The Washington Post reports today on the progress that Washington DC's schools chancellor Michelle Rhee is making on reforming the public school system. Skipping the background, this passage caught my attention:
Since mid-July, Rhee has tried to sell union leaders and the rank and file on a proposal that would propel salaries to more than $100,000 annually in pay and performance bonuses for many teachers. But in exchange, she insists that they relinquish tenure and spend a year on probation -- risking dismissal. Instructors have the option of keeping tenure and accepting lower raises. New hires would have no choice, remaining on the probation griddle for four years, twice as long as the current requirement.
The pay proposal, along with a slew of other initiatives, has turned Rhee into a national standard-bearer for urban school reform and, in particular, a champion for those who regard teachers' unions as the most significant obstacle to progress. From Charlie Rose to Katie Couric to Newsweek, she has become the national media's go-to figure for discussions of what ails big-city schools.
Rhee had once hoped to wrap up a contract by June, but as national and local acolytes look on, she has been unable to build a consensus among teachers, who remain sharply divided over the pay plan. As contract talks continue, she is pressing George Parker, president of the teachers' union, to bring the salary package to a membership vote. So far, he has resisted.
This is the sort of question that could sharply divide the union's membership, pitting younger teachers against their older colleagues. Writing in the paper today, columnist Marc Fisher thinks that competition will force the union to accept the proposal:
But there is a reason the teachers' own union president, George Parker, has been working with Rhee on finding a palatable way to accept the chancellor's bid to sack lousy teachers: Parker recognizes that unless the regular public schools start competing effectively against the city's 56 charter schools, his members will find themselves losing their jobs anyway, as the public schools continue to shrink at a rapid pace.
I do think that the provision (not necessarily the funding) of primary and secondary education should be less centralized and more competitive than it is in most cases. (See these earlier posts.) That the presence of charter schools has gotten the union leadership to think more collaboratively with a reform-minded chancellor is one positive sign.
Tenure is stupid, but it's not the biggest problem
Anyone who has ever served on a school board knows that the percentage of bad administrators is MUCH higher than the percentage of bad teachers. The only thing worse than having these people run the schools is having them be able to fire the staff. Bad administrators use poor criteria for retention...golfing/drinking buddies, yes-men, etc. And city schools have administration ratios of 50% or more!
It is surprisingly difficult to evaluate teaching performance. Separating the outcomes that teachers can control from the ones they can't takes time, and the staffs change so quickly that administrators rely on "reputation", which of course comes from the people they like. (Going after "bumping" rules -- the ability to bump a person with less experience, from a school or grade a teacher wants to change to -- who then bumps somebody else, etc. -- would do a lot more than changes in tenure. Turnover in the worst schools is well over 50% per year, and in NYC they can actually bump DURING THE SCHOOL YEAR...how does anyone learn anything?).
Now, I can see the argument that we want to take the "tenure excuse" away from failing administrators, and this is a creative way to do it. But don't kid yourself -- most of the principals in these schools wouldn't know a good teacher if one fell out of the sky...and they will drive out as many good ones as bad ones.
Reduce the size of the schools. Get rid of the layers of useless administration. Keep administrators and teachers in a school for 5 years...then go after bad teachers if it's still a problem.
priorities
This may be more of a prob in the private sector. My teachers and schools (public) may have been more responsible and effective than some of my past employers.
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