By Teresa Ghilarducci
Let’s say you’re advising a business with varying quality and you want to improve performance. Would you ridicule the workers publicly; cut their pay and benefits; say they are the sole cause of the problem, and that you want brighter younger replacements who will work overtime and weekends? No new CEO would adopt this as a strategy for success. Attacking your workforce is not an effective way to improve quality, produce a better product, and attract top talent—a bright young replacement would notice the disrespect.
So why do people think attacking teachers is a route to education reform?
This week’s Sunday New York Times Magazine’s cover story by Stephen Brill attacks teacher unions for ruining public education. Brill’s main belief is that good teachers are all that matters, and his main culprit is tenure protections, which he views as protecting incompetent teachers (although no tenure provision prevents firing incompetent teachers—it just requires proof). The story is based on the belief that nonunion charter schools are better, using the single example of one school in Harlem.
Of course, teacher quality matters. But charter schools are no panacea. They have been studied to death, and the vast bulk of the evidence, even for programs funded by the pro-charter Gates Foundation, provides no evidence that charter schools are better. Brill’s tendentious article, boosting the Obama Administration’s education reforms that embrace charter schools, simply ignores the ever-growing evidence that charters make no measurable difference for students.
For example, the Rand Corporation finds that “across locations, there is little evidence that charter schools are producing, on average, achievement impacts that differ substantially from those of traditional public schools.”
An Upjohn Institute study found no improvement in Michigan student achievement in charter schools.
And a Stanford study found “17 percent provide superior education opportunities for their students. Nearly half of the charter schools nationwide have results that are no different from the local public school options and over a third, 37 percent, deliver learning results that are significantly worse than their student would have realized had they remained in traditional public schools.” These are not positive reports for charter-school zealots.
If the dream of education reformers is simply to get rid of unions, it will turn into a nightmare. Bright young hard-working teachers can’t run on sheer energy for long. And research tells us that teacher effectiveness, whether in charter schools or regular unionized ones, grows steadily with each year of experience. Success for younger teachers almost always requires mentoring from experienced teachers.
And if the beef against unions is that their wages, pensions, and benefits cost money—a key issue in the Harlem example—I have news for the reformers: Cutting wages and benefits is not a way to attract high quality workers. Young teachers will get old and also want pensions and good wages, and if they don’t get them, many will go work somewhere else.
The Ford Foundation is bucking the fad to simply blame teachers by funding projects that contribute to sensible, comprehensive reform. Improve teacher quality, yes—but also extend learning time with longer school days and school years, as most everyone agrees extending the school day and year are key to improving academic outcomes. Other pillars of real reform include stronger accountability beyond standardized tests, and adequate and stable funding beyond the unfair and discriminatory property tax system.
So sure, let’s have high-quality teachers. The reformers’ fantasy that success will magically occur simply by changing the form of school organization to charters is belied by plenty of data. Those interested in real reform should figure out how to work with teachers, not belittle and attack them.
#1 How many examples of new education systems are there where their statistics for effectiveness are tallied? Just the one you shot down as far as I know.
#2. Your article is nothing more than an attack on Charter Schools and for all the wrong reasons. Sort of a bait and switch, or a “rope a dope”.
#3. You should have expounded on the last two paragraphs more, those are the keys to YOUR Kingdom “for Memphis”, not belittleing a belittler.
If teacher’s Pensions are really a problem here, there is something seriously wrong with the administration of those pensions.
THERE IS SOME MEAT FOR REFORM.
READ This by Robert Marzano.:
http://www.memphisindie.com/Media/A%20new%20paradigm%20for%20educational%20change..pdf
>>>cut their pay and benefits
When did that happen?
I posted the wrong link before,
http://www.amazon.com/new-paradigm-educational-change-Education/dp/B00093UFDA
Cost ya $5.95 but it’s worth $1billion/year.
“Those interested in real reform should figure out how to work with teachers, not belittle and attack them.”
In Memphis, you have that exactly backwards. Wake up.
Teachers here in most schools have absolutely no interest in working with parents.
Example.
My child was player at a school game, teacher was a coach of the team, and made some bad choices, belittled a player. Parent, who routinely volunteers stepped up and attempted to straighten it out, teacher stated that she doesn’t have time to do “solution A” because she is busy calling parents about children’s grades when they are falling.
That was one big lie.
My kid was in her class, previously straight A’s, she brings home a D with no warning. We go to all school functions that they notify us about, but, since heir email, webpage, and apparently PHONE SYSTEM must not be working because we never got a not, and they, MCS, routinely give parents ONE DAY WARNING about impending school functions.
Not good enough MCS, not god enough MEA, PISS POOR!
If that is who your MEA union represents, if they condone that behavior, if the protect teachers who do that in MOST schools here, which the do, then hell no, bash away, get rid of them. They don’t seem to be able to transcend the rules to make good outcomes as teachers or administration, they only bury the truth, get revenge, and hide whatever they can.
Some union.
There is no excuse for he failure of MCS, no excuse for the failure of he union to act in god faith for 90% of mCS schools.
Sorry, no sympathy here.
And another thought:
If the Union HERE is so good, where is the union’s outrage at destructive and do nothing board decision? Where was the great show of support for good resolutions and the show of no support for stupid resolutions?
Conspicuously missing! That’s where.
They don’t show up at all. They are a do nothing union in a do nothing school system in a do nothing city government, one great waste of space and money Memphis presents itself to the world as. And where is the outrage of educators?
MISSING IN ACTION.
Mind you, there are some stars here that do buck the system and the operate under the radar, and a few that don’t.
NOT GOOD ENOUGH.
The union is as culpable as the board and the administration, conspiring against education and the children they are charged with educating.
Interesting article. I agree with your arguments about morale, teacher pay, and longer schoolyears, but the fact remains that many public schools are not producing a quality product. A purely competitive market, with charters, private schools, and public schools competing for students would be a much better alternative. Economics 101 teaches us as much. There is also a sizable body of convincing statistical data. Exit question: would you be happy with just the US Postal Service (no UPS or FedEx)exclusively providing mail/package delivery. Why should it be any different with the education of our children?
http://teachersunionexposed.com/howtofire.cfm