Democrats Impress on Key Education Question

I experienced two almost foreign sensations while watching the Democrat presidential candidates debate in Iowa Sunday morning -- relief and excitement. Serious contenders for the presidency actually spoke to the heart of a crucial domestic issue: education. Resuscitating and improving public education is not only a serious moral commitment to the youth of America, but it's also a quintessential political bellwether issue.

If a candidate understands the real, on-the-ground severity of the education crisis in America and can fight for clear-thinking solutions, then he/she is inherently a champion of social justice. If a candidate abdicates his responsibility to public education by offering superficial band-aids, or even worse, villainous profit-driven proposals like vouchers and privatization, then his true colors are seen.

During the Democrat debate, many candidates displayed a refreshing bit of candor that appeared to signal a party-wide atonement for following the president in lockstep to pass the radically flawed and discriminatory No Child Left Behind Act in the bleary wake of 9/11.

A recent column I wrote titled "The Fallacy of Teacher Merit Pay (By a Teacher)" drew some lively action in the comments section. The exact question of teacher merit pay was put directly to the candidates and each of them (except a rampaging Mike Gravel) rejected the concept of giving teachers bonuses based on their students' standardized test scores.

Barack Obama, Bill Richardson, and Joe Biden each spoke in ways that impressed me, as a teacher, that they had spent serious time talking with educators. Each referenced a loved one who teaches, and of the importance of paying teachers higher salaries in order to attract and maintain a corps excellent leaders in American classrooms.

Senator Clinton made a plea for universal pre-kindergarten, a direly needed amendment to our system. Clinton also voiced approval for incentive pay based on schoolwide performance, a potentially dangerous stepsister of teacher merit pay that may continue to foster the culture of high-stakes testmania.

Accountability in schools can no longer be synonymous with nothing but test scores. The Democratic candidates appear to hear the cries of teachers and students for more fair, multidimensional assessments of their performance, and more importantly, for the tools to facilitate real learning. It's a cautious optimism, but as we near the sixth anniversary of the No Child Left Behind quagmire, the fresh air is welcome.

Dan Brown's memoir of his first year teaching, The Great Expectations School: A Rookie Year in the New Blackboard Jungle, is now available. Dan will be a guest on NPR's Diane Rehm Show, along with Jonathan Kozol, on Thursday, August 23.

Follow Dan Brown on Twitter: www.twitter.com/danbrownteacher

Comments

[JDewey]

There's nothing impressive about supporting a mediocre status quo. Anyone who thinks that a $40,000 "minimum wage" will create major change in the education system has not spent much time in dysfunctional schools. Teacher salaries aren't the major problem. More important are incompetent leadership, low expectations, a toxic culture and teachers without subject knowledge. Will upping the salary of junior faculty change any of this?

The truth is that many teachers are not underpaid at all. Gym teachers. Teachers who failed their licensure exams 40 times before passing. Football coaches teaching world history. These teachers are overpaid.

Math and Science teachers ARE underpaid. there is no shortage of gym teachers. There is a huge shortage of math and science teachers. According to the last Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS) about a third (35%) of secondary school math classes are taught by someone who doesn't even have a minor in a math related field.

So why should we raise the salaries of unqualified teachers or those who teach subjects that are neither crucial nor understaffed? Why not devote those resources to the subjects that we need to improve recruitment in?

Try doing some rough estimation about the amount of money you're talking about wasting on positions that don't need raises. Say the proposed "minimum wage" would increase the salaries of about 15% of teachers (the rest already making that or better) by an average of $5,000/year. 15% of 3.2 million teachers is about half a million teachers (480,000). 480,000 x $5000 each is about 2 and 1/2 BILLION dollars ($2,400,000,000) devoted to this RANDOM initiative. (If you want to get exact numbers NCES and the SASS should have them).

The same folks who say performance pay has no research proving its efficacy ignore the fact that there's even less research supporting across the board pay increases as a strategy for school improvement. Why not spend money where it's needed and where it's effective instead of spreading it so thin that it does little to no good for anyone?

[matandch]

Where the hell are our priorities?

I always hear the argument that throwing money at something doesn't solve it or make it better, except for the military. Throwing more money at the military always seems to make it better. Why does it only work for the military and no where else? Could someone take the time to explain this to me, because the more I know the less I understand.

[LizM]

You might want to focus a little attention on Dr. Jill Biden since the Senator's wife not only teaches at a community college in Delaware but she has just recently earned her doctorate in education.

Talk about an impressive First Lady!

[Jillianw]

I bet improving education will be her pet project when she is First Lady, and who better than someone with a Doctorate in Education.

[LizM]

I am sure that she would make Americans proud, no matter what role she took on as First Lady.

You know, there are just no good reasons that could counter the merits of a Biden presidency!

[jnuno]

Teachers should be awarded salaries based on talent, dedication, and hard work. However, that can not be possible so long as the unions are around to guarantee underperforming teachers job security. What is the incentive for some teacher to perform at an exceptional level if some other teacher will be rewarded for mediocrity? This of course is not a good situation for students and because many come from homes with limited resources, they are trapped in the public school system where their needs take a backseat to unions.

Vouchers offer students an alternative to this "quagmire" that is the current public school system.

[MrWashy]

Teachers should be awarded salaries based on talent, dedication, and hard work.

How do we measure these? Number of A's given? Success on a standardized test? College graduation rate? Hours spent in the school?
Detail of their lesson plans? The idea isn't a bad one, but implementing it is not only problematic but also unreasonable.

As for unions, they also guarantee the employment of effective teachers and there are far more effective teachers than ineffective. What keeps teachers from teaching to the level of their lowest teacher in the building? Pride in our work. The vast majority of teachers I now take an immense amount of pride in what they do.

We aren't just people who decided we wanted summers off, that we can't do anything else, or that we wanted to play kickball all day long. Teachers are people who understand the role we play. We know what can happen to our students. We are willing to accept the role we play in our society and culture. We reflect on what we do and how it affects our kids. Sure thee are exceptions, but like anything else, the exceptions are not the rule.

Is it wrong for us to ask for fair compensation? Is it wrong for us to want to attract the best and brightest to our profession? In both cases the answer is "No".

What is wrong though is taking money for public education and giving it to companies who do not have a student's best interest in mind. Businesses are for profit and what ultimately matters is their bottom line. Using that same money to attract more people to teaching and cutting out the for-profit middleman is a better way to improve results and education.

[AsaNisMasa]

Dan,

I've often thought a very good idea for teachers would be a form of bonus pay without ties to standardized test scores but rather tie some sort of bonus pay system to studentss' rate of college graduation? Obviously there's problems to be found in a system like that, but is that somewhere worthwhile looking into starting at?

And to the poster who says that a minimum salary of 40k is absurd: what are you high? There is perhaps no single profession of greater importance to the future of this (or any) nation than teaching. And why shouldn't we pay these teachers that kind of salary when CEOs and stock brokers and all sorts of profressions make many times that?

[rwoodsathome]

Let's not overlook the fact that Teddy Kennedy's hand is all over NCLB. If you want an insight into an educational system dominated by progressives look no further than NCLB.

[truthmongerer]

Clearly this is a subject you're passionate about and I think you've done a good job of identifying certain problematic areas of the current public school educational system; however, I didn't see a solution offered or outlined. I agree that rating students as the sum of their standardized test scores is a flawed system. On the other hand, I also see that it isn't possible to teach a student more difficult and nuanced concepts like philosophy and science if they aren't even able to speak their own language or accurately perform simple mathematics. Ratings students on standardized test scores is not the right approach but those test scores, albeit unfair, have really shed light on how appalling our school system has become throughout the nation. So what's the solution? I think we need to start telling the truth. Paying more for better qualified teachers is a good start. Being honest that a lot of the failures are happening in homes that don't value education and not in classrooms is also an important truth to start telling. These many years of standardized results have consistently pointed to a cultural divide that no one talks about because it's taboo. Instead we throw good money after bad for better buildings and shiny objects and then wonder why fewer than one third (in california) of students can test at even a basic level, let alone excellent. And all that's fine, as long as we never talk about the real problems or pitch real solutions. I wish I knew the answer. I can tell you this. No amount of money to the school system will make as much of a difference as parents caring and valuing education when they haven't previously. I'm interested in hearing your thoughts on a solution.

[FreshMeat]

At one point in the debate, I believe it was Richardson, who proposed a teacher's minimum wage of $40k to start. Is there anything more absurd? I agree that teachers in some areas are underpaid, but there are other areas where they are paid pretty well.

My brother, who is a teacher, just received an $11k bump in pay. Was this because he is a great teacher? No, it was because of a new contract. He is 29 and is making over $60k per year. I would say that is very competitive with other professions. Also, he never has a review and his job security is top notch. He is tenured, so he can never be fired and he has a pension, which will allow him to retire without having to put too many of his hard earned dollars into a retirement fund of his own.

[lilygrace]

I don't know where your brother teaches, but I'm a 31 year old elementary school teacher, beginning my 7th year of teaching in a low socioeconomic area of Phoenix. I teach at a Title 1 school, and the majority of my students are second language learners. One of my students (out of 28) has a parent who attended college. Most of my students' parents don't speak English, and gang activity is pronounced in the neighborhood. I am 3/4 the way to my Master's Degree and graduated Summa Cum Laude from my university. I make less than $34,000 a year and in the last several years have watched my health insurance soar, as well as my Arizona State Retirement. The story of your brother, while it should be the norm, certainly isn't. Americans want the best to teach? Pay teachers what they're worth and make it a competitive profession. Finally, I trust Obama to make the most positive changes in education. I believe that he will honestly listen to teachers and take our opinions and ideas into serious consideration when making policy decisions.

[FreshMeat]

Come to the east coast. The increase in pay will make up for the miserable humidity!

[TurgidCaterwauling]

Here in Alaska, where pip went into effect this year, teachers at several schools got as much as $5000 for their excellence. To no one's surprise, most taught in charter schools.
When a school can hand pick its students from among a competitive group of students, it's not hard to show progress. Unfortunately, the playing field wasn't level. Schools with students with a much wider range of needs were for the most part shut out, even though they had substantial gains. Like NCLB, here is another example how little bureaucrats know about education.

[IronDragon]

You have a strong way with words, Mr. Brown. Your focus is admirable and I am now 100% against the NCLB law. Alas, I am only a grandfather, and my cards and letters to Congress members may not be doing all the good I'd like. Fortunately, I visit my daughter's house often and have communicated with teachers at her children's schools. The opinion is unanimous that NCLB does not allow for the development of a well-educated student. The hope is that this ridulous law will soon be gone. The suggestion that salaries for teachers be raised generously is also worthy.