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Vergara Update: Virtues and Villainy
The union and media reactions to the appeals court decision in the Vergara case had me going through a whole can of room deodorizer.
In 2014, the plaintiffs in the Vergara trial claimed that several California education statutes – all of which are on the books at the behest of the teachers unions – cause greater harm to minority and economically disadvantaged populations because their schools "have a disproportionate share of grossly ineffective teachers." Judge Treu ruled in favor of the plaintiffs on every issue, removing five statutes concerning tenure, seniority and teacher dismissal rules from the state's constitution, adding, "The evidence is compelling. Indeed, it shocks the conscience." Well, it's now 2016 and last week the Court of Appeals shocked the plaintiffs by overturning the original decision.
Some of the wording in the ruling was quite interesting: "Critically, plaintiffs failed to show that the statutes themselves make any certain group of students more likely to be taught by ineffective teachers than any other group of students." Also, Justice Roger Boren, wrote in his opinion that it was the court's job merely to determine whether or not the statutes are constitutional, not whether they're "a good idea." As Reason's Brian Doherty points out, "The core of the new decision, which seems to this non-lawyer (and non teacher, and non student) to be saying that if the crummy policies are as near as we can tell causing equal harm to all California students rather than special harm to an identifiable group, then the Court feels powerless to overturn them." Or in plainer English, "All kids are hurt by crappy teachers, so get over it."
The justices are of the mind that much of the problem falls on administrators. While this certainly may be true to some degree, the path for principals to get rid of a rotten apple is currently so onerous and time-consuming that many, understandably, choose to stick with the poor performers and try to place them in positions where they do the least damage. Also, getting rid of bad teachers is very costly. Recently in Los Angeles, it took $3.5 million just to try to get rid of seven tenured teachers who were deemed incompetent and only four of them were actually removed.
Needless to say, much has been written about the successful appeal, but not all the reporting has been accurate. Unsurprisingly, the teachers unions' responses were ecstatic, and laden with mounds of bunkum.
I will attempt to separate reality from fantasy.
First of all, the case is not over. This is a three-round fight and to be sure the unions were victorious in Round 2, but the plaintiffs won the first round and will appeal to the California Supreme Court which will ultimately decide the winner. (Don't hold your breath, however; it could take a year before there is a final decision.)
The Los Angeles Times reported, "In a major victory for unions, a California appeals court on Thursday reversed a lower court ruling that had thrown out tenure and other job protections for the state's public school teachers." (Emphasis added.)
No, not really. Judge Treu did not say teacher tenure is detrimental per se; rather, he stressed that the probationary period for teachers is too short. California is one of only five states where schools reward teachers with tenure after only two years or less. In 41 states, the probationary term ranges from three to five years and four states don't allow tenure at all. In any event, the decision was never about "throwing out tenure," but rather extending the probationary period.
The National Education Association crowed that the verdict was a "major victory for due process." Again, wrong. It's not "due process." In fact it's not even really "tenure." What teachers achieve after two years on the job is "permanent status." Think about it. Other than the SCOTUS Justices, who else in the world has a permanent job? Do you? Of course not, and for good reason. If you do well, you keep your job; if you don't perform well you lose your job. Why do we have this awful law for people who deal with our most precious commodity – our children?!
Regarding seniority or "last in, first out," the unions claim that this is the only way to determine layoffs because it is "objective." Well, it is indeed "objective" and that's exactly the problem with it. It makes about as much sense as retaining teachers by alphabetical order. So if layoffs are necessary and your surname is Allen, you are in good shape. But if your last name is Zygmond, adios!
California Teachers Association president Eric Heins was jubilant. "I consider this a victory for teachers and a victory for students. What these statutes have done is…bring stability to the system." Stability, of course, is not in and of itself a bad thing, but when permitting thousands of poorly performing teachers to stay on the job, it stinks for kids.
In praising the decision, American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten dredged up every cliché in the book, including this golden oldie, "You can't fire your way to a teaching force." Randi, I would urge you to read what Eric Hanushek, an economist who writes extensively about education issues, has to say on the subject. After doing detailed research, he wrote that by getting rid of as few as 5 to 7 percent of bottom performers, not newest hires, and replacing them with just average teachers, education achievement in the U.S. could reach that of Canada and Finland. So yes, Randi, getting rid of bad actors can do wonders for thousands of educationally abused kids.
Coincidentally, the very day that the Vergara appeal decision was announced, a similar lawsuit was filed in Minnesota by Campbell Brown's Partnership for Educational Justice, which has also filed a parallel suit in New York in 2014. Regarding the litigation, Weingarten huffed, "It's not surprising that Campbell Brown continues to do the bidding of her monied donors—particularly when the weight of the evidence is so clear that you cannot fire your way or sanction your way or test your way to children's educational success." (Here, she manages to slam arch-enemy Brown, rich corporate types and get in her golden oldie in a single sentence.)
It's worth noting that with all the judicial wrangling, the courts have rightfully not "legislated from the bench." Regarding the dismissal statutes, the California legislature made a gesture toward sanity by passing Assembly Bill 215 in 2014. That bill makes it somewhat easier for administrators to remove teachers accused of "egregious behavior," such as sexual abuse. And now we have Assembly Bill 934 written by Assemblywoman Susan Bonilla, D-Concord. According to the Sacramento Bee, "Under this bill, teachers who are doing poorly would be placed into a program that offers them extra professional support. If they receive another low performance review after a year in the program, they could be fired via an expedited process regardless of their experience level." Also, permanence would not always be granted after two years and seniority would no longer be the single overriding factor in handing out pink slips. Teachers with two or more bad reviews would lose their jobs before newer teachers who have not received poor evaluations.
While I think Bonilla's bill doesn't go far enough, it is a heck of a lot better than what we have now. Of course, CTA disagrees. It opposes the bill because the changes "would make education an incredibly insecure profession."
And so the beat goes on. As the teachers unions dig in, hundreds of thousands of school kids – poor and otherwise – are victimized by their work rules which have been enshrined into state law. Our only hope is that the State Supreme Court makes these rules "impermanent" and that parent and kid-friendly laws take their place.
Larry Sand, a former classroom teacher, is the president of the non-profit California Teachers Empowerment Network – a non-partisan, non-political group dedicated to providing teachers and the general public with reliable and balanced information about professional affiliations and positions on educational issues. The views presented here are strictly his own.
Class-Size Myth Tested Yet Again
Other than school choice, no issue riles the teachers unions more than class-size.
A couple of weeks ago, Edunomics Lab, a university-based research center that focuses on "exploring and modeling complex education finance decisions," released a report in which it claims to have figured out a way to pay some teachers more without taking money away from other areas or sticking it to the taxpayer.
The way forward? Increasing the class sizes of only the most effective teachers. "Targeted increases in class-size would require fewer teachers overall and the savings from the reduced number of teachers could be repurposed as bonuses for the teachers taking on larger classes. It would also, importantly, improve net student learning as more students would be taught by the most effective teachers."
In simpler terms, "Get rid of the bottom performers and redistribute students to the better teachers and pay them more using the money that no longer goes to teachers who are now seeking other means of employment."
Being taught by a top performing teacher trumps whatever gains that are "alleged" to occur when classes are small. I say "alleged" because the most extensive study on the subject was done by Hoover Institution senior fellow and economist Eric Hanushek in 1998. He examined 277 different studies on the effect of teacher-pupil ratios and class-size averages on student achievement, and found that only 15 percent of the studies indicated an improvement in achievement, while 72 percent showed no effect at all. Worse, 13 percent found that reducing class-size actually had a negative effect on student learning.
While there is virtually no proof that smaller classes lead to higher achievement, parents do tend to favor them. However, parents put even greater value in teacher effectiveness. The report cites a survey that asks parents if they would "prefer their child to be placed into a class of 27 students 'taught by one of the district's best performing teachers' or into a class of 22 students 'taught by a randomly chosen teacher.'" Seventy-three percent of the parents opted for the larger class with an effective teacher.
So kids and high-caliber teachers are better off at no extra expense to the taxpayer. Sounds good, but the National Education Association is kvetching.
NEA writer Tim Walker refers to the plan as a "scheme to reduce the teaching force." Education professor Priscilla Hinchey, the union's point person, charged that the Edunomics Lab analysis is "built on a house of cards" and is "unsubstantiated by any original or existing research." Dr. Hinchey clearly needs to be introduced to Dr. Hanushek.
In any event, the union's rejoinders to the Edunomics Lab report are so weak they're really not worth delving into, but if you insist, go here. It is the unstated reasons for the union's dismissal of the ideas put forth in the report that are worth a mention:
1. Larger classes mean fewer teachers which translate to less dues money for the union.
2. By suggesting paying superior teachers more for their efforts, the report acknowledges that some teachers are better than others, thus destroying the union's notion that all teachers are worthy of our love, admiration and scarce taxpayer dollars.
3. The report claims that if their plan is instituted, education would be improved at no cost to the taxpayer. For the teacher union elite and their fellow travelers, better education only happens when the taxpayer pours endless money into the education abyss. (That we have almost tripled our spending since 1970 with no uptick in achievement is never acknowledged by the union crowd.)
One last word on the subject. If the unions are right and class-size really does matter, then the highest performing countries in the world would have the fewest students per class. This is anything but the case however. In fact, of 34 countries measured, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) found the U.S. to have classes slightly under the average at 20-22 students per class, depending on grade level. But countries like China, Korea, Japan, Singapore, France, Spain and Germany have larger class-size and outperform us in math, reading and science.
Once again, the National Education Association has shown it has no interest in any kind of meaningful education reform. It stubbornly adheres to the moribund status quo, as any interruption to their gravy train is simply not acceptable. Improving the lives of students, good teachers and the taxpayer is not even a blip on their radar screen.
Larry Sand, a former classroom teacher, is the president of the non-profit California Teachers Empowerment Network – a non-partisan, non-political group dedicated to providing teachers and the general public with reliable and balanced information about professional affiliations and positions on educational issues. The views presented here are strictly his own.
LA Teachers Union: Striking Out?
UTLA is planning to walk out over a mess that it helped to create.
The case is being built for a teachers' strike in Los Angeles. The next step in the contract negotiation process is mediation, whereby a state-appointed mediator will try to get the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) and the United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA) to reconcile their differences. If no progress is made during those sessions, scheduled for March 26th, April 6th and April 15th, the fact-finding stage is next. Anything that comes out of this part of the process is not binding, but could be influential in the last step in which the district makes its final offer. At that point, the union can accept the deal, or reject it and call for a strike vote.
There are a number of issues on the table, but the main sticking points are as follows:
UTLA wants a bigger raise than LAUSD is offering. The district's offer is 5 percent, but the union, after originally asking for 17.5, has lowered its demand to 8.5 percent, retroactive to July 2014.
The union wants smaller classes. Due to budgetary constraints, the district wants latitude in determining the number of teachers on the payroll. The union wants the district to commit to a hard and fast teacher-student ratio. Fewer teachers, of course, translate to larger classes.
The union does not want an imposed teacher-evaluation system. In light of a lawsuit settled in 2012 that mandated substantive teacher evaluations, the district came up with a simple four-level teacher-evaluation plan which it instituted in 2013. But the union pushed back successfully, claiming the district single-handedly imposed the process, prompting an administrative law judge to rule that LAUSD had to repeal it. The decision came in response to an unfair labor practices charge that UTLA filed three months later. The union is demanding to be a part of any new evaluation system for its teachers.
Moving away from the bargaining table, the leaders of the two warring factions have gone public with their case. In January, LA Unified Superintendent Ramon Cortines called the union's latest demands "entirely unrealistic" and asserted that they raise "serious ethical and equity issues" for the district. He pointed out that
… all the district's other unions have agreed to new contracts within the current economic landscape, he chided UTLA for its bargaining stance over 16 negotiating sessions, saying, 'It is regrettable that the current UTLA leadership has gone in an entirely different direction.'
UTLA president Alex Caputo-Pearl has been mouthing off to the press all along, lambasting the district and everything else he can think of. At a rally in downtown LA last week, throwing in everything but the kitchen sink, he bloviated,
The recession, the cuts to the bone at schools, the attacks on public service, the increasingly savage racism and economic inequality that our students face, John Deasy for three years, all of them have set us back. And we are not going to take it anymore.
Okay, now here is the reality: LAUSD is mired in fiscal purgatory. Dealing with a $160 million deficit, Cortines said just 11 days ago that he has already begun cutting programs for next year, and layoffs are next with the first round of pink slips due to go out March 15th. (Worth noting: $160 million is almost the exact figure LAUSD is paying to the victims of one teacher – sexual predator Mark Berndt, whose wretched legacy owes a nod to the teachers union which traditionally has insisted on laws that make it practically impossible to get rid of incompetent and debauched educators.) When asked what's most likely to be cut, Cortines said, "Everything." LAUSD officials added that giving the union everything it is asking for would pile another $800 million of debt on the district.
If layoffs become necessary, Cortines will be painted as the goat, but it is the union that bears the majority of the responsibility. In good economic times, UTLA – and most teachers unions – demand that school districts use up all available resources to hire more educators. Then, when the inevitable economic downturn hits, layoffs become necessary. Also, it's not just teachers who are hired when the economy is robust; more support personnel are invariably a part of the package.
The fiscal situation is even bleaker for the district than the $160 million deficit and additional $800 million the union is demanding the district spend. Due to recent legislation, school districts in California now have to come up with a greater proportion of retired teachers' pensions. This will cost the district an additional $1.1 billion over the next seven years. The annual salary for LAUSD teachers who have taken some professional development classes and taught for 10 years is $75,592, which the union says isn't enough. But while union leaders whine over what they deem to be paltry salaries, they never mention the additional perks a teacher gets like a comprehensive healthcare package and a defined-benefit pension. When those costs are added in, that ten-year teacher's total compensation is more like $90,000. Not bad for 180 days work.
Also, teachers – the good ones, that is – could be making considerably more if not for the industrial-style step-and-column way that unions insist its teachers get paid. With no nod to quality, mediocre and worse teachers are paid the same as the good and great ones
Regarding the smaller class-size demand – LA has about 640,000 students and 31,000 teachers, which means about 20 kids per teacher, not exactly an overbearing number. If some teachers' classes are too large, then rebalancing becomes the issue. While it's true that there are instances where some kids benefit from more individual attention, it is by no means universal. The most extensive study on the subject was done by Hoover Institution senior fellow and economist Eric Hanushek in 1998. He examined 277 different studies on the effect of teacher-pupil ratios and class-size averages on student achievement, and found that only 15 percent of the studies indicated an improvement in achievement, while 72 percent showed no effect at all. Worse, 13 percent found that reducing class-size actually had a negative effect on achievement.
But class size and teacher pay are related. If you lopped off the bottom 10 percent lowest performers from the district, the remaining (better) teachers could get a hefty raise with just a few more kids in each class and no additional outlay from the district.
It's important to note that the entire collective bargaining process is not beneficial for many teachers and their students. Thomas F. Fordham Institute's Mike Petrilli finds that, "Teachers in non-collective bargaining districts actually earn more than their union-protected peers—$64,500 on average versus $57,500." Petrilli adds that "there is some evidence … that non-collective bargaining districts drive a harder bargain when it comes to health care." He also points out that collective-bargaining districts focus on seniority, protecting various benefits associated with longevity rather than pushing for higher pay. These tenure and seniority "benefits," which clearly are unfair to good teachers and their students, are what Judge Rolf Treu was referring to in his recent Vergara ruling when he said. "The evidence is compelling. Indeed, it shocks the conscience."
In 2012, Chicago teachers – already the highest paid teachers in the country while working the fewest hours of any other big-city school district – went on strike. Stanford's Terry Moe wrote at the time,
Collective bargaining is not fundamentally about children. It is about the power and special interests of adults. In Chicago and elsewhere, the teachers unions are in the business of winning better salaries and benefits, protecting job security, pressuring for restrictive work rules and in other ways advancing the occupational interests of their members. These interests are simply not the same as the interests of children.
Not to say that school districts are perfect. Far from it. But ideally, their mission is to promote the interests of children, while unions are there to serve their rank-and-file – the good and the bad, it's all the same to them. The teachers unions may blather about the children, but ultimately they are there to serve the adults. And that's causing big problems in Los Angeles and everywhere else these unions have power.
Larry Sand, a former classroom teacher, is the president of the non-profit California Teachers Empowerment Network – a non-partisan, non-political group dedicated to providing teachers and the general public with reliable and balanced information about professional affiliations and positions on educational issues. The views presented here are strictly his own.
Permanent Disgrace
My encounters with tenure, aka permanence, aka undue process for teachers.
In an article posted recently, Harvard professor and editor-in-chief of Education Next Paul Peterson asks, "Do Teachers Support the Vergara Decision?" More specifically, he discusses tenure, which is on hold in California due to Judge Rolf Treu's ruling. The tenure statute is the part of the California education code which stipulates that teachers essentially have a job for life if they can survive their first two years on the job, which is really just 16 months of actual work. It is worth noting that what we all commonly refer to as tenure is really a word reserved for college professors. The proper term for K-12 teachers is the more honest – and odious – "permanence." (I was once corrected by former United Teachers of Los Angeles chief A.J. Duffy when I referred to it incorrectly at a union meeting.)
Peterson alludes to an Education Next poll, the results of which were released earlier this fall, that asked public school teachers to rate their colleagues' competence on an A to F continuum. While 69 percent gave colleagues in the local school district an A or B, 8 percent said their colleagues deserve a D and 5 percent deserve an F.
This led me to think about my own experience as a middle school teacher in Los Angeles where I toiled for 15 years before retiring in 2009. At any given time, there were about 50 teachers at my school, and most of them, I'd say, were competent-to-good with a few that were exceptional. But there were always a handful of my colleagues who shouldn't have been allowed in a classroom. Just a few cases in point:
- AA, an English teacher, was a mean one; she rarely smiled and was antagonistic to a fault. During lunch period on a warm late spring day, she decided she was too pale and headed out to the athletic field to catch some rays at lunch. She proceeded to lie on her stomach, take off her blouse and unstrap her bra. (Ladies, you know how unsightly those tan lines can be!) As AA's glamor gambit was seen by kids, a few teachers and the plant manager, denial was not an option. However, she did not lose her job. Instead, she was transferred to a nearby elementary school which was run by a woman, known by many as "the principal from hell." I have no idea what has become of AA, but I'm sure she went on to infect many more kids with her bile and bad judgment.
- BB was a nice old gentleman and a lawyer with a J.D. Unfortunately, whatever skills he may have possessed in the courtroom did him no good in the classroom, which often resembled a British soccer riot – pure mayhem. As testing coordinator, I had occasion to visit his class several times and invariably regretted not wearing a flak jacket. To maintain order, BB resorted to showing film strips, pretty much daily. The kids didn't learn much, but at least the janitors had less to clean up at the end of the day. The principal eventually got hip to BB's act, and knowing she couldn't get rid of him, pressured him to retire. (Trying to fire him would have taken years and hundreds of thousands of dollars.) Fortunately, BB took the hint and retired.
- CC was a PE teacher who had an interesting ritual between classes. He would go to his car, parked on campus, and open his trunk where he kept a large cache of hooch. By the end of the day – every day – CC was obviously pickled. But having attained permanent status, he knew that no matter how slurred his speech may have been, getting plastered daily was an activity he could indulge in without consequence. He finally retired after 37 years and shortly thereafter had a massive stroke and died. Sadly, the union may have rewarded CC with permanent status, but the real world provides no such guarantees.
- DD was as wacky as they come. She, too, had no control over her classes, and whenever I had any of her third period science kids in my fourth period history class, I had to spend a good 15 minutes peeling them off the walls. The entire staff knew DD was an awful teacher, but axing her was out of the question. Instead, she was sent to the "Peer Assistance Review" (PAR) program – a union created mechanism – which didn't help a bit. She couldn't teach; her kids didn't learn. Her greatest strength as a teacher was at faculty meetings where her loony comments would make us all laugh… very nervously. By the way, DD just renewed her teaching credential for another five years.
- And then there was EE. One day this eighth grade English teacher allegedly touched a female student inappropriately. There were witnesses, but the student involved would not press charges so they put EE into the district office for a while – the so-called "rubber room" or "teacher jail." Since firing him was not a viable option, the powers-that-be decided to transfer him to another school, where he apparently fondled another student. So he was sent back to the district office, where he whittled away his paid vacation ogling porn. Busted, he was transferred to yet another school, where he got caught sharing his smut with some of his female students. He was then returned to the district office, where the last I heard, he was waiting for his next assignment, courtesy of his union lawyer. This was almost ten years ago and I have no idea what EE is doing now or to whom he is doing it, but I do hope its behind closed doors and doesn't involve teenage girls.
Please keep in mind that I have described just one public school out of about 10,000 in California. Stanford economist Eric Hanushek has famously said that if we could get rid of the bottom 5-7 percent of the teaching profession, we could have a world-class system like Finland. If we take Hanushek's middle number – 6 percent (of 300,000), that means there are 18,000 teachers in the Golden State that should be looking for other means of employment. But they're not – which means that about 450,000 young minds are getting shortchanged – and worse – year after year. (The reality is that, on average, just ten "permanent" teachers a year in California are let go.)
Right after being termed out as National Education Association president in July, Dennis Van Roekel gave an interview to Education Week and addressed the union's insistence on maintaining an industrial-style model. He said, "Union members, however, are not going to give up their industrial union rights to enjoy the benefits of being treated like real professionals until they are treated as real professionals."
He has it backwards. Teachers will never be considered professionals until they take charge and professionalize the field. There are 282,000 teachers in California who are doing an adequate, good or great job and it is incumbent upon them to take the lead and purge the field of the stinkers and pedophiles. Teachers have long wanted to be recognized as professionals, but they will never attain that status as long as they allow the teachers unions to protect incompetents and miscreants. 450,000 kids' deserve better …much better.
(An abridged version of this post was printed in U-T San Diego on Jan.16th.)
Larry Sand, a former classroom teacher, is the president of the non-profit California Teachers Empowerment Network – a non-partisan, non-political group dedicated to providing teachers and the general public with reliable and balanced information about professional affiliations and positions on educational issues. The views presented here are strictly his own.
Chicken Little Class Size
With a big assist from the teachers unions, the small class size myth lives on.
"The sky is falling" is well-known throughout the world as an admonition to be wary of hysterical claims. While we appreciate the silliness of the Chicken Little story, we fail to recognize its relevance in many of the myths perpetuated by the education establishment, one of the most enduring of which is the claim that class size affects student achievement.
Let me begin by saying that, as a teacher, I liked small classes. Why wouldn't I? There were fewer papers to grade, report cards to fill out and parents to deal with. In other words, small class size made life easier on me. But I never deluded myself into thinking that my students were getting a superior education when I was teaching 20 instead of 25 of them. It is true that there are a few exceptions like certain special education classes where the kids need more individual attention. But, by and large, the smaller-is-better meme is pure bunkum.
Because small class size benefits them, the most vocal hucksters perpetuating the fiction are the nation's teachers unions. Smaller classes = more teachers = more dues money. Just last month United Federation of Teachers boss Michael Mulgrew proposed ending tax breaks for landlords in New York City who are not residents of Gotham. The resulting $900 million windfall would net the city the classroom space and labor needed to reduce class size in grades K-3. (It is important to note that many parents favor smaller classes too because their kids get more individual attention that way.)
But as Hoover Institution senior fellow and economist Eric Hanushek recently wrote in the New York Daily News,
Nobody has shown that the substantial class-size reductions of the past 15 years have paid off in terms of student achievement. Instead, the two main effects of past class-size reduction have been more teachers and more expensive schools.
Education research is essentially unanimous: The effectiveness of the teacher in the classroom is far, far more important than how many students are in the classroom. But this is not the message that the union wants to hear, because it would involve evaluating teachers and making personnel decisions based on the quality of the work they do. (Emphasis added.)
Hanushek has done a lot of work in this area. In 1998, he released the results of his research that examined 227 separate studies on the effect of teacher-pupil ratios and class size averages on student achievement. He found that 15 percent of the studies showed an improvement in achievement, while 72 percent found no effect at all and 13 percent found that reducing class size actually had a negative effect on achievement. While Hanushek admits that in some cases children might benefit from a small-class environment, there is no way "to describe a priori situations where reduced class size will be beneficial."
Other researchers have come up with similar findings. Also in 1998, Stanford's Caroline Hoxby found that "reductions in class size from a base of 15 to 30 students have no effect on student achievement." Jay Greene, chairman of the Department of Education Reform at the University of Arkansas, writes that most of the evidence on which the "smaller-is-better" crowd relies on outcomes from Tennessee's STAR project, an experiment conducted in the 1980s, with very questionable methodology.
In fact, the public has swallowed the class size myth for years and legislators have acted accordingly. The National Center for Education Statistics reports that teacher-pupil ratios across the nation have diminished steadily since 1955, when the ratio of public school teachers to students was 26.9 to one. By 1970, the ratio was 22.3 to one. And by 2010, the last year for which federal government statistics are available, the ratio came down to 16 to one. In California, going back to 2007, the student-teacher ratio was reduced to 21.6 pupils. Today, it has "ballooned" – to use the teachers unions' favorite term – back up to about 24.
Frequently left out of the conversation is that when classes get smaller, more teachers are hired and the quality of the talent pool is diluted. Washington Post education reporter Jay Mathews noted in a 2006 story how California had a decade earlier authorized a $650-per-pupil bonus to schools with kindergarten-to-third-grade classes of no more than 20 students. "This produced many more classes that required more teachers, many of whom, parents complained, were inexperienced and ineffective," Mathews wrote. Is it possible that larger classes and fewer teachers might even be preferable? Yes, if the teachers let go are the weaker performers. As Hanushek argues: "If you … replaced five to eight percent of the worst teachers with an average teacher, U.S. achievement would rise to somewhere between Canada and Finland." Though the teachers unions will have none of that getting-rid-of-bad-teachers stuff, ask any parent if they rather have their kid in a class of 21 with a mediocre or worse teacher or a class of 24 with a good or great teacher. No need to wait for an answer.
What about countries that are more successful at educating than we are? Do they have smaller classes? OECD shows that out of 34 countries, the US is slightly below average in class size. However, China, Korea, Germany and Japan all have considerably larger class sizes than we do, and regularly clobber us in student performance.
In the meantime, the small class myth lives on. Mulgrew is pushing his tax scheme in New York. In Los Angeles, new teacher union president Alex Caputo-Pearl pitched the small class mantra three separate times in his coronation speech. And on its "Local Bargaining Updates" page, the California Teacher Association reports that "smaller class size" is a top bargaining priority for union locals all over the state. Again, the unions couldn't care less about teacher quality or accountability; it's all about hiring more dues-payers.
It is truly incumbent upon the public, notably the taxpayer, to start fighting the class size myth. Chicken Little eventually got the message; it's about time that the rest of us do too.
Larry Sand, a former classroom teacher, is the president of the non-profit California Teachers Empowerment Network – a non-partisan, non-political group dedicated to providing teachers and the general public with reliable and balanced information about professional affiliations and positions on educational issues. The views presented here are strictly his own.
"Hey, Deasy, baby, I want my money."
Los Angeles teachers demand a raise, but their appeal to the public is embarrassing and more importantly, misses the big picture.
Claiming that teachers have not received a raise since 2007, the United Teachers of Los Angeles held a protest rally last Wednesday. As reported by Ryan White in LA School Report,
"Hey, Deasy, baby, I want my money," the red-shirted crowd sang in a hip-hop inspired chorus at a rally organized by UTLA in its ongoing bid to win salary increases from the district. Their target: Superintendent John Deasy.
With teachers' last pay raise dating back to early 2007, the union says a salary hike is long overdue, especially since last fall's voter-approved Prop. 30 increased the per-student funds the district receives from the state. The argument that teachers are now owed their financial due after years of sacrifice was the rally's dominant refrain.
While the chant was thoroughly obnoxious, the teachers' plea seems reasonable … on the surface. But a look under the microscope reveals things not apparent to the naked eye.
First, while it is true that teachers in Los Angeles have not received an across-the-board raise in almost seven years, they get yearly raises throughout most of their careers. Due to the step-and-column way we pay our teachers, most get a bump for simply not dying over the summer. Then they get more raises for taking "professional development" classes and workshops, despite conclusive research over the last 25 years by Stanford-based economist Eric Hanushek showing that these classes have no effect on student learning. In LA, the set-up is particularly egregious, resulting in a huge and unnecessary burden to the taxpayer.
According to the district contract with the United Teachers of Los Angeles, coursework, to qualify as professional development, must be "directly related to subjects commonly taught in the District." So a kindergarten teacher can take "Northern and Southern Economies on the Eve of the Civil War," say, and receive what is euphemistically called "salary-point credit" for it. Or an American history teacher could take a class in identifying different kinds of plankton and also get a bump in pay. Taxpayers pay out a whopping $519 million a year in extra salary payments to teachers who take such courses. (Emphasis added.)
In Los Angeles, a starting teacher makes $45,637 and a veteran can make up to $98,567. But it's important to note that the average teacher works between 6 and 8 hours a day, 180 days per year – compared to the average college-educated worker, most of whom work over 8 hours a day and 240-250 days a year. The teacher union-perpetuated myth of the undercompensated teacher was blown up in 2011 by Andrew Biggs, a researcher at the American Enterprise Institute and Jason Richwine, a senior policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation. Their study, in fact, found that teachers are overpaid. Typically, teachers have perks like excellent healthcare and pension packages which aren't counted as "income." Armed with facts, charts and a bevy of footnotes, the authors make a very good case for their thesis. For example, they claim,
Workers who switch from non-teaching jobs to teaching jobs receive a wage increase of roughly 9 percent, while teachers who change to non-teaching jobs see their wages decrease by approximately 3 percent.
When retiree health coverage for teachers is included, it is worth roughly an additional 10 percent of wages, whereas private sector employees often do not receive this benefit at all.
Teachers benefit strongly from job security benefits, which are worth about an extra 1 percent of wages, rising to 8.6 percent when considering that extra job security protects a premium paid in terms of salaries and benefits.
Taking all of this into account, teachers actually receive salary and benefits that are 52 percent greater than fair market levels." (Emphasis added.)
Another pay issue worth examining is the set-in-stone collective bargaining contract which makes no allowance for teacher quality. While many in the "Hey, Deasy, baby" crowd undoubtedly support collective bargaining, is it fetching them more money? Not according to data collected by the National Council on Teacher Quality. As Fordham Institute's Mike Petrilli reports, "Teachers in non-collective bargaining districts actually earn more than their union-protected peers – $64,500 on average versus $57,500." He does add that
… there is some evidence from the NCTQ data that non-collective bargaining districts drive a harder bargain when it comes to health care….
All of this sheds a light on what the unions are really about: protecting benefits and seniority–not pushing for higher pay. If you're a young teacher earning a lousy salary and paying union dues, that's something to be very angry about.
An additional problem with collective bargaining is that it hurts good teachers because of "wage compression," which occurs when the salaries of lower paid teachers are raised above the market rate, with the increase offset by reducing pay of the most productive ones. As Cato Institute's Andrew Coulson wrote in 2010,
The impact of this wage compression is significant. Using an instrumental variables model, and taking into account alternative explanations, Hoxby and Leigh (2004: 239) conclude that between 1963 and 2000, "Pay compression increased the share of the lowest-aptitude female college graduates who became teachers by about 9 percentage points and decreased the share of the highest-aptitude female college graduates who become teachers by about 12 percentage points." (Emphasis added.) To this, Neal (2002: 34) adds that, "The rigid wage structures among public schools also raise questions about teacher retention." In particular, he points to studies by Murnane and Olsen (1989, 1990) and Stinebrickner (2001), which examine separation rates for public school teachers, and concludes that "teachers with higher test scores and better college records leave their jobs at higher rates."
After reviewing all the data, what leaps out is that teachers as a whole don't fare badly at all when it comes to salary and benefits. But it is shameful that school districts and teachers unions in California have colluded to treat teachers as interchangeable widgets with no acknowledgment of teacher quality. That a great teacher and a mediocre teacher – both of whom have taught for the same period of time – make exactly the same amount of money is disgraceful. Good teachers are a treasure and should be compensated accordingly. At the end of the day, protesting teachers may demand "their money," but after examining the facts, only the best ones deserve it.
Larry Sand, a former classroom teacher, is the president of the non-profit California Teachers Empowerment Network – a non-partisan, non-political group dedicated to providing teachers with reliable and balanced information about professional affiliations and positions on educational issues.
Homeschool Home Run
An Education News report tells us that homeschooling is thriving.
In a recent report, we learn that since 1999, the number of children who are homeschooled has increased by 75 percent. Though homeschooled children represent only 4 percent (about 2 million) of all school-age children nationwide, they are growing seven times faster than the number of children enrolling in grades K-12.*
A few highlights:
- Data shows that those who are independently educated typically score between 65th and 89th percentile on such exams, while those attending traditional schools average on the 50th percentile.
- The achievement gaps, long plaguing school systems around the country, aren't present in homeschooling environment. There's no difference in achievement between sexes, income levels or race/ethnicity.
- Those from non-traditional education environments matriculate in colleges and attain a four-year degree at much higher rates than their counterparts from public and even private schools.
- Recent studies laud homeschoolers' academic success, noting their significantly higher ACT-Composite scores as high schoolers and higher grade point averages as college students. Yet surprisingly, the average expenditure for the education of a homeschooled child, per year, is $500 to $600, compared to an average expenditure of $10,000 per child, per year, for public school students.
- … Those from non-traditional education environments matriculate in colleges and attain a four-year degree at much higher rates than their counterparts from public and even private schools. Homeschoolers are actively recruited by schools like the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard University, Stanford University and Duke.
- Based on recent data, researchers such as Dr. Brian Ray (NHERI.org) "expect to observe a notable surge in the number of children being homeschooled in the next 5 to 10 years. The rise would be in terms of both absolute numbers and percentage of the K to 12 student population. This increase would be in part because . . . [1] a large number of those individuals who were being home educated in the 1990s may begin to homeschool their own school-age children and [2] the continued successes of home-educated students."
With results like these, who could possibly be against homeschooling?
The usual suspects: statists, educrats, and teacher unionistas. They don't think parents are capable of teaching their little (and not so little) ones. In fact, in February 2008 a California state appellate court ruled that parents who lack teaching credentials could not educate their children at home. Needless to say, this decision sent waves of angst through California's homeschooling families.
Talk about government overreach! If the state can mandate teaching credentials for parents, maybe the next step will be forcing parents to get a chef's license to be able to cook for their children? Or maybe a parent should have to become a registered nurse before being allowed to take care of a sick child?
Of course, the decision delighted the teachers unions. Then United Teachers of Los Angeles president A.J. Duffy pontificated, "What's best for a child is to be taught by a credentialed teacher." Lloyd Porter, California Teachers Association board member at the time, chimed in, "We're happy. We always think students should be taught by credentialed teachers, no matter what the setting."
Additionally, CTA, which never misses an opportunity to bolster its ranks (parents and children be damned), filed a brief claiming that allowing parents to homeschool their children without having a teaching credential will result in "educational anarchy."
The antipathy toward homeschooling coming from a teachers union in California is especially laughable. As Alan Bonsteel wrote after the initial decision,
The only test that California public schoolteachers have to pass is the CBEST, an 8th-grade level exam. Because they are supposed to be college graduates, would it not make more sense for them to be asked to pass a college-level test? The Graduate Record Exam, for example?
And too many of our science and mathematics teachers have no college degree in their subjects.
As if all that wasn't enough to produce a crisis of teacher quality in California's public schools, the weakest teachers are protected by a system of tenure and the California Teachers Association, the most powerful political force in the state.
Also, Chris Klicka, senior counsel for the Home School Legal Defense Association wrote,
Eric Hanushek of the University of Rochester, who surveyed the results of 113 studies on the impact of teachers' qualifications on their students' academic achievement. Eighty-five percent of the studies found no positive correlation between the educational performance of the students and the teacher's educational background. Although 7 percent of the studies did find a positive correlation, 5 percent found a negative impact.
Fortunately for California's families, sanity prevailed a few months later. In August 2008, a state appellate court ruled that parents may indeed legally home-school their kids in California even if they lack a teaching credential.
It's important to note that homeschool parents don't educate their kids in a vacuum. Thanks to the internet, there is much help for parents who need it. For example, the aforementioned Home School Legal Defense Association maintains a terrific website where parents can go to learn about the law in their state, find supplemental resources, exchange curricula, etc.
Californian Diane Flynn Keith, whose homeschooled sons are grown now, runs Click Schooling, an excellent website which specializes in web-based curriculum ideas. She also mentors homeschooling families and teaches a "Homeschool 101" class at the College of San Mateo.
But whatever its successes, homeschooling will always be on the hit list of those threatened by parents who prefer not to send their kids to government-run schools. A recent quote from Louisiana teacher union president Joyce Haynes says it all. Speaking about Louisiana's voucher program – though it could apply to homeschoolers – she said it would result in "… taking our children from us."
A union president is complaining about their children being taken from them?! Yes, the teachers union boss thinks that your school kids really belong to her and her union. If that doesn't scare you, nothing will.
A parent has many responsibilities: feeding their kids, providing shelter, keeping them safe, etc. If you can swing it, you just might want to consider adding "educating them" to that list.
* The numbers I used in the first paragraph are disputed by Joy Pullmann, research fellow at The Heartland Institute. She correctly points to an error in the Education News story. The following is from Pullmann's soon to be published op-ed in the Orange County Register.
State and federal governments typically do not track homeschool students like they do public and even private school students, making reliable numbers sparse. The most recent federal estimates on homeschooling are from 2007. The report just before that was in 2003, showing a 29 percent increase in homeschooled students since 1999. A 2008 Census Bureau report showed homeschooling increased 8.3 percent per year from 2004 to 2008. So, for the most recent decade in which we have data, homeschooling seems to have been growing between 7 and 8 percent per year. That means homeschooling would approximately double in a decade, which is indeed about what happened between 1999 and 2009. Between 2000 and 2010, the most recent decade of available data, public K-12 enrollment increased 2 percent. So, yes, homeschooling has been growing faster than public schooling, but closer to a rate that is fifty times greater than the rate public enrollment has grown, not seven.
Since there are some 2 million homeschooled students and nearly 50 million public schooled students, it takes a lot more public than homeschool students to get an equal enrollment increase. A 1 percent increase in both, for example, would mean 2,000 more homeschool students but 50,000 more public school students. So to say homeschooling is increasing faster than public schooling exaggerates its growth.
Larry Sand, a former classroom teacher, is the president of the non-profit California Teachers Empowerment Network – a non-partisan, non-political group dedicated to providing teachers with reliable and balanced information about professional affiliations and positions on educational issues.
Better Than What We Have Today?
A reportedly "historic" teacher evaluation deal between Los Angeles Unified and the teachers union would solidify the dismal status quo.
A substantive settlement in the Doe vs. Deasy lawsuit would drag the Los Angeles Unified School District into the 21st Century. In November of 2011, I wrote
…a half-dozen anonymous families working with EdVoice, a reform advocacy group in Sacramento, filed a lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court against the LAUSD, district superintendent John Deasy, and United Teachers Los Angeles. The lawsuit in essence accuses the district and the union of a gross dereliction of duty. According to the parents' complaint, the district and the union have violated the children's "fundamental right to basic educational equality and opportunity" by failing to comply with a section of the California Education Code known as the Stull Act. Under the 1971 law, a school district must include student achievement as part of a teacher's evaluation. Los Angeles Unified has never done so: the teachers union wouldn't allow it.
In 1999, the state legislature amended the law, named after the late Republican state senator John Stull, to require that "the governing board of each school district shall evaluate and assess certificated employee performance as it reasonably relates to: the progress of pupils toward the standards established pursuant to subdivision (a) and, if applicable, the state adopted academic content standards as measured by state adopted criterion referenced assessments." In plainer words, a teacher's evaluation must be based at least in part on how well her students perform on state tests.
In June, a judge ruling in favor of the plaintiffs said that student performance must be used as part of a teacher's evaluation. Then this past Friday, after months of negotiation, the school district and union did reach what is being called a tentative settlement. (The final details of the agreement must be submitted to the judge by end of business day today.) That's the good news. The bad news is that the terms of the agreement (as written so far) are so vague as to be meaningless. The United Teachers of Los Angeles immediately posted a summary of key elements on its website. The first part says,
No individual AGT/VAM in final evaluation: As specified in this agreement, a teacher's individual AGT results cannot be used to form the basis for any performance objective or be used in the final evaluation (SECTION 1.3E).
This means that "academic growth over time (AGT)" or "value added measurements (VAM)" – which assess the value or improvement that a teacher adds to a student's knowledge base via a standardized test score during the time that the student is in the teacher's classroom – cannot be used. The district had wanted to use AGT as 30 percent of the total assessment, but the union collectively bargained that reasonable number down to zero. Instead,
The teacher and administrator will determine data sources: The multiple measures of student progress for the initial planning sheets will be determined by the administrator and the employee. These measures may include:
• data such as a teacher's past CST results (not AGT), current students' previous CST results, and school-level CST/AGT data, and
• authentic evidence of student learning, such as teacher-created assessments, student projects and portfolios, semester/unit culminating activities, and periodic assessments (SECTION 1.3A-G).
None of these measures are to be treated as the "sole, primary or controlling" factors in determining the overall final evaluation (SECTION 2.0A).
In other words, it's business as usual. There is way too much wiggle room here. This ruling was supposed to bring forth a more objective way to assess teachers and add an accountability factor. But with this settlement, incompetent teachers and unaccountable principals can survive lengthy careers and irreparably damage millions of children. Curiously, absent a savvy principal, an excellent teacher can be made to appear to be mediocre. It cannot be stressed enough that principals in Los Angeles, though technically at-will employees, live in the same "culture of non-accountability" as teachers, and if this agreement is accepted as is, these administrators will have a bigger and more important role in assessing teacher quality. As Stanford Professor Eric Hanushek points out, principals can make a huge difference in a school's performance. Yet they have not been held to any real liability. So we will now have evaluation methods "determined by the administrator and the employee" with neither party being held accountable for student learning.
Also, it's no secret that the process to fire an incompetent teacher is so expensive and time-consuming that few principals even make the effort. This issue must be directly addressed as part of this agreement or school kids in Los Angeles will continue to be victimized by the current dysfunctional system.
Amazingly, the powers that be are gushing over the preliminary agreement. Superintendent John Deasy went so far as to declare the new plan "historic." LAUSD school board President Monica Garcia damned the deal with faint praise, saying it is "absolutely, by all accounts, better than what we have today."
The agreement is not written in stone yet. After receiving some final add-ons, the judge will assess whether it fulfills all the legal requirements of the Stull Act. If it passes that hurdle, the UTLA rank-and-file gets to vote on it in January.
Additionally, while the agreement applies to LA only, the rest of the school districts and local unions in the state will be watching. They too will have to follow the law and implement some kind of evaluation plan, and very well may use this deal as a template. Unless new details emerge or the judge tosses this version into the round file, the teachers union gets the last laugh and the children yet again get the shaft.
Larry Sand, a former classroom teacher, is the president of the non-profit California Teachers Empowerment Network – a non-partisan, non-political group dedicated to providing teachers with reliable and balanced information about professional affiliations and positions on educational issues.
More Money for Business as Usual
Throwing ever more funds at education without making substantive changes to the system is a horrible waste of money, not to mention children's lives.
California Democrat Congressman Mike Honda and National Education Association President Dennis Van Roekel recently collaborated on an op-ed that played up just about every bit of feel good, cliché-riddled drivel ever written about education. If this piece was a drug, the FDA would have banned it years ago. A few examples:
Lamenting the fact that many teachers leave the classroom within the first few years, they say,
According to research estimates, one in four beginning teachers will leave the profession within their first three years in the classroom, and in urban areas, close to 50 percent will leave within five years.
This is totally misleading. The implication here is that teachers are leaving the profession in droves because they are overworked, underappreciated, overwhelmed and underpaid. But the reality is that they leave for a wide variety of reasons, including taking an administrative position, personal or family reasons, pregnancy, health, change of residence, etc. A survey from North Carolina, for instance, reveals that only 2.24 percent said they were leaving the profession due to dissatisfaction with teaching.
Another fiction the authors use to sway the unknowing public is the "competitive teacher salary myth."
…the lack of competitive salaries for classroom teachers compared to other professions diminishes the consideration of teaching as a viable long-term career option. All of these issues rob children of the diverse, committed, capable teachers they need and deserve.
Before reaching for the Kleenex, please consider the following: Andrew Biggs, a researcher at the American Enterprise Institute and Jason Richwine, a senior policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation, conducted a study on teacher pay, the results of which were released just a year ago. They found that when perks like healthcare and pension packages are taken into consideration, teachers are in fact overpaid. Armed with facts, charts and a bevy of footnotes, the authors make a very good case for their thesis. For example, they claim,
Workers who switch from non-teaching jobs to teaching jobs receive a wage increase of roughly 9 percent, while teachers who change to non-teaching jobs see their wages decrease by approximately 3 percent.
When retiree health coverage for teachers is included, it is worth roughly an additional 10 percent of wages, whereas private sector employees often do not receive this benefit at all.
Teachers benefit strongly from job security benefits, which are worth about an extra 1 percent of wages, rising to 8.6 percent when considering that extra job security protects a premium paid in terms of salaries and benefits.
Taking all of this into account, teachers actually receive salary and benefits that are 52 percent greater than fair market levels. (Emphasis added.)
Honda/Van Roekel then delve into professional support:
The educational career ladder should entice quality teachers to remain in the classroom by developing positions of teacher leadership.
The book on this subject has already been written by Teach For America, a very successful outfit that recruits high performing college students who exhibit leadership qualities. TFA then gives them a five week intensive teacher training and ongoing professional support. So maybe NEA should hitch a ride with TFA? No. After years of trashing the organization, NEA recently offered TFA a twig-sized olive branch, but even that is rejected by many local unions because an army of bright, young, idealistic teachers poses a threat to the old guard.
On Election Day, Californians sadly bought into the union propaganda and voted to further "invest" in education by passing a controversial ballot initiative. With the passage of Prop. 30, California now has the highest sales tax and top marginal income tax rate in the country.
A nearly $6 billion infusion from Proposition 30 and a Democratic supermajority in the Legislature are a welcome pre-holiday gift to public education from voters, but it also could set the stage for battles between those laboring for education reform and suddenly fortified unions protecting teacher interests.
"Proposition 30 is a bandage on the current system," said former state Sen. Gloria Romero, an outspoken education reform advocate. "We got no reform for the investment."
She and others cite the urgent need to raise student achievement, modify the rule of teacher seniority, dismantle the Byzantine school finance system and ensure the teacher pension fund stays solvent.
Romero hits the nail on the head. Continuing to throw money at a failing system will result in nothing more than a more expensive failing system. If you are hungry, spending more money on rancid food won't solve your nutrition problem.
Stanford Professor Erick Hanushek, who has studied student achievement and education economics, adds,
I'm concerned now that we've gotten past the fiscal cliff, we're going back to business as usual. To improve student performance, he said, schools need an effective teacher evaluation system and need to be able to get rid of the worst teachers and to reward the best ones. But he said there's no movement toward either of those.
…Everybody in the state would like major changes without really changing…. the cost is that California is at the rock bottom in student performance, and it's dragging down the nation.
Responding to the reformers, California Teachers Association President Dean Vogel snapped,
We're not opposed to education reform…. We're opposed to stupid reform.
…teachers believe before adjusting funding formulas, the state needs to ensure adequate — meaning more — funding for schools….
But as Heritage Foundation policy expert Lindsey Burke reported recently,
Students headed back to school this fall will have historically high levels of dollars spent on them in the public school system. (Bold added.) Nationally, average per-pupil spending exceeds $11,400 this year….
To put this into perspective, just 10 years ago we spent $9,482 per pupil (in constant dollars). Thirty years ago we paid $5,718 and 50 years ago just $2,808 per student! In California, spending has doubled over the last 40 years and what do we have to show for it? Our National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) scores speak volumes. For example, on the most recent 4th grade math test, California students came in 45th nationally; in science, the same 4th graders scored higher than only Mississippi.
Internationally, of the world's 28 major industrial powers, the U.S. is second in spending, slightly behind Switzerland. Yet when it comes to achievement, our performance is middling at best. Education Next recently reported,
A new study of international and U.S. state trends in student achievement growth shows that the United States is squarely in the middle of a group of 49 nations in 4th and 8th grade test score gains in math, reading, and science over the period 1995-2009.
Students in three countries – Latvia, Chile, and Brazil – are improving at a rate of 4 percent of a standard deviation annually, roughly two years' worth of learning or nearly three times that of the United States. Students in another eight countries – Portugal, Hong Kong, Germany, Poland, Liechtenstein, Slovenia, Colombia, and Lithuania – are making gains at twice the rate of U.S. students.
A fitting coda to this dreary ongoing saga, came from a recent Wall Street Journal editorial,
No reform effort is too small for the teachers union to squash. In this month's election, the National Education Association descended from Washington to distant Idaho, spending millions to defeat a measure that limited collective bargaining for teachers and pegged a portion of teachers' salaries to classroom performance. In Alabama, Republican Governor Robert Bentley says he's giving up on his campaign to bring charter schools to the state after massive resistance from the Alabama Education Association.
Unions fight as hard as they do because they have one priority—preserving their jobs and increasing their pay and benefits. Students are merely their means to that end. Reforming public education is the civil rights issue of our era, and each year that passes without reform sacrifices thousands more children to union politics.
Thousands? More like millions. It is a national disgrace. We the people need to wrest control from the teachers' unions and demand serious reform immediately.
Larry Sand, a former classroom teacher, is the president of the non-profit California Teachers Empowerment Network – a non-partisan, non-political group dedicated to providing teachers with reliable and balanced information about professional affiliations and positions on educational issues.
Small Class-Size Balloon Punctured Again
It's time to "just say no" to the small class-size pushers and eliminate seniority as a staffing mechanism.
Small class size means less work for teachers. Parents seem to think that their child will be better educated in a room with fewer classmates. Unions love fewer kids in a class because it equates to a larger workforce, which means more money and power for them. Only problem is that small class size does not lead to greater student achievement. It just means more hiring, then laying off the same teachers and punishing taxpayers who needlessly pay for a bloated workforce.
Last week, the Wall Street Journal published "The Imaginary Teacher Shortage," an op-ed by professor of education reform at the University of Arkansas Jay Greene, in which he exposes the small-is-better canard.
For decades we have tried to boost academic outcomes by hiring more teachers, and we have essentially nothing to show for it. In 1970, public schools employed 2.06 million teachers, or one for every 22.3 students, according to the U.S. Department of Education's Digest of Education Statistics. In 2012, we have 3.27 million teachers, one for every 15.2 students.
Greene also addresses the fact that as hiring increases, there is less likelihood of a student getting a good teacher. And a having a good teacher is the most important factor in student achievement.
Parents like the idea of smaller class sizes in the same way that people like the idea of having a personal chef. Parents imagine that their kids will have one of the Iron Chefs. But when you have to hire almost 3.3 million chefs, you're liable to end up with something closer to the fry-guy from the local burger joint.
Just three months ago, director of Cato's Center for Educational Freedom Andrew Coulson wrote a similar op-ed in the same newspaper. The subhead in "America Has Too Many Teachers" sets the tone:
Public-school employees have doubled in 40 years while student enrollment has increased by only 8.5%—and academic results have stagnated.
In the body of the piece, he gives us some numbers to chew on. Whereas Greene talks specifically about teachers, Coulson refers to the entire "public school workforce."
Since 1970, the public school workforce has roughly doubled—to 6.4 million from 3.3 million—and two-thirds of those new hires are teachers or teachers' aides. Over the same period, enrollment rose by a tepid 8.5%. Employment has thus grown 11 times faster than enrollment. (Emphasis added.) If we returned to the student-to-staff ratio of 1970, American taxpayers would save about $210 billion annually in personnel costs.
I contributed my own two cents on the subject in City Journal in July of 2011.
In 1998, Hoover Institution senior fellow and economist Eric Hanushek released the results of his impressive review of class-size studies. Examining 277 separate studies on the effect of teacher-pupil ratios and class-size averages on student achievement, he found that 15 percent of the studies found an improvement in achievement, while 72 percent found no effect at all—and 13 percent found that reducing class size had a negative effect on achievement. While Hanushek admits that in some cases, children might benefit from a small-class environment, there is no way 'to describe a priori situations where reduced class size will be beneficial.'
So basically, almost three-quarters of all the studies showed no benefit to small class size, and of the rest, almost the same number revealed negative effects as positive ones.
While it is a personal hardship for a teacher to be laid off, no one should be surprised when it happens. When economic times are good, it's easy to buy into more hiring. But good economic times don't last forever and when suddenly we can't afford all the teachers we have hired and some need to be let go, it is brazen of the self-righteous, small class-size true believers to mislead the public with their hand-wringing and political posturing.
And we can't say we weren't warned that there were going to be problems. Back in April of 2004, teacher union watchdog Mike Antonucci wrote,
Enrollment Figures Spell Big Trouble for Education Labor.
The U.S. Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) regularly reviews enrollment figures, comparing past years with expectations for the future. Its most recent report shows clearly that the fat years of teacher employment are over, and the lean years may last much longer than anyone has previously predicted.
NCES compared the period 1988-2001 with its projections for 2001-2013. The differences are stark. While public school enrollment increased 19 percent between 1988 and 2001, it is expected to grow only 4 percent between 2001 and 2013. During the period 1988-2001, the number of public school teachers grew by an astonishing 29 percent. The forecast for 2001-2013 is growth of only 5 percent – or less than 0.4 percent annually.
Then in June 2004, referring to Rankings and Estimates, a National Education Association report, Antonucci wrote,
In 2003-04, American public elementary schools taught 1,649,027 more pupils than they did in 1993-94. But there were 247,620 more elementary school classroom teachers in 2003-04 than there were in 1993-94. Simply put, for every 20 additional students enrolled in America's K-8 schools in the last 10 years, we hired three additional elementary school classroom teachers.
So clearly, having fewer teachers is not necessarily a bad thing, but it is tragic when we lose the good ones. Throughout much of the country, the decisions as to which teachers get laid off are determined by archaic seniority policies. Teachers-of-the-year are laid off before their mediocre or incompetent counterparts simply because the latter may have been hired a few days before the former. This is no way to run an education system. The sooner we get away from the smaller-is-better myth and turn our attention to scrapping the industrial style "last in, first out" method, the better.
About the author: Larry Sand, a former classroom teacher, is the president of the non-profit California Teachers Empowerment Network – a non-partisan, non-political group dedicated to providing teachers with reliable and balanced information about professional affiliations and positions on educational issues.
Don't Buy NEA Snake Oil
The teachers union uses bogus numbers to con the public into believing that education needs more funding.
The National Education Association is relentless in its quest to raise taxes. In its latest gambit — "Massive Budget Cuts Threaten America's Children" — the union claims that "…America's schools have added 5.4 million students since 2003." The only documentation for this outlandish number – an 11.1 percent increase – is a link to another article where they state the same fiction.
However, the National Council for Educational Statistics, an organization without an agenda, tells a far different story. NCES says that in 2003-2004 there were 48,540,375 K-12 students enrolled in the nation's pubic schools. In 2010-2011, that number climbed to 49,484,181, an increase of just under 944,000 students – a 1.9 percent gain.
NEA also tries to convince us that severe spending cuts are dooming our children to an inferior education. But Mike Antonucci offers a realistic look at spending data culled from the U.S. Census Bureau. He came up with a chart which shows that between 2004-2005 and 2009-2010 per student spending increased 22 percent nationwide (9.3 percent after correcting for inflation.)
However, as Antonucci points out, the spending flattened out toward the end of that five year period. And in all likelihood we will be in for a decrease in the near term. But, what must be determined is how spending correlates to student achievement.
Compared to other countries around the world, we are fourth in spending after Luxembourg, Switzerland and Norway. Yet,
The three-yearly OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) report, which compares the knowledge and skills of 15-year-olds in 70 countries around the world, ranked the United States 14th out of 34 OECD countries for reading skills, 17th for science and a below-average 25th for mathematics.
Not much of a correlation there. What about individual states? A recent study about the U.S. failure to close the international achievement gap released by Education Next finds nothing at all convincing.
No significant correlation was found between increased spending on education and test score gains. For example, Maryland, Massachusetts, and New Jersey posted large gains in student performance after boosting spending, but New York, Wyoming, and West Virginia had only marginal test-score gains to show from increased expenditures.
The spendthrift teachers unions and their fellow travelers insist that we need more teachers because small class size is an essential component to a good education, but there is no evidence to back up this assertion. In fact, in a wonderfully contrarian op-ed, Cato Institute's Andrew Coulson makes his case that "America Has Too Many Teachers" and other school employees.
Since 1970, the public school workforce has roughly doubled—to 6.4 million from 3.3 million—and two-thirds of those new hires are teachers or teachers' aides. Over the same period, enrollment rose by a tepid 8.5%. Employment has thus grown 11 times faster than enrollment. If we returned to the student-to-staff ratio of 1970, American taxpayers would save about $210 billion annually in personnel costs.
Referring to the NAEP tests, also known as the nation's report card, Coulson says that in spite of the increased workforce,
These tests, first administered four decades ago, show stagnation in reading and math and a decline in science. Scores for black and Hispanic students have improved somewhat, but the scores of white students (still the majority) are flat overall, and large demographic gaps persist. Graduation rates have also stagnated or fallen. So a doubling in staff size and more than a doubling in cost have done little to improve academic outcomes.
Ah, but what about the kids who do get lost in larger classes? A story in the Huffington Post addresses this, focusing on a sweet eight year old girl in New York City who is having a tough time in school because, due to budget cuts, her 3rd grade class now has 32 students. To be sure some students are hurt by being in bigger classes. But despite the appeal to sentiment, it is hardly a universal truth.
Hoover Institution senior fellow and economist Eric Hanushek has devoted much of his time studying this issue. In 1998, he released the results of his impressive research.
Examining 277 separate studies on the effect of teacher-pupil ratios and class-size averages on student achievement, he found that 15 percent of the studies found an improvement in achievement, while 72 percent found no effect at all—and 13 percent found that reducing class size had a negative effect on achievement. While Hanushek admits that in some cases, children might benefit from a small-class environment, there is no way "to describe a priori situations where reduced class size will be beneficial."
In our fiscally tough times it is more important than ever not to be swayed by emotion, demagoguery, and plain ol' BS. Americans must do their due diligence and not be conned by the hucksters. And be especially wary of the teachers unions; the snake oil they sell is particularly venomous.
About the author: Larry Sand, a former classroom teacher, is the president of the non-profit California Teachers Empowerment Network – a non-partisan, non-political group dedicated to providing teachers with reliable and balanced information about professional affiliations and positions on educational issues.
Responding to Romney's Critics
Regarding education reform, Romney needs to pound on the facts, leaving his detractors to pound on the table.
Recently Mitt Romney laid out his education vision in a speech at the Latino Coalition's annual economic summit in Washington D.C. The Republican candidate for president didn't mince words. He said that we are in the midst of a "national educational emergency," and that the only reason we don't hear more about it is that our national focus is squarely centered on the economy. Then he got down to specifics and said,
Parental choice will hold schools responsible for results, but parents can only exercise that choice effectively if they have good information. No Child Left Behind helped our nation take a giant step forward in bridging this information gap. But the law is not without its weaknesses. As president, I will break the political logjam that has prevented successful reform of the law. I will reduce federal micromanagement while redoubling efforts to ensure that schools are held responsible for results.
Dramatically expanding parental choice, making schools responsible for results by giving parents access to clear and instructive information, and attracting and rewarding our best teachers–these changes can help ensure that every parent has a choice and every child has a chance.
He then talked about the teachers unions' role in the problem.
…accomplishing real change won't be easy. Efforts to truly reform our schools always meet strong resistance from entrenched interests.
The teachers unions are the clearest example of a group that has lost its way. Whenever anyone dares to offer a new idea, the unions protest the loudest.
The teachers unions don't fight for our children. That's our job. And our job keeps getting harder because the unions wield outsized influence in elections and campaigns.
Annually, many teachers are forced to pay almost $1,000 in union dues. The two major teachers unions take in $600 million each year. That's more revenue than both of the political parties combined.
Mr. Romney's talk was a good one, basically hitting on many of the points that education reformers have been making for years. So, naturally, the naysayers and outright opponents of reform took him to task.
Jay Mathews, writing in the Washington Post, oddly claims that Romney and Obama are "educational twins." While both men certainly are reform-minded, their reforms run in different directions, most notably Romney's embrace of vouchers. (Obama favors some school choice but not vouchers – were he to do so, it would destroy his lovey-dovey relationship with the teachers unions.) Usually sensible, Mathews has a blind spot when the "v" word is mentioned. He says that, "…vouchers have no chance of ever expanding very far." However, Greg Forster, senior fellow with the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice, has debunked Mathews' claim in the past and does so again in a point by point rebuttal, the centerpiece of which is,
…there are now 34 school choice programs serving 212,000 students, and this story Mathews is telling hasn't happened anywhere.
Not surprisingly, the most hostile commentary comes from the union apologists. Matt Miller, who says he has "slammed teachers unions plenty," goes into somber mode and in sotto voce tells us in that there is a "deeper reality" that we all need to grapple with.
The top performing school systems in the world have strong teachers unions at the heart of their education establishment.
Lighten up, Mr. Miller. In reality, this does not qualify as "grappleable." The same claim has been made countless times by union defenders. The short answer to your "deeper reality" is that in Finland and other countries, the teachers unions are more like guilds – they exist mainly to advance the professional status of their members. American teachers unions are built on the industrial model – treating teachers not like professionals but like factory workers, and protecting them no matter what crimes they may have committed and no matter how poorly they do their jobs.
Then there is Mike Hall writing on the AFL-CIO website. He picks on Romney's assertion that, despite the popular myth, smaller class size does not translate into student achievement. The unions will never give up their "smaller is better" mantra because small classes mean more teachers and therefore more dues for the union. As if to show that he is knowledgeable on the subject, Hall trots out a dinosaur – Project Star – a study from Tennessee conducted in the 1980s – which Hall claims,
…showed students who were placed in a smaller-sized classroom made measurable gains and performed better even when they were put back in larger classes.
I totally debunk the "smaller is better" myth here. The most extensive study on the subject was done by Hoover Institution senior fellow and economist Eric Hanushek in 1998. He examined 277 different studies on the effect of teacher-pupil ratios and class-size averages on student achievement, he found that 15 percent of the studies found an improvement in achievement, while 72 percent found no effect at all—and 13 percent found that reducing class size had a negative effect on achievement. While Hanushek admits that in some cases, children might benefit from a small-class environment, there is no way "to describe a priori situations where reduced class size will be beneficial."
And what would a presidential talk about education reform be without a rebuttal from American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten? In a press release posted on the AFT website, she claims,
Today, Mitt Romney squandered an opportunity to participate in a meaningful discussion of real education reform by attempting to disguise attacks on teachers and public education as meaningful policy proposals.
Attack teachers? Hardly, though he did have harsh words about their unions. But the next part made my head explode,
Instead of looking to improve education for all children, he parroted failed voucher and privatization schemes that have not improved student learning. Romney's proposal to take even more money out of public education and funnel it to private schools is absurd at a time when school budgets already are being slashed to the bone across the country.
"Failed voucher and privatization schemes?" She really sounds as if she believes this nonsense. A little over a year ago, the Friedman Foundation released the results of study, the most extensive ever done, which stated,
Ten empirical studies have used random assignment, the gold standard of social science, to examine how vouchers affect participants. Nine studies find that vouchers improve student outcomes, six that all students benefit and three that some benefit and some are not affected. One study finds no visible impact. None of these studies finds a negative impact.
Nineteen empirical studies have examined how vouchers affect outcomes in public schools. Of these studies, 18 find that vouchers improved public schools and one finds no visible impact. No empirical studies find that vouchers harm public schools.
Weingarten's point that vouchers take money out of public education is also erroneous. As the Friedman Foundation explains,
State budgets typically save money when students use vouchers to attend private schools. Vouchers usually redirect state education spending from school districts to parents. If the vouchers are not worth the entire amount of state education spending, as is generally the case, then the state saves money on the difference. For example, if a state spends $6,000 per student annually in public schools, and offers a $5,000 voucher, the state saves $1,000 each year for each participating student.
The only problem I found with Romney's talk is that while he wants to disentangle Washington from education matters to a certain degree, he doesn't go far enough. He straddles the fence on No Child Left Behind – the reforms proposed by George W. Bush. NCLB is the 8th reauthorization of the 1965 Elementary and Second Education Act (ESEA) which signaled the feds' intrusion into what had always been a state issue. Federal involvement has produced no benefits for U.S. school kids. What it has done is divert a ridiculous amount of money from the classroom to feed an insatiable bureaucracy.
Writing in National Review Online, Heritage Foundation education fellow Lindsey Burke says it best,
Moving forward, Romney's agenda should include the conservative alternative to NCLB: the Academic Partnerships Lead Us to Success (APLUS) Act. APLUS would allow states to opt out and spend their share of federal education dollars on any lawful education purpose they believe would best benefit students. It's one of the best ways Congress could restore constitutional governance in education: send dollars and decision-making back to state and local leaders who are closest to the student.
Romney's vision is a good one. With a few tweaks it could be a great one. Importantly, he has facts on his side, and he needs to pound on them every chance he gets. If he does that, all the union leaders and other entrenched special interests can do is pound on the table.
About the author: Larry Sand, a former classroom teacher, is the president of the non-profit California Teachers Empowerment Network – a non-partisan, non-political group dedicated to providing teachers with reliable and balanced information about professional affiliations and positions on educational issues. (Title for identification purposes only.)
Good Teachers: Beware The Ides of March
Julius Caesar came to a bad end on March 15th, the same date many good teachers were warned that they may be unemployed in June.
"Nearly 20,000 Teacher Pink Slips Statewide Show Drastic Need for More Education Funding" screamed the headline on the California Teachers Association website.
First, let's straighten out the union spin. Typically when a person receives a "pink slip," it means that they are fired. What some teachers actually received is a Reduction in Force (RIF) notice, which according to state law, must be sent to teachers by March 15th if there is the slightest chance that they will be laid off in June. School districts really don't know in March what their budget will be for the next school year so they plan for the worst case scenario. It's unheard of for all teachers who get the notices to actually be laid off, but some will, and they must be notified if there is any chance they will lose their jobs.
As a young teacher in New York City in 1975, I lost my 6th grade teaching position because the city was in the midst of a fiscal swoon. A few thousand of us were laid off because we were the newest hires, not because we were the worst teachers. The union contract did not make any provision for getting rid of the poorest performers, just the newly employed. Fast forward 37 years and we are still doing the same stupid thing.
In California, the state education code stipulates that seniority must be the determinant as to who gets the ax when times are tough. Last in, first out (LIFO) is the law of the land in California and is a terrible way to make staffing decisions. Teachers should be assessed on their merits, and if layoffs must happen, the poorest performers should go, just as in every other field.
How many bad teachers are there? (Please spare me the "teacher bashing" epithet; there are stinkers in every field – doctors, lawyers, accountants, etc. The difference is that if the latter continuously fail their clients, they will be forced out of their profession. But not teachers.) Former GE CEO Jack Welch said that the bottom 10 percent of any field should be replaced. I will use a more conservative number – let's say that 5 percent of teachers are poor performers.
In California, there are about 300,000 teachers. If 5 percent of them aren't fit to teach, that means we have 15,000 who should seek work elsewhere. If each of these teachers has 20 kids in a class, it means they are ruining the educational experience of 300,000 children a year. If a young student has two dogs in a row, in all likelihood they will never catch up, thus inflicting permanent damage. And a middle or high school teacher in the bottom 5 percent can do even more harm, as he or she may have 150 students per year.
Another thing to consider when laying off teachers is that by not limiting your choice to newest hires, not as many would have to be let go. That's because the newest hires are always the lowest paid, thanks to the antiquated step and column pay scale that school districts use. This set-up rewards teachers for the number of years on the job, irrespective of their effectiveness.
The consequence of ridding schools of their lowest performing teachers can be transformative. According to Hoover Institution scholar Eric Hanushek, if we just got rid of the bottom performing 5 to 7 percent of teachers – a common practice in the private sector — our education system could rival that of Finland's world class system.
Of course, common sense changes will be difficult to bring about in California due to the enormous power of CTA. Teachers unions care not a whit about teacher quality. They just want as many breathing, dues paying bodies in the classroom as possible.
Julius Caesar had good reason to fear March 15th. It is a crying shame that so many excellent teachers should have that same fear.
About the author: Larry Sand, a former classroom teacher, is the president of the non-profit California Teachers Empowerment Network – a non-partisan, non-political group dedicated to providing teachers with reliable and balanced information about professional affiliations and positions on educational issues.
Tenure for Teachers: Enough is Enough
Every year untold thousands of school kids are harmed by teachers who shouldn't be allowed in a classroom. Parents must be given an opportunity to send their children elsewhere.
A teacher arrives at work high on drugs…daily.
A teacher regularly flies into rages, terrifying kids and coworkers.
A teacher talks in explicit terms about sex to the students.
A teacher makes constant sexual advances to other teachers.
A teacher doesn't teach her students anything.
These are a few of the teachers that new Perth Amboy schools superintendent Janine Caffrey has to deal with on a daily basis. She is quick to point out that most teachers are committed and talented, but there are a few….
The evil here is tenure or permanence, which in New Jersey bestows a position for life on teachers after just three years on the job. (It's even worse in other states – in California, for example, a teacher can get into the untouchables club after only two years.) Tenure for teachers would be nothing more than a bad joke if it didn't destroy the education experience for tens of thousands of children who are subjected to incompetent/cruel/perverted people on a daily basis.
The cases that Caffrey is dealing with are not all that uncommon. In my 28 year teaching career, I saw all the above and then some – like a teacher at my middle school who on a warm day at lunch decided to go topless on the athletic field. Admittedly guilty, the consequence of her action was to be transferred to a nearby elementary school. Another teacher regularly went to his car between his P.E. classes and got plastered. No consequence for him.
The proponents of tenure are typically bad teachers and their protectors — the teachers unions. They claim that tenure is nothing more than due process, and incompetent administrators are the ones to blame if a bad teacher is allowed to stay on the job.
Wrong. As Caffrey says,
"Proponents of tenure will tell you that any school or district can remove a teacher by the due-process system that the tenure law affords. That may be the intent of our tenure law, but it certainly doesn't work that way."
The truth is that the system is rigged, plain and simple. A chart supplied by the Education Action Group shows the Byzantine two-to-five-year roadmap that must be followed to get rid of an incompetent teacher. What the chart doesn't tell you is the procedure's astronomical cost to the taxpayer. In Los Angeles recently, the school district tried to get rid of seven stinkers — after five years and a cost of $3.5 million, they managed to get rid of four, while two accepted buyouts and one reportedly was reinstated.
Then there is the case of Gabrielle Leko, a teacher in the La Caňada school district in California who, according to many reports, regularly hurls insults at her students dating back to at least 1997. Calling her students such terms of endearment as Jew Boy earned her a brief stint in a sensitivity class. And while the school board and superintendent are figuring out what to do with her, Leko, unchastened, goes to work every day and does what she has always done. And whatever is decided – the next event is a school board meeting on December 21 – Ms. Leko's fate will be kept under wraps. So even if she does lose her job in La Caňada, she will probably be free to continue foisting her insults on unwitting students in another school district, should she decide to stay in the field.
While tenure laws have been in effect just about everywhere in the country for far too long, there is some good news. There are states – Illinois, Indiana and Florida, to name a few — that have succeeded in moderating or eliminating this abomination. This is all well and good, but until tenure is completely eradicated, children will be continue to be damaged (and in some cases, abused) by teachers who shouldn't be allowed anywhere near them.
Also, Hoover Institution scholar Eric Hanushek claims that if we just got rid of the bottom performing 5 to 7 percent of teachers – a common practice in the private sector — our education system could rival that of Finland's world class system.
Ultimately, the most realistic way for parents to successfully protect their children is to give them an option to remove their kids from harm's way via a voucher. Parents should be allowed to take the money that as taxpayers they are paying to educate their child in a public school and apply it to enroll their children elsewhere – in a traditional public, charter or private school. Any school of their choosing.
And to the whiners amongst us who say, "But that could drain money away from public schools," I say YES, it will! But the good news is that wherever students have been given a choice where to go to school, public schools have actually improved, even with less money. Yes, competition even works in the wacky world of public education.
One final note – if tenure is a disease that we absolutely must eradicate, perhaps political correctness is a close second. You may have read the story about a 9 year old boy in North Carolina who got suspended from school by the principal for two days because he told his teacher she was cute. Yes, he was accused of "sexually harassing" her. A nine year old! Fortunately, his mother decided to fight back – the story went viral, became national news and the boy was reinstated by district officials with an apology. Jerry Bostic, the principal who ordered the suspension, didn't get off so easy. Downgraded to Assistant Principal, he refused the demotion and retired instead. He thought that after 43 years of service to his school district he deserved better. And maybe he did, but his judgment in this situation was appalling.
In any event, it's time to give parents a choice where to send their children to school. The traditional forced-zip-code method hasn't worked well for children, their families and taxpayers for decades.
All need to mark their calendars for January 22, 2012 – the start of National School Choice Week – which will provide a concentrated focus on the need for effective education options for every child. To learn more and get involved, please visit the NSCW website.
About the author: Larry Sand, a former classroom teacher, is the president of the non-profit California Teachers Empowerment Network – a non-partisan, non-political group dedicated to providing teachers with reliable and balanced information about professional affiliations and positions on educational issues.
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