Payback? Only Those Resistant To Improvement.

The SL Trib, in their attempts to continue to stir controversy wrote: After decisive victory, voucher foes now fear retaliation from legislators.  Of course, any proposed change by voucher supporters will be viewed retribution by voucher opponents.  But change is necessary, and if that is retaliation, then so be it.

The message I received over and over, from parent and teacher alike, was that public education was in need of significant reform.  Not a single one of my constituents told me to preserve the status quo.  The common themes were concerns about unqualified teachers in the classroom, the inability of our schools to meet the learning needs of all students, and the need to meet the competitive challenges of the changing economy.

Vik Arnold, who handles government relations for the UEA, said educators are ready to see meaningful reform. ... Arnold said. "We hope this can be a year we all focus on reforms we know work - reforms such as lowering class size and increasing teacher quality."  (SL Trib)

Of course reform to Vik is more teachers and more money for teachers.  He avoids discussions about academic achievement, pay for performance, and market-based compensation.  He ignores the situation where reducing class size results in either no change or lower student performance.  What is the point of more teachers and smaller classes if academic achievement isn't significantly raised for each and every child in this state?

If vouchers aren't the answer to public school reform, what do you propose?  Here's a few of my thoughts:

1. If you are an excellent teacher, help champion merit pay initiatives so we can reward you for your excellence.  Send recommendations for structuring a fair and beneficial approach.  If you are an ineffective teacher, get competent or get out of the classroom.  Stop harming our students and wasting taxpayer money, leaving your co-workers and the parents to pick up the slack by doing your work.  Parents and teachers have told me they are tired of ineffective teacher just being protected by the system and the union.  I keep hearing from teachers and administrators that 10-15% of teachers should not be in the classroom.  That is a truly frightening statistic about the state of teacher quality within public education.
   
   Last weekend a public school teacher recommended that all raises (compensation increases) should be merit based.  If your students didn't make sufficient gains then you shouldn't receive a raise (Note: it was a gain score-based structure, aka value-added approach, rather than a flat proficiency model).  I thought it sounded like a great proposal.
2. If you are a parent that thinks school is your free personal babysitter on which you can dump your problems day in and day out, it's time for change.  Education need to shift toward competency, rather than seattime.  You will need to be a part of that.  Also, we will need to assess your participation in your child's education.  I am open to recommendations from teachers and parents.
3. The system needs to adapt to the learning speed of the student, rather than the other way around.  Students should be allowed to move faster, as their interest and ability dictates, rather than be held back by a rigid bureaucracy.
4. Technology-assisted instruction is an important tool to help the teacher better assist with student learning.  This is not having students playing around with PowerPoint and GarageBand on fun, but meaningless projects.  This is instructional tools to guide and assist with math, reading, and other key curriculum.  We have to stop using the techniques of the past 50 years and adopt new and emerging tools that can customize and improve student learning.
5. We need to do a better job of benchmarking our processes and achievements against other states and countries.  Our goal should be the "best of the best."
6. Expand opportunities for students learning and teacher instruction with extended day and year-round school options.

Other thoughts?  Since there are always opportunities for improvement, how would you improve student achievement within existing budgets?  What would you do differently?

 

Comments

[Voice of Utah]

Since I haven't been personally involved in school issues for a long time, I don't have specific suggestions. However, maybe this is ripe for one of the legislature's ubiquitous task forces, or other group, similar to the Access to Justice task force, that discusses potential changes and makes recommendations (sort of like the ad hoc committees that are formed when it is time to review Administrative Rules, where members of the community, interested groups, etc., are able to participate).

Also, I don't think the question should be limited to "the existing budget." A lot of us think the existing budget is not adequate.

[John Dougall]

It's easy to say more money. Part of the thought process needs to be "Within my existing budgets how can I improve student learning?" That leads to greater effectiveness of existing resources and a prioritization of the budget. There are always opportunities for improvement. Those that refuse to answer that question refuse to acknowledge any inefficiencies in the current approach.

After that, then one should ask "If given greater resources, how can I again improve student achievement and is it worth the extra spending?"

For example: Are 2 weeks of end-of-year parties worth the expenditure? How disruptive are they to the teachers who actually try and teach right up to the end of school? Is going to school for 1 hr school day on the last day worth the cost? Does all of the standardized testing (UPASS, UBSCT, etc.) add compelling value? Should football have a greater funding priority over the fundamentals (reading, writing, math)? If the bottom 10% of teachers were dismissed how would student achievement be improved? Is a senior party year (for those students who take an extremely light load) an appropriate taxpayer expense? How can students achieve 2 years of college coursework within the high school experience?

[Jeremy]

My biggest worry in opposing vouchers was that I was accidently supporting the status quo. Now that the election is over I'm glad that you and Rep. Urquhart and legislators are hell-bent on improving our public ed system. I agree with you that focusing on fixing problems with the current system is at least as important as finding more funding for public schools.

I support all of your proposals and also think year-round schooling should be considered.

[Obi wan liberali]

One thing I've always felt school administrators could do better is work with the private sector in some innovative partnering. If your textbooks are worn out and obsolete, look for a sponsor. A little sticker inside the book, "This textbook sponsored by "Obi's Muffler and Tire" or even for electronic equipment "this computer donated by "Obi's Bail Bonds."

We all benefit from public schools and encouraging involvement in them can be done better than it is right now. It ties the business community with the schools in a mutually beneficial way.

Use of electronic media is still something that can be used better. Could partnerships with the Corporation for Public Broadcasting result in the rights to duplicate educational DVD's that can be sent home as homework? I think there are possibilities out there for innovation.

I don't think vouchers solves the problem. I think the solutions are in the details of how we can make public ed better as individual parents, students, teachers and citizens.

[Derek]

I think I agree with Voice of Utah (which is a rarity for me, as I'm sure Voice of Utah will agree with after reading the last post I left on his blog). I don't think the first question on reforming education should be ammended with a statement of "within the existing budget." I think the first question should simply be "how should we reform education?" and after we get our best answers we should then move on to budgetary considerations.

I don't think doing this is effectively saying more money is the answer; in fact I think some of the best reforms will save the public education system money. But I don't think the money consideration should drive our approach to education reform.

That approach is one thing that has pushed us so far off track in education policy in Utah, mostly thanks to the UEA and other pro-public ed groups who's main rallying cry is "more money." It's not that we should disregard the money question altogether, but money should enter the discussion only after we considered what would be the best reforms on principle. In order to achieve meaningful education reform we need to put principled thinking first, practical thinking second. Both however are necessary.

[Grant Harkness]

I have been teaching for 26 years now. My teaching career started when I was hired to replace a teacher who wasn't doing a very good job. I keep hearing people complain about not being able to get rid of poor teachers. This is a fable and a lame, poor complaint about education in general. A good administrator leads his/her faculty and through due process can fire any teacher who is not performing well. Before that happens I suppose that most administrators would work on helping a lagging teacher work for improvement.

As far as all of the poor teachers, or students and parents complaining about a certain teacher, I would submit that not every student likes every teacher. Throughout my career I have had some students and parents who thought I was a great teacher and at the same time some who didn’t like me at all. Does that make me a poor teacher? I submit that it doesn’t, maybe that student didn’t work as hard as I required him/her to pass the class, therefore in his opinion I was too hard or a poor teacher. On the other hand I, in my education, have had certain teachers that I didn’t think were that good, but it was my responsibility to learn as much as I could out of the class. To use the generalization that there are too many poor public education teachers is a fallacy. Don’t generalize, document the problem.

When you use - “a public school teacher recommended that all raises (compensation increases) should be merit based,” one teacher does not make a majority, and the statement of the problem seems to be an empty generalization. I don’t think teachers are necessarily opposed to merit pay, but coming from a business background and experiencing education for so long it is my opinion that the politics may get in the way of fair and equitable distribution of the merit pay. Being a businessman I’m sure you could understand many educators’ fears about that.

It is also true that it is easy to teach someone who wants to learn and it is also very difficult to teach someone who doesn’t want to. For the last fifteen years I have taught at an alternative high school trying to teach teenagers who have problems. Are we able to save them all, no… but we try. One thing that hurts education in general is the fact that the attitude of distrust and criticism of teachers today by the media, parents, and even state legislators who erode the esteem or respect students should have for teachers. Keep telling a child how bad the teacher or system is and the child will believe it. In most countries around the world teachers are respected, here they are the scapegoats for everything that is wrong or for the failing of each and every child who didn’t pass a class. That equates to foolishness in my opinion.

I guess since everyone has been to school they are experts on education and when they think they have an idea of how to fix education, their idea will. A good manager will do research and hire professionals to help him improve his business especially in areas that he is not as well educated in. I suggest that just taking one idea like vouchers will do very little to improve education. Why don’t we make an effort to document what is wrong with education and then fix it. Look at rigor in education, discipline, parental involvement, attention to individual student learning style preferences, teaching higher order learning skills, cooperative learning, and other strategies to help students achieve. Demanding more math and science classes for students doesn’t make students more interested in those disciplines. Changing students’ attitudes about education might help, helping students with drug and alcohol problems, social problems, and others I won’t take time to mention might help too. Just badmouthing education and educators will not help at all; you’re just yanking the horse out from in front of the cart.

[David]

Here are my suggestions:
1. Get the equalization of school buildings budget fixed right. The biggest part of that IS more funding. We have a fund that is equalized to do this. It just isn't funded enough to make much difference, and it hasn't been increased near enough to compensate for increased costs and growth. So "more money" IS a big part of fixing or "reforming" things. And DON'T make it a state or legislature controlled building board!
2. Do whatever you can to assist the division of Jordan School District including the costs of dividing. That could be the biggest reform in public education in 100 years (when consolidation was introduced).
3. I would require one and ONLY one major test per year. Perhaps the NAEP in 4th and 8th, IOWA test in 6th and 11th, state CORE tests for all other grades AND NO MORE! Let us teach!
4. Curriculum leaders are driving us crazy with too much inservice and telling us how to teach our classes. They want teachers to individualize everything because every student is different, yet want every teacher to do things exactly alike. Teachers are different too.
5. Be careful of cries to "meet the needs of every child". To individualize everything is VERY expensive teaching - sort of like tutoring. Also it usually slows down academic advancement as everyone slows down to what feels comfortable. Learning is work! Students need to step up to the plate and do the work necessary to learn. Too many parents, who won't make their kids do the work part, have become very vocal in decrying educators, because of the constant political carping about public education. They feel justified in their complaints despite their lack of effort. This is undermining education, and too often board members and legislators listen to those complaints without seeing what is really happening.
5. The federal government (I would give up the funding to get out of NCLB.), courts, and big district curriculum departments are increasing the costs of education dramatically, and we (educators) have no power to alter that. It's easy to say improve without increasing the budget, but we are falling behind because funding isn't keeping up with the increasing burden. Unless the legislature and state board can find ways to ease those increasing burdens, you MUST find more money just to keep even - without reforms. That isn't whining. It's just reality. The privatized medicine isn't staying within current budgets. How can we do so with the ever increasing burden?

I'll stop there. These are my top priorities in that order.

[J. Wilson]

I agree with the teacher's comments. As a teacher myself, I know that the two biggest things that would help our school are these: 1. A smaller class size. When 5 students (out of 25) leave my class for a half hour of extra reading instruction, it is amazing to me how much more one-on-one time I can give to the remaining 20 students. It may not sound like much to a non-educator, or to someone who hasn't spent time in a classroom for seven hours a day, five days a week, but it makes a difference! When I taught honors English to 9th graders in Davis County, my class sizes were 45 students each. It was not humanly possible to give them the attention they deserved. Research has shown that this is a reform that increases student learning.

2. The second item that I feel would most increase student learning is to ensure that EVERY school has a computer specialist to whom the students go to for computer training; each student should get to be in this class at least once a week (preferably more). This would give students a competent, professional technology teacher who could prepare them for future. Not all schools have such a teacher.

Colorado and Wyoming teacher associations, in cooperation with their legislatures, have just made starting salaries $40,000. Nevada and Idaho pay more, too. Many fantastic teachers I know have moved from Utah because they get a professional salary and are well-respected in these states. Utah, and the legislature, need to stop blaming teachers and the system for failures and need to stop treating us like unskilled workers. Teachers have the same literacy rates as doctors and lawyers; for Utah to remain competitive and give its children quality education, the legislature needs to respect and value our teachers and our professional organization, the UEA. If you want to attract and retain quality teachers, professional pay is essential. Thank you for considering these recommendations.

[D. Swenson]

Why not come to the table with school board members who also want reform. Qualitiy teaching is the #1 key in a student's education. The questions should be:
1. How can we improve the quality of our "current" teachers?
2. What can we do to improve the quality of our "future" teachers?
3. What kind of reforms can be implemented in the system to insure ongoing, quality teaching?

While money is not a "cure all" to education woes, the fact that Utah is dead last (and declining) in education spending definitely should be considered one of the problems. Also the fact that funding effort has declined so dramatically in the past 10 years is a problem. I believe that there are many within what has been so negatively labled as the "education establishment" that are ready and willing to come to the table for education reform. I have been reading about Denver's Pay-for-performance teacher compensation plan. I know that the state office is working on "Pro-Excel" and it is time that we change the way teachers are valued, trained, recruited AND compensated. But the simplistic approach by so many in our legislature is "pay according to student test scores".

We are trying to implement many different reforms in our district with the goal of improved teaching. The truth is that there is never enough money for the programs that we KNOW have worked and ARE working.

It's time for legislators and education to come together. Since being a school board member I have been astounded at the lack of communication or willingness of many legislators to even come to the table or listen to what we have learned about education as board members. I never see our legislators in our schools--even when invited. I have yet to see even one of them at a board meeting. I dare say they have no idea about the truth of what we do. There are many unfounded rumors that circulate about what is happening in our schools and our board meetings--and our legislators are willing to "legislate" based on rumors without ever going to the source and finding out the facts.

Let's come to the table and talk. Two-way communication by real people seeking real solutions is what the people of Utah deserve.

[Rob Latham]

Understanding that I'll sound like Johnny-One-Note with this proposal, but consider requiring school district board elections to become more competitive and representative through the single-transferable-vote, proportional representation electoral method.

Substituting a centralized power base with representatives from different constituencies will promote more accountability through increased checks and balances from stakeholders with competing agendas, while increasing overall stakeholder participation in their school districts ... because then historically disenfranchised communities would have a seat at the table.

The related URL links to a flash animation (produced by the Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform in British Columbia) showing how the single-transferable-vote, proportional method can be and has been implemented.

Perhaps the Utah Legislature will one day use this more competitive and more representative model to replace the single member district, plurality method in which its membership is elected. ;-)

http://www.citizensassembly.bc.ca/flash/bc-stv-count

[John Talcott]

John Dougall,

Do you realize that you have stated clearly in this article that you intend to retaliate against and give "pay back" to those who might disagree with your ideas for education reform (your words, not mine). Are you an elected representative of our state government or a member of the Mafia?

John Talcott

[John Dougall]

Get serious! Did you actually reading the post?

I'm elected to help improve public education (among other things), not just sit around. I will continue to work to improve it. If you have any recommendations, then provide them. That was the point of the post -- asking for recommendation.

[John Talcott]

"Did you actually reading the post?" This sounds a lot like President Bush: "Is our children learning". All kidding aside. I did read exactly what you wrote, and I have been an active informed observer in Utah politics for 40 years---long enough to see through the transparency of comments of Republican politicians such as yourself.

Let's begin with the title of your opinion piece: Payback? Only Those Resistant To Improvement.

You raise the question: Is there going to be payback by the Republican leadership in the legislature to the education establishment for opposing vouchers and working to bring about a referendum that allowed the will of the public to decide the issue. Your title then goes on to answer your own question (in typical Rumsfeldian style): Yes, there will be "payback" to those who are resistant to improvement.

(Now here is where the transparency of your statement comes in). You define improvement as anything that can be done "within existing budgets" [translation: without increasing education funding, which I'm sure you are tired of hearing is the lowest in the United States].

Then you go on to list your "approved" improvements that include many proposals the UEA and State Office of Education have traditionally opposed, such as "merit pay", removing "due process" in the firing of teachers, basing teacher raises on test scores, etc.

Another big potential "payback" is the current Republic push to make selecting the members of the state school board a partisan election. I am assuming you support that as well. The transparency here of course, is the fact that this "representative body" did not bow down to will of the Republican leadership in the legislature (or the Republican state attorney general) on the voucher issue, and that leadership is zealous when it comes to increasing its power grip and contol over all aspects of state government.

I have read several articles like yours in which Curtis Bramble and others Republican leaders are saying "No matter what we do, they (the UEA and State Office of Education) will call it RETALIATION. That tactic is nothing more than cleverly setting the stage for the next legislative session when they (also read: YOU) ram through some onerous bill opposed by the education community so they (also read: YOU) can throw up their hands and say "we told you that they would call this retaliation---we are just trying to improve education in the State of Utah".

You do make a few good suggestions in your statement such as allowing students to learn at their own rate and to use the latest technology, but both of these innovations are expensive to implement. When you say only "within existing budgets" several of your better ideas are simply not feasible. If you had any firsthand experience in the classroom, you would know that.

You can say that legislation that "improves education" that is opposed by the education community in the next legislative session is not retaliation, BUT IF IT WALKS LIKE A DUCK, AND QUACKS LIKE A DUCK.....

These are my opinions on the subject, the view from your "tunnel" may be different.

John B.Talcott

Liberal, Democrat, Retired Utah Educator, Living Behind the Zion Curtain in The People's Republic of Utah County

[Mary]

STAND STILL LADDIE !!

HOW CAN YOU HAVE ANY PUDDING IF YOU DON'T EAT YOUR MEAT ??