Jay P. Greene's Blog

For Common Core to work — that is, for it to be more than a bunch of vague words in a document and to actually change what teachers do in their classrooms — it has to be aligned with new tests that impose meaningful consequences on individual teachers for complying with the New Educational Order.  As I’ve been expecting, teachers and their unions have no desire to be controlled by the Common Core standards-testing-accountability machine and are starting to rebel against it in earnest.  Randi Weingarten has called for a halt to efforts to link Common Core to high stakes assessments and Diane Ravitch and her army of angry teachers are mobilizing against this intrusion on their authority.

I have to admit that I am sympathetic with this resistance by teachers to having their classrooms controlled by a system of national standards, testing, and consequences.  If a giant machine controlled our nation’s schools it might become self-aware, obtain the launch codes, and then….  But I digress.  I don’t want a centrally planned education system, just as I don’t want a centrally planned economy.  It wouldn’t work and it would be incredibly oppressive.  So, I support teacher opposition to being controlled by the central planning of Common Core.  I understand that teachers don’t want to be ruled by the Petty Little Dictators behind Common Core.

The problem is that I also don’t want to be ruled by the Petty Little Dictators of teacher unions and localized public school monopolies.  The fight between teachers and Common Core backers is really a clash of the Petty Little Dictators.  Common Core wants to dictate what teachers do to make sure they are “doing it right.”  And teacher unions resist this because they want to be in charge.

I don’t think we have to choose between these Petty Little Dictators.  I favor a third way.  Why don’t we not have any dictators and just let families choose the education that they think is appropriate for their children?  No one has to tell them what a good education is.  They don’t need Common Core to restrict their choices and they don’t need teachers unions to confine them to public school monopolies.  I oppose both efforts at dictatorship and favor liberty.

Now it’s time to release the Kraken.

(Guest Post by Matthew Ladner)

Football analysts tend to narrow explanations for why one team prevails to a handful of plays whereas in reality every play is of equal importance-it just doesn’t seem that way. Likewise elections are incredibly complex and we focus on a single factor only at our peril.

Nevertheless…

First let’s note that the Obama campaign worked their math problem with masterful precision. Needing blue-collar White votes in Ohio, they found a way to get them, for example. The narrow national popular vote majority plus the lopsided electoral college result is a testament to the effectiveness of the Obama campaign. George W. Bush’s team pulled off a similar victory in 2004- incumbent Presidents are tough to beat.

Having said that, the Republican ticket pulling in 27% of the Latino vote is nothing short of a dumpster fire. Moreover, note that Romney only won Texas by a little over 8 percent.

Every day between now at 2016 will involve older and predominantly Whiter Texans going off to the Rodeo in the Sky, and more and more Hispanics coming of voting age in the Lone Star State. You don’t need to spend hours fiddling around with the Real Clear Politics “Build Your Own Electoral College Map” to imagine what even a Purple Texas would do to national politics, much less a Blue one.

This of course is hardly set in stone. Republicans do have dynamic young Hispanic leaders in the Senate from Florida and Texas. Republicans however are in for a spell of finger-pointing and self-reflection. Rethinking the position of immigration deserves a spot near the top of the to-do list…

http://jaypgreene.com/2012/06/26/after-sb-1070-time-to-itune-illegal-immigrations-napster/

…but it doesn’t end there. Republicans should be developing an opportunity agenda that appeals not only to Hispanics, but also to others.

Congratulations to President Obama and his team. I will be very curious to see what happens next.

Education Next has an excellent debate about teacher compensation.  On one side Jason Richwine and Andrew Biggs argue that teacher compensation is significantly higher than similarly skilled workers in other occupations.  Lawrence Mishel and Joydeep Roy are on the other side arguing that teacher compensation is lower than for comparable workers.  It’s a great debate, so be sure to check it out.