JONATHAN COHN JULY 2, 2010
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President Obama has threatened to veto the war funding bill that passed the House on Thursday night. The president's beef is with a provision to prevent teacher layoffs, which Democrats tacked onto the bill along with several other domestic priorities. To pay for the measure, the House agreed to cut money from some of the president's key education reform initiatives. Obama isn't happy about it. Nor should he be.
Here's the back story: Thanks to severe cuts in state budgets, between 100,000 and 300,000 teachers could lose their jobs this year. Back in late spring, there was hope that Congress would pass “edujobs,” a $23 billion bill to save these teachers from pink slips. But, after Republicans and some conservative Democrats decried it as a "bailout" that would swell the federal deficit, the bill died in the Senate in May. The House then revived it, adding it as an amendment to the war funding legislation. But the final version, which passed last night, allocates a lot less spending—just $10 billion—and takes some of the money from funds the Department of Education received in last year's stimulus package.
Laying off teachers can have consequences—and not just for the teachers. It can mean bigger class sizes, understaffed academic departments, and—all else being equal—worse education. So the argument for spending money to avoid layoffs is, in principle, strong.
But this particular measure has evolved in some decidedly unappealing ways. When it was first introduced, numerous education advocacy groups asked Congress to impose constraints that would effectively compel states to reform their layoff systems. As I explained recently, most states and school districts follow a misguided "last-hired, first-fired" rule. If they must let teachers go for budgetary reasons, they start by booting those teachers who have spent the least time in the classroom. Teacher quality doesn't factor into the decision at all. Congress, though, refused to go along with the proposal—and the Obama administration didn't intervene. "Right now, the most important thing is to stop the bleeding," Senator Tom Harkin, chair of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, said in early May.
That was bad enough. But then, this week, House Appropriations Chairman David Obey proposed that the government pay for the legislation, in part, by taking money from other Education Department funds—and not just any old funds, but the money set aside for some of Obama’s most important school reforms. Under Obey's plan, which the full House ultimately adopted, $500 million would come from Race to the Top, a competitive grant program and probably the most talked-about aspect of Obama's education agenda; $200 million would come from the Teacher Incentive Fund, which supports performance-based compensation plans; and another $100 million would come from money for charter schools. Sounding a bit like Harkin, Obey reportedly said, "When a ship is sinking, you don't worry about redesigning a room, you worry about keeping it afloat."
The politics here are no mystery. Teachers' unions want to avoid layoffs, but they're also wary of Obama’s more aggressive reforms. They'd choose saving members' jobs over, say, Race to the Top—and they're among congressional Democrats' biggest contributors. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, more than 95 percent of the unions' campaign funds go to Democrats. (Obey ranks third in Congress for total money received between 1990 and 2010, although he isn't running for reelection this year.) Unsurprisingly, unions aren't bemoaning the potential loss of Department of Education funds. "It's deeply disappointing that a Democratic administration would threaten to veto a jobs bill because paying for it would require a negligible cut from its new pet programs," Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, said in a statement.
Republicans, in turn, are pouncing on the new funding scheme in order to again try and discredit the whole idea of spending more federal dollars on schools in the first place: Democrats are "jumping at the chance to discard education reform to salvage an unpopular bailout for the education establishment,” Republican Representative John Kline said in a statement on Wednesday.
That brings us to Obama’s veto threat. The war funding bill has to go back to the Senate, which passed a smaller version of it in May. Senators might find a way to keep the education reform programs fully intact and come up with alternative funding for the jobs measure. Already, thirteen Democratic senators have sent a letter to the Senate Appropriations Committee demanding a new plan. "Choosing between preserving teacher jobs and supporting vital education reforms is a false choice and would set a dangerous precedent," the letter says. "By reducing promised funding for these important reforms, Congress would be pulling the rug out from under the efforts of thousands of communities around the country working to improve their schools."
And if the push for other funding fails? The administration will have a tough choice to make. But one thing's for sure: Letting Congress chip away at the education reform agenda now would place it on a slippery slope in the future. And that's something the country can ill afford.
15 comments
This argument conflates two very different points. It's one thing to reform education so that truly failing teachers can be fired more easily and that's a battle worth fighting. It's another to say "job performance should go into the layoff consideration" -- woah, that sounds like a backdoor attack on tenure, not to mention an invitation for budget strapped schools to dump older, better paid teachers (who may get in the principals face to boot). NOTHING is more important to education reform than incresaing high quality teachers, but the idea that good teachers are Ayn Rand disciples wiling to junk the seniority system because they're so confident their talents will be fairly rewarded is lunacy. Also, while it's unfortunate, in a post-Citizens United world the Dems better damn well have enthusiastic unions out there working for them.
- Lymon1
July 2, 2010 at 4:43pm
Lymon1, why not transform teaching from what it is is today, a low-grade industrial job where seniority, and union loyalty are rewarded and ability and achievement are given little consideration. Let school districts hire on the basis of ability and tell the unions to stick it up their rear ends. Study after study has shown that the IQ of the teacher is a major determinant of student achievement, and that class size and expenditure per pupil are not. In other words smart teachers do better than dummies, just as smart people do better than stupid in any trade or profession. Duh!
- bulbman1066
July 3, 2010 at 1:53am
"job performance should go into the layoff consideration" In what universe can this principle possibly be a bad thing? Yes, it could be construed as an attach on tenure - so what? Tenure is a preposterous structure that has no place in a meritocratic system - and what system would a rational society more wish to be meritocratic than the one that produces its future generation of citizens? "not to mention an invitation for budget strapped schools to dump older, better paid teachers" Yup, just like everywhere else. We pay people more as they gain experience because they become more productive or valuable. If they don't, then there is no reason to pay them more, or keep them on the payroll. Three times in my career I've gone back to entry-level or near-entry level salaries as I've radically switched areas of competence. Never once have I expected an employer to determine my salary by looking at my birthday. Nor have any of them done so. Now, I've heard it argued (by teachers) that theirs is a special profession - it's one teacher and 20 kids in a room when you're 23, and the same story when you're 53, so there is no opportunity to become more productive. I don't believe it. An experienced teacher could, and should, be able to handle more or more challenging students than an inexperienced one; they should be able mentor new members of the profession, and thus raise the performance of their school overall; they should be smart enough and experienced enough to be leading improvement and reform from within - all things which would justify them earning more. Just having shown up does not. Administrators won't dump experienced teachers who cost more, if they are held to performance standards for their schools - it would be suicide to do so.
- IowaBeauty
July 3, 2010 at 8:37am
Darby writes: "Here's the back story: Thanks to severe cuts in state budgets, between 100,000 and 300,000 teachers could lose their jobs this year. Back in late spring, there was hope that Congress would pass “edujobs,” a $23 billion bill to save these teachers from pink slips. " We spend $9500 to educate a child. For a classroom of 28 kids, that is $266,000. The money is there. The efficiency is not. 50 years ago, in today's dollars, we spent $2700 to educate a child. The money spent per child has tripled. The outcome has fallen. http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=66 Teachers that retire at age 55 with a $75000/year pension have retired with effectively $2M in the bank--that's how much an annuity would cost to pay them that retirement benefit. With healthcare considered, that could easily push their annual take to over $100,000, from age 55 to age 85. Will you retire with $2M guaranteed in the bank at age 55? All told, for 25 years of work, a teacher will receive an average salary + benefits of $90K/year while they are working. It's a reasonable salary. And for 30 years of retirement, they will receive slightly more than that. It's a really good deal, actually.
- seattleeng
July 3, 2010 at 8:04pm
Bulbman: because those high IQ candidates (and you're absolutely correct about the research pointing to IQ as a better correlating trait for good teachers, though class size does matter in the EARLY years) won't enter a profession that pays crap at first and where advancement is out of your control (good luck coming up with a performance measure that accounts for the wide variation in students, or completely locks out arbitrary factors like principals). Maybe in a deep recession like today you'll get some who have no other choice, but they'll do the same thing that many did in the 1990's: bolt when the economy picks up. I'd rather focus on getting rid of the worst teachers -- the ones so bad they fail multiple objective measures.
- Lymon1
July 3, 2010 at 10:09pm
Why not get rid of government schools altogether? The middle and upper classes don't need them, and the lower classes don't benefit from them. Public education in the US is a racket. It's about pouring trillions of the taxpayers' money down the toilet.
- bulbman1066
July 4, 2010 at 1:22am
Lymon1, I think teaching could snare a huge number of engineers and other professionals in their 40's. My daughter has a teacher that was an architect, and he moved to teaching in his late 40's, and you can imagine the types of math problems he puts together for the kids. They are always a joy to read and figure out. That would be a good thing, IMO, to expose kids to people that are fresh from industry. Every job, BTW, has things outside of your control. A principal is your manager. And managers are always hit and miss. Students are you customer. And some are very reasonable and want to form a partnership, and some are there to simply screw you and make your life miserable. You learn how to cope, or you don't. The key point here is that teachers in my areas have had raises of 3-4% the last few years, and they are debating 4-5% for the next year. But there are budget issues. They already charge kids to play sports. Some schools are charging a daily bus fee. Why on earth are teachers getting raises in this economy? Companies around here are saying "We are laying off 5%. And the remaining are getting 10% salary cuts" and that's the way it is. Why are teachers still seeing year after year of raises that are far in excess of COLA adjustments?
- seattleeng
July 4, 2010 at 11:51am
I have no problem with the idea that performance standards should be used for the hiring and promotion of teachers. But that statement assumes away the problem. We don't do a good job of evaluating teacher performance. By the way, seniority (experience) is not unimportant. Does anyone have any idea how students perform in unionized public schools as opposed to non-unionized ones? I'm willing to bet that students in unionized schools perform better.
- poldpf
July 4, 2010 at 1:17pm
Seattle: Students are not customers, and teachers are not customer service representatives. The relationship should be and often is a lot deeper than that. Students routinely approach teachers with requests for letters of recommendation, college/career/personal advice and or help. Do most customers do that when they're shopping or banking? Teachers are also advocates for their students, which can put them at odds with their managers/administrators. As a result, teachers in many (but by no means all) areas of the nation have unionized, negotiated for, and won tenure rights, which ONLY means that they have due process rights regarding termination. They can only be fired for cause, not on a whim. That's all tenure is. It is not some magic shield against the forces of accountability. If you ask me, more people deserve such rights, not fewer. How did this come to pass? Teachers unionized, negotiated for it, and won it. Imagine that. In a democracy. Also, I am sure that you have heard all the tales of woe and outrage about the rubber rooms in which teachers are placed before they are fired and how they receive full pay, often for years, before termination can be achieved. That system is lousy. But is lousy, in large part, because cities will not pay for the investigators needed to discharge or exonerate accused teachers in a timely way. So the limbo is excruciating and costly for everyone. If you want to prosecute people, then pay for the prosecutors. There is no way that the current system is cost effective, and there is no need for due process to be waived just because the current system in lousy. New York City has begun to reform this process at long last, but more steps are necessary. Finally, in case you haven't noticed, teachers across the nation are being laid off, accepting no raises, and/or taking pay cuts. It's happening.
- propjoe
July 4, 2010 at 1:29pm
Propjoe, Students are indeed the customer. Their parents paid the money. The teachers perform a service. The students and parents should be expecting some value. Do you doubt college students are the customer in that relationship? You act like a customer asking a seller for guidance is a rarity. When you say to the car dealer, "which of these cars do you recommend" or when you ask the doctor "If this was your child, waht would you do?" Service providers can of course be advocates for their customer. That's what customer service is for. When the airlines lose your bag, and the guy behind the counter decides to give you a clothing allowance for your business meeting the next day, he is advocating on your behalf. Most jobs in the US today allow you to be fired on a whim. believe it or not, that is a good thing. What is not right here is that a narrow and select group of employees have extracted so much from their employers. So much so, that they've deprived other workers of wages and benefits. Very, very interesting that you see a student/teacher relationship as so unique, and not present any place else.
- seattleeng
July 4, 2010 at 9:47pm
No Seattle I don't agree. Parents and students are not customers because education is not a commodity. If it were, only those who could afford to pay would get schooling and school itself would become simple entertainment driven by student demand. Because we have decided as a society that education is a public good (like Health Care, National Defense, Parks, Garbage Collection, apparently housing, regulation of the markets, go ahead and list any government function here, etc.) we provide it in a way that ignores the market. The fact is that the market is economically efficient (except under some circumstances such as monopolies) but it is incapable of delivering justice. In a democracy, justice is delivered through the democratic process. For example, voters in their infinite wisdom have decided that education is a public good to be made accessible to all...and by access I don't mean available for purchase. Theoretically I can purchase a yacht but it ain't happening anytime soon. So if education isn't a commodity, it must be guided by some principles other than market principles and that is where school boards and other political units come in. They decide how to administer schools. I think what you want to argue is that education shouldn't be considered a public good but should be considered a commodity. That is a legitimate point, but I think you are going against the grain. Most Americans want to reform not get rid of public education.
- poldpf
July 5, 2010 at 6:08am
Seattle: I think the student as customer works fine in post-secondary education, where folks actually choose from a wide range of institutions, and pay for the educational service. Having just finished paying for three college degrees at top-ranked schools, I can say that I would feel much better about my purchase had those schools' faculty treated my family more like valued customers who were paying for performance, and less like people just lucky to be initiated into their cult of. You can damned near start a fist-fight just by uttering the analogies student/customer, faculty/service provider in those places. Their guild-conscience forbids them imagining they are being paid for results, rather than nobly and selflessly nurturing the future.
But as poldpf says, I don't think any of this works for public schools. I paid exactly the same school tax levies as my neighbors, even though my children never attended a public school, and I continue to pay them even though I no longer have school-aged family members. I could have had 6 kids in the public school, and paid essentially zero, had I rented rather than owned my home, and worked in a low-wage rather than high-salary job. There simply isn't much linkage between paying and receiving, for exactly the reasons poldpf outlines. And, for most "consumers" of public education, there isn't much room for choice. The range of schools near enough to be accessible is generally very small, and once your student is enrolled you don't get to choose teachers. In the end, you can't shuck a crappy algebra instructor for a different one, even if you know day one that your kid is going to learn nothing for an entire year.
And this is where the seniority and union job safety net really bites. These things indiscriminately protect lousy teachers and good ones, based on longevity rather than performance. I've had my neighbors' children at our kitchen table where I could explain their math and science to them when they quite predictably ended up in a classroom with one teacher or another that everyone in our town who pays attention to schools knows damn well doesn't know their material, or how to teach it. And I mean this literally - a math instructor who could only teach rote memorization of formulas, because he himself did not understand the underlying mathematics. A science instructor who probably knew the material, but couldn't teach a mad dog to bark at the moon, let alone inspire 14 year olds to science. The town lived with them until they retired, none the worse off in salary or retirement benefits for their incompetence.
Now, folks argue that teacher performance is hard to measure. It probably is. So is the absolute performance of the engineers who work for me. Some are spectacularly productive; some unspectacularly but steadily so provided the problem complexity pitched to them suits them; some, inevitably, are in the wrong profession, despite their interest, and indications in their academic record that they should perform. Guess what? We fire the latter. Some do fine for 15 years, then lose interest, and their performance goes down. We move those out too. We can't rank-order our entire work force reliably, but we can sure as hell tell the ones not pulling their weight on project after project. I don't for a minute believe the same isn't possible with teachers.
Of course in reality, we don't actually have to dismiss people very often once they've initially proven themselves capable, because most performance gaps are remediable, and as the good Mr. Johnson said "when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully." Knowing you'll lose your job if you don't stay up to snuff has prodded many an employee with waning interest and enthusiasm to either find something they do wish to do, or improve their performance in what they have to do.
- IowaBeauty
July 5, 2010 at 10:27am
Seattle: sounds good in theory but I'm dubious. For one thing, entry level salaries are awful (and remember how strapped school budgets are) so I think you'd have the revolving door I spoke of with those unemployed engineers. But more than that, being an elementary school teacher is physically EXHAUSTING, especially for new teachers. There are exceptions, but I think it's a difficult job for 40somethings to transition to. That said, I'm all for public school choice, which I think combined with making it easier to get rid of truly, objectively failing teachers, would push things towards a tenure/meritocracy hybrid.
- Lymon1
July 5, 2010 at 6:35pm
"being an elementary school teacher is physically EXHAUSTING" Unlike, for example, working 12 hour days 12 months of the year, and being on the road 50% of the time - something a lot of us manage in our 50s, thank you. I do agree on the salaries though. A typical entry-level high-school teachers salary where I live would represent about a 2/3 - 3/4 reduction in salary for a lot of people on my team.
- IowaBeauty
July 5, 2010 at 10:28pm
Jeez. Compared to what Obama didn't object to/veto on the stimulus package, health care reform, whatever--- this is a pimple on a gnat's ass. What a waste of effort on the part of all concerned in DC and tnr.
- drofnats1
July 5, 2010 at 11:13pm