Trump backs Bost at IL MAGA rally. Guess who else backs him?

Trump holds MAGA rally to boost Bost.

Trump didn't disappoint his favored right-wing candidate Mike Bost, R-Murphysboro, who is competing for re-election in a tight race against Dem. Brendon Kelly for Illinois' 12th Congressional seat. Even in the wake of the Pittsburgh synagogue murders and against the advice of top advisors who who thought it unseemly,  DT couldn't resist another MAGA rally before his adoring deplorables. So he headed down to Murphysboro to give Bost a boost.

And it was here in Southern Illinois, in a race that has big national implications as Dems try and take the House back, that Trump found himself with some strange bedfellows. Also giving Bost and the GOP a boost was the IEA. Yes, that's right, the state teachers union. Bost is one of 10 House Republicans recommended by the National Education Assoc. (NEA) for re-election. Union leaders claim Bost and the other nine are "supporters of public education" and are most likely to win.

But a closer look reveals that Bost is anything but. He is a big and open supporter of privately-run charter schools and school vouchers.  Bost is also behind the state's testing madness and so-called "merit pay" for teachers based on student test scores.

I don't know much about right-centrist Democrat Kelly nor about Randy Auxier, SIU-Carbondale professor and Green Party the Green Party candidate in the race. I can only say Trump's not supporting them, nor is the IEA.

So why the IEA's support for Trump clone on ed issues? Beats the hell out of me -- and not just me. Some IEA members were also astounded. In a letter to the Southern last Thursday, the union members wrote:

“As a congressperson, Bost has been a consistent supporter of the anti-student, anti-education policies of Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos.” 

The letter says that Bost backed DeVos’ plans to “eliminate loan forgiveness plans for students who have been defrauded by for-profit colleges; to roll back protections for students who are victims of sexual assault on campuses and services for students with disabilities; to shift money away from public education to private schools; and to eliminate programs for teacher training and college prep for economically vulnerable students.”

In response, IEA Vice President Al Llorens, tried to explain away the organization’s decision.

“There are several reasons our members have chosen to support Bost, but most importantly, we support Bost because he supports us,” the statement says.

There you have it. Offer the dog a bone and you can make him roll over.

New York Times poll shows a close race.

44% ±4.6

Mike BostINCUMBENT

13%

Undecided

43% ±4.6

Brendan Kelly

The Tribune's so-called 'Schoolchildren's Bill of Rights'

Created with consent of the governed.

Chicago Tribune editors are calling for a "Schoolchild's Bill of Rights." As anyone familiar with the Trib might guess, Sunday's editorial has little to do with schoolchildren or their rights--except, that is, for their right to have their schools closed or privatized and their teachers debased. 

The Trib's Bill of Rights includes not a single right for students, but instead includes things like:

• Merit Pay for teachers, a oft-tried initiative which, according to researchers, produced no gains in measurable learning outcomes. 
• Using student test scores to evaluate teachers. Already the law in IL. 
• Widespread school "choice," the Trib's code word for school vouchers and privately-run charters. Trib editors write: "The public education industry should view ethnic, parochial or other private schools not as threats but as alternatives that enrich and diversify a community's educational offerings."
• An end to collective bargaining, including the right to strike.
• Parent Trigger Laws which enable a small and temporary group of parents to take over a school and hand it over to a private, for-profit company to operate. As you might expect, there's nothing about parents' right to opt-out of the plague of standardized testing.
• Mass closing of  black and Latino neighborhood schools and leaving boarded-up buildings to further blight communities or sell them off to condo developers. Again, too late. They're already doing it. 

In other words, there's not much on this list that hasn't been going on for years in Chicago, without any positive results. 

Trib editors' ideal schools chief.

The only thing surprising here is the Trib editors' use of Bill of Rights lingo to promote their extreme right-wing reform agenda. Remember it was the same board members who, in a previous editorial, called for CPS to be taken over by an autocrat with "Mussolini-like powers" to execute and implement that agenda. 

I'm afraid that would leave Chicago kids with little more than Miranda Rights. 

A real student Bill of Rights might include items like:

• The right to learn in a safe environment in a safe community.
• The right to be well-fed, rested and clothed.
• The right to opt-out of high-stakes, standardized testing.
• The right to attend a racially desegregated public school.
• The right to gender equality including freedom from LGBT discrimination.
• The right to vote and have voice on important matters concerning school policy.
• The right to think critically, free from censorship, locker searches and book banning.
• The right to have a qualified, certified teacher in every classroom. 
• The right to the same level of funding and resources as students in the wealthy suburbs. 

The list of student rights could and would be a lot longer, if students had any voice in compiling it. I'm quite sure that didn't happen over at the Tribune. 

Mussolini would never have approved. 

Randi's "VAM is a sham" epiphany

Weingarten, Bloomberg, and Klein announce an agreement on plan that would give N.Y. teachers bonuses based on the test scores of students at schools that have high concentrations of poor children. (New York Times)

I'm glad AFT Pres. Randi Weingarten has finally seen the light on VAM. Really I am.

For those unfamiliar with so-called Value Added Modeling, it's the statistical measure that judges teacher quality based on the test scores of their students. The formula for evaluating teachers, deciding their performance-based pay, or even whether they fired from their jobs, looks like this.

y = Xβ + Zv + ε where β is a p-by-1 vector of fixed effects; X is an n-by-p matrix; v is a q-by-1 vector of random effects; Z is an n-by-q matrix; E(v) = 0, Var(v) = G; E(ε) = 0, Var(ε) = R; Cov(v,ε) = 0. V = Var(y) = Var(y - Xβ) = Var(Zv + ε) = ZGZT + R.

It was obviously invented by some mad scientists and mathematicians working in the basement of the Gates Foundation. 

But the question I have for Randi is -- what are you going to do about all those VAM-based contracts you went along with, lobbied for and helped impose on thousands of teachers in districts like New Haven (which you hailed as a "model" and a "template"),  New York,  L.A., Cleveland, Detroit, and D.C.?

You may have changed you mind, but we will be living with VAM for years to come.

'I'm incentivizing responsible parenting' -- Rahm

Rahm takes the low road once more. This time on so-called "parent involvement".

 He cuts a deal with Walgreen Co. CEO Greg Wasson to offer CPS parents gift cards loaded with 25,000 ”customer loyalty” points (worth $25) for attending report card pick up yesterday.

Rahm claims he got the gift card idea during one of his morning workouts:

'That’s what happens when I start swimming. I start coming up with ideas.' 

On previous swims, the mayor came up with the bonuses for his fave principals for their already-high test scores; bribes to schools that "voluntarily" acquiesced to his longer school day scheme; two failed teacher "merit pay" experiments; his rent-a-protester scheme; and so it goes. On Rahm's march to corporate-style "reform", everyone has their price and the price is cheap.

“This is a way, in my view, of incentivizing responsible parenting,” Emanuel told a news conference.

PURE's Julie Woestehoff sent Rahm this fax message in response:

Mayor, you say that this would “incentivize responsible parenting.” Let me ask you – do you need such an “incentive” to participate in and support your own children’s education? Surely not. Then what makes you think CPS parents need it?

P.U.R.E

Walgreen has long been an anti-union company as well as enemy of fair and adequate school funding and I remember picketing with other parents at their downtown store back in '93 at a protest organized by school reform groups.

Rahm is the master of division

There is no surer way of corrupting the citizens, and to divide the city against itself, than to foment the spirit of faction that may prevail there; for each party will strive by every means of corruption to secure friends and supporters. -- Niccoló Machiavelli, The Discourses. 1517.

Rahm is the master of division. No, I don't mean he could ever teach an elementary level math class. He wouldn't last a day. I mean that everything he does in a school system that he personally rules seems designed to divide the school community -- parents from teachers, teachers from teachers, students from teachers, principals from principals, etc...

The latest lesson in Machiavellian division can be found in his bonus program for principals whose schools have the highest test scores. Oh yes, I know his Communications Dept. puppy dogs will claim the bonus formula includes 4 measures (improving test scores, raising the percentage of students who graduate and who are ready for college, and decreasing the achievement gap), not just one. But everyone knows that's bunk. I'll show you why.

Take the measure of closing the achievement gap. How does the principal of a selective enrollment school like Keller Gifted or Whitney Young H.S., which accept only the very top test-takers in the city, take personal credit for closing the achievement gap? Explain, please. Furthermore, how does any principal of a racially segregated school in a racially segregated school system take personal credit for gap-closing? And how is that gap closing measured except through the manipulation of standardized test scores?

Here's more evidence of this phony gap-closing. Catalyst reports that,

"Principals at schools with the most low-income students, and those at the most segregated high schools, were less likely to earn bonuses. Principals at schools with more white students were more likely to earn bonuses. (Click here for a list of the bonus amounts principals received.)"

Here's more:

 *Principals at the elementary schools where fewer than half of students receive free or reduced-price lunches had a 38 percent chance of receiving bonuses. At the other end of the spectrum, principals at elementary schools where more than 95 percent of students are on free and reduced lunch had just a 10 percent chance of getting a bonus.

*Among elementary schools where at least one-fifth of the students are white, almost twice as many principals – 23 percent – received bonuses compared to other elementary schools, where just 12 percent did.

*Principals at high schools where more than 95 percent of students receive a free or reduced-price lunch were a little over half as likely as other high school principals to receive bonuses: 4 percent vs 7 percent elsewhere.

*More than half of all high schools are at least 80 percent African-American or 80 percent Latino students. But just two of the 10 high schools where principals got bonuses fall into this category.

*Gifted and magnet schools make up 12 percent of elementary schools in CPS, but 24 percent of the elementary schools whose principals earned bonuses.

Closing the achievement gap, indeed.

And tell me, please, why the principal of a "gifted" elementary school, already pulling down $142,000/year, needs another  $20,000 in private bonus money to motivate her to get scores up and make her 240 kids "college ready"?

Rahm tries turning principals into test whores

He gives 82 principals bonuses for raising test scores, closing the achievement gap -- as if. Some get as much as $20,000. Some in turn, pay tribute to Rahm's longer school day. A few admit the gains weren't theirs alone but belong to the teachers and the whole school community. But they keep the money for themselves anyway.

The announcement blindsided Chicago Principals Association president Clarice Berry, who was not given advance notice of the plan and won outright rejection from Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis. Both pointed to research and past Chicago experience indicating merit pay in education has not proven effective.

Test-based evals, 'merit" pay at issue in Evergreen Park strike

Passing cars honk in support of Evergreen Park teachers

As Chicago teachers prepare to vote today on their new contract, teachers and support staff in the predominantly white, working-class Chicago suburb of Evergreen Park went on strike this morning. Negotiations have been dragging on since April. Highland Park and Crystal Lake teachers could follow suit later this month if they are still without a decent contract.

Among the things at issue are forced cuts in health care and retirement benefits. The board is also trying to force a new evaluation plan on teachers using "merit pay" based on students' standardized test scores. Seems to be a pattern here. Here's hoping the EP teachers get some real backing from IEA leaders who were conspicuously invisible during the Chicago teachers strike.

Chicago teachers are expected to vote overwhelming to accept their hard-won contract. A yes vote would also represent a strong show of support for the CTU leadership and Pres. Karen Lewis. Here are the details of the new contract.

I had to chuckle at yesterday's Sun-Times editorial telling Chicago teachers which way to vote today. As if anyone gives a crap what the S-T editors want. Likewise for the members of a tiny ultra-"left" sect who've been trying their best to get in front of T.V.cameras, calling the union leadership "sellouts" and telling teachers to vote no.

Obama's horrible interview with Savannah Guthrie

"When I’m in the White House, I’ll put on a comfortable pair of shoes myself. I’ll walk on that picket line with you as POTUS, because workers deserve to know that somebody’s standing in their court." -- Barack Obama in 2007

Pres.Obama's response to Savannah Guthrie's Education Nation interview questions left me cold -- literally sent a chill down my spine. I had no expectations that he would offer anything beyond the usual empty platitudes about the historic Chicago teachers strike. Those -- "I'll put on my walking shoes" to protect collective bargaining rights -- days are long gone, especially now that big-city Democrats are replacing Tea Party governors in the vanguard of the war against public employee unions. Instead, the president gives us something right out of Rahm Emanuel's current TV ads, which are being underwritten by DFER hedge-funders.

"Teachers have embraced merit pay."

After some double-talk and a few rhetorical bones thrown to AFT and NEA leaders about not relying "completely" on standardized tests (only mainly on them), Obama tells us with a straight face that "teachers have embraced the idea of merit pay." Is he serious? Did he even read the papers about Chicago and how 30,000 city teachers united like fingers in a fist to beat back Rahm's failed merit-pay mandate?

But what really chilled me about the Guthrie interview, was the way Obama talked about education funding, sounding more like a Gates Foundation program officer deciding which of Bill's favorite projects to fund, rather than the President of the United States.

“We’re going to give more money to those schools that are serious about reform but we’re not going to let people make excuses and suggest that it’s just a money problem.”

Yes, he said it. Those states and school districts that go along with Race To The Top will receive funding for their schools. The rest will go hungry. Serious about reform of course, means among other things, de-funding and closing resource-starved inner-city public schools, replacing them with privately managed charters,  firing thousands of teachers, and relying more and more on standardized tests all the way down to kindergarten, as the main way evaluate schools and teachers.

Then came the topper, at least for me. Obama's scripted response included the old "no excuses" line, referring to issues of poverty and the connection between the nation's growing poverty and poor school performance. The nation's poverty rate has risen from 12.5 percent in 2007 to 15.1 percent. The current rate is the highest since 1993. The latest data reveals103 million poor and near-poor in the U.S., and six million with no income other than food stamps, while billionaires and corporations (the real "welfare queens") are given huge tax breaks. Poverty is not only having a destructive impact on public education -- 1 in every 4 persons living in poverty are young children -- Sen. Bernie Sanders calls it a "death sentence" cutting years off the life span of poor people. This is what Obama means by "excuses."

Thanks to one of the last great American liberals, Georgetown law prof Peter Edelman for speaking out on Obama's failure to even mention the "p" word these past four years. Edelman is one of my heroes for walking out of the Clinton administration in protest of Clinton's 1996 signing the so-called  Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act, a bill which blamed those in poverty for not working. It was a precursor to Mitt Romney's diatribe against the 47%. Now, more than a decade later, as states try and amend the bill, it's Romney who is it's strongest defender.

In his book, So Rich, So Poor, Edelman writes that the president's "emphasis on the middle class with infrequent references to those at the bottom dismayed me."

It continues to dismay a lot of us.

Gates ponders how teachers should be paid in his 'new universe'

But as long as we spend the time and money to get each element right; as long as we don’t let politics block the common core; as long as we let teachers use new technology in the classroom, this could be the educational equivalent of the Big Bang – creating a new universe of learning and discovery for our teachers and students. -- Bill Gates, master of the "new universe."

Bill Gates hasn't made up his mind quite yet about merit pay. Even though the world's second richest man (behind Mexico's Carlos Slim) considers himself to be an education expert, he and his gaggle of consultants are having a difficult time figuring out exactly how teachers should be paid. All this, while Gates-funded school districts, teacher unions, anxious teacher families, and Arne Duncan's DOE await his decision with bated breath. 

At a recent speech to the Education Commission of the States conference in Atlanta, Gates, employed the wisdom of Solomon, to solve his dilemma.

Now, let me just say that at this time, we don’t have a point of view on the right approach to teacher compensation. We’re leaving that for later. In my view, if you pay more for better performance before you have a proven system to measure and improve performance, that pay system won’t be fair – and it will trigger a lot of mistrust. So before we get into that, we want to make sure teachers get the feedback they need to keep getting better.

How thoughtful. How wise.

Chicago principals say no to Rahm's "merit pay" scheme

The mayor and his Broad Academy-trained CEO, J.C. Brizard, are trying to take a page from the  Broad  play book -- merit pay for principals.

But Rahm's divide-and-conquer strategies seem to be backfiring. I give him credit for one thing. He appears to have succeeded in doing what I thought couldn't be done -- uniting the city's teachers and principals against him and his top-down, corporate-style reform model.

First his attempted bribery of the city's elementary school teachers to g et them to abandon their union and surrender their own collective bargaining rights, was a dismal failure. Only 13 out of some 470 schools took the longer-school-day bait and that was before the threat of legal action forced the mayor to back down.

Now, his attempt to pay principals one-time bonuses on the basis of student test scores and their willingness to fire teachers, has been rejected, loudly and clearly by the Chicago Principals Assoc. Apart from the basic unfairness of such a plan, the sources of its funding are problematic. Like many of Rahm's reform schemes, this one is to be funded by private donations from a group of the mayor's wealthy pals, for whom the few million in pay bonuses is like tip-money that can be withdrawn or denied on a whim.

Another problem with test-based merit-pay is its tendency to widen racial-pay gaps. A recent report from the U.S. Dept. of Education's Office for Civil Rights has already shown a growing racial salary-gap between educators teaching in so-called "higher-minority" schools. Bonus-pay schemes like this one can only widen the gap.

“Many principals are uncomfortable with a bonus structure only given to them, when raising student achievement is a team effort,” says Principals Assoc. prez Clarice Berry, 

She says, there's no research to support merit pay, and she's absolutely right. Previous attempts in Chicago, under Arne Duncan, failed miserably and were scrapped by his successor, Ron Huberman. New York's $75 million merit pay experiment not only failed to boost student scores, student achievement actually declined.

With Emanuel and Brizard in charge of the schools, all pretense of research-based reform has been dropped in favor of the mayor's budget-slashing, union-busting, political agenda.

Teachers teaching children of color are paid less

Teachers in schools that serve the top quintile of African-American and Latino students are paid significantly less—approximately $2,500 per year—than the average teacher in such districts, according to an analysis  by the U.S. Department of Education's office for civil rights.

Steven Sawchuck, posting on Edweek, writes:

Fifty-nine percent of the districts studied showed these spending disparities. And because teacher salaries make up about 60 percent or so of the typical district's budget, these data demonstrate some fairly hefty gaps in spending between schools that serve more students of color and those that serve fewer such students. 

Arne Duncan calls it, "a civil rights issue, an economic security issue, and a moral issue." But Duncan's own Race To The Top policies have reinforced these disparities by punishing schools and districts with high percentages of poor, black and Latino students. Current "performance pay" schemes, which tie teacher evaluations and pay bonuses to student test scores are also widening the pay gap.

******

On top of this, The Chicago Teachers Union charges that African-American teachers have been unfairly targeted by CPS layoffs. According to the union, while fewer than 30 percent of teachers in CPS are African-American, they represent more than 40 percent of those getting pink slips this year, either for budgetary reasons or because of enrollment declines.

CTU prez Karen Lewis, quoted in the Tribune, says the disparity of teachers being laid off from low-income neighborhoods represents a "disturbing trend" that has consequences for students who look to their teachers as "role models for achievement and success."

"With unemployment soaring in the black community, why is CPS exacerbating this crisis by getting rid of experienced and valuable educators in the first place?" Lewis asked.

'Merit pay' for principals -- really, Rahm?

I imagine J.C. Brizard telling the mayor, "Rahm, there's no research to support 'merit pay' for teachers, principals, students, or anyone else who isn't doing piece work. It's been a failure in New York and everywhere else it's been tried." I see the  mayor looking back at Brizard with that inimitable f#@k-you grin and telling his hand-picked CEO, "Great, just do it."

You see, Rahm doesn't give a rat's ass about ed research. He knows that with a mere $5 million in private funds in his pocket (tip money for billionaire pals like Penny Pritzker and Bruce Rauner) he can dictate school policy without having to negotiate anything with anyone -- including the teachers union or the principals' association.

The announcement blind-sided Chicago Principals Association president Clarice Berry, who was not given advance notice of the plan, and won outright rejection from Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis. Both pointed to research — and past Chicago experience — indicating merit pay in education hasn’t proven effective. However, Emanuel said his principal merit pay program will be unique in that it will include training principals to a set of expectations outlined in a new “principal performance contract’’ that is still being drafted. -- Sun-Times

The Sun-Times names the four "merit" pay funding families:

Venture capitalist Bruce Rauner and his wife, Diana, contributed $2 million to the pot. Rauner encouraged Stand for Children to come to Illinois, where it pushed through a new school reform bill that makes it more difficult for Chicago teachers to strike and allows CPS to unilaterally impose a longer school day and year.

Putting in $1 million each were Groupon co-founder and executive chairman Eric Lefkofsky and his wife, Liz; Chicago School Board member Penny Pritzker and her husband, Chicago Park Board President Bryan Traubert; and Paul Finnegan, co-founder of Madison Dearborn Partners, and his wife, Mary.

UFT leader responds re. bonuses

Following up on yesterday's post...

UFT V.P. Leo Casey responded to my question about the union's position on the ending of the city's bonus plan for paying teachers, a plan which the union had enthusiastically signed onto in 2007. In fairness to Leo, (my comment at the end of yesterday's blog may have sounded a bit snarky), it turns out that he had already written a piece on this issue for Hechinger rather than in the union's own Edwize blog where I was searching. I searched again but failed to find Leo's Hechinger piece. No matter, I publish it here without comment (for now).

Leo's response:

Here it is what I wrote for the Hechinger Foundation, who asked for a commentary on the subject. We think the program should end. There is a minor issue here, that the D.O.E. is suggesting that they can end it on their own, even though it is a negotiated agreement, and we will insist that it can only be ended by common consent. That is why I talk about going back to the negotiations table. But we would want to end it...

By the way, all the right-wingers are livid about this, since the deal involved allowing our younger members to retire at 55 with 25 years in. That part stays intact, no matter what happens with the bonus program. And since the state constitution protects retirement benefits of those in service, it would be very hard to undo that...

******

We live in an era when educational policy is far too often shaped by ideological dogma. Our challenge is to engage in educational experimentation and innovation, and yet remain grounded in what research tells us works in real classrooms and real schools.

There is a well-established, substantial body of educational research which has found that individual merit pay for teachers fails to produce meaningful gains in student achievement. What is more, individual merit pay has negative consequences, as the culture of trust and collaboration that is at the heart of a good school is undermined when educators are set in invidious competition with each other. In recognition of this reality, the UFT has consistently opposed individual merit pay for NYC educators.

Until the UFT and the NYC D.O.E. entered into an agreement to do a pilot program, there was no research as to the efficacy of school-wide bonuses as a tool of educational improvement. Since a school wide bonus would not have the negative effects of setting educator against educator, and could conceivably contribute to collaboration within the school, the UFT decided that a pilot program was an experiment worth having, provided that it was subject to a rigorous evaluation by independent researchers.

With the publication of the Rand's A Big Apple for Educators, the results of that evaluation are now in: the school-wide bonuses have not produced meaningful gains in student achievement. While one might object that the standardized New York State exams used to evaluate the bonuses were a poor and unreliable measure of student achievement, the report's other findings - most importantly, that the bonuses were seen as a weak motivation that did not change educator behavior and practice - leave little reason to think that a more robust measure of student achievement would produce substantially different results. Indeed, one of the significant findings of the Rand study was that the heavy reliance of the program on benchmarks drawn from the standardized state exams was a factor diminishing its legitimacy with teachers. The evidence tells us that it is time for the UFT and the NYC D.O.E. to return to the negotiations table to find new tools for improving student achievement, such as the development of a rich and powerful curriculum.

If one lesson is to be taken from this study and from the literature on individual merit pay, it is that teachers do not answer to the economic calculus of stockbrokers and hedge fund managers. This observation may not sit well with those for whom the rule of the market and individual financial incentives are an ideological first principle, established prior to logical argument and evidence, but it is the reality of our lives and our schools, and it is affirmed again and again by the education research on performance incentives. While we believe that our challenging and exhausting professional work should provide us with a middle class life, our primary motivation in entering the field of education is not economic gain, but to make a difference in the lives of the young people we teach. Educational policy must recognize this motivation to produce lasting, constructive change.

Leo Casey
Vice President, Academic High Schools
United Federation of Teachers
52 Broadway, 14th Floor
New York, New York 10004
            212-598-6869      

Bonuses dead. Kids didn't win. Where's Randi?

Bloomberg called it, an "historic agreement." (NYT pic)

Union leader raved about bonuses in '07

"Everybody wins, especially the kids." -- UFT President Randi Weingarten - October 26, 2007

Back in '07, Mayor Bloomberg called it an “historic and unique agreement," claiming, “This agreement puts New York City at the forefront nationally in finding ways to reward such high-needs schools for performance.”

Then UFT Pres. Randi Weingarten pushed her own union membership to voluntarily except Bloomberg/Klein's bonus plan. As I recall, there were a few rank-and-file pockets of resistance, warning fellow N.Y. teachers not to be taken in by the mayor's various performance-pay schemes, all of which would begin to connect teacher compensation with student test scores.

But Randi prevailed. Dismissing critics as "maximalists", she correctly made the case that the new bonus plan differed from the typical "merit pay" schemes then being floated in urban districts around the country and which were based on individual, rather than collective teacher performance. She argued that the Bloomberg/Klein plan wasn't "entirely" based on test scores --which it wasn't. She also hinged her support for the bonus program on a change in the law that would allow teachers to retire early, starting at 55 instead of 62, without taking a hit to their pensions. Whether the city will deliver on that remains to be seen.

But then she went way beyond the often legitimate seat-at-the-table argument, that it's better to have union input on these issues, as opposed to autocratic decision-making by the mayor. Instead, Randi raved about the bonus plan, touting it as a win-win for everyone, "especially the kids."

Schoolwide bonuses are much more than a way to sideline individual merit pay. This plan is a proactive way to change the national debate on how to assess, acknowledge and model good teaching. It gives voice and equal standing to frontline educators. And if it works, it is a powerful tool to create the collaborative spirit that will turn some schools around. 

Now that the N.Y. bonus plan has been junked, the victim of massive budget cuts as well as another major study showing that bonuses do nothing to improve schools or teaching/learning, Randi and the union leadership have gone quiet. UFT and AFT websites are mute on the bonus question and even the major piece in Sunday's NYT, failed to elicit a union response.

She was right about one thing however. The agreement sure did change the national debate about assessment and teacher evaluation -- but from bad to worse. As for voice and equal footing for frontline educators -- well you be the judge. 

Looking back and looking ahead, it seems to me that the N.Y. bonus agreement set the stage, not only for current test-and-punish and so-called "value-added" mis-evaluation schemes, but for the steady erosion of union power, teacher voice and undermining of collective bargaining agreements culminating in the recent passage of SB7 in Illinois.

Unlike the outright assaults on unions, led by conservative T-Party govs in states like Wisconsin, Ohio, Florida and Michigan, this second-prong attack is spearheaded by corporate reform groups like Stand For Children with the backing of local, usually Democratic politicians and Arne Duncan's D.O.E.. Most importantly, they are often being carried out with the expressed consent of and collaboration with many of our top union leaders who are touting this version of seat-at-the-table as models for the nation.

Weingarten may have had some good reasons to buy the Bloomberg/Klein plan. But now, three years later, it's time for a reassessment. I was disappointed ,but not shocked, to find that Edwize, the UFT's website, contained no mention of the failed bonus plan. I was also surprised to find not a word about the Stand For Children fiasco or Josh Edelman's "apology", which revealed how the corporate reformers played on the union leaders' need to be at the table.

I asked a current UFT leader for a response on the bonus issue. So far, I've received none. I'll let you know if I hear something.

Another reason why teachers shouldn't fall for the old "bonus" scam

New York junks bonuses (for now)

In some districts it's called "merit" or "performance" pay. In others, it's simply called a "bonus." However they're branded, bonuses have become a center piece in corporate-reform strategies which are increasingly being used to undermine collective-bargaining agreements and pit teacher against teacher.

In D.C., these one-time-only pay bumps were used by Chancellor Michelle Rhee to get surviving teachers to accept the firing of hundreds of their colleagues. Rhee used private funds from Gates, Broad and other power philanthropists to underwrite the bonuses while foisting a horrible contract of D.C, teachers and their unions. The bonus offers could later be removed if and when corporate reforms were resisted, when the money dries up, or simply at the whim of the foundations. But the teachers who lost their jobs in the bonus deal, will never be called back to work.

In other districts like Los Angeles, performance bonuses are  tied to a value-added formula which supposedly shows how much each individual teacher adds to their students score on standardized tests. Similar programs have been tried as pilots in Chicago and across the state of Florida, but dropped as soon as corporate funding dried up, leaving in their wake busted contract agreements and a climate of mistrust, fear, and anger.

Yesterday's New York Times reports that the city's $56 million teacher performance bonus program has been permanently discontinued. The decision was made in light of a RAND study that found the bonuses had no positive effect on either student performance or teachers’ attitudes toward their jobs.

The results add to a growing body of evidence nationally that so-called pay-for-performance bonuses for teachers that consist only of financial incentives have no effect on student achievement, the researchers wrote. Even so, federal education policy champions the concept, and spending on performance-based pay for teachers grew to $439 million nationally last year from $99 million in 2006, the study said. 

Shamelessly, the same bureaucrats who had touted the bonus system are now saying, "oh, never mind" or even declaring victory and putting it behind them.

City officials did not dispute the study results, but they said they did not believe the money was wasted, and indicated that they would continue to seek a merit pay model that worked.

“In January, we suspended this program out of concern about its effectiveness,” said Barbara Morgan, a spokeswoman for the Education Department. “This study confirms that was the right decision, and provides us with important information as we continue to think about compensation models that differentiate among the performance of our teachers.”

How Deasy will decide who's a good teacher

Here's his value-added formula

Want to know how L.A.'s incoming supt. John Deasy (the man from Gates) is going to sort good teachers from bad? How he's going to decide who gets fired and who stays? Who has their careers destroyed? Who will get paid? How much?

It's all right here:

y = Xβ + Zv + ε where β is a p-by-1 vector of fixed effects; X is an n-by-p matrix; v is a q-by-1 vector of random effects; Z is an n-by-q matrix; E(v) = 0, Var(v) = G; E(ε) = 0, Var(ε) = R; Cov(v,ε) = 0. V = Var(y) = Var(y - Xβ) = Var(Zv + ε) = ZGZ^T + R.

The view from Florida

More testing madness

I've been in Florida all week, trying to get a handle on Gov. Scott's train wreck of a school reform. The latest fiasco has to do with the state's testing madness and a new law that forces schools to evaluate and pay teachers on the basis of students' FCAT scores. The last time the legislature passed such a bill, it had to be repealed when the state ran out of money and couldn't afford "merit " pay.

The latest problem is that, for the second year in a row, the state can't get test scores back in time to enter student grades, allow seniors to graduate or figure teachers' pay into their budgets. What a mess!

Florida law requires test results be available within a week, but the state says it won't have them ready until after schools have closed for the summer in many districts. Last spring's late FCAT scores forced the Lee district to recall staff from summer vacations to process the data.

This year they're not blaming vendor, Minnesota-based NCS Pearson. Pearson was fined $14.7 million by the state for last spring's six-week delay in releasing Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test scores. Instead they say, the tests are just tied up in bureaucracy.
 
Among the repercussions for "merit pay" -- how is a teacher supposed to budget and plan things when they may not learn a student's peformance until June?

Reforms with no merit

If you need any more evidence that so-called "merit pay" is a crappy idea, here it is, right from the horse's mouth:

New York City’s heralded $75 million experiment in teacher incentive pay — deemed “transcendent” when it was announced in 2007 — did not increase student achievement at all, a new study by the Harvard economist Roland Fryer concludes.“If anything,” Fryer writes of schools that participated in the program, “student achievement declined.”-- Gotham Schools

Teacher evaluation

Over at the teacher-free National Journal, a panel of experts rehashes test score-baed teacher evaluation and the B.S. continues to pile up. Here's more on the continuing saga of Bill Gates, the man who nobody would listen to if he wasn't rich. EPI's Rich Rothstein looks into Bill Gates' claims and finds them to be "misleading" and "demagogic."

"It is remarkable that someone associated with technology and progress should have such a careless disregard for accuracy when it comes to the education policy in which he is now so deeply involved." -- National Journal

Michael Winerip's NYT headline sums it up best: Evaluating New York Teachers, Perhaps the Numbers Do Lie  Ah, So it's not just Bill Gates.

Why blame teachers?

A much better discussion--"Why blame the teachers?"-- is taking place at, NYT's Room For Debate featuring some bright lights like Pedro Noguera, Jeff Mirel, and Diane Ravitch, to name but a few. And to offer the view from far right field is AEI's hired gun Rick Hess who's basically arguing -- teacher bashing? Where? What? I don't see any teacher bashing.

Ravitch says, "It all started with No Child Left Behind" and she ought to know. Noguera warns: "If measures are not taken quickly to slow down the push toward sweeping, ill-conceived reforms, the damage could have long-term consequences for American education."

Michigan prof, Mirel, who anticipated Ravitch's book some 20 years ago, with "The Rise and Fall of an Urban School System: Detroit, 1907-81, sums it up nicely:

"Recent right-wing attacks have described teaching as a “part-time job” or a glorified form of “baby-sitting.” This characterization of teaching is simply wrong, and the initiatives that it supports -- cutting salaries, benefits, tenure and collective bargaining -- are maliciously wrong."

Are they still calling it "reform"?

Reform Detroit style: Bobb will close half of city schools, raise class size to 60. This is nothing less than criminal.

President's Day in Boise. Thousands of teachers, parents, and students are spending their day off protesting Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Luna's plan to require high school students to take four online courses, introduce merit pay for teachers and end tenure for new teachers.  It would also eliminate about 770 teaching positions.

Boise

Thousands of Wisconsin union members and supporters are packing the Capitol again today to protest T-Party Gov. Walker's plan to not only to cut wages and benefits for some public employees, but go after teachers' and public workers' collective bargaining rights as well.

View from right field: Even the conservative, pro-business Madison Chamber of commerce has condemned Walker's "adversarial" approach.

New report: The right way to evaluate teachers

What is presently being pawned off by corporate reformers as a reform of teacher evaluation has little grounding in education research and makes for bad policy. This according to a policy brief, Getting Teacher Assessment Right: What Policymakers Can Learn From Research, being released today by the National Education Policy Center (NEPC) at the University of Colorado at Boulder. The Center's report says that teachers' effectiveness and quality can and should be evaluated, but sensible and useful evaluation depends on a balanced system where value-added models using student standardized test scores play only a limited role.

See my Huffington Post on the report, here.