Secretary Duncan delivered the last of his four policy speeches today at the annual conference of the National Education Association, the nation's largest teachers union. Overall, it was a good talk. He probably was a bit too effusive in his praise in parts, but it was certainly balanced by a number of points that surely caused consternation among those gathered (I hear he was booed more than once!). Here are the highlights.
At the beginning, after reminding the audience that he had gotten tough with the charter school crowd, he gave the NEA some of the same medicine:
It's not enough to focus only on issues like job security, tenure, compensation, and evaluation. You must become full partners and leaders in education reform. You must be willing to change.
Regarding the administration's position on new forms of compensation, he used the phraseology that unnerves reformers and soothes labor leaders:
The President and I have both said repeatedly that we are not going to impose reform but rather work with teachers, principals, and unions to find what works.We're asking Congress for more money to develop compensation programs ???????with??????? you ???????? and ???????for??????? you -- not ???????to??????? you.
He then turned tougher. In talking about fixing failing schools, after saying that everyone needs to work together, he continued:
But if we agree that the adults in these schools are failing these children then we have to find the right people and we can't let our rules and regulations get in the way. Children have only one chance to get an education. This is not about adult jobs.????This is about children's education.
He then did an interesting verbal pirouette on seniority and tenure, praising then mildly criticizing each in turn, then ending with a firm stand:
We created seniority rules that protect teachers from arbitrary and capricious management, and that's a good goal. But sometimes those rules place teachers in schools and communities where they won't succeed, and that's wrong.
We created tenure rules to make sure that a struggling teacher gets a fair opportunity to improve, and that's a good goal. But when an ineffective teacher gets a chance to improve and doesn't -- and when the tenure system keeps that teacher in the classroom anyway -- then the system is protecting jobs rather than children. That's not a good thing. We need to work together to change that.
...When inflexible seniority and rigid tenure rules that we designed put adults ahead of children then we are not only putting kids at risk -- we're putting the entire education system at risk...These policies were created over the past century to protect the rights of teachers but they have produced an industrial factory model of education that treats all teachers like interchangeable widgets.
Toward the end, Duncan had two of his most potent lines:
A recent report from the New Teacher Project found that almost all teachers are rated the same. Who in their right mind really believes that?
Test scores alone should never drive evaluation, compensation or tenure decisions. That would never make sense. But to remove student achievement entirely from evaluation is illogical and indefensible.