contracts if you don't study unions. And you can't study unions without studying their internal workings. And there we're hamstrung (myself included), because unions don't want to be studied.
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News and Analysis
Cross the unions: Yes he can?
It is not per se wrong to enjoy watching movie star Scarlett Johansson sing breathily about change in America. Millions have, in fact. They've logged on to YouTube and viewed the "Yes We Can" video, in which a divided screen shows Barack Obama on one side, giving a campaign speech while, on the other, actors and musicians sing the words the Illinois senator speaks.
The whole thing is all very uplifting and nice but it undeniably falls into the "fluff" category in which more than a few pundits are beginning to classify Obama's talks. David Brooks writes in his New York Times column, "If that video doesn't creep out normal working-class voters, then nothing will." Leon Wieseltier, literary editor of The New Republic, notes, "It is not ‘the politics of fear' to remind Obama's legions of the blissful that, while they are watching Scarlett Johansson sway to the beat ... people are making plans to blow them to bits. (Yes, they can.)"
Obama is on a ten-state primary contest winning streak. Now the press wonders: Where's the beef?
Here's some. Obama was asked last week by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel what he thinks about the city's high-visibility school-choice programs, including its voucher system. "I think we should foster competition within the public school system with charters and anything that works we should try to scale up and replicate," he said. Another snippet: "When Milwaukee initiated the school voucher plan, I thought that at least there was an experiment that would allow us to use that as a test case.... If there was any argument for vouchers, it was 'Alright, let's see if this experiment works.' and if it does, then whatever my preconceptions, my attitude is you do what works for the kids."
That's remarkably substantive stuff coming from a Democratic presidential candidate competing in a rough primary race. Joe Williams, executive director of Democrats for Education Reform, told the New York Sun that Obama's was "a different kind of answer than most of us are used to hearing from politicians."
Asked the same question, Senator Hillary Clinton gave a more predictable response. She questioned the constitutionality of school-choice programs and added that, if vouchers were widespread, government would be hard-pressed to deny funding to, for example, a "school of the Jihad." She's been making this point for some time. In February 2006, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, she "ranted that if a school voucher program paid for students to attend a Catholic school, it will also have to issue vouchers for a ‘school of the church of the white supremacist' or a ‘school of the Jihad.'"
Clinton purports to oppose empty rhetoric and embrace detail-oriented policy, which makes her fear mongering about Klan klassrooms especially egregious. When compared to Obama's considered response, Clinton's appears trite.
But Clinton is running for president, too; she mustn't deviate very far from AFT doctrine and of course she knows that the National Education Association has yet to endorse a candidate. According to an NEA press release from this month (modestly titled "Valuable NEA Political Endorsement Remains Up For Grabs"), "NEA is uniquely poised to play a major role in either campaign. Public school teachers have been near the top of the list of America's most admired spokespersons for decades, and according to the Harris polling firm, teachers' grades among the nation's ‘most admired professions' have improved by an average of 23 percentage points over the past 15 years."
NEA President Reg Weaver, who leads this image machine, said last week that he will seek from Obama an assurance that the Illinois senator opposes school vouchers. Up to now, the press has largely ignored Obama's heretical comments about school choice, but if he bucks the teachers' unions yet again, perhaps the newspaper columnists who crave substance will sit up and take notice.
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Recommended Reading
Partial Win for Sunshine State
Florida's State Board of Education this week approved newly revised science standards after a long process that, in its final stages, turned contentious over the subject of evolution, a recurrent problem topic for Florida as for several other states. The 4-3 vote enshrined evolution in the Sunshine State's curriculum. But as part of a last-minute compromise made to mollify Darwin's detractors, the wording of the standards was changed to specifically present evolution as a "scientific theory." Board member Kathleen Shanahan said, "Do I believe the theory of evolution? Absolutely. But I believe there's more to explore." The new wording will, presumably, allow such exploration to take place. We're uneasy about that possibility. Students need to be taught science in science class, not encouraged to conjure up their own theories about the origin and development of species. Evolution enjoys unanimous support among serious scientists and should receive similar support in school curricula.
"Evolution joins curriculum," by Ron Matus, St. Petersburg Times, February 20, 2008
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Anchors away
D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee seems to understand the "fierce urgency of now." The third part of PBS education correspondent John Merrow's fine ongoing series of reports on Rhee's efforts to turn around the D.C. school system depicts a tough-minded leader, unflagging in her commitment to produce real change. Confronted with stale but loud rhetoric from union leaders and District council members, Rhee listens attentively and responds politely (but firmly) that she will not back down from her plans to close 23 schools and cut dead weight from the city's bloated and profoundly ineffectual central offices. So far, no one has called for her head, though one observer interviewed for the segment thinks that "storm clouds are gathering." But there are signs that the storm will blow over. The once-indomitable Marion Barry saw his recent protest over school closings sputter out when no one attended it. And the city council voted overwhelmingly (10-3) to allow Rhee to thin the central office staff. The seas of D.C. politics are rough, but so far Rhee has steered a steady course. She's apparently in it for the long haul, too. The Washingtonian reports that she just bought a sizable house in the District.
"In Battle to Revamp D.C. Schools, Education Leader Faces Resistance," by John Merrow, NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, February 7, 2008
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Three cheers for dead, white men
Dead, white male authors are much maligned but not forgotten. Thousands of educators continue to teach F. Scott Fitzgerald's 1925 novel The Great Gatsby, for example, despite repeated salvos from the forces of political correctness. Sara Rimer reports in the New York Times that high school and college teachers, as well as students, still identify with the book's main characters and its themes of aspiration and striving. Rimer notes that the story resonates especially with urban adolescents from first- and second-generation immigrant families. Jamaicans, Dominicans, Chinese, and Vietnamese students--all are enriched by The Great Gatsby's universality, belying goofy multiculturalist notions that "ethnic" kids should read works by authors of their same background. This not only deprives students of the vast richness of Western literature; it also leads to cultural balkanization. Bill Kristol reinforces the point in his latest New York Times column, in which he writes that the English poet Rudyard Kipling, for all his flaws, elucidated timeless truths about the nature of power. What is important about the works of Fitzgerald and Kipling, among many others, is not their author's race or gender or personality, but their ability to capture human truths that speak to readers generation after generation.
"Gatsby's Green Light Beckons a New Set of Strivers," by Sara Rimer, New York Times, February 17, 2008
"Democrats Should Read Kipling," by William Kristol, New York Times, February 18, 2008
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Seattle times tables
Students in Washington State have had to deal with some dismal math standards (we gave them an F in 2005). Finally, last year, the legislature decreed that those standards should be reviewed and if necessary revised. A team of educators, experts, and outside consultants were given the job and determined the documents did indeed require revision. They recommended that Washington jettison its discovery-math approach and craft standards with strong content, focus, rigor, and clarity. That was then. Recently, the state has a newly released set of math standards--and many think they are barely better than their woeful predecessors. Dissatisfied Washington parents, educators, and professionals have therefore teamed up with an organization called Where's The Math and created an alternate set of standards that align closely with the best examples from other states and nations. A similar situation is playing out in Prince William County, Virginia, where parents are frustrated by the murky math curriculum used in their children's schools. They've lobbied the school board to kill it and started a website to further that goal. Fuzzy math, it seems, leads to unhappy consumers, who sometimes develop a new product for their consumption!
"Battling for math education," by Clifford F. Mass, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, February 12, 2008
"Parents Rise Up Against a New Approach to Math," by Ian Shapira, Washington Post, February 19, 2008
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Speakeasy
We learn from Britain that requiring those whose fluency in a foreign language is being tested actually to speak in that language is "too stressful." This week, the U.K.'s Qualifications and Curriculum Authority abolished oral examinations for students taking foreign-language GCSE examinations. Schools minister Jim Knight calls the traditional testing method, which asks students simply to converse with their teachers for about ten minutes, "unrepresentative" and a "one-off way of testing a student's ability." Instead, teachers will grade students' speaking abilities by evaluating their classroom contributions during the course of several months, thereby reducing the anxiety of 16-year-olds. Forget that fluency means being able to speak and comprehend a language in any circumstance, even a somewhat stressful one. When Gadfly goes out on dates with fetching females, when he is attempting, for the seventh time in three minutes, to pass through the TSA metal detector, when he has set his clothing on fire--he does not suddenly begin communicating in an unintelligible way! One can either speak a language fluently or one cannot. Rather than abolish the 10-minute oral exam, the Brits ought to make students complete it while balancing on one foot and juggling.
"Never say Latin in the quango tango," by Oliver Pritchett, Daily Telegraph, February 20, 2008
"Oral tests to be dropped from language exams," by Matthew Taylor, The Guardian, February 18, 2008
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Short Reviews
Closing the Expectations Gap 2008
Achieve, Inc.
February 2008
As with last year's edition of this report, the progress that states have made toward "aligning high school policies with the demands of college and careers" is slow and ambiguous. Achieve reports that eight more states have aligned their high school standards with postsecondary expectations (19 total); six more have enacted college- and career-ready graduation requirements (29 total though only nine administer a corresponding test); and three more have implemented P-20 longitudinal data systems (eight total). The numbers show that Achieve's American Diploma Project still has a lot of state policymakers to win over. To Achieve's credit, they've attached dates to a number of items so that states can be monitored as to whether the "commitments" they're making are real. But sometimes it's hard to believe that even actual accomplishments are real. For instance, Achieve counts Texas as one of the states that administers a college-readiness test to high school students. Yet recent news from Texas indicates that its exit exam is a joke: only 20 percent of students who fail the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills are actually prevented from graduating. Consider, too, that, according to the report, 11 of the 19 states that "require" students to enroll in a college- and career-ready curriculum allow them to opt out if their parents sign a waiver. The sturdy wall you see going up in the executive summary weakens a bit as one reads deeper. Find it here.
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The Education Gadfly Show Podcast
Little Limbaugh
This week, Mike and Rick discuss Barack Obama's comments on vouchers, the battle between charter schools and Catholic schools, and whether Fordham's new report is really "laughably reactionary." Jeff Kuhner serves up an Education Outrage of the Week, and Education News of the Weird sacrifices for fashion. Click here to listen through our website and peruse past editions. To download the show as an mp3 to your computer, click here (no iPod required--this link will play through any music software on your computer, including Windows Media Player or RealPlayer). To subscribe to this podcast, or to get more information about how podcasts work, click here.
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Announcements
Fordham seeks staff assistant
We're hiring now. Would you like to work with an organization at the forefront of national education policy? Are you energetic, organized, and efficient at simultaneously handling multiple responsibilities? Are you eager, curious, able to flexibly adapt with changing circumstances and duties, and able to keep pace in a demanding work environment? If so, click here.
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Ed in 08?
The American Enterprise Institute asks the question all ed-policy wonks have been asking since Iowa: Where is education in the 2008 campaign? Some perceptive minds--Checker Finn (whose new book gets into the history of all this), political pundit Michael Barone, Brookings ace William Galston, and "Strong American Schools" executive Marc Lampkin--are ready to provide answers. Find more information here about this big-time event coming up on March 3rd.
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Slake your thirst for Reading First
Save the date: Monday, March 10th, at 9 a.m., join us at our place for breakfast and a panel discussion of Fordham's forthcoming report about the Reading First program.
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About Us
The Education Gadfly is published weekly (ordinarily on Thursdays), with occasional breaks, by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute. Regular contributors include Amy Fagan, Chester E. Finn, Jr., Kyle Kennedy, Mickey Muldoon, Jamie Davies O’Leary, Eric Osberg, Stafford Palmieri, Emmy Partin, Michael J. Petrilli, Laura Elizabeth Pohl, Terry Ryan, Janie Scull, Saul Spady, and Amber Winkler. Have something to say? Email us at thegadfly@edexcellence.net. Would you like to be spared from the Gadfly? Email thegadfly@edexcellence.net with “unsubscribe gadfly” in the text of your message. You are welcome to forward Gadfly to others, and from our website you can also email individual articles. If you have been forwarded a copy of Gadfly and would like to subscribe, you may either email thegadfly@edexcellence.net with “subscribe gadfly” in the text of the message or sign up online here.
The Thomas B. Fordham Institute is a nonprofit organization that conducts research, issues publications, and directs action projects in elementary and secondary education reform at the national level and in Ohio, with a special emphasis on our hometown of Dayton. (For Ohio news, check out our Ohio Education Gadfly, published bi-weekly, ordinarily on Wednesdays.) The Institute is neither connected with nor sponsored by Fordham University.