Understanding Government

A Dept. of Education-funded teacher merit pay program in Chicago is not working, reports the Chicago Tribune’s Azam Ahmed.  In 2007, the Chicago Public Schools (then led by current Education Sec. Arne Duncan) received a $27.5 million federal grant to implement a program in select schools where teachers — and the entire school staff — would be rewarded bonus pay for improved student achievement. (more…)

The Chicago Sun-Times Art Golab has a piece that bolsters the argument to effectively link teacher pay with student test scores. (more…)

The Chicago Tribune’s John Keilman reports that the Chicago northern suburb of Evanston has started a system of merit pay for teachers. For the first time ever in any Illinois school district, teachers will be evaluated by the individual test scores of their students. This judgment will then combine with more qualitative evaluations (like a principal monitoring a teacher in the classroom) to evaluate teachers as “excellent,” “satisfactory” or “unsatisfactory.”

As I’ve reported on, state education departments and local school districts across the country feel a ton of pressure to introduce some form of teacher merit pay so they can qualify for billions of dollars in federal Dept. of Education grants. Barack Obama and Education Sec. Arne Duncan speak constantly of teacher accountability and see student test-based performance pay as the main way to hold teachers accountable. However, most local school districts are skeptical. Keilman reports that the most sweeping merit pay plan was done in Washington, D.C. — where the U.S. Congress utilized its power over the district to install the new teacher evaluation system.

Apropos of my back-to-school extravaganza on teacher merit pay, the New York Times’ Sam Dillon takes a look today at teacher layoffs around the country. Dillon can’t give figures on how many teachers have been laid off in the past year, but a clear pattern emerges: State X can’t generate any revenue in the recession. So they lay off, say, 1,000 teachers. Then State X taps into stimulus money and re-hires, say, 700 teachers they’ve just laid off.

One issue here is whether the stimulus should have been big enough to prevent all teacher layoffs or whether the most sensible policy is really the status quo that just makes the layoffs less severe. Related is something I wrote about in the merit pay piece: the Education Dept. got $115 billion from the stimulus bill — more than twice its yearly budget. But a significant amount of that money is not just formula funding so states can deal with budget shortfalls. Billions, instead, are in competitive grants awarded to states whose education policy goals (more charter schools, strict evaluations of teachers) are in line with Barack Obama and Education Sec. Arne Duncan.

I’m ambivalent about how this allocation of education stimulus money is a good idea. On the one hand, if the federal Education Dept. thinks these state education departments are currently not very effective than maybe they’re right to use the stimulus to make these states change, instead of just blindly comping the status quo. But the fiscal crisis might not be the best time for innovation at a state level. Can school districts implement splashy new policies when these same districts are looking for coins under couches to keep band programs and 5th grade art teachers?-MB

Michael Shear and Nick Anderson of the Washington Post have a pretty helpful article explaining the "Race to the Top" fund, a $4.35 billion part of the stimulus bill that Education Sec. Arne Duncan can use at his discretion in granting to state education departments. As for the the politics of the initiative, Shear and Anderson cover the same ground Rom Tomsho of the Wall Street Journal did a week ago: Duncan is clear that this money will only go to states that aggressively expand charter schools and start merit pay for teachers.

Barack Obama has said he wants charter schools and merit pay for teachers because he wants to go with "what works" but there’s no real evidence charter schools are better than traditional public schools. Nevertheless, states like Massachusetts and Tennessee are tripping over themselves to say how much they love charter schools so they can get more stimulus money. So it seems that instead of asking what’s the best policy, state governors and education departments are asking what policies will deliver the most federal money.

A totally different point, in defense of Obama and Duncan, is that we shouldn’t get too alarmed about this Race to the Top fund. While $4.35 billion is a lot in the world of education spending, it’s 1/170th of the $680 billion defense spending bill the Senate just voted for. Probably any money to school districts will be put to relatively good use at this point in the recession when budget shortfalls have forced sweeping cuts in education.-MB