ES is hosting an online chat about positive incentives in education with Sir Michael Barber, Dominic Brewer, Sandy Kress, and ES’s Rob Manwaring, you can check it out or join in and ask questions and engage the panelists.
Apropos of the NEA’s little war against Teach For America teachers’ union critic and blogger Mike Antonucci says the NEA’s basic problem with TFA is that teachers’ unions have trouble differentiating amongst their members. Yet while this is often true (hence one reason various differentiated pay schemes – regardless of whether they incorporate performance or not – are so contentious) I don’t think it adequately explains the situation here. TFA is merely recruiting strategy and an entry point to the profession. Once they start teaching TFA teachers are paid with local funds and in terms of their employment status are not different than other teachers. In other words, the differentiation ends once they’re in the classroom. This likely explains why, although they’re not cheerleaders for TFA, you don’t see the same level of animosity toward TFA from the American Federation of Teachers. The AFT operates mostly in states with labor laws that basically compel union membership, so they know that TFA’ers will become members, and all else equal they’d rather see more effective teachers and better schools. This is also why the AFT is more of a force for reform than the NEA when it comes to training and curriculum and other related issues overall.
It also points to the real reason for the NEA’s stance toward TFA, which they’d rather keep behind the scenes because it’s such lousy public relations given TFA’s record and brand: Ideology. Yet the NEA has had a hand in various efforts to curtail TFA in states and nationally. TFA offends a conception of what the teaching profession should look like that is deeply held by many within the organization’s leadership and membership. TFA is at odds with the NEA’s view of training, career paths, and so forth and they believe it de-professionalizes teaching consequently doing violence to their vision of teaching as a field akin to medicine. Their opposition didn’t start with the current economic downturn and it won’t abate when the economy improves because this is fundamentally a debate about reforms to the field that cut against the grain of their beliefs and it’s not an empirical debate as their abuse of the evidence and ad hominem attacks on researchers illustrate. Outside of a highly effective recruitment strategy TFA doesn’t differentiate amongst teachers but it does catalyze a lot of disruptive changes. That’s the rub.
Want to know more about the research on TFA? Here’s their webpage that sums it up.
In the world of self-publishing I’m pretty sure this is what a bear-baiting looks like…
This new TNTP report on teacher evaluations is a big deal and will likely, and rightly, get a lot of attention. Essentially, TNTP asks why, if teachers are so important, do we treat them like widgets in American education? It’s the right question because despite all the rhetoric about how important teachers are and despite the importance of people in a labor-intensive field like education, the lack of systematic attention to teacher effectiveness in education is shocking. This report is the most ambitiouseffort to date to look at that question systematically and offer concrete steps that can be taken to improve the status quo.
A lot of excitement attached to the news that almost every state has agreed to work on a common standards framework. But isn’t the key line in Glod’s Washington Post piece this huge caveat?
“Once the organizers of the effort agree to a proposal, each state would decide individually whether to adopt it. ”
In other words, signing on to this effort at this point is akin to joining a health club. One person can join a health club, workout daily, change their lifestyle habits and so forth. Another can join, eat Big Macs for lunch and come once a month to soak in the jacuzzi. They’re both still members of the same health club but the similarities end there.
As we’ve seen recently with the common graduation measures adopted by the states (which are hardly as intrusive as adoption of standards like this would be) these ideas often end up being treated like a la carte dining rather than the five-course meal they’re intended to be. States take the pieces they like, disregard the rest, and still say they’re in the club.*
I’m not opposed to the idea of common standards, an idea with a lot to reccomend it, but remain skeptical of the deep and broad commitment to the idea that some claim now exists. Perhaps I’m missing the moment but signing a document that means you don’t get singled out as retrograde but doesn’t require any real action either doesn’t strike me as crossing the Rubicon on this issue just yet.
*And this happens for both legitimate (states have various constitutional and legislative anomalies) and illegitimate (subverting disruptive reforms) reasons.
 Collective Bargaining in Education: Negotiating Change in Today's Schools Edited by Jane Hannaway and Andrew J. Rotherham
|  Better Benefits: Reforming Teacher Pensions for a Changing Work Force By Chad Aldeman and Andrew J. Rotherham |
 A Qualified Teacher in Every Classroom Edited by Frederick M. Hess, Andrew J. Rotherham, and Kate Walsh |
 Conflicting Missions and Unclear Results: Lessons from the Education Stimulus Funds By Sara Mead, Anand Vaishnav, William Porter, and Andrew J. Rotherham |
 Rethinking Special Education For A New Century Edited by Chester E. Finn, Jr., Andrew J. Rotherham & Charles R. Hokanson, Jr. |
 Location, Location, Location: How Would a High-Performing Charter School Network Fare in Different States? By Chris Lozier & Andrew J. Rotherham |
 Changing the Game: The Federal Role in Supporting 21st Century Educational Innovation By Andrew J. Rotherham and Sara Mead |
 Achieving Teacher and Principal Excellence: A Guidebook for Donors By Andrew J. Rotherham |
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