Although it came as no surprise, it is still worth noting Bret Schundler's confirmation that Chris Christie killed Schundler's deal with the NJEA, which would have brought $400 million to the State, merely because Christie did not want to make peace with the union.
And it's worth noting that the decision to provide annual cost information different from the requested information in the State's Race To The Top application was not an oversight, not a careless error, but instead a conscious decision based on a political calculation.
This information may seem lost in the noise of the ARC Tunnel collapse today, but in the future elections Chris Christie plans to run in, this information will speak loudly about how idealogues function. Future elections won't be run on the premise that there are 2 classes of people, public employees and the taxpayers who pay for them.
Showing posts with label Bret Schundler. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bret Schundler. Show all posts
Monday, October 11, 2010
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
The True Lesson From The Race To The Top
By now, everyone in the State has heard that New Jersey is not getting $400 million in Federal education aid and that Bret Schundler got thrown under the school bus. I don't quite understand what all the hubbub is about -- the Governor's decision not to cut a deal wiht the NJEA was what cost us the money. All the rest is political theater, and not very good theater at that. It does make me wonder whether or not the Governor's smearing of Schundler will cost him any points on the far right -- the folks Schundler was intended to help bring into the fold.
The true story from last week is that Washington, D.C. did qualify for $75 million in Race To The Top funds. The District's implementation of a teacher evaluation system that takes test scores into account was cited as one factor that helped the District into the winners' circle. In fact, test scores accounted for 50% of a teacher's evaluation.
This should be cause for great celebration on the right. District Chancellor Michelle Rhee is a favorite of proponents of charter schools, school vouchers and teacher union busting. The agreement between the district and the Washington Teachers Union is being hailed by some as an example of the direction school districts must take in their union negotiations.
The problem is that the District's teacher evalution process has proven to be somewhat controversial. According to the WTU and the American Federation of Teachers, Chancellor Rhee rushed her evaluation system into use before it was fully tested. The WTU is considering legal action pertaining to the firing of 6% of the District's teachers as a result of the allegedly flawed evaluations.
The issue is whether or not using one year's test scores to fire a teacher is an unfair labor practice. And there is data which strongly suggests that teacher evaluations which only take one year's work into account are flawed. The Wall Street Journal reports that "a large proportion of teachers who rate highly one year fall to the bottom of the charts the next year. For example, in a group of elementary-school teachers who ranked in the top 20% in five Florida counties early last decade, more than three in five didn't stay in the top quintile the following year, according to a study published last year in the journal Education Finance and Policy."
Problems with using test scores to evaluate teachers are well known. Students aren't always assigned to teachers randomly. A teacher who gets a higher percentage of lower scoring students due to that teachers' ability to help those students will be rewarded with a lower evaluation score. Elementary school teachers may only have 15 or 20 students, which is a very small pool on which to judge them. And while using test scores from multiple years helps, it does not solve the problem entirely. The Wall Street Journal cites a report from the Department of Education which shows that, even under an evaluation system using three years of data, one in four teachers will be misclassified.
Awareness of the dangers in rushing teacher evaluation systems into practice cuts across the political spectrum. The WSJ quoutes Frederick Hess, director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, as saying that "[b]ecause education tends to have this moral-crusade element . . . we tend to rush to use things before they are refined or really fully baked."
The Obama administration has been known to take the position that the perfect should not be the enemy of the good. But at least with respect to teacher evaluations, let's hope that the majority of school districts out there recognize that there is no point to an evaluation process that weeds out the good teachers inadvertently.
The true story from last week is that Washington, D.C. did qualify for $75 million in Race To The Top funds. The District's implementation of a teacher evaluation system that takes test scores into account was cited as one factor that helped the District into the winners' circle. In fact, test scores accounted for 50% of a teacher's evaluation.
This should be cause for great celebration on the right. District Chancellor Michelle Rhee is a favorite of proponents of charter schools, school vouchers and teacher union busting. The agreement between the district and the Washington Teachers Union is being hailed by some as an example of the direction school districts must take in their union negotiations.
The problem is that the District's teacher evalution process has proven to be somewhat controversial. According to the WTU and the American Federation of Teachers, Chancellor Rhee rushed her evaluation system into use before it was fully tested. The WTU is considering legal action pertaining to the firing of 6% of the District's teachers as a result of the allegedly flawed evaluations.
The issue is whether or not using one year's test scores to fire a teacher is an unfair labor practice. And there is data which strongly suggests that teacher evaluations which only take one year's work into account are flawed. The Wall Street Journal reports that "a large proportion of teachers who rate highly one year fall to the bottom of the charts the next year. For example, in a group of elementary-school teachers who ranked in the top 20% in five Florida counties early last decade, more than three in five didn't stay in the top quintile the following year, according to a study published last year in the journal Education Finance and Policy."
Problems with using test scores to evaluate teachers are well known. Students aren't always assigned to teachers randomly. A teacher who gets a higher percentage of lower scoring students due to that teachers' ability to help those students will be rewarded with a lower evaluation score. Elementary school teachers may only have 15 or 20 students, which is a very small pool on which to judge them. And while using test scores from multiple years helps, it does not solve the problem entirely. The Wall Street Journal cites a report from the Department of Education which shows that, even under an evaluation system using three years of data, one in four teachers will be misclassified.
Awareness of the dangers in rushing teacher evaluation systems into practice cuts across the political spectrum. The WSJ quoutes Frederick Hess, director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, as saying that "[b]ecause education tends to have this moral-crusade element . . . we tend to rush to use things before they are refined or really fully baked."
The Obama administration has been known to take the position that the perfect should not be the enemy of the good. But at least with respect to teacher evaluations, let's hope that the majority of school districts out there recognize that there is no point to an evaluation process that weeds out the good teachers inadvertently.
Friday, June 11, 2010
Bret Schundler Gets Schooled
Anyone following any New Jersey news media in recent weeks has had to have learned of the clash between Governor Christie and Education Commissioner Bret Schundler over the State's application for Race To The Top funds.
By way of background, Bret Schundler is a former mayor of Jersey City and a former Republican gubernatorial candidate. He was a champion of New Jersey's charter school law, and is widely viewed as a conservative Republican. At least conservative for New Jersey.
Earlier this year, New Jersey submitted an application for a share of the first round of Federal funds available under the Race To The Top program started by President Obama. The State got no money from that application, largely because the State had not secured the cooperation of the New Jersey Education Association.
Commissioner Schundler, in preparing the State's application for a share of the second round of Race To The Top funds, sought to find a compromise with the NJEA that would entice the union to sign on to the State's application. Because Commissioner Schundler thinks that getting Federal funds for education would be a good thing. And the commissioner did find a compromise. However, that compromise included an agreement by the State to withdraw its plans to compensate teachers on the basis of merit and its objection to tenure for teachers with seniority.
In his public disavowment of the deal and of the Commissioner, the Governor said that he was standing up for what he believed in and what he had campaigned on. In his view, teachers were making self-preservation more important than the kids, and the NJEA was protecting its own members at the expense of the State.
The entire episode reminded me of David Gregory's recent interview with Tim Pawlenty, Governor of Minnesota and something of a front-runner for the 2012 Republican nomination for President. Minnesota had a $3 billion budget shortfall in its current budget cycle, and the state legislature wanted to plug part of that hole by allowing Minnesotans to enroll in Medicaid a few years earlier than they otherwise would have under current law.
But Tim Pawlenty said "no." The Governor explained to David Gregory that, since Pawlenty does not believe in big government, it would have been dishonest of him to take that Federal money. So he turned down Federal funds and cut $1.9 billion from the state education budget. And while this 2-year budget was balanced, the next 2 year budget for Minnesota faces a $5.8 billion dollar budget gap.
So, how could Bret Schundler have gone so wrong? By ever believing that there was a compromise with the NJEA that Chris Christie would approve. The Governor does not want Race To The Top funds. He does not want anything that will help the NJEA avoid layoffs for its members, and he does not want anything that makes it possible for the State to meet its school funding obligations under Abbott vs. Burke.
No, what the Governor wants is to use educational policy as a weapon. By that I mean that, just has he did as an advisor to Alberto Gonzalez, the Governor uses every arm of his administration, and sets every policy, towards one goal -- remaking this State into a place where government is not responsible for providing a level playing field, where business is free to function without having its gains redistributed to the less wealthy and where public schools are free to fail.
What Bret Schundler, and quite frankly the rest of us, have to grasp is that these Governors, Christie and Pawlenty, and their far right ilk want to bankrupt the states, to starve the beast of government so that it is incapable of interfering in the marketplace. These guys are playing to a national audience, and are courting voters who will never have to clean up the mess these men leave in their wakes.
And on the national stage, Bret Schundler is no conservative. Compared to Chris Christie and Tim Pawlenty, Bret Schundler is Nancy Pelosi.
By way of background, Bret Schundler is a former mayor of Jersey City and a former Republican gubernatorial candidate. He was a champion of New Jersey's charter school law, and is widely viewed as a conservative Republican. At least conservative for New Jersey.
Earlier this year, New Jersey submitted an application for a share of the first round of Federal funds available under the Race To The Top program started by President Obama. The State got no money from that application, largely because the State had not secured the cooperation of the New Jersey Education Association.
Commissioner Schundler, in preparing the State's application for a share of the second round of Race To The Top funds, sought to find a compromise with the NJEA that would entice the union to sign on to the State's application. Because Commissioner Schundler thinks that getting Federal funds for education would be a good thing. And the commissioner did find a compromise. However, that compromise included an agreement by the State to withdraw its plans to compensate teachers on the basis of merit and its objection to tenure for teachers with seniority.
In his public disavowment of the deal and of the Commissioner, the Governor said that he was standing up for what he believed in and what he had campaigned on. In his view, teachers were making self-preservation more important than the kids, and the NJEA was protecting its own members at the expense of the State.
The entire episode reminded me of David Gregory's recent interview with Tim Pawlenty, Governor of Minnesota and something of a front-runner for the 2012 Republican nomination for President. Minnesota had a $3 billion budget shortfall in its current budget cycle, and the state legislature wanted to plug part of that hole by allowing Minnesotans to enroll in Medicaid a few years earlier than they otherwise would have under current law.
But Tim Pawlenty said "no." The Governor explained to David Gregory that, since Pawlenty does not believe in big government, it would have been dishonest of him to take that Federal money. So he turned down Federal funds and cut $1.9 billion from the state education budget. And while this 2-year budget was balanced, the next 2 year budget for Minnesota faces a $5.8 billion dollar budget gap.
So, how could Bret Schundler have gone so wrong? By ever believing that there was a compromise with the NJEA that Chris Christie would approve. The Governor does not want Race To The Top funds. He does not want anything that will help the NJEA avoid layoffs for its members, and he does not want anything that makes it possible for the State to meet its school funding obligations under Abbott vs. Burke.
No, what the Governor wants is to use educational policy as a weapon. By that I mean that, just has he did as an advisor to Alberto Gonzalez, the Governor uses every arm of his administration, and sets every policy, towards one goal -- remaking this State into a place where government is not responsible for providing a level playing field, where business is free to function without having its gains redistributed to the less wealthy and where public schools are free to fail.
What Bret Schundler, and quite frankly the rest of us, have to grasp is that these Governors, Christie and Pawlenty, and their far right ilk want to bankrupt the states, to starve the beast of government so that it is incapable of interfering in the marketplace. These guys are playing to a national audience, and are courting voters who will never have to clean up the mess these men leave in their wakes.
And on the national stage, Bret Schundler is no conservative. Compared to Chris Christie and Tim Pawlenty, Bret Schundler is Nancy Pelosi.
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