Pres. Obama proposes Merit Pay for teachers

President Barack Obama speaks, accompanied by Education Secretary Arne Duncan, right, speaks during an unscheduled visit to a meeting of the Council of Chief State School officers, Tuesday, March 10, 2009, in Washington. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)
One way I can tell if an elected official is doing the job she or he is supposed to be doing is that I find myself agreeing with the lawmaker most of the time and disagreeing with the lawmaker part of the time.
Today, President Obama came out in favor merit pay for teachers, paying those teachers who can demonstrate they doing the best jobs, more money. He also said that he favors removing restrictions on charter schools.

I am trying to avoid a knee jerk reaction to this announcement. As they say, the devil is in the details. What I worry about with merit pay is that if the details are badly handled, we may see the best teachers abandoning the inner city schools because the low test scores that often accompany these schools are do to factors mostly out of the teachers' control.

Charter schools are even more problematic for me since in too many cases the teachers in these schools lack the protections of due process that public school teachers have gained, often through years of tough negotiations.

We shall see what the president is proposes and how he expects to fund it. Then we will debate its merits. My suspicions are somewhat allayed by the fact that I have confidence that Obama typically does the right thing in matters of social justice.

Texas Public Schools Out Perform Charter Schools in Latest Study

Charter schools have become the latest education "quick fix". In Oklahoma, where we are in love with education reform without pain, we have recently passed a law allowing cities, colleges, and even entire school districts to set up a charter school district (as opposed to individual schools) that would be exempt from the state regulations regular public schools are subject to. Another aspect that appeals to these institutions is that the teachers in these schools are unable to join unions or other teacher representation organizations without the district's permission which effectively removes these teachers from any right to collective bargaining or due process rights.

Texas, a few years ago, allowed for the state creation of charter schools operating independently from local school districts in a manner similar to the new Oklahoma law. There are currently 332 of these campuses in the state of Texas, most of them created by non-profit organizations. The latest official report on these school finds that as a whole they under perform the public schools they are supposed to replace. The report by the Texas Center for Educational Research states:

Charter schools created directly by the State Board of Education--so-called "open-enrollment charter schools"--continue to produce "lower TAKS passing rates in all tested areas compared to traditional school districts statewide," according to the latest official evaluation published this month by the Texas Center for Educational Research. "Compared to traditional public schools statewide, open-enrollment charter school TAKS passing rates for 2007 are 5% lower in writing, 7% lower in reading/ELA, 12% lower in social studies, 14% lower in mathematics, 21% lower in science, and 14% lower in all tests taken." The study also found that, "compared to traditional public high schools, open-enrollment charter schools have lower graduation rates, lower percentages of students who complete the Recommended High School Program, and lower advanced-course completion rates."

When the economic and demographic situations of the schools student bodies are matched, public schools in Texas still outperform similar charter schools.

There are no quick fixes to public education problems. All the problems of our society walk through our school doors every day of the term.

TCER Report Link (355 pages in pdf file.

More Rumors

Actually, this first one is sorta in the prelim stage of discussion. Some of the parents at Classen SAS want to turn the school into an "Enterprise School" as has been done with Belle Isle Middle School. Classen is already a "specialty school" with is OKC School Districtese for a school that can take who they want and reject who they don't want and kick out anyone who doesn't measure up. (My wife, Cat, says they get a lot of former Classen kids over at Northwest Classen this way.)

If Classen was an Enterprise School, thing would be pretty much the same except that the school's parents would have more control over the money they get for buying stuff. They could also secure a "patron" who could support the school, so if, say, Sonic Corp wanted to sponsor Classen, they could do it without jumping through many of the hoops with which other schools have to deal.

Some of the teachers at Classen are nervous, but teachers at Enterprise Schools still fall under the protection of the district's teacher contract unlike those at Charter Schools who have no such protection and have to worry about offending some or more of the parents and patrons who have organized the charter.

My question is, if this is good for schools like Classen, Belle Isle, then why isn't it good for all our schools? Why do some schools get to "cherry pick" while the rest of us have to deal with whoever shows up?