Turning the Titanic: A victory for education reformers in Illinois?

Parent Cafe
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<p>Editorial:</a> A big step forward to improve schools - Chicago Sun-Times</p>

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The odds that your child will be taught by a top-flight public schooteacher just went up in Illinois.</p>

<p>On Wednesday, a potentially game-changing education reform bill emerged in the Illinois Senate. </p>

<p>The bill would make it easier to fire bad teachers, make it harder for teachers to earn tenure and force districts to lay off teachers in tough economic times based on their performance, not strictly on years of service. The bill also would make it harder for teachers to strike and, in Chicago, it would let the school district lengthen the disgracefully short school day and year without consulting the teachers union, though the economic impact of increased work hours would have to be negotiated with the union.</p>

<p>In the slow-moving, cautious and resistant-to-change world of education, this is tantamount to turning the Titanic.</p>

<p>These reforms won’t transform low-performing schools or solve the social problems that limit student achievement, but they are significant nonetheless. They will create — finally — a system in Illinois that rewards and advances our most talented teachers.</p>

<p>The bill upends a deeply entrenched system that rewards teachers for showing up and accumulating years of service and replaces it with one driven by teacher performance. Now, teachers get tenure after four years whether they’re any good or not. Under the bill, tenure would only be granted if a teacher earned two strong evaluations over a three-year period.

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<p>As the editorial shares, this is likely the best bill that could be negotiated in the Illinois' environment. It falls nonetheless way short of a victory, as it represents yet another delay for the days of true reform focused on the children. </p>

<p>As the related article says, it is clear why the unions cling to their previously extorted "rights." </p>

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However, CTU President Karen Lewis said she was “furious’’ about an 11th-hour attempt to scuttle the bill because it preserved the CTU’s right to strike. As a result, Lewis said, she felt the bill had more to do with some groups trying to “destroy the CTU’’ than trying to push “real education reform.’’ </p>

<p>“They wanted to take away our right to strike,’’ Lewis said. “We absolutely refused that.’’ The unions also were able to secure a “fairer” dismissal process, which leaves the decision on whether an unsatisfactorily-rated teacher has actually improved to someone other than the principal who issued the initial evaluation, Lewis said.

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<p>See Sweeping</a> school reform bill targets school day, strikes, bad teachers - Chicago Sun-Times</p>

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<p>It’s about time someone got rid of LIFO. It’s good in skilled trades, maybe, but not education. However, I am concerned that it is now more difficult for the unions to strike. That could lead to some bad deals for teachers.</p>

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<p>While I am strongly in favor of the longer school day, I know (as somone laid off over the last couple of years) that the temptation to lay off the older, higher paid teachers that affect the districts’ health care premiums may be strong for economically struggling school districts. Since so many young teachers leave the profession after a few years, I fear for a school full of inexperienced teachers, especially without the older mentors. </p>

<p>I also fear that if we don’t come up with objective measurements that great teachers will leave the profession. If it is based on student perfromance, what great teacher is going to risk their job to teach in a low income area known for students that have problems that affect performance when they can teach the upper middle class kids of the suburbs? Do we pay the teachers that go to the lowest performing schools more? That would cripple the school district. I don’t mean to sound defeatist, but I don’t see how this is going to help most children, only the school district budget.</p>

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If they assessed by school, that wouldn’t be a problem. They could also assess by academic level of the classes.</p>

<p>But the real problem is that teachers have to be laid off at all. If education wasn’t underfunded, there wouldn’t be so much debate as to how we should properly eliminate the educators of the nation’s youth.</p>

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<p>Our education is only underfunded in terms of a nation that has yet to learn to live within its means. Although the exchange rate of the dollar verus forein currencies skews the comparisons, the United States remains one of the highest spenders for K-12, and one that consistently shows a low ratio of quality and outcomes for spending per capita. In the case of the US, increasing spending has yielded an extremely poor ROI.</p>

<p>The current system suffers from poor performance and unbalanced administrative costs, and it will continue to suffer from untenable compensation levels that resulted from cozy political relationships between the actors that have controlled our education system for the past 60 years. In simpler terms, you cannot expect to attract a younger and adequately trained workforce with low salaries and at the same time justify limo-driven superintendents making 500,000 per year (a la Syosset) or painters who cost a school district over 100,000 per year (read Milwaukee.) </p>

<p>In the end, we waste too much on deadwood and are in drastic need to clear the unionized underbrush. So much for underfunding!</p>

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<p>By all means, deal with the 500K superintendents and the 100k painters. </p>

<p>My husband makes about 50k (with an MD degree) as a teacher. Because he is a good one–who works easily 70 hour weeks, he tends to be assigned greater numbers of students, and greater percentages of the challenging ones. His students’ test scores will not average as good as the teachers who have less students, and less hard to deal with ones.</p>

<p>When he’s fired (because it’s all about the test scores), I’m sure that will somehow cut the salary of that superintendent in Syosset, though for the life of me I can’t imagine how.</p>

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<p>It’s frustrating because every system that is put in place has its pitfalls. Though I hate LIFO, the reason for this is because organizations will otherwise target those making the most money, closest to retirement and that cost the organization the most. I’ve seen this happen all of the time. Get rid of the ones with the disabled kids and with health issues and the oldest age and highest wages. Bigger savings with a lower body count. Some “court” type system needs to be used to decide who goes out the door so that formulas are used intelligently. </p>

<p>Ironic, Garland, that your MD husband is facing this situation, as this is something that doctors who are willing to take the cases with lowest success potential face. There are doctors that will refuse to deal with patients that are high risk and will hurt their numbers that managed care is scrutinizing or will hurt their mortality/success rates.</p>

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<p>I think, nationally speaking, the problem teachers face, really great teachers face, is that too many Americans have had too many bad experiences with bad teachers. Bad teachers are protected by the unions. Many of us feel that it is this protection of bad teachers, the power the teacher has gained to ruin the lives of kids, with no real consequences, which has to go. In a sense, the great teachers have been put in a horrible situation by the unions unwillingness to bend on the issue of bad teachers. JMO.</p>

<p>As for Illinois, in our state, 15% of our budget goes, at this point, to paying pensions, and it is getting highter. We have recently faced major tax hikes and are still running at a deficit. The public employees are caught in the middle of a situation that can not be fixed by higher taxes. For the first time ever in the history of our school district a school funding referendum was voted down by the taxpayers. I’ve never seen that before. People are done. Given the strength of the unions in Illinois, you would have to really understand how “done” people are for politicians to vote this way. It’s very new.</p>

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<p>Cpt–my latest black humor is that my H is killing the professions he belongs to. Managed care (what a misnomer) made medicine impossible for him, and now the teaching profession is falling apart. Too bad; they were both honorable professions.</p>

<p>I told him he should consider being a banker instead.</p>

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<p>That is not the fault of the educators. That is the fault of the leislature. If they would have paid their bills correctly over the last 20 years, they wouldn’t have to spend so much out of the general fund.</p>

<p>Both my parents work in a high school. My sister (24) works in a junior high on the other side of the state. I know my parents are both a part of the NEA and IEA and not by choice. They receive so much JUNK from these two organizations it’s crazy. We don’t go a week here where they don’t get at least one thing in the mail. Normally they will get 3-4 things per week! </p>

<p>Are there things that need to be changed? Most definitely. But people always look at public education as the first place to cut and it shouldn’t be. </p>

<p>For example, at the school my parents work, there are about 900 students. Two full-time PE teachers and another who splits his time between weight lifting and history. When my dad started at the school in the 1980s there were 500 students. And two PE teachers… </p>

<p>How can you expect there to be “success” like that?</p>

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<p>I never said it was the fault of the workers. I just said they are caught in a bad situation. The money has run out. The source of MORE monsy has certainly run out. The CEO of caterpillar has made it perfectly clear to the governor that they will add no new jobs in Illinois, under the currently raised tax scheme, and frankly, they will leave soon enough. The pensions which have “gone under” or been forgiven in bankruptcy proceedings in the private sector were not the fault of the workers either. But, there’s no more money.</p>

<p>It’s not anything but a flat out fact. We have simply reached the point where promises can’t be kept, compromises must be made, and nobody is winning. Not the taxpayers, not the workers, just the pols and union bosses, which has been the way in this state forever.</p>

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<p>Ha, ha, Garland. Too late. How about law? He’d get accolades if he can do his thing there.</p>

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<p>It is also the fault of the union officials. They lobbied heavy year after year. They got what they asked for.</p>

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<p>Public education works just fine. The U.S. ranks second or third in every international ranking or test, in virtually age group and in virtually every subject. 80% of American parents feel their local school is just fine. I’m not a fan of schools or teachers, but the fact that American kids do as well as they do is a tribute to hardworking, tenured, unionized schoolteachers all across the U.S. (and I say this as a homeschooler.)</p>

<p>But…it is only 2nd or 3rd - and school satisfaction is high - if you take out the kids who live in poverty. In Finland (often ranked 1st), fewer than 2% of kids in school are in poverty (and most of those don’t speak Finnish). In the U.S., it is 20-24%, depending on which source you use. They can’t even find a sample of Finnish or Hong Kong poor kids large enough to compare with the American ones. And, generally speaking, the gap between poor kids and their non-poor counterparts is getting larger.</p>

<p>Education is not an answer to poverty. (Though there are other things which DO make a difference, including access to books at home and free access to books in classrooms, free reading time in classrooms, good community libraries and low-income easy access to them. Oh, and food helps.)</p>

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<p>And I agree with you. And have an easy solution that will never fly. It’s time the Judicial Branch (both at the state and probably the Federal levels) start going after the politicians who are flat-out lying and flat-out breaking the law. Throw their butts in jail and get somebody in there who will do the job correctly. </p>

<p>TRS is mandated by state law. It MUST be funded. It’s not a broken promise that it hasn’t been funded correctly by the General Assembly; it’s a broken law! That’s one difference between the state pension systems and the private pensions.</p>

<p>But we all know politicians are above the law…</p>

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<p>Hopscout–</p>

<p>I don’t disagree with anything you’ve said. AND I don’t think the politicians are going to be the ones to pay for this, not at the local level, not at the state level and not at the federal level.</p>

<p>It will be the workers who lose out. States are going to start to go bankrupt in order to avoid and renogitiate these unkept promises. It’s a shame we can’t get more control over what “they” do with the money, whoever “they” are, but it just never seems to happen.</p>

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<p>Mini, why do you enjoy posting erroneous information? </p>

<p>Speaking of knowing, I also know that I am wasting my time correcting your stealth posts over and over. And I also know that your cynical definition of having a system of education that works well if framed in your cynical view that it does what it is supposed to do, which ics in your words making sure we have enough Walmart workers. </p>

<p>For the record, it is totally FALSE to claim that “The U.S. ranks second or third in every international ranking or test, in virtually age group and in virtually every subject.” At best, in the hands of professional apologists, the statistics can be skewed to control for poverty, but the result is still far from your claim. </p>

<p>The reality is that US students do reasonably well through elementary schools and not so well in middle schools. This is not hard to correlate to the diminishing role played by parents. However, it goes downhill from there as our 15 years old do poorly, and would be ranked extremely poorly in comparisons for graduating seniors, regardless of our talent to obfuscate the abysmal graduation rates in the country, and the stomach-churning statistics in large urban centers. </p>

<p>The saddest reality is that we have made no improvements since the days of A Nation at Risk. All we have done is adding bandaids to a wooden leg. </p>

<p>But yes, when it comes to our education self-esteem, we do really well. In the international tests, american kids usually score among the highest when asked how they FEEL about their performance. Too bad that the scores reflect a different story.</p>

<p>PS As far as the 80 percent satisfaction, here’s one of the sources for such data:</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.gallup.com/poll/122432/parents-rate-schools-higher-americans-overall.aspx[/url]”>http://www.gallup.com/poll/122432/parents-rate-schools-higher-americans-overall.aspx&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>In support of Mini’s assertions:</p>

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<p>[Schools</a> Matter: PISA Scores Show U.S. Should Export Poor Children](<a href=“http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2011/01/pisa-scores-show-us-should-export-poor.html]Schools”>Schools Matter: PISA Scores Show U.S. Should Export Poor Children)</p>

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<p>I think the move towards more testing and tying teacher pay and success to test scores are huge mistakes. Fortunately, some are seeing Michelle Rhee for the fraud she is. I’m no fan of Race to the Top either - a great disappointment to me coming out of the Obama administration.</p>

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<p>agreed and agreed, cartera.</p>