At
Jacobin, Dan Clawson writes
No More Backroom Deals. Clawson is a member of the board of directors of the Massachusetts Teachers Association, and is co-chair of the MTA’s education policy committee. An excerpt:
To the casual observer, Massachusetts may seem like an unlikely place to open up a new front in the assault on teachers. The state has the highest test scores in the nation, and just this year the National Education Association named its chief executive “America’s Greatest Education Governor.”
But on October 20, the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) unveiled a draconian proposal that would tie teacher performance, narrowly defined, to teacher licensing. Thousands of educators knew an unmitigated attack when they saw one, and responded accordingly.
Late last week, after a massive backlash organized by the Massachusetts Teachers Association—under the leadership of Barbara Madeloni, the recently elected president of the 113,000 member union—the proposal was withdrawn. The victory should serve as a reminder that a mobilized rank-and-file and implacable leadership can defeat attacks on public school educators. Backroom deals don’t get the goods. And because the proposal will likely appear in other states, teachers around the country should take note.
Under the October 20 proposal, teachers rated by their supervisors as “needs improvement” wouldn’t just lose their jobs—they’d lose their license, preventing them from teaching anywhere in the state ever again.
On October 30, in response to letters of protest, Massachusetts Commissioner of Education Mitchell Chester emphasized that “at this point in time,” he had not yet recommended any specific changes. He was just floating a set of (bad) options. Three were being considered, and all tied license renewal to “performance.”
Under Plan A, a teacher wishing to retain her license would have to be rated at least “proficient” and have at least “moderate” student impact ratings every year; a teacher who cleared that bar could get her license renewed for the next five years. On the other hand, if her supervisor judged that she “needs improvement,” or her students’ test scores didn’t go up at least a “moderate” amount, she would be unable to re-up her license.
Under Plan B, if an educator didn’t “demonstrate to the state” enough “progress toward growth” on his or her educator plan, the educator would get a conditional one-year extension. This would presumably require the state to add hundreds of staff members to read through eighty thousand teachers’ educator plans. (This in a state where the DESE often takes a year to respond to a complaint that a teacher violated the rules for administering a high-stakes test—one of the agency’s highest priorities.)
Plan C offered a menu of bad choices, and applicants had to meet two or more of them. Options included being recommended by one’s school district (dependent on one’s supervisor), “satisfactory student growth as measured by” high-stakes standardized tests, and (unspecified) “successful and effective parent engagement.”
These inane plans—not raising pay, or according respect, or giving teachers more autonomy in the classroom—were supposed to create a world-class teaching force in Massachusetts.
If adopted, the consequences of this “performance-based” licensure system would have indeed been dire. First, teacher tenure would be effectively abolished. Forget due process. An educator could have a solid union contract and be doing a pretty good job; if his supervisor decided he wasn’t good enough, he’d lose his license and his job — even if he had Professional Teacher Status, the state’s equivalent of tenure. [...]
Blast from the Past. At Daily Kos on this date in
2010—
Incoming GOP House not interested in jobs:
Atrios made this point a week ago:
During exchanges on the twitter, it occurred to me that even Republican challengers didn't for the most part run on the bad economy/unemployment. They ran on issues more separate from peoples' lives (stimulus spending, deficit) and on being the great defenders of Medicare. |
It was a surprising point, but one that rings true nonetheless. Republicans might argue that all the deficit hysteria was job-related, but only insofar as they've transferred blame for Wall Street's excesses onto the government for obvious ideological reasons. It turns out that Republicans really didn't run on creating jobs, but on demonizing government efforts to stimulate job growth (the stimulus, auto industry bailouts, TARP, etc). And by the time the votes were cast, even TARP—a Bush initiative—belonged to Obama.
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