Power Elite Set Their Sights on the Vast Wealth of the States' Public School Systems

Over the past four decades, the per-student cost of running our K-12 schools has more than doubled, while our student achievement has remained virtually flat. The same pattern holds for higher education. When you need more achievement for less money, you have to change the way you spend. The single most decisive factor in student achievement is excellent teaching. To flip the curve, we have to identify great teachers. The United States spends $50 billion a year on automatic salary increases based on teacher seniority. After the first few years, seniority seems to have no effect on student achievement. Another standard feature of school budgets is a bump in pay for advanced degrees. Such raises have almost no impact on achievement, but every year they cost $15 billion that would help students more if spent in other ways. Perhaps the most expensive assumption embedded in school budgets -- and one of the most unchallenged -- is the view that reducing class size is the best way to improve student achievement. This belief has driven school budget increases for more than 50 years. U.S. schools have almost twice as many teachers per student as they did in 1960, yet achievement is roughly the same. One approach is to get more students in front of top teachers by identifying the top 25 percent of teachers and asking them to take on four or five more students. Part of the savings could then be used to give the top teachers a raise. (In a 2008 survey funded by the Gates Foundation, 83 percent of teachers said they would be happy to teach more students for more pay.) The rest of the savings could go toward improving teacher support and evaluation systems, to help more teachers become great. - Bill Gates, Bill Gates: How Teacher Development Could Revolutionize Our Schools, February 28, 2011

Board Votes to Send Layoff Notices to All 2,000 Providence Teachers

February 24, 2011

The Lookout - Providence, Rhode Island Mayor Angel Taveras is sending layoff warnings to all 1,926 of the city's teachers.

They won't all be dismissed, but state law requires the city to notify teachers by March 1 whether the district could lay them off before the start of the next school year. School officials say warning every teacher gives them the freedom to let go many of them later without having to single any of them out now.

Providence's school district is facing a $40 million budget shortfall next year.

"Are there going to be less teachers? Yes," Taveras told The Providence Journal. "Will there be less schools open next year? Yes. Do I know which teachers and which schools? No."

As you can imagine, the local teachers' union is not taking the news well.

"This is beyond insane," Providence Teachers Union President Steve Smith told The Providence Journal's Linda Borg. "Let's create the most chaos and the highest level of anxiety in a district where teachers are already under unbelievable stress. Now I know how the United States State Department felt on Dec. 7, 1941."

Meanwhile, 106 teachers got pink slips in nearby Central Falls Public School District. Only 11 of those teachers will be fired due to poor performance, according to GoLocalProv.

Central Falls High School, one of the worst performing schools in the state, became a battleground of the education reform movement last year, when the superintendent threatened to fire its entire teaching staff after the union wouldn't agree to a longer school day, after-school tutoring, and a new evaluation system without much extra pay. Teachers argued that the area's poverty, not their lack of effort, was responsible for low test scores. Education Secretary Arne Duncan applauded the decision to force the teachers to do more work or lose their jobs.

Providence isn't the only town downsizing its school system. In an unprecedented move, the city of Detroit is planning on closing half of its 142 schools by 2014 in an effort to close its budget deficit.

Mass layoffs of public workers have become more common as city and state tax revenues have plunged during the recession. The mayor of Fall River, Mass. fired nearly 150 city employees in 2009, after two big companies in the town, Quaker Fabric and A.J. Wright, laid off almost 3,000 people in 2007. And the tiny city of Maywood, Calif. laid off every one of its employees last year and instead moved to an outsourcing contract system to save money.

All Providence Teachers Receive Dismissal Notices

February 24, 2011

CNNMoney - The Providence Public School Department sent dismissal notices Tuesday to every one of its 1,926 teachers, warning them they could lose their jobs at the end of this school year.

Not all teachers in Rhode Island's capital city will be let go. But the warning was necessary because of the dire fiscal straits that both Providence and its school system are in.

The school district is facing a nearly $40 million shortfall for the coming academic year.

The city's financial condition is even worse. Providence, which faced a $57 million deficit a year ago, is preparing a budget that will contain major cuts to education, officials said. The city, which has been hit hard by the Great Recession, spends half its budget on schools.

Rhode Island law requires that teachers be notified about potential changes to their employment status by March 1. But because the extent of the funding cuts are still unknown, the school system sent warnings to every teacher to give itself "the maximum flexibility to consider every cost-saving option," Superintendent Tom Brady wrote in a letter to educators.

Mayor Angel Taveras, a product of Providence public schools who promised to improve them in his inaugural address last month, plans to submit his budget at the beginning of April. The new mayor should have a better handle on the city's fiscal condition once a task force he appointed to review Providence's finances issues its report within the next two weeks.

"We know there will be fewer teachers and fewer schools open," said Melissa Withers, Taveras' spokeswoman.

In the past, the school district has issued layoff notices to some teachers, but never dismissal notices and never to the entire staff. School officials opted to dismiss teachers this year so the district would not be bound by state law that requires recalls be based on seniority.

"It gives us more flexibility to recall teachers based on student need," said Christina O'Reilly, a spokeswoman for the district.

The teachers' union said it was "appalled" at the city's decision to "terminate all Providence public school teachers." The union will explore every option to make sure educators' rights are protected.

"This unprecedented action sacrifices the best interest of Providence students and teachers in the name of flexibility," said Steve Smith, president of the Providence Teachers Union. "This is a slap in the face to teachers who have supported the district in nationally recognized labor-management collaboration initiatives which have occurred in our city over the past two years."

The city and the union will soon start negotiations on the teachers' contracts, which expire June 30. City and school district officials stressed that Tuesday's move was not related to the contract expiring.

Duncan Holds Labor Summit Amid Increasing Teacher Tension

February 17, 2011

PBS News Hour - Even as Education Secretary Arne Duncan opened what he called an "historic" summit in Denver this week between union leaders and education administrators, relations between those two groups have perhaps never been more strained.

A host of Republican-sponsored bills in several states are trying to limit collective bargaining. And labor-management relations are tense in scores of other districts where tight state budgets are prompting calls for teacher layoffs and curtailed benefits.

It is in that environment that Duncan convened a two-day meeting of teachers, superintendents and school board members representing 150 districts from 40 states. In his opening remarks, he called for a new era in labor-management relations.

"I really want to push you hard on the importance of collaboration," he said. "Unions and administrators have been battling each other for decades and we have far too little to show for it. It hasn't been good for the adults and it certainly hasn't been good for children."

In order to participate in the conference, a district's superintendent and the head of the local teacher's union had to sign a pledge to work "collaboratively" to find ways to advance the hiring, retention, compensation, development and evaluation of a highly effective workforce.

That requirement kept several large school districts from attending, including Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. New York City teachers withdrew from their initial agreement to attend after Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Chancellor Cathleen Black began talking about layoffs. Michael Mulgrew, the president of the United Federation of Teachers said:

"If we sign a pledge and before we even get to Denver they've broken their pledge, why am I going? It makes no sense."

Duncan acknowledged the process isn't easy.

"Collaboration is such a friendly-sounding work. But in practice, nothing is more demanding at the district level than collaborating on issues that take all of you far out of your comfort zone," he said.

Twelve "model" school districts were highlighted at the meeting and representatives spoke about the challenges and successes they've had. The model districts included:

• Douglas County, Co.,which has redesigned performance pay as part of teacher evaluation

• Helena, Mont., which has an innovative teacher mentoring program

• Hillsborogh County, Fla., which is in the midst of a 7-year initiative to have 90 percent of all students ready for college or a career upon graduation

Managers and union members from each district had to participate as a group in these sessions and were encouraged to eat dinner and socialize together in the evening.

"We wanted to have as many kumbaya moments as possible between people who don't often spend time like this together," said Department of Education spokesman Justin Hamilton.

As the summit concluded on Wednesday, Duncan said the real measure of success would be how the districts proceeded in the coming months as they faced budget cuts and other hurdles. His agency will establish a database to track the progress of all 150 participating school districts.

NewsHour education correspondent John Merrow has reported on the tensions between teachers' unions and education managers in his series tracking school reform in Washington, D.C. Here's a report from August, when then-D.C. schools chancellor Michell Rhee (who has since resigned her post) devised a way to put teachers to the test.

Obama's Education Chief Arne Duncan Flip-flops

February 16, 2011

New York Post - President Obama's education czar flip-flopped on the controversial "last in, first out" teacher layoff policy -- initially circulating a copy of a prepared speech that blasted the practice, only to later abandon the pledge in his address to union-member educators in Denver last night, The Post has learned.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan failed to even the use the word "seniority" when alluding to layoffs during an address on labor-management issues last night.

"My view is that we need to look hard at the impact of staffing rules and policies on students, especially in low-achieving schools," Duncan said in the speech he delivered last night.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan strayed from his originally prepared text while addressing union members in Denver yesterday.

"That means recruiting the best teachers and then making sure our state laws, labor contracts and personnel practices support these teachers and keep them in their schools," Duncan said.

But Duncan slammed LIFO in an earlier draft of his speech, which was obtained by The Post.

"My view is that we need to look hard at the impact of seniority rules on students, especially in low-achieving schools. The goal should always be to maintain the most effective work force, regardless of years of experience or salary levels," he said in the earlier version.

"Last-in, first-out policies can disproportionately remove great newer teachers who take on tough educational challenges," the earlier draft said.

In the earlier version, Duncan even noted that the ACLU blocked seniority-based layoffs in a court settlement in Los Angeles and pointed out that "Mayor Bloomberg has called for a change in state law in New York."

Those references were also dropped from the final speech.

A Duncan official insisted that the secretary didn't buckle last night to political pressure -- and didn't drop LIFO reform comments from the speech to placate union leaders.

Duncan's office instead downplayed his decision.

"This is what he decided to say right now. It's a tough issue," a spokesman said. "This is how he wanted to say it. This is the beginning of a conversation, not the end. He wanted to be positive. He felt this was a positive way to introduce [the issue]."

Duncan did propose offering higher pay to teachers who work in hard-to-staff schools or those who teach in hard-to-staff subjects such as math and science, initiatives that unions often oppose.

Advocates: Target Teacher-Quality Spending to Evaluations, Equal Access

February 23, 2011

Education Week - As a condition of receiving federal teacher-quality funding, districts should develop new evaluation systems—including consideration of student achievement information—by the 2016-17 school year, and eventually use such systems to make sure that low-income and minority students have equal access to teachers deemed effective, according to a newly released set of policy recommendations.

The recommendations, released jointly by the Washington-based Education Trust and Center for American Progress, suggest "a specific set of timelines, incentives, and sanctions" for states to meet those requirements.

The proposal is one of the first major ones by D.C.'s heavy-hitting advocacy groups to take on teacher-quality spending, specifically the Title II Improving Teacher Quality State Grants. Title II always takes a bit of a back seat to the comparatively larger Title I and IDEA funds, but at $3 billion, it's far and away the largest federal teacher-quality program out there.

As I reported a while back, every state and all but about 5 percent of districts get a Title II allocation, but there's not a lot to show that the cash actually does much on the ground. The federal Education Department conducts a use-of-funds survey every year, but most of the information generated from it is pretty general. (See the most recent one here.)

Under the recommendations, states receiving Title II funds would have to develop minimum state rules for new teacher-evaluation systems, including the use of student information, observations, and at least four ratings categories, by 2016-17.

In the interim, states would report other information, including the percentage of teachers in each school who: Had more than a year of experience; taught in-field at the secondary school level; and held certification.

As for sanctions, the recommendations propose that states would use the new evaluation tools to monitor, report, and intervene to correct patterns of inequitable access to effective teachers by poor and minority students and their peers, both within and between districts.

Under the proposal, a district that didn't narrow access gaps within four years would lose half of its Title II funds and required to make up the rest with a match; after five years, it would lose its Title II allocation altogether.

That's a lot more stringent than the current Title II accountability measures, which are linked to the highly qualified teacher designation and don't have many teeth.

Last time Capitol Hill officials released draft language for Title II, in 2007, they didn't go anywhere, largely because of fears about a proposed performance-pay program. Other groups complained that they were just too prescriptive and onerous. Will these recommendations influence a second go-around? Stay tuned.

Teach.gov: Arne Duncan’s Call to Arms

September 27, 2010

Mind/Shift - We got a glimpse into Secretary of Education Arne Duncan’s vision for the American public education system Monday during his conversation with journalists at Education Nation.

Recruiting qualified educators, and supporting, elevating, and giving incentives to teachers are his top priorities.

Anticipating that 1 million baby-boom generation teachers will be retiring in the next few years, Duncan announced the launch of Teach.gov, a full-scale national campaign on the part of the federal government to recruit teachers.

“This is about a call to service… Our ability to attract and retain teachers will shape the future of education in the next 25 to 30 years,” he said to Brokaw. “If you want to have an impact, this is the civil rights issue of our generation. I’m very optimistic because we know what works. We are the answers: Great teachers, great principals, great schools will strengthen our economy and give children the chance to fulfill their potential. If young kids can help us to fight for social justice, it’ll last for generations to come.”

According to Duncan, the site lists 2,000 teaching job openings as of today, and the department will be going around the country to recruit freshmen, sophomores, and seniors from colleges and universities...

Flashback: Education Secretary Sees Many Teacher Layoffs

February 21, 2010

Reuters - Many teachers and educators across the United States are at risk of losing their jobs in the next few months, the country's education secretary told a meeting of the National Governors Association on Sunday.

"I am very, very concerned about layoffs going into the next school year starting in September. Good superintendents are going to start sending out pink slips in March and April, like a month from now, as they start to plan for their budgets," said Arne Duncan, referring to the slips of paper included in some paychecks to notify a person of being fired.

As tax revenues in most states continue to plummet because of weak economies, states and cities are considering cutting education to keep their budgets balanced. Every state in the union except one, Vermont, is required to balance its budget.

The economic stimulus package pushed last year by the administration of President Barack Obama and approved by Congress saved at least 320,000 education jobs, Duncan told the governors.

The plan included the largest transfer of money from the U.S. government to states in the nation's history, according to the Pew Center on the States.

It created a stabilization fund of $48 billion that provided cash directly to states, mostly for schools. But those funds will likely run out before the end of the year.

Last week, Obama warned of the possibility of layoffs in state governments when the stimulus ends.

Duncan said the $1.5 billion "Race to the Top" grants included in the stimulus plan are on track to be distributed soon, with the finalists for the grants announced next week. Obama has proposed extending the program, as well as expanding it by $3 billion, to fund new education innovations, especially at semi-autonomous charter schools.

The administration will also send out school improvement grants to states next month totaling $3.5 billion, Duncan said.

Employment is one of the most pressing issues in the United States, where the unemployment rate stands at 9.7 percent. The secretary, formerly the chief executive officer of Chicago Public Schools, said there was some hope for educators in jobs legislation passed by the House of Representatives and is pending in the Senate.

Duncan also said a bill known as the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act passed by the House would boost funding for colleges and universities.

In January, there were 8.03 million workers in local government education, down from 8.09 million a year before and 8.05 million in January 2008, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

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