Post a comment about the budget cuts at your school on our interactive comment map. more »
GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools
incenting change
July 9, 2009
Obama official to New York: Change your tenure law or else
Joanne Weiss
The Obama administration official in charge of an educational innovation fund yesterday issued a warning to a New York audience: Unless the state legislature revises a law now on the books about teacher tenure, the state could lose out on the $4.35 billion fund she controls.
Joanne Weiss said the Obama administration aims to reward states that use student achievement as a “predominant” part of teacher evaluations with the extra stimulus funds — and pass over those that don’t. New York state law currently bans using student data as a factor in tenure decisions.
Test scores aren’t everything, Weiss said. “But it seems illogical and indefensible to assume that those aren’t part of the solution at all,” she said, echoing nearly word-for-word Education Secretary Arne Duncan’s remarks last week to the National Education Association.
The pessimism about New York’s policies is a departure from Duncan’s tone during a visit to New York City in February, when he was cheery about the state’s chances in the competition. Duncan also briefly mentioned New York as one of several states whose firewalls around student and teacher data need to come down in a recent speech, and he indicated that New York’s cap on charter schools may also hurt the state’s chances at a slice of the stimulus pie.
Weiss, who worked at the New Schools Venture Fund before heading to Washington, said the “disadvantage” of the tenure law to New York could be counterbalanced by efforts here that the Obama administration admires. She praised a New York City program that is evaluating individual teachers based on their students’ test scores. One strength of the program, Weiss said, is that city teachers generally accept the evaluations as an accurate and fair assessment of their performance.
The question, she said, is whether the district uses the evaluations in a meaningful way to drive high performance. “Can you pull it together in time and in a coherent fashion?” she said.
Currently, the teacher reports have no bearing on formal job evaluations or personnel decisions, and it was just after their creation that the city teachers union lobbied for the law banning test scores in decisions about tenure. The change stipulates that “a teacher shall not be denied or granted tenure based on student performance data.” The provision sunsets next year, but after the panel Weiss said that the sunset is too far away to help New York’s applications.
Weiss was in town to discuss The New Teacher Project’s report “The Widget Effect,” which was released last month and urged districts to overhaul their teacher performance evaluations. She spoke on a panel at the Carnegie Corporation alongside Rob Weil, the American Federation of Teacher’s deputy director of educational issues.
The federal Department of Education won’t release the exact criteria for receiving the competitive Race the the Top money until the end of July, and New York City is only just beginning to plan an application for a separate $650 million fund available to school districts. (A New York State Education Department spokeswoman did not return a request for comment this morning on the state’s progress.)
But Weiss’s remarks match the fund’s requirement that a state has made “significant progress” in four areas: raising academic standards, improving data systems, turning around struggling schools and improving teacher effectiveness. These are the same “four assurances” that states promised to pursue when they accepted the stimulus money that has already been distributed.
Weil, of AFT, said that the assurances are already affecting conversations around the country, where districts are using them as an excuse to push certain programs. In order to assure federal funding, the district officials tell union leaders, they need to make these changes, Weil said.
One reason federal officials have praised New York City while deriding the state could be that states and local districts are applying for two separate pots of money. The $4.35 billion Race to the Top Fund is dedicated to projects at the state level. An additional $650 million of stimulus funds have been set aside for local district innovations. It’s possible, then, that the fund could award a grant to the city while passing over the state.
Daniel Weisberg, who co-authored The New Teacher Project’s report and who formerly headed up labor policy at the city Department of Education, said that he thought the change in tone at the federal level could drive a change in state law. The turmoil in the state legislature keeps everything up in the air, but he said the pressure from above makes significant reform to teacher evaluation a realistic goal.
“It’s a motivator,” he told me. “Will it get the job done? I don’t know.”
In an interview after the panel, Weiss said that the state will need to get the job done to have top consideration for the grant funds. “We will reward accomplishments, not promises,” she said.
-
July 9th, 2009 3:47 pm
Call her bluff.
If moderate reformers in the AFT don’t have the guts to stand firm on this, the backlash will be awful.
If a state as powerful as NY doesn’t have the guts to stand firm on this, others will crumble. OK, a “reformer” has had her say. Obama has bigger fish to fry, but there is a natural compromise that should be a no-brainer to him. The firewall on teacher indicators will be dropped when a firewall is created to keep test data from being used in evaluations. We could still move ahead with the Denver Plan and the Toledo Plan and similar approaches.
After all, it makes sense to use test scores when appropriate as in performance incentives. But it doesn’t make sense where it is not appropriate, as in evaluations where it could destroy the career of good and effective teachers.
I want the AFT to support Obama, regardless. But I’d like my union to be willing to announce the formation of a major litigation fund to destroy any schemes for using test scores for evaluation. I want districts to know that they will lose more in legal fees than they will gain in Race to the Top Funds if they go down that path.
Then when we drive a stake through the hearts of that mentality, I want my union to go back to being as moderate and willing to compromise as possible. If we want sustainable progress for kids, we can’t get punked on this.
If we lose this one, what self-respecting person would make a career teaching in high-poverty schools? We owe this to our profession.
-
July 9th, 2009 6:02 pm
The ISS math teacher in my school worked very hard to get her class through the geometry curriculum. She spent countless hours on her own time working with them. In spite of this, very few passed. She did her job well. She went above and beyond the call of duty. The students learned a lot, but not enough to pass. She should not be judged by their exam proposal. This new ruling will encourage teachers like her to avoid teaching these classes. Several years ago I taught a group of seniors that had not passed one math class since they wre freshman. If my tenure depended on their passing I would not have volunteered for this challenging assignment and the 27 out of 28 kids I got to pass might not have made it.
-
July 9th, 2009 6:13 pm
PissedOff, I think u misunderstand the idea here.
The measurement is not 1/0. It’s not yes/no.
The measurement in places that use value-added assessment….if the average kid started with a baseline knowledge of geometry at, say, 30% ….and then through heroic teacher the average score went up to 55%….that teacher would be REWARDED for huge gains, irrespective of pass rates.
So if she worked hard and they made progress over what you describe as a low starting point, she would be rewarded.
It’s true that if she worked hard and the kids didn’t actually make any progress — ie if what you mean by failing is that they actually didn’t make any gains (2 different things) — then, while she wouldn’t receive any bonus, she WOULD learn an important thing…that she needs to change her methods.
How would she know what to learn? An obvious place to start would be to find teachers who have similar staring points but who DO get kids to make big gains. And learn from them. Currently, there’s no way for her to know who those teachers are.
-
July 9th, 2009 7:28 pm
Stimulus Innovation Fund and Teacher Evaluation…
Joanne Weiss, the ED official in charge of doling out the nearly $5 billion Race to the Top fund (part of ARRA), talked teacher evaluation at a recent panel in New York City (Gothamschools.org has the story……
-
July 9th, 2009 8:15 pm
See a bummary of Teacher Evaluation Law below: http://www.nysut.org/files/bulletin080807_tenuredetermination.pdf
The law calls for peer review, where possible, the teachers use of student achievement data may be part of the evaluation, but not the data itself. The law will be revisted in the 2010 legislative session. With the Obama stim dollars due to be allocated in the Fall no changes will be made in NYS by next Fall … and if the administration wants use the withholding od dollars … so be it … 300,000 teachers in NYS can withhold votes …
-
July 9th, 2009 8:15 pm
See a summary of Teacher Evaluation Law below: http://www.nysut.org/files/bulletin080807_tenuredetermination.pdf
The law calls for peer review, where possible, the teachers use of student achievement data may be part of the evaluation, but not the data itself. The law will be revisted in the 2010 legislative session. With the Obama stim dollars due to be allocated in the Fall no changes will be made in NYS by next Fall … and if the administration wants use the withholding of dollars … so be it … 300,000 teachers in NYS can withhold votes …
-
July 9th, 2009 8:57 pm
I understand perfectly well. And, teachers do know what others are doing. In spite of what you think, we do not work in a vacuum. And, although it is politically incorrect to say, I’ll say it anyways, everyone has learning ceilings including you and me. Besides, we all know that data tends to say whatever you want it to say.
-
July 9th, 2009 11:23 pm
I’ve never heard the research basis for determining exactly what a year’s progress is in any child in any subject. Absent that, I’m curious how value-added models will work fairly. I must also point out that this forces a nuance-averse vision of education. It is not a simple matter of being for or against accountability, for or against teacher quality, or even for or against tenure. If you see an effective education as the slow build-up of general knowledge that may take years — literally — to bear fruit, then it seems like we are speeding down a road that makes this all but impossible to achieve.
-
July 10th, 2009 12:03 am
GGW,
You should know that there have not been any quality studies — at least none that I or anyone I know have been able to find — that show that the tests in question are instructionally sensitive.
Value added measures have shown remarkable inconsistency from year to year (i.e. the best teachers on year are not shown to be the best the next year), a well-known sign that the metric does not measure a quality intrinsic to those it is being attributed to. Value-added is a nice theory, and there’s a lot of fancy math there, and it gives you these great numbers or rankings at the end. But the single most fundamental assumption of value-added models for teacher effectiveness is that the tests have instructional sensitivity.
If tests were instrctuionally sensitive then we could discuss whether or not they appropriately measure progress on the standards. But we can’t even have THAT discussion, at least not yet.
So, it is remarkably stupid to demand that states incorporate such data into tenure decisions. I am not rejecting the idea that achievement data might be useful for this purpose in the future, but rather am pointing out that the tests we have were not designed for those kinds of inferences and simply cannot support them.
-
July 10th, 2009 4:45 am
Sorry, John. Don’t expect the AFT to do much more than cheerlead. The attack on tenure by the Obama administration is just the cover the UFT and NYSUT need to duck out of the way as tenure law in NYS is gutted.
As a matter of fact, the dysfunctional state leg doesn’t even have to be involved. Watch the upcoming UFT contract, which takes precedence over tenure law, as the UFT will trade money for what will appear to be minor modifications but over time turn out to be disaster.
-
July 10th, 2009 8:31 am
You’ve got a progressive president looking to shake up the system and try something new because **what’s been in place isn’t working for all kids** and people are squabbling about job protection.
The muckraking days are over, people, no one is losing fingers in factory accidents and kids aren’t working long hours in windowless rooms. At least not in this country. The key labor battles have been won, and teachers have multiple avenues for dealing with injustice.
We don’t have to throw out the baby with the bathwater, but when it comes to student outcomes, job protection (as opposed to due process, which is sound organizational management) is the bathwater.
Maybe the teachers’ unions should stop fighting for the job protection of all constituents and instead focus on ferreting out the ‘good’ principals from the ‘bad,’ so none of their constituents have to work under a tyrant. And let the ‘good’ principals get rid of the ‘bad’ teacher so that all of the teachers who are earning their keep can work in a successful environment.
Aren’t those two things that every teacher wants? A fair boss and a successful work environment?
By fighting for tenure and withholding 300,000 votes to keep it (sure, let’s see it, I’d like to see the national or even statewide debate on this one), unions and teacher activists are undermining the very effort to accomplish those two goals.
Has anyone noticed that teachers don’t have any formal say in principals’ evaluations? In other fields there is a 360 degree review of top level administrators, including direct reports. If I’m a union president, I’m fighting for a seat at the table in reviewing the principal. That will do a helluva lot more to keep supervisors honest and create a fair work environment than will fighting for an outdated, outmoded “right.”
-
July 10th, 2009 9:03 am
As long as data will be used, poor principals will rule. Numbers will be “juked” to enhance any and all politician and principals stature and success. Look what we have in New York now..the highest graduation rates ever…for kids who are heading straight to remedial classes in Community Colleges, only to drop out later.
Miss Weiss, I’d ask that you stay in Washington and let us know how our bailout money to AIG and others is doing and when we can get some of it it back to help ALL the children in public schools. I hear AIG is looking to dole out bonuses again, and I’d rather you represent the working and middle class, in that sense.
-
July 10th, 2009 9:18 am
Probationary teachers are basically “at will” employees, teachers achieve tenure, a “just cause” dismissal procedure, after three years of satisfactory service, …the law encourages peer review, states the uses of data may be part of the evaluation process, and, prohibits actual pupil achievement data to be used in the evaluation of probationary teachers … tenured teachers my be charged and brought to trial, the standards, “incompetence,” “conduct unbecoming a teacher,” are vague, defined in case law, not statute … The UFT contract establishes clear procedures and timelines to move the process forward as expeditously as possible. Few teachere are brought up on charges because the DOE fails to hire investigators and lawyers … The DOE and Principals whine that it is “too hard” to fire tenured teachers is a charade … management has an obligation to monitor instruction, and, if warrented the process will lead to formal charges and initiate the “trial of charges,” at which the principal presents their case and the teacher/union responds.
A study of teacher trials in NYS: http://books.google.com/books?id=AilGTNBVFGcC&dq=%22teachers+on+trial%22&printsec=frontcover&source=bl&ots=q7eqW_q3M_&sig=qbWph_dD9xWzoN1_3LcEdR-gsEU&hl=en&ei=RT1XSpzrE9LBtwfdvcHdCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4
A summary of the current tenure granting process: http://www.nysut.org/files/bulletin080807_tenuredetermination.pdf
-
July 10th, 2009 10:06 am
As long as you believe that the use of data can’t be improved and is inherently flawed, you’ll be living farther and farther in the 20th century as the 21st marches on. We’re not talking logical positivism here (that would be 19th century), we’re talking logical decision-making. And accountability should have many facets, not just one.
-
July 10th, 2009 10:56 am
KitchenSink,
I tend to believe that tests *can* be made instructionally sensitive. But it actually has yet to be proven. Assuming that I am right, however, we should still wait to allow use of test data in tenure decision-making until such tests are available. So, I would support amending the law/clause in question to expire once the instructional sensitivity of the tests have been shown/proven. But I certainly do not see a good purpose in overturning it before that point.
Frankly, I hope that misusing data does not become the standard for 21st century thinking. It actually bears a greater resemblance to pre-modern thinking (i.e. superstition and magic) than modern or post-modern thinking. The absence of rigorous testing or proof that the data is truly applicable to this particular set of decisions, replaced instead by the assumption that it is because it seems like it might be, smacks of pre-modern thinking. I agree with you that should be adopting the best 21st century thinking to this task.
So, let’s improve the data, and use it when it is ready. But we shouldn’t misuse it simply because it is there.
-
July 10th, 2009 11:08 am
KitchenSink,
You write, “the key labor battles have been won.” But I think that you actually have (wisely) contradicted yourself on this later in your comment.
Clearly, the key workplace safety battles have been won. Perhaps the key child labor battles have been won. But it is not clear that work dignity, living wage, healthcare and retirement security are anywhere near won. In fact, there seem to be rollbacks in those areas. I would argue that there remain many key labor battle to be won, or even re-won.
You raise an excellent point, however, and one that might be especially relevant to professional unions. Oughtn’t professionals have a significant formal role in evaluating their supervisors and site managers? I think that they should, but I would disagree that they usually do in other professions.
Yes, we are at the point where many people know what a 360-degree evaluation is. But I’ll bet that most white collar workers do not. And I know from my own first hand and lots of second hand experience that upwards evaluations are rarely weighed heavily in supervisor’s/managers evaluations. Letting workers fill our forms and/or surveys is an important step, but actually factoring them in significantly is an equally step — one that few workplaces have taken.
I would support your call for the UFT to focus on gaining a seat in principal evaluations. And I would support some reform of tenure laws — perhaps even renaming them as due process protections. But I see no reason to believe that it is time to simply get rid of tenure.
-
July 10th, 2009 12:24 pm
Kitchensink,
Youre position is fundamentally a-historical. Worst, its awfully insentive to the realities of the human condition. Some fights will never be over.
Similarly, you miss the point about motives. Pass VAM-driven evaluations and poor schools will be reduced to a bunch of para’s running tutorials so that we will have a fig leaf to shield us from the hard truth that we had pulled the plug on education for the poor. In the poorest neighborhood schools, at least, no self-respecting teacher would put up with such a system.
Norm, I thought of you first and clicked to your site. I hope your wrong.
The idea that teachers would put money above principle and not fight for their fellow teachers and students thinking that it will never happen to me is too discouraging for me to contemplate.
-
July 10th, 2009 12:56 pm
I’ve written a little more about this at http://www.shermandorn.com/mt/archives/003044.html — I’ll follow up in a week or two, but there is a grand bargain possible.
-
July 11th, 2009 3:09 pm
John, I out something up but need to explain more.
In the UFT, there is an non-teaching oligarchy that controls things and make narrow decisions in their own interests. Thus, since they can’t deliver working conditions, they try to deliver money, even if it’s based on test scores or by selling off pieces of tenure or other parts of the contract. They sell this to the members through a massive PR operation. If the resistance was stronger we could slow them down or stop them. That is why the major goal is building this resistance in the belly of the biggest beast. Wish you were in town as I know you would be with us.
-
July 11th, 2009 3:10 pm
John, I out something up but need to explain more.
In the UFT, there is an non-teaching oligarchy that controls things and make narrow decisions in their own interests. Thus, since they can’t deliver working conditions, they try to deliver money, even if it’s based on test scores or by selling off pieces of tenure or other parts of the contract. They sell this to the members through a massive PR operation. If the resistance was stronger we could slow them down or stop them. That is why the major goal is building this resistance in the belly of the biggest beast. Wish you were in town as I know you would be with us.
-
July 13th, 2009 10:05 am
I have not read any of you comment on the fact that this whole thing is Unconstitutional since the feds cannot set ed policy.. That is a power of the states. The dept of ed should not even exist let alone be able to strong arm policy. Get rid of the dept of ed and all the tax dollars that we sent to washington to fund this abusrd branch should be sent back.. Think that would help plug a hole in our education fundung? I think so.
-
July 13th, 2009 12:12 pm
Insider Knowledge,
Well, there are a lot of other parts of the federal government that are not mentioned explicitly in the constitution. Transportation, a central bank, food and drug safety, communications and so on and so on. Are you saying that all of these things are unconstitutional, as well?
The fact is that these issues are long since settled. Perhaps a literalist would read the constitution that way, but that is not the current of Supreme Court jurisprudence, not now and not ever. Heck, going all the way back to the beginning, Hamilton and Jefferson debated the creation of the mint and the national bank. We’ve always had the federal government exerting powers that were not explicitly granted in the constitution. While the Supreme Court occasionally sets limits on this stuff, the idea that some powers and areas of governance are implied by the constitution is well established and accepted as a matter of constitutional law.
One way that that the feds do this is by holding off from requiring things of the states, not trying to overrule state policy. Rather, they condition funding upon states voluntarily conforming to Washington’s preferred policies. You might not like this strategy, but it is well established and has the Supreme Court’s blessing — and the it the Supreme Court that rules on constitutionality.
And last, how much money do you think that the US DOE spends in DC and how much do you think that it send out to the states? You really think that shutting it down in DC is going to close the holes in our education funding? It might help richer states — who send more money to DC than they get back — but it would cripple state DOEs in poorer states. Even in rich states, it would not help all that much. Historically, the DOE in Washington has provided the funding for state DOEs — something that has been hard for them to do locally. In fact, some quick research online shows that that DOE spends less than 2.5% of its budget on its own management. The rest goes to grants, programs and the like. The money the US DOE spends on its own management wouldn’t even solve NYC’s issues, let alone the nation’s.
-
July 13th, 2009 2:56 pm
IK and C,
I’d rather look at federal vs. state (vs. NYC) from another point of view: Per the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, NYC has been the biggest net tax exporter to NYS — moreso than any other city to its state — and NYS in turn one of the biggest to the fed (10th out of 50 per link* and clickthru to 1999 report, to the tune of $15-$20B per year, even back then).
So where’s our commensurate return funding flow? And under Obama/Duncan, we don’t even get a portion of that without overhauling tenure rules?
NYS and NYC are getting shorted. And that was BEFORE the turned-out-hollow CFE court victories.
* http (colon) //fiscreport (dot) org/
-
July 13th, 2009 5:18 pm
Michael M.
Yes, NY — as one of the richer states — pays a lot more to the feds than it gets back. I believe the same is true of NYC’s money being sent to Albany.
I would say that you cannot simply put all that money into education — even if I would like to be able to.
More importantly, this gets to the nature of federal system in our union. Should each state, each region of state, each neighborhood, each family and each individual get back the same in services that it pays in taxes? It’s pretty clear that we are not in that kind of country. I don’t know many people who want to be in that kind of country.
We can argue about the individual formulas, or the values and assumptions they are built upon. But the overall outcomes that the richer give more than they get is rather uncontrovertible at this time.
This particular issue is quite different than that larger issue.
In fact, I think that the best argument against this effort by Duncan is that it was not authorized congress, at least not explicitly. I would be curious to know of other examples of the executive branch alone requiring states to change their laws in exchange for funding.
-
July 13th, 2009 5:56 pm
C,
Agreed re executive branch walking softly and carrying a big, if not UN-authorized, stick. The noive!As to your first few paras, did you even check out the link?
The system is not as altruistic or rational as you — or I (gimme some credit, puleeze) — would like it to be. Which was part of Moynihan’s point once he started digging into it on a national level, not just from a NYS-booster point of view. It ain’t rational. Ferrexample, in the 1999 “Fisc” (the last year before it was discontinued, there were three states in the top ten of net recipients who were also amongst the top ten in per capita income*, albeit from 2004-2006, best I could do with one foot out the door. To whit: VA, AK, HI. Rich states getting richer.
Well, at least I wasn’t accused of “flailing.” I guess we’re making progress.
* http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/income06/statemhi3.html
-
July 13th, 2009 6:26 pm
Ceolaf, First I want to thank you for expanding the discussion and as always your pots are well written and well thought out. I see what you are saying about the supreme court but it doesn’t mean I have to agree with it. Yes i do believe that we must get government off our backs and out of our living room on more then issue then education. Central Bank? Got six years for me to sit here and crow about that one? I am not explicitly against uniformity in standards and in that instance yes the federal branch would be best able to enforce that but as far as the money is concerned if states totally rely on federal dollars to fund education then they are not doing the job. There are so many ways to fix this problem with out the Dept of Ed. For one we could reduce military spending by half and use that money to fund education in the poorer states. WE don’t need a dept to do that just a line item in the budget. If we cut our military expense we still out spend the rest of the world on military spending. Now in your last post I think you touched another key point and that is the rich paying more but getting less being incontrovertible.. I think when we look at the action of the city DOE that is exactly what is going on. The rich of new york simply don’t want to pay for something they don’t use so they are looking to privatize as much as possible by expanding the charter movement and gaining public support by acting as if they care about the performance of poor minorities in school. Just a thought feel free to retort
-
July 13th, 2009 6:49 pm
Insider Knowledge,
I appreciate that you would like to live in a country whose Constitution has quite a different meaning than ours does. I understand that you wish that the leaders of our government, including members of the supreme court, and including original framers/founding fathers, had interpreted out Constitution differently.
However, you do not and they did not. I wish I lived in a world where I was able to develop the coordination and concentration necessary for reliable jumper. But I don’t and never did. (Alas…one of the ongoing tragedies of my life.)
It simply is not correct to say that the National Bank or any number of other aspects of our government are unconstitutional. You can say that you wish they were, and you think that that would be a valid reading of the constitution. However, the courts have made clear that — even if that reading might be a valid one — it is not the reading of our country. Remember, our countries earliest leaders and justices were involved in the discussion that came before and during the constitutions’ writing — and the Bill of Rights’. I would suggest that they were in better position to figure out what the Framers intended, and the Originalists of our day should acknowledge that even the those who were “in the room” 220 years ago believed that federal powers could be implied by the constitution.
***********************
Actually, I did not say that states rely on federal dollars to fund education. Rather, I said that state DOEs rely on federal dollars for their budgets. The feds cover 7-10% of education spending, and the bulk has been split more or less evenly between localities and states — with variance across the states.
The state DOE funding I mentioned was about Albany offices and personnel, not NYC, Westchester, Troy, Newburgh or any school district. What we get from Albany and other state DOEs is a perfectly valid question. But it is not at all like the feds pay for but the smallest share of education.
Obviously, there are any number of other federal programs whose funding you or I might divert to education. But that’s a different issue.
As for the rich paying more than the poor, I still think that that is incontrovertible. The questions we debate are about how much much (e.g. how progressive a tax structure should be). Remember, even a flat tax takes more from the rich, as the have more money in the first place. (That doesn’t mean that I endorse a flat tax. We’ve lost a lot of the progressivism in our tax code, with top rates simple at the 250kish level. Millionaire and billionaire taxes don’t seem at all crazy to me.)
-
July 13th, 2009 7:05 pm
Michael,
I flail around quite a bit, especially verbally. I cannot tell the number of brick walls that I have damaged myself on.
As for the net exchange of funds with DC, I don’t defend the formulas, just the principle.
But I acknowledge that it is hard to figure out how to do this stuff. A geographically large state with a small population might need a great deal of federal funds, even if it is high in income per capita. At time, per capita funding makes sense, but at other times perhaps we should consider per square mile. Do we really want to begrudge MT more highway $/capita?
As for VA and HI, you clearly are including military spending. How do we want to factor that in? This is money that gets paid locally, but quite a bit of it gets paid to people who were added and thereby have directly increased many local costs. Spending might be accounted for as going to those states, but how is it handled if those bases spend money with contractors in other states?
The Army Core of Engineers is in VA. How is its spending accounted? If they travel and do work in another state, how are their expenses applied to this geographic accounting? What about spending on fleet maintenance in Norfolk?
I would also question VA’s ranking as a high income state. It’s income has increased dramatically in the last 20 years, and there’s a lot of issues outside of Northern VA. Certainly, it takes the feds time to update their formulas, too.
Generally, I agree with you that funding is not dispersed well. Low population states have disproportionate representation in our government, creating a structural barrier to addressing this issue. But there are other aspects of the problem that ought to be addressable. However, these kinds of tables that you mention — and I’ve been looking at then since the 1980’s — are too gross a view to provide a meaningful picture.
-
July 13th, 2009 9:39 pm
Ceolaf our constitution is dying a slow death and rationalizing it through the actions of the supreme court is the equivalent of shoveling the dirt on it. Point out where in the constitution it says there should be a central bank. The founders did not want this because they feared what a central bank might become. The man with the most control over our economy is not even elected. This is democracy? Thomas Jefferson is rolling in his grave right now and would be quite angry with the direction of our country were he alive today. The states rights debate started then and continues today. They would not be in favor of strong arming states by using blood money. All that is is legaliese to get around the constitution.
-
July 13th, 2009 10:30 pm
Well, that’s your view, IK. My view is that history clearing points our that your view is a mistaken one, from the beginning.
Yes, from the beginning. It was the founders who chartered the first national bank, so you’d have a lot trouble supporting your claim that they were — as a group — against it. Considering that TJ was responsible for the Louisiana Purchase (though he didn’t intend its magnitude), you’d have a lot of trouble supporting a claim that he was originalist textual literalist. You simply cannot win your argument by claiming “the founders” agree with you.
Again, you are allowed to prefer a different reading of the Constitution and constitutional law — which really needs to be understood in the context of a much longer history of common law. But the fact that your preferred reading was clearly inoperable as early as 1791 means that that reading is not the American reading and really never was.
And so, this strong arming (”blood money”? Really? You want to call it “blood money”?) might be problematic — to me because it violates the constitutionally established checks and balances (an idea that is not stated explicitly anywhere in the document). We certainly don’t like it when pushes states to do things that we don’t like. Some don’t like it because they don’t want the feds to have any role at all in education. But the tactic itself has long since been ruled Constitutional by those far more qualified to make such judgments than you or I, those who were given the power to make such judgments by the very Constitution itself.
-
July 17th, 2009 8:13 am
Why are teachers left always the target? I rarely see people mention the fact that in most impoverished communities young people enter school lacking 1,500 academic English words. Moreover, once they enter the testing grades most are still missing up to 5,000+ academic English words that they need to have mastered in order to be proficient. Furthermore, if you grow up not being read to or not seeing people read then you too have no value for literacy in your life. I know many teacher that work 12-14 hour days preparing to help these students succeed in life and for their high stakes test. However, the students spend a small time in this safe environment called school and ultimately return home to the same conditions that caused them to have such extensive learning deficits. If Obama really wants to get tough, then begin holding parents accountable for their children. Does Obama realize that while he taunted McCain for a third term of Bush he has offered America’s young people a third term of “No Child Moved Ahead!” I want change NOW.
-
July 17th, 2009 9:36 am
Reggie
Some schools in poor communities do much better than others … why? (See the Ed Trust website for actual schools) … Some combinations of school leaders and teachers have figured it out, and many haven’t … spending 12-14 hours a day is laudatory … but is the time well spent? No matter how hard teachers work, if they are not successful, should there be negative consequences? If other teachers, working with the same kids are successful, should there be positive consequnces? Ending poverty, reducing unemployment, improving housing and health care, reducing crime are all extremely important … but throwing up one’s hands and espouse that schools cannot succeed is unacceptable …
-
July 17th, 2009 10:14 am
Reggie and Peter,
I hear Reggie saying, in so many words, “Student outcomes are not completely within teachers’ and schools’ control.” I agree.
And I hear Peter saying, loosely, “Some teachers and schools more than others make a huge difference.” Again, I agree.
But I did NOT hear Reggie saying “schools cannot succeed.” I heard, “Get parents more involved.” And what’s wrong with that?
Last night, Obama said, “No excuses.” He did NOT say “Only the teachers and schools should be on the hook.”
Apologies if I was unsuccessful at finding common ground.
-
July 17th, 2009 11:11 am
GS linked to this story on yesterday’s nightcap about the achievement gap being smaller in schools the Dept of Defense runs for service members’ kids. (Not just smaller “gap”: higher scores, and a 97% high school graduation rate!)
It’s a quick read, and quite relevant to the above comments (not to mention the charter debate). Key paras:
“The DoDEA’s success is not an isolated event. The system serves over 84,000 students in 12 foreign countries, seven states, Guam, and Puerto Rico. According to a 2007 Education World article DoDEA schools share many characteristics of typically found in low-performing public schools. Forty percent of students are minorities, 50 percent of the students eligible for free lunches, and a 35 percent annual mobility rate. “Yet, the schools have a 97 percent high school graduation rate, and the majority of students go on to higher education,” Education World finds. DoDEA’s success is attributed to factors inside and outside of the classroom.
Within the school, DoDEA has high academic expectations of students and regularly assess students’ progress. All schools use the same curriculum and have standardized classroom procedures to make students’ transition process less stressful. External factors might play an even more important role. Behavioral problems are not an issue due to the values students are taught at home. This in turn allow teachers to spend more time on teaching.
Militarizing all public schools is not a practical approach to school reform. This view might be one of the reasons there has been a lack of collaboration between military and civilian schools. However, this is changing. The latest round of base realignments and closures in 2005 has forced some military personnel to send their children to civilian schools. These changes prompted the Defense Department to create an Education Partnership Directorate in 2007 to work with local school districts to adopt aspects of DoDEA’s curriculum to ease students’ transition from military to public schools.”
Again: “Behavioral problems are not an issue due to the values students are taught at home. This in turn allow teachers to spend more time on teaching.” I’d be interested in the average class size, and the cost per student.
-
July 17th, 2009 11:51 am
Michael M
In the Iron Curtain days I was on a train from East Berlin to Prague … in a compartment with a Communist Party oficial who also ran a textile plant … he asked me what was a major problem in American schools, I told him student behavior/lack of interest and lack of parental involvement. He told me it was not a problem in East Germany … the principal simply called the Communist Party offcial at the parent’s work site …
-
July 18th, 2009 5:30 pm
The only organization in the US education field that has analysed what is up (an international war of the rich on the poor with every government serving as an executive committee and armed weapon of elites) and what is up in schools (the education agenda is a war agenda) is the Rouge Forum (www.rougeforum.org). Worth checking out.
-
July 21st, 2009 1:00 pm
[...] to Schools: Change Tenure Laws or Else: The Ed Stim is Merit Pay: http://gothamschools.org/2009/07/09/obama-official-to-new-york-change-your-tenure-law-or-else/commen…UC System Demands 9% Tuition Hike and 8% Pay Cut While Class Size Booms: [...]
-
July 27th, 2009 12:11 am
While he keeps us arguing about issues that are important to us, he quietly takes more of our liberties. He does not care about education. He cares about controlling the masses. Obama is a thug. He wants to control every aspect of our lives.
-
July 27th, 2009 9:29 am
K.I.S.S.,
Aside from the implicit racism in your comment, I sincerely thought the subject of your gripe was going to be… Bloomberg. -
July 27th, 2009 1:33 pm
Thank you, Michael M. We already have our eye on Bloomberg. I am a “black” man, so let us not confuse pointed comments with racism.
-
July 27th, 2009 3:28 pm
K.I.S.S. I note the implicit racism in your own statement, to wit, that it is not possible for someone who is black to himself be racist. I beg to differ. Blacks have suffered for years from the racism that is within, especially the need to categorize themselves as lighter/darker, more African/less African than their peers. So I don’t think your racial qualifier exempts your first statement.
-
July 27th, 2009 4:25 pm
Sheesh.
At this rate, we’ll ALL be having beer at the White House. -
July 27th, 2009 7:39 pm
A toast to our children and their education. They are our true priority…
I will rephrase my remarks:
I wholeheartedly object to bully tactics from the President on state matters!
Leave a Reply
Mapping the Budget Cuts
43 Comments
Subscribe to comments with RSS or TrackBack