When the Corporate Takeover of Education is Complete, School Employees Will See Reductions in Wages and Benefits and the Elimination of Pensions Just Like Their Private Sector Counterparts (the Charter School Movement is Really About Funding Privately-controlled Schools with Public Money)

Even in the midst of large spending cuts, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates said Monday that schools can improve the performance of students if they put more emphasis on rewarding excellent teaching and less emphasis on paying teachers based on seniority and graduate degrees. Gates spoke to the nation's governors mindful of the severe financial woes that many of them face as they try to bridge deficits totaling about $125 billion in the coming fiscal year. He said there are some clear do's and don'ts. Among the do's: Lift caps on class sizes and get more students in front of the very best teachers. Those teachers would get paid more with the savings generated from having fewer personnel overall. In speaking to the governors, Gates noted that the number of teachers and support personnel has increased from about 40 adults per 1,000 students in 1960 to about 125 adults per 1,000 students today. His point was that states have made costly changes that have not led to higher student achievement. High school scores in math and reading have been flat since the 1970s. - Bill Gates: Education Budget Cuts Don't Have To Hurt Learning, Huffington Post, February 28, 2011

Teachers Union-reformer Pact Breaks Down Over ‘Atomic Bomb’ Amendment

May 6, 2011

The Lookout - The alliance brewing in Illinois between the teachers union and education reformers to move through an ambitious school-reform bill appears to have broken down. The point of contention is what the union's attorney calls a "two-sentence atomic bomb" attached to the legislation at the last minute.

The Chicago Teachers Union supported the sweeping education reform bill when it passed unanimously in the Illinois Senate last month, breaking the national trend of constant head-butting between reform-minded politicians and unions. (See: New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.)

But now, CTU President Karen Lewis says a last-minute amendment to the bill will prevent teachers from engaging in collective bargaining over big changes such as a longer school day or school year. The amendment says the union can't take such disputes to a mediator or to the state's labor board.

"Our members have spoken clearly and decisively--they do not like this bill and demand changes to the language inserted during last-minute midnight maneuvers that restricted their collective bargaining rights," Lewis said in a statement.

The bill ends the "last in, first out" policies that require schools to lay off its newest teachers--and perhaps most controversially, changes the tenure process whereby teachers are granted more job security after four years on the job. If the bill passes, teachers have to meet specific performance benchmarks before they get tenure. The legislation would also make it harder for the union to call a strike.

Some education observers speculated that the union originally jumped on board in support of the bill because it doesn't actually involve that much change from the status quo. The bill tightened up the number of teachers districts could lay off, and did not set any hard deadlines for when districts can evaluate teachers based on their students' test scores--a major reform priority backed by the Obama administration.

State Sen. Kimberly Lightford, a Democrat who introduced the bill, says she plans to make the fix the union wants to the bill. It remains to be seen whether that will be enough to get the union to again back it.

After Backing Obama, Teachers Union Opens Door to Test-based Evaluations

May 12, 2011

The Lookout - The nation's largest teachers union may soon endorse a policy statement encouraging the use of standardized test scores in evaluating teacher performance in the classroom.

This big shift comes on the heels of the National Education Association's leaders' decision to endorse President Obama's presidential campaign surprisingly early--and in spite of the union's frequent head-butting with the White House over Obama's reform-minded policies. (UPDATE: The union's legislative body would have to approve the endorsement in July for it to become official.)

The NEA's leadership has long blasted education reformers' laser-focus on test scores, and opposed any move by the Education Department to evaluate teachers in part on how much they improve their students' performance on standardized tests. They have said that such "value-added" data is unreliable, which makes this new stance all the more remarkable.

But education reformers probably shouldn't break out their party caps just yet. The paper specifically backs "valid, reliable, high-quality standardized tests" as one measure to evaluate teachers--and guess what? NEA President Dennis Van Roekel tells EdWeek that such high-quality tests don't currently exist in our classrooms. So it could be a long time before the union gets behind a specific value-added model.

"There is a difference between an assessment that measures student learning and one that measures a teacher's impact on learning, and I think some believe those are synonymous," Van Roekel told Ed Week. "I don't believe that for a second."

The union has been circling around the issue for a while. The NEA's executive director John Wilson told The Lookout in January that the union would embrace test scores as one measure of teacher performance if the Gates Foundation's comprehensive study on the issue concluded that the test-score metric was valid. (The study's preliminary findings endorse using test scores as a way to evaluate teachers.)

"I think all of us agree we can do a much better job on the evaluation system," he said then, stressing his support for peer review as one model.

But he also said that Colorado's test-score-based teacher evaluation law--the model backed by most education reformers--"wasn't really advantageous to moving that system."

To become part of the NEA's platform, the policy statement must win approval from the union's 9,000-delegate assembly at their national meeting in July.

Teachers, Firehouses on Chopping Block as Bloomberg Presents 2012 Budget

May 6, 2011

NY1 News - City teacher layoffs and fire company closures are closer to becoming a reality after Mayor Michael Bloomberg presented his nearly $66 billion executive budget this morning, though proposed cuts to child care are now off the table.

City agencies across the board will be feeling the pinch under Mayor Michael Bloomberg's proposed $65.5 billion budget for the fiscal year 2012.

In the plan unveiled Friday at City Hall, the news was especially rough for city schools, which face the loss of about 6,000 teachers through layoffs and attrition.

Bloomberg placed much of the blame on Albany, both for cutting funding to the city and for failing to act on pension reform and the "Last In, First Out" law that mandates which teachers can be let go based on performance, not seniority.

“We are in better shape than most cities for two prime reasons: we've made smart investments in our economy and we budgeted in a responsible way that prepared us for the inevitable downturn in the national economy,” Bloomberg said Friday. "But we are not an island. We are not immune to the realities in Albany and Washington."

Governor Andrew Cuomo has repeatedly said cuts in his budget are necessary to balance the state's books.

"I didn't make the decision to cut back $850 million of federal monies for education," Bloomberg said. "I didn't make the decision to cut back $812 million of state money for education. Those were things that were forced on us."

Twenty fire companies are also on the chopping block. They've been there before, but the City Council has helped restore funding in the past to keep them open. The city's fire commissioner is warning that there will be consequences if the cut goes through.

"Our operations throughout the city will be severely impacted," Fire Commissioner Salvatore Cassano said of the cuts. "Our response times will increase.

Pressed about the fire closures on Friday, the mayor opened up.

"I am worried about everything," he said. "I don't know of any city service that this city provides that I think is a waste of money."

There is some good news though: Proposed cuts to subsidized care for 16,000 city kids
has been restored for at least one more year, despite a state cut to social services.

The budget plan calls for no tax increases – but there are plans to generate new revenues. The city is looking to increase membership fees at recreation centers and install 20 new red light cameras. Parking rates would also go up throughout the five boroughs.

Critics immediately pounced on the mayor.

"The reality is that the mayor of the city of New York has, unfortunately, a horrible relationship with Albany politics," said Brooklyn City Councilmember Letitia James. "He didn't play it right. And as a result of that, we bear the burden."

"This is a political document to justify going after the vulnerable people in this city," said Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer.

City council members say they will take aim at the city's spending on outside contractors, and look for savings there. The budget now goes to the City Council for consideration. A final budget deal is due by the end of June for the fiscal year that begins July 1.

Read more here and here.