President Obama and his Education Secretary, Arne Duncan, are both committed to the idea of expanding the charter school movement. Both have been involved in the success of this movement in providing under-privileged kids in Chicago with educational options.
The really interesting question is, now that he is President, what will Obama do about the tension between the teachers unions and the overall idea behind school choice. One reason (there are many) that the charter school movement emerged was the perceived need to develop new schools that were free to operate more like private businesses than public institutions. In some states, the teachers unions are doing everything they can to undercut the charter movement (by ensuring a limited number of charters and squeezing public funding sources) because it is a very real threat to them.
This is a political nightmare for President Obama. His convictions, and his background as a community organizer, have made him a believer in the charter movement. His politics point in the other direction. He owes the unions big time. Now they want their bill paid. And, the charter school movement is standing exactly in their cross-hairs.
It will certainly be interesting to see what the President does now.
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Education reform should be on top of every American's list. It, and almost it alone, will determine whether we have an educated middle class that will be productive and fuel our economy for the next century (not to mention nurture an enlightened society).
ReplyDeleteMy father was an elementary school teacher so I'm sympathetic to their cause, but can you name any other profession that has a union with collective bargaining power? We need smart folks to become teachers because they want to teach our children not because they are hiding from the competitive marketplace through tenure (which was designed for academic freedom which doesn't really apply to primary education). We also need to give teachers the compensation and respect they deserve and reflects their importance to our society and our economic engine.
Consider this: Offer to pay all teachers a huge raise (e.g., 145% of their current pay with the opportunity to earn a significant year-end performance bonus. Implement a 360 degree review process (all done efficiently and securely online) where parents, colleagues and administrators review each teacher every 6 months. In exchange, teachers agree to opt out of tenure and agree to teach year around (i.e., a truncated summer vacation-3 weeks). We lose too much on the down slide and ramp up for end of year and beginning of year periods.
Over the course of a generation, you would weed out the deadwood teachers who have been mailing in their lessons for years and need to find another job and foster a thriving community of the best, most aggressive, high energy teachers in the country. It would be the envy of every school system.
I admit that their is an opportunity to game the system. There is in every system. It's not perfect, but it would revitalize our teacher corp and drive America to the top the world in terms of broadbased education and pay huge dividends economically over the next century.
Could not agree with you more that; 1) unions are not only not necessary any longer, but they are part of the broader problem in the public school system and that 2) teachers are underpaid in our society and in order to attract the best and the brightest, we need to pay them more.
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