The Education Gadfly Weekly

Sari Levy, Van Schoales, and Tony Lewis
Piton and Donnell-Kay Foundations
March 2008

It's been over a year since the New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce made the inspired recommendation that America's teacher compensation system be turned on its head. Rather than sending the vast majority of goodies to veteran teachers and retirees--in the form of generous, stable, risk-free pensions--more dollars should be targeted to new teachers in the form of higher salaries and incentive pay, the group argued. We agreed wholeheartedly and last summer released a groundbreaking analysis, by Robert Costrell and Michael Podgursky, of Ohio's teacher pensions system  that showed how its "peaks and valleys" created perverse incentives for young and old teachers alike. (They expanded their analysis in this Education Next article.) Now two Colorado foundations have sponsored a similar review of the Denver Public Schools (DPS) pension system--and found similar problems. The Donnell-Kay Foundation's executive director, Tony Lewis, said it well: "It is great if you plan to stay with DPS your entire career and it is lackluster if you don't." Want proof? The study looked at the total compensation DPS teachers earned--both salaries and accrued pension benefits--and found that DPS teachers reap approximately $450,000 in their first decade of teaching, $600,000 in their second decade, and a whopping $1.4 million in their third. To be sure, that's partly a function of the district's salary scale which allocates higher salaries to teachers with the most experience. But mostly it's because of the design of the pension system, which dramatically accelerates benefits for teachers in their last decade of work, on through retirement. Maybe that's why generational warfare between teachers isn't such a distant possibility. For Colorado taxpayers, it means paying about $1,500 per pupil for a teacher with five years of experience (for both salary and pension benefits), $2,000 per pupil for one with fifteen years of experience, and $4,750 for a 25-year veteran. This makes little sense, of course; no research studies show teachers suddenly getting twice as effective from year 15 to 25. If anything, they probably get worse. Nor do we have any reason to believe that many of the Generation Y teachers entering the classroom today are going to stick around to enjoy the larger salaries and big retirement payoff themselves. But changing to a common-sense approach--one that includes portable, 401(k) style benefits--will surely be a battle royal. Exposing the problem is the first step. Other state-based reform groups: now it's your turn. Find this excellent paper here.

Alliance for School Choice and Advocates for School Choice
2008

This volume is straightforward, no-nonsense stuff. Choice is good and so is more of it. Kids and parents seem to agree: Over the past five years there has been an 84 percent increase in school choice enrollment, with 150,000 kids participating this school year. Sixteen choice programs currently operate in nine states plus D.C.--all-time highs for both the number of programs and the number of states with programs. The Yearbook surveys individual states and their school-choice laws and explains, in terms of graduation rates, academic achievement, competition, and parent satisfaction, why the continuing rise in choice legislation and programs is worth celebrating. According to the report, for example, Milwaukee's voucher students have graduation rates eleven percent higher, reading-test scores eleven percent higher, and math-test scores six percent higher than their non-voucher peers. Down south, 92.7 percent of parents whose students receive Florida's McKay Scholarships (vouchers for pupils with disabilities) are satisfied with their children's education, whereas only 32.7 percent were satisfied with the public schools their children previously attended. The report also includes a simple guide to assorted flavors of vouchers. And it makes special mention of school choice's bipartisan support: "Three-quarters of school choice victories in 2006 and 2007 were won in states where Democrats controlled either the Governorship, Legislature, or both." Among African Americans, 68 percent support vouchers for low-income children to attend private schools (61 percent of Hispanics feel the same way). Which is all to say that anti-choice politicians are running out of excuses to not support school-choice legislation. Parents like it, minorities like it, many Democrats like it, and it works. The Yearbook is a shot in the arm to school-choice advocates and provides some ammo for their lobbying efforts. Find it here.

Classes will be affected by class resentments if British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and his Schools Secretary, Ed Balls, have their way. While both men offer beaucoup platitudes about increasing the skills of Britain's workforce and its global economic competitiveness, their government is, contemporaneously, attempting to dull the few sparkling parts of the U.K.'s educational system.

In 1848, William Thackeray skewered Britain's famously hidebound habits in his Book of Snobs. Thackeray, in his younger years, was actually educated at a redoubt of such snobbery: Charterhouse, a top English "public school." (Public schools in the U.K. are independent schools similar to the burnished prep academies of New England, except the British versions are typically older and even stuffier.) Today, to board at Charterhouse (founded 1611) will cost $52,000 a year. Brown, educated at state-run institutions, has always found this public-school elitism distasteful.

Charterhouse and its ilk are not simply pricey, though--they also offer excellent educations. But unreconstructed Laborites like Brown don't seem to care; regardless of the educational merits of public schools, their exclusivity still grates. Those resentment-flames are further fanned because Charterhouse, like other public schools and many of Britain's other, less-elite independent schools, is classified as a charitable organization and therefore receives substantial tax exemptions.

Those exemptions are now, however, no longer guaranteed. Last month, the government's Charity Commission made clear that it would begin holding all independent, non-state schools to more-rigid charitable standards. It is not enough to simply educate young men and women of their choosing, sayeth the Commission; charitable organizations must act for the overall public good (especially the good of the poorer public). In other words, they have to act more like charities.

Such a stance seems reasonable until one unearths the class resentments behind it. Guardian columnist George Monbiot recently wrote, for example, that a British independent school "separates children from their parents at the age of eight in order to shape them into members of a detached elite ... these artificial orphans survive the loss of their families by disassociating themselves from their feelings of love." Sounds like one of James Joyce's darker memories.

Let's be real. It is beyond doubt that Britain's non-state schools--which educate 620,000 students and thus save the country some $620 million each year--serve the public good, and that their benefits more than justify their tax exemptions. The public schools, for instance, offer internationally renowned educations while most of the U.K.'s state-run schools don't even come close. Writer Clive Aslet notes in the Daily Telegraph, "State schools have proved consistently unable to educate their pupils to the level required by elite universities such as Oxford and Cambridge, which find themselves unable to take the quota expected of them, however big the stick waved by the government." Britain's economy is driven by the products of these universities, so handcuffing the schools that supply them seems counterproductive.

So, too, does the government's insistence that such schools enroll more low-income students by offering bursaries. First off, many independent schools already do this. Two hundred Etonians, for example, have their school fees diminished by scholarships, and the school estimates that it currently spends $6 million a year on other charitable purposes.

Second, the new pressure to increase the number and amount of bursaries means that tuition at many now-affordable independent schools will spike. Some of the best known public schools won't have a problem raising money from donors to fund bursaries (Harrow has pledged to raise $80 million by 2012), but others will. Thus, they'll have to raise tuition, and middle-class families will be increasingly priced out.

A more promising approach for getting low-income students into independent schools is installing an updated Assisted Places Scheme, a program whereby the U.K.'s government itself once helped pay fees for high-achieving students who couldn't afford independent-school tuition (i.e., a type of school voucher). Tony Blair's Labor government tossed out Assisted Places in 1997, and used the money instead to lower class-sizes in state-run schools, which has been a total flop.

Blair did move some in his grudging party past their instinctive dislike of independent schools, though. In late 1997, his government dropped its earlier threat to review those schools' charitable status. Yet here we are again, eleven years later, reviewing the charitable status of independent schools! Under Brown, Labor is moving backwards, rehashing the education battles of yesteryear that have less to do with education than other unrelated gripes.

Brown and Balls and their ongoing, anachronistic class war are surely making a mess of things.

Ever since the release of his biography of Al Shanker, Tough Liberal, Richard Kahlenberg has been busy penning articles about the education issue du jour, asking always: What would Shanker do? His latest is an Education Week commentary that on the twentieth anniversary of the charter school idea asks whether or not the schools that sprung from it have fulfilled the purposes for which Shanker originally found them suitable. Kahlenberg thinks no. For example, charter schools teachers are often un-unionized. "Not surprisingly," writes Kahlenberg, "lacking a collective voice, teachers in charter schools turn over at almost twice the rate of public school teachers." The connection is misrepresented. Modern industries in our modern economy consider it normal for talented people to jump from one profession to the next. That district schools don't experience such turnover is indicative 1) of the stasis that union representation brings and 2) of the type of person who may choose to teach in a district-school environment, not that charter-school teachers are dissatisfied with their jobs. Kahlenberg's other shaky points are too numerous to refute here, but suffice it to say that evaluating the effectiveness of charter schools by whether they meet education expectations of decades past is a method of distinctive illogic.

"The Charter School Idea Turns 20," by Richard Kahlenberg, Education Week, March 26, 2008

As members of the Massachusetts State Board of Education rack their collective brain by searching for kinder words than "underperforming" with which to label sorry schools, the board's only student member, Zachary Tsetsos, seemed to be also the only one with any common sense. "Why are we spending time on this?" he asked. "I'm not concerned about what title we give these schools. Let's work on fixing them." Gadfly agrees; the Board would do well to abandon its multi-month hunt through the thesaurus for ways to obscure the obvious and bolster educators' self-esteem. (If decades of research into self-esteem has shown us anything, it's that true self-esteem results from bona fide accomplishment, not fake pumping-up.) The "underperforming" tag is intended to designate the school so labeled as failing to meet accountability standards. Weakening the language ("Commonwealth priority" is one suggested change) will only confuse everyone. Reality: many students are underperforming, and so are many schools, even in Massachusetts. To change that, their schools require administrators and a state board that engage in substantive reforms, not semantic gymnastics.

"Education Leaders Seeking Gentler Euphemisms for Failing Schools," Associated Press, March 22, 2008

The Hillsborough County school district (Tampa) has adopted a secular academic calendar, according to which religious holidays are not free days: the school must go on. For Good Friday, however, the district announced that it would excuse all absences--whether for religious reasons or not. To complicate matters further, some parents received the news via telephone message while others did not. The result: eight in ten students failed to show up for class on Good Friday. Many pupils no doubt skipped church for the beach (and all sorts of scripture-flouting activities), while those who came to school watched movies, stared at the wall, and daydreamed about the beach. In other words, no actual learning took place. Bad move, Hillsborough County. A district that declares a secular academic calendar should enforce it. Or it should cancel school and tack the time on at the end of the year. One or the other. School days are precious and deserve serious treatment from districts, parents, and students.

"Religion doesn't explain truancy," by Letitia Stein, St. Petersburg Times, March 24, 2008

"School day turned into a mess," St. Petersburg Times, March 25, 2008

The evolution debate in Florida grows tiresome, and not only because Ben Stein--he of somnolent monotone--is now involved, but because it keeps reiterating the same, tired points albeit in different ways.

Stein trotted to Tallahassee earlier this month to offer a preview of his forthcoming documentary, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, which chronicles the supposed classroom suppression by "Big Science" of any theory that competes with evolution. Lawmakers were allowed to see the movie; the press and public were not. 

Stein was also hanging around the Capitol to promote the "Academic Freedom Act," sponsored by Republican Sen. Ronda Storms and Rep. Alan Hays. The bill, which yesterday passed a Senate committee, would allow teachers the right "to objectively present scientific information relevant to the full range of scientific views" of evolution. Stein said at a news conference, "This bill is not about teaching intelligent design. It's about freedom of speech."

Casey Luskin--who works for the Discovery Institute, which supports intelligent design--echoed Stein's sentiments and said the bill would protect only teachers who choose to educate students about scientific objections to evolution. Luskin, however, believes that intelligent design is science.

There they go again. If this bill passes, of course, the tedious debate will revive: Is intelligent design science or isn't it? Let's avoid this exhausted topic for a moment, though, and examine other reasons why making the "Academic Freedom Act" a law is a lousy idea for Florida's students and schools.

Start with the assertion that the bill protects "freedom of speech." Teachers are already free to say whatever they please to a roomful of 8-year-olds, just as I'm free to say whatever I please around my office. If I casually observe that my boss is a philistine afflicted by halitosis, or if a Florida history instructor channels Shakespeare and calls his school's principal a "lump of foul deformity," neither of us will wind up in a dark, damp dungeon. We will both, however, almost surely be fired (although public-school teachers are protected by powerful unions, so perhaps the history instructor keeps his job while I lose mine).

What Stein really meant to say is that the bill insulates teachers from being held accountable for their speech. One wonders whether Florida's citizens really desire that public-school teachers have that type of protection, one to which few private-sector workers are entitled (and for good reason).

The "Academic Freedom Act" is an insult and fetter to principals, who will see their autonomy over school operations and personnel further diluted if the bill becomes law. They would have no way to discipline teachers who are, say, presenting to students inaccurate scientific information ("who says it's inaccurate?") or deviating from the state's academic standards. Principals are accountable to district and state for the academic performance of their students, yet here the state is weighing a measure that will severely hamper principals' authority. Accountability without autonomy is a recipe for failure.

Here's another disturbing piece of the "Academic Freedom Act": students may not be penalized in any way for subscribing "to a particular position or view regarding biological or chemical evolution." So when little Johnny receives an "F" for an essay in which he has proclaimed the earth was created in a week, little Johnny's teacher better watch out--the lawyers are coming.

Legislators should refrain from this sort of curricular micromanaging because it just makes everything worse. The "Academic Freedom Act" is thoroughly flawed and deserves to be dismissed.

"Florida Evolution Foes Try a Fresh Tactic," by Sean Cavanagh, Education Week, March 26, 2008

Good leaders know that the buck stops with them; others need to be reminded. So reasons the Mississippi Board of Education, which pushed through the state's House of Representatives a bill to remove underperforming superintendents from their jobs, even if they were elected by the public. (Yes, in some states local superintendents are still elected.) Unfortunately and oddly, voters selecting education officials too seldom consider educational performance and student achievement, so this tonic is more than appropriate. But the details matter. The current Mississippi plan would fire superintendents after two years of poor district performance, which isn't much time to turn around a miserable situation. Nor is it clear that Mississippi superintendents who take over terrible districts and make major gains while still falling short of certain benchmarks will be spared the guillotine. Nonetheless, the idea behind the bill is the right one: If educators are held accountable, so, too, should their bosses.

"Miss. House Passes Accountability Bill For School Superintendents," Associated Press, March 19, 2008

"Board of Education pushing bill to hold superintendents accountable," Clarion-Ledger, March 17, 2008

Alliance for School Choice and Advocates for School Choice
2008

This volume is straightforward, no-nonsense stuff. Choice is good and so is more of it. Kids and parents seem to agree: Over the past five years there has been an 84 percent increase in school choice enrollment, with 150,000 kids participating this school year. Sixteen choice programs currently operate in nine states plus D.C.--all-time highs for both the number of programs and the number of states with programs. The Yearbook surveys individual states and their school-choice laws and explains, in terms of graduation rates, academic achievement, competition, and parent satisfaction, why the continuing rise in choice legislation and programs is worth celebrating. According to the report, for example, Milwaukee's voucher students have graduation rates eleven percent higher, reading-test scores eleven percent higher, and math-test scores six percent higher than their non-voucher peers. Down south, 92.7 percent of parents whose students receive Florida's McKay Scholarships (vouchers for pupils with disabilities) are satisfied with their children's education, whereas only 32.7 percent were satisfied with the public schools their children previously attended. The report also includes a simple guide to assorted flavors of vouchers. And it makes special mention of school choice's bipartisan support: "Three-quarters of school choice victories in 2006 and 2007 were won in states where Democrats controlled either the Governorship, Legislature, or both." Among African Americans, 68 percent support vouchers for low-income children to attend private schools (61 percent of Hispanics feel the same way). Which is all to say that anti-choice politicians are running out of excuses to not support school-choice legislation. Parents like it, minorities like it, many Democrats like it, and it works. The Yearbook is a shot in the arm to school-choice advocates and provides some ammo for their lobbying efforts. Find it here.

Sari Levy, Van Schoales, and Tony Lewis
Piton and Donnell-Kay Foundations
March 2008

It's been over a year since the New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce made the inspired recommendation that America's teacher compensation system be turned on its head. Rather than sending the vast majority of goodies to veteran teachers and retirees--in the form of generous, stable, risk-free pensions--more dollars should be targeted to new teachers in the form of higher salaries and incentive pay, the group argued. We agreed wholeheartedly and last summer released a groundbreaking analysis, by Robert Costrell and Michael Podgursky, of Ohio's teacher pensions system  that showed how its "peaks and valleys" created perverse incentives for young and old teachers alike. (They expanded their analysis in this Education Next article.) Now two Colorado foundations have sponsored a similar review of the Denver Public Schools (DPS) pension system--and found similar problems. The Donnell-Kay Foundation's executive director, Tony Lewis, said it well: "It is great if you plan to stay with DPS your entire career and it is lackluster if you don't." Want proof? The study looked at the total compensation DPS teachers earned--both salaries and accrued pension benefits--and found that DPS teachers reap approximately $450,000 in their first decade of teaching, $600,000 in their second decade, and a whopping $1.4 million in their third. To be sure, that's partly a function of the district's salary scale which allocates higher salaries to teachers with the most experience. But mostly it's because of the design of the pension system, which dramatically accelerates benefits for teachers in their last decade of work, on through retirement. Maybe that's why generational warfare between teachers isn't such a distant possibility. For Colorado taxpayers, it means paying about $1,500 per pupil for a teacher with five years of experience (for both salary and pension benefits), $2,000 per pupil for one with fifteen years of experience, and $4,750 for a 25-year veteran. This makes little sense, of course; no research studies show teachers suddenly getting twice as effective from year 15 to 25. If anything, they probably get worse. Nor do we have any reason to believe that many of the Generation Y teachers entering the classroom today are going to stick around to enjoy the larger salaries and big retirement payoff themselves. But changing to a common-sense approach--one that includes portable, 401(k) style benefits--will surely be a battle royal. Exposing the problem is the first step. Other state-based reform groups: now it's your turn. Find this excellent paper here.