Florida Legislature Passes Landmark Merit Pay Legislation

March 17, 2011

 

(Guest Post by Matthew Ladner)

About 11 months ago, former Florida Governor Charlie Crist vetoed a major overhaul of teacher pay and tenure as a prelude to running for the Senate as an independent. Yesterday, the Florida Senate passed a revised version of the bill, which the new Florida Governor Rick Scott seems anxious to sign.

Stephen Sawchuck at  the Teacher Beat Blog summarized the bill:

Among other things, S. 736:

• Requires 50 percent of a teacher’s evaluation to be based on state standardized tests or other national, local, or industry measures for those subjects not gauged at the state level;

• Requires evaluations to consider four levels of teacher performance;

• As of July 1 of this year, ends the awarding of “continuing” and “professional service” contract status (the Florida equivalent of tenure) and puts all new teachers on annual contracts;

• Permits districts to extend annual contracts only to teachers with good evaluations; those with two “unsatisfactory” ratings in a row, or two “needs improvement” ratings within a three-year period, could not be renewed;

• “Grandfathers” in teachers who now have tenure but allows them to be dismissed for the performance reasons stated above;

• Requires districts to establish performance-based salary schedules by July 1, 2014, for all new hires, and to phase existing teachers onto the new schedules as student-growth measures are developed; and

• Does away with layoffs based on reverse seniority.

Teachers are not interchangeable widgets, and should not be treated as such.  Highly effective teachers deserve greater recognition, and the students of highly ineffective teachers deserve better.  While merit pay is a complex subject, we can do better than simply paying teachers to age.

Florida once again has raised the bar on education reform for the rest of the nation.

6 Comments | teacher pay, teacher quality, teacher union | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by matthewladner

Douglas County Offers Vouchers to Students

March 16, 2011

The school board in Douglas County, Colorado voted unanimously to offer vouchers worth $4,575 to as many as 500 students who were not previously enrolled in private school.  The measure would save the district between $402,500 and $2.2 million and would greatly expand options for those families, including religious and secular private schools.

The teacher unions and their allies will almost certainly try to tie the program up in court and run their own board candidates in the hopes of rolling back the policy.  But with choice and other ed reforms being pushed all over the country and with the ability of unions to automatically deduct dues from payrolls being eliminated in a number of states, the ability of the unions to fight every battle in every location is limited.

The most effective political strategy for adopting ed reform is to “flood the zone.”  Propose a lot of ideas in a lot of places and the unions find it nearly impossible to block every one.  That’s what Jeb did in Florida and now reformers are adopting that strategy nationwide, enhancing its effectiveness.

7 Comments | teacher union, vouchers | Tagged: , | Permalink
Posted by Jay P. Greene

Georgia Lawmakers Considering Scholarship Expansion

March 15, 2011

(Guest Post by Matthew Ladner)

As Greg noted earlier, school choice is back this year, with major proposals under consideration in many states. Potentially lost amidst the sturm und drang of places like Wisconsin and Indiana, some important pieces of legislation have been introduced and have been advancing through the legislative process.  Georgia lawmakers for instance are considering SB 87, a proposal to expand the highly successful special needs law, to include a number of new and worthy student populations.

The law expands eligibility of the Georgia program to include children with disabilities who do not have an IEP (Section 504) children, the children of military families, and foster care children. One can make a compelling case for each of these student populations to have the ability to exercise parental choice in education.

The case for parental choice for foster care children is extremely compelling. Goldwater Institute Senior Fellow Dan Lips made the case for this program by noting that foster care children frequently move between foster care homes. Changing addresses takes them across school district boundaries, obliging them to transfer between schools. Repeated bouncing between schools fatally disrupts the ability of students to learn.

A scholarship program for foster children creates the possibility creating a school as an island of stability for foster care children. Arizona lawmakers passed such a program in 2006, and then Governor Janet Napolitano signed it into law.

The Department of Defense runs a highly regarded system of schools for military students. Sadly, the demand for spaces routinely exceeds the number of available seats. Georgia lawmakers may see fit to expand the schooling options for our parents in uniform, and I certainly will salute them for doing so.

Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 requires schools to provide to students with disabilities appropriate educational services designed to meet the individual needs of such students. The ability to choose who provides education services to a child must be a part of generating a truly individualized education, and one that has already been extremely successful for children with disabilities.

Stay tuned to this station for further developments…

Leave a Comment » | vouchers | Tagged: , | Permalink
Posted by matthewladner

Do As WEAC Says, Not As It Does

March 15, 2011

(Guest post by Greg Forster)

For weeks, Wisconsin teachers represented by WEAC, the state’s NEA affiliate, called in “sick” so they could join the union protest in the state capitol. Schools closed, and parents were left to take care of their kids on no notice – to say nothing of the loss to the kids’ education.

Priceless development: ALELR points out that WEAC has a contract with the union that represents its own employees – the union’s own union – and in that contract WEAC’s employees are forbidden to engage in union activities during normal work hours.

Pot, this is kettle. Kettle, pot.

In other Wisconsin union news, ALELR reports that the Milwaukee union is dropping its notorious Viagra lawsuit. The teachers who want this medication, he observes, are now left to stand on their own.

1 Comment | teacher union | Tagged: , , | Permalink
Posted by Greg Forster

A Union I Like

March 15, 2011

I just want to make clear, given my post yesterday,  that while I am adamantly opposed to public sector unions, I have no problem with worker’s attempting to negotiate over wages, benefits, and working conditions in the private sector.

In the private sector, if unions ask for too much, at least they experience the natural consequences of destroying their own companies or industries (to wit, the auto industry).  In addition, there are owners on the other side of the bargaining table who have strong incentives not to concede too much or they will lose their wealth.  Collective bargaining in the private sector is a voluntary negotiation over how to split the revenue of a company.  No one should be compelled to work for less than they think reasonable and no one should be compelled to pay others more than they think reasonable.  In the end, owners and workers have to reach a mutually acceptable agreement, whether collectively or individually.

But in the public sector, unions are almost entirely insulated from the consequences of making unreasonable demands since governments rarely go out of business.  Unlike in the private sector, public sector unions can drive total revenue for their industry higher without any improvements in productivity simply by getting public officials to increase taxes.  And the public officials on the other side of the table are at least  partially selected and heavily influenced by the unions themselves.  In the private sector, unions can only select the officials with whom the bargain to the extent that they are shareholders.  In the public sector, one only need be a citizen, and the unions are much better organized and financed citizens than is the average taxpayer.

One private sector union with which I am currently completely sympathetic is the NFL Players Association.  First, the owners are asking that owners be allowed to keep the first $2 billion of professional football’s $9 billion in annual revenue.  That assures them close to a 22% operating profit margin, since football teams have few expenses beyond the player’s salaries and stadium costs (some of which are stupidly subsidized by taxpayers).  What industry can guarantee its owners a 22% operating profit margin?

In addition, the owners have always managed to get players to agree to a cap on team salaries as a further way of ensuring their profits.  Anyone who is for the voluntary exchange of labor for pay should oppose industry-wide salary caps.  All that a cap does is prevent excellent workers from bargaining for a larger share of total revenue.  This discourages excellence and guarantees owner profits at the expense of workers.

And for those of you who say that salary caps are needed to promote equity in the competitiveness of teams…

1) Equity is not the prime goal of sports (or most other endeavors).  Excellence is.  If you want to watch contests that are always perfectly matched, I would suggest that you watch people flipping coins.

2) Rewarding more successful teams and players with the possibility of earning more money provides the proper incentives for them to try harder to win.  If you don’t think that revenue sharing with a cap undermines incentives I have two words for you — Cleveland Browns.

3) If you are afraid that larger market teams will always win, just look at baseball which lacks a cap.  Yes, big market teams are more likely to be in the post-season, but they don’t always win.  If you think big markets and big payrolls can guarantee winning I have three words for you — New York Mets.  Besides, what’s so wrong with larger markets more regularly having teams in the race for a championship?  Only a bizarre system would prefer having small markets, like Green Bay and Indianapolis, regularly in the hunt.

And if you think NFL players are a bunch of rich felons who don’t deserve extra money, I would remind you that the average career is about 3 seasons and many players end up as cripples for life.  The NFL is exploiting these workers like crazy and any decent liberal should be on the side of those who are exploited.

Unfortunately, the NFL players union has been awful in the past and failed to do nearly enough to protect their members from this exploitation.  I hope it is different this time.  And I hope that the unions prevail (as long as it is in the private sector and without government subsidies or coercion).

8 Comments | teacher union | Tagged: , , | Permalink
Posted by Jay P. Greene

The Public Funding Perpetual Motion Machine

March 14, 2011

Both the NPR and public-sector union controversies make me think of perpetual motion machines.  In both cases organizations receive government funds which they can use to lobby public officials to receive more government funds.

Most people are familiar with this concern when it comes to public sector unions given that it is well-documented that unions use money automatically taken from publicly paid salaries and benefits to donate to campaigns, organize, and lobby for higher salaries and benefits from which they can extract higher dues to push for even higher compensation, etc… Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

Mind you, I have no problem with private sector unions since they can only negotiate over how to divide profits with management and shareholders and cannot lobby to increase revenues without also increasing productivity.  But public sector unions can lobby for higher revenues from which they can extract a larger share for themselves without having to do anything to enhance productivity.

But people are much less familiar with how NPR utilizes the same Public Funding Perpetual Motion Machine.  As Congress debates de-funding public broadcasting, NPR is making announcements alerting their listeners to this possibility and urging them to visit a web site to organize a push to maintain and increase taxpayer funding of NPR. So, NPR wants money so that it can tell its listeners to organize to lobby so that they keep getting money.  Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

Like all perpetual motion machines, these publicly funded ones are also frauds.  The system is not self-sustaining and requires that resources be extracted from somewhere else — in the case of NPR and public sector unions, it is extracted from the taxpayer.

I should also note that I like a number of programs on NPR.  But it is completely unacceptable for them to take money from me and others by force to pay for their broadcasts.  I’m confident they can generate sufficient funds voluntarily and may well soon have to do exclusively that.

2 Comments | teacher union | Tagged: , , | Permalink
Posted by Jay P. Greene

KHAAAAAAAAAAN!!!!!!!!!

March 12, 2011

(Guest Post by Matthew Ladner)

Salman Khan on using video to improving education, and taking Khan Academy to the next level. Well worth watching.

5 Comments | online learning | Tagged: , | Permalink
Posted by matthewladner

MJS Showdown: Enlow Annihiliates

March 10, 2011

(Guest post by Greg Forster)

I’m late getting this up, but check out yesterday’s battle royale on the op-ed page of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

In this corner, the title holder – the champion of choice, the vizier of vouchers, the BMC of ESAs – Robert Enlow!

And in this corner, the challenger – the canard kid, the defenestration of education, the unionbomber – O. Ricardo Pimentel!

The subject: Gov. Walker’s proposal to lift the income restriction on the Milwaukee voucher program from 175% of the poverty level to 325%, or $72,635 for a family of four. Walker has an eye toward eventually lifting both the income restriction and the cap on the number of participants – which would make Milwaukee a universal voucher program.

They’re getting mental in the Sentinel!

There’s the bell, and here comes the champ!

CHOICE PLAN PUTS KIDS FIRST

Looks like he’s confident. Now we’ll see what the challenger’s got.

YES, YOU WERE ALL DUPED BY CHOICE

Ouch! That snooty condescention is going to cost him. But he’s on fire and the hits start coming: 

Now, $72,635 is not what it used to be, but it’s not low-income…

 The champ fires back:

There are almost 210,000 households in Milwaukee, with more than 90% of them earning less then $100,000. That’s less than the average Milwaukee Public Schools teacher earns in annual compensation, according to the Journal Sentinel.The point isn’t to attack teachers but to show that what many consider “poverty” to qualify for a school voucher is not the same amount of income it actually takes to survive – and thrive – in America.

The challenger’s reeling under the punishment. But he comes back with another attack!

If schools need fixing, the community needs to pull together to do that. Walker’s budget cuts $834 million in school aids. MPS says it will have to cut $74 million from its preliminary budget.

This prompts a round of stunning brutality from the champ:

School choice saves taxpayers big bucks. The per-pupil cost to educate a child in Milwaukee is $13,229, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Yet the voucher program funded by the state is about half that at $6,442, which covers a good portion of tuition at many parochial and private schools.

The challenger’s down! No, wait, sorry, he’s just looking for his teeth.

Okay, now he’s back in the fight.

Bet on it: If families that aren’t precisely low-income “need” help here in Milwaukee, it is just a matter of time that he’ll reason they need help in other communities with challenged school districts or perhaps even those in higher-performing districts.

So, this begs the question: Were low-income students – mostly youngsters of color – just useful pawns for the right?

Wow, he must really be hurting to play the race card so flagrantly. Still, there’s something vaguely resembling an argument in there somewhere. Let’s see how the champ handles it.

With a ceiling on the number of students who can participate, the program’s impact has been limited although still positive. That’s why Walker’s plan to open the program to all students is welcome news, as unrestricted freedom will work even better to improve MPS and increase the academic achievement of children.

For example, if a large grocer has a monopoly in a neighborhood and a convenience store opens on the corner selling milk and bread, there isn’t enough competition to force the large grocer to offer better products. However, if three convenience stores and two other larger grocery stores open, customers suddenly will see an improvement in the products available. The same happens in education, as parents always win with multiple education choices. Such will be the case in Milwaukee when all parents have the choice of a private or public school.

How is the challenger still on his feet? An amazing sight, ladies and gentlemen!

I never would have thought Robert Enlow was capable of brutalizing another human being so totally. Why isn’t the ref putting a stop to this inhumanity?

It looks like the challenger can’t even see where he’s punching. He’s just flailing now.

Gov. Scott Walker is on the cusp of making the much desired entanglement of public dollars and private schools – many of them religious – an unassailable reality.

Yes, unassailable. See what happens if middle-class folks are given vouchers and some subsequent governor or Legislature tries to take them away. Won’t happen…

Choice made sense as a matter of equity for low-income children with no options in a district that demonstrably served them poorly…

Yes to choice – but for those who really have none. And if extended for families beyond that? We can consider ourselves duped.

Did I hear that right? Vouchers violate the separation of church and state – but only when rich white kids use them. When poor black kids use them, they’re fine. And remember, it’s voucher supporters who are using poor black kids as political props.

And, sure enough, the challenger’s self-contradictory idiocy has prompted the ref to step in. Clearly this is one fighter who’s taken a few too many hits.

Enlow is carried out of the ring by a cheering throng of supporters!

No, wait – that’s the mob of union protestors who were bussed in from Madison to watch the fight. I guess Robert is headed for an “undisclosed location.”

And now over to Jay and Matt for the post-match show.

19 Comments | vouchers | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by Greg Forster

Wisconsin Republicans Bypass Missing Democrats

March 9, 2011

(Guest Post by Matthew Ladner)

The race is on to make a Hitler meltdown video for Wisconsin public sector unions– funniest one gets a highly coveted JPGB No-Prize!

In the meantime, here is a good one of the housing bubble.

 

1 Comment | politics | Tagged: | Permalink
Posted by matthewladner

Universities as Non-Profit Conglomerates

March 8, 2011

Mission creep is the bane of the modern university.  Once upon a time universities believed that their mission was the discovery and dissemination of knowledge.  Accordingly, they focused on teaching and research.

Universities are now straying far from this core mission and launching an array of new enterprises.  They run health-care systems, engage in property re-development, serve as venture capitalists for start-up businesses, etc…

To reflect their new status as non-profit conglomerates, universities espouse missions that are only tangentially related to their previous core function of education.  No longer do universities emphasize their founding mottos, such as “veritas” or “disciplina in civitatem.”  Instead, we see Ohio State University calling itself the “economic engine” of Ohio and declaring “We’re in the progress business.”

No they aren’t.  At least, they shouldn’t be.  They are in the knowledge business.  Universities forget this at their and everyone else’s peril.

The more that universities see their mission as progress or being an “economic engine,” the more they are straying into business at which they are less competent, on which they lose more money, and which distract them from their core responsibilities.

We have had experience with profit-seeking industrial conglomerates in the 1970s and it didn’t go very well.  Businesses grew large, unfocused, and overly bureaucratic.  But in the business-world, there is a remedy for this type of gross inefficiency.  Corporate raiders took-over these conglomerates and made a fortune breaking them up and selling off the pieces.  They realized that these businesses would be much more effective if they weren’t combined in a conglomerate.

The non-profit sector lacks a similar remedy.  Universities are expanding into a variety of businesses and there is no one to stop them other than a board of trustees which has been fully-co-opted by administrations (just as the boards of industrial conglomerates were co-opted by their management teams).  Raiders can’t purchase the grossly inefficient non-profit conglomerates masquerading as universities and make a fortune by breaking them up and selling off the pieces.  Instead, we increasingly suffer from administrative bloat and inferior quality education.

The only prospect for these non-profit conglomerates to be broken-up is that they tend to lose more money with each new venture.  We shouldn’t expect universities to be efficient at operating health-care systems, property re-development, or venture capitalist operations.  They claim to be attracted to each new enterprise as a way of making money to subsidize their core functions, but the reality is that their losses pile-up and their administrative over-head swells as they experience mission creep.  They all fantasize that their venture capitalist efforts will spawn the next Google, but I am willing to bet that the average return on start-up businesses for universities is negative.

Returning to our Ohio State University example, their total annual revenue has grown to $4.7 billion.  It becomes very difficult to run a $4.7 billion business that also teaches individual students well and conducts quality research.  As OSU’s president, Gordon Gee, describes his institution: “Universities are large and complex — ours more so than any other. Trying to describe all that we do in one sentence seems a daunting task.”  Gee, President Gee, maybe that should be a sign that OSU is trying to do too many things.

Of the $4.7 billion in annual revenue, OSU gets $2.3 billion from its Medical Center.  Why should universities also operate gigantic health care systems?  I understand that universities may want a relationship with hospitals to help train their students and provide opportunities for research, but frankly that can be done without having to own them.  And even if it were efficient to own a hospital for teaching and research opportunities, there is no reason to own an entire network of medical  facilities and services.

I’ll bet that OSU requires large government subsidies for both its medical and traditional educational operations.  And I’ll further bet that those loses could be reduced, on both ends, if they spun off their Medical Center.  The reasons to combine them and to add a host of other “economic engine” activities is not financial or educational efficiency.  The reason is to satisfy the desire for empire building among senior university officials and their compliant boards.

We may not have corporate raiders to break-up these non-profit conglomerates, but we will eventually have angry taxpayers who grow tired of subsidizing their losses.  When the subsidies get cut, universities will be forced to shed these extraneous and money losing ventures and focus once again on teaching and research.

5 Comments | higher education | Tagged: , , | Permalink
Posted by Jay P. Greene

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