Sarah Carr

Sarah Carr, a contributing editor at The Hechinger Report, went on NBC’s Education Nation on Friday to talk about the radical changes to New Orleans’ school landscape since Katrina.

The city has a higher percentage of charter schools than any other since the flood. Education Nation traveled to New Orleans last week to see how the changes are playing out on the ground.

Carr’s panel focused on the rise in the number of teachers coming to the city through alternative programs like Teach For America and the need for holistic reforms that reach parents and the broader community.

The American Opportunity Tax Credit expires on December 31st, and, with it, financial relief averaging $1,545 per recipient who pays for college.

Compounding the dilemma is the fact that an increasing portion of these tax breaks goes to families whose adjusted gross income is between $100,000 and $180,000, according to calculations by the College Board.

They get 23 percent of the savings, or $4.3 billion a year. In all, 39 percent of the tax break, which was meant to help low-income students, is being steered to families who make $75,000 or more per year.

The federal tax credit goes to about 4.5 million students and their families. They can deduct up to $2,500 of the cost of tuition, fees and course materials for the first four years of attending a postsecondary educational institution.

Read more here about the billions in financial aid going to college students who the government says don’t need it.

The Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit analyzed teacher attendance rates at more than 56,000 schools across the country in “Teacher Absence as a Leading Indicator of Student Achievement.” The report found that nearly 40 percent of teachers nationally missed more than 10 days of school during the 2009-10 school year, costing districts at least $4 billion in substitute-teacher and administrative fees.

The report’s author, Raegen Miller, writes that student achievement suffers when a teacher is frequently absent. “Every 10 absences lowers average mathematics achievement equivalent to the difference between having a novice teacher and one with a bit more experience,” Miller writes, referencing a 2008 study. “It’s plausible that achievement gaps can be attributed, in part, to a teacher attendance gap.”

Some states and individual districts have alarmingly high rates of absenteeism. In Arkansas, Hawaii and Rhode Island, nearly half of all teachers missed 10 or more days of school, compared with only 20 percent of teachers in Utah.

In New Jersey’s Camden City Public Schools, a district that has struggled with poverty and poor test scores, up to 40 percent of teachers are absent on any given school day, a figure that has forced the district to hire a private substitute-teacher agency to help ensure there’s an adult in each classroom.

Nationally, teachers are more likely to be absent if they’re female, teach in middle schools, or teach in public schools rather than charters. Schools with high proportions of African-American or Latino students, as well as those with more low-income students, also reported higher rates of teacher absences.

Differences in state policies also lead to disparities. Some states allow teachers as many as 15 paid sick days a year, for instance, while others allow just seven. The report found that teacher absences are often driven by district- or school-level factors, too. Teachers tend to be absent less when they’re required to notify their principals of an absence by telephone, and a separate study found that schools with stressful or negative staff cultures had higher absence rates.

The report recommends giving teachers at least seven paid sick days per year, but reducing the number of excused absences in districts that lean toward a “more permissive” policy. It also recommends that school districts use incentives to discourage “frivolous” use of paid leave, and adopt electronic systems to manage absences in more cost-effective ways.

For the first time in decades, more than 50 percent of the nation’s teaching force is comprised of teachers who have been in the classroom under 10 years, Teach Plus found in “Great Expectations: Teachers’ Views on Elevating the Teaching Profession,” which looks at the changing demographics of U.S. teachers.

From “Seven Trends: The Transformation of the Teaching Force,” by Richard Ingersoll and Lisa Merrill (May 2012)

The national survey asked 1,015 new and veteran teachers their views on some of the most contentious issues in U.S. public education, like teacher evaluations and class size, to see if attitudes are shifting with an influx of newer teachers.

Despite differences in experience, teachers are generally united when it comes to working conditions. The majority of both newbies and veterans agree that class sizes should not be increased, even if doing so would provide districts with more funding to raising salaries. The two groups are also in agreement about keeping the school day shorter and said that increasing pay is key to elevating public respect for the profession.

On the topic of teacher evaluations, though—one of the most highly debated issues in education reform—the two demographics have mostly differing views. They agree that current teacher evaluations are ineffective at improving instruction, but 71 percent of less experienced teachers say their evaluation should be tied to student test score growth, compared to only 41 percent of veteran teachers.

Those who began teaching in the last decade are also more supportive of changing compensation and tenure systems, and more likely to think the use of student data is important to teach more effectively.

Celine Coggins, founder and CEO of Teach Plus, said a new generation of teachers has been exposed to the magnitude of the achievement gap, which may influence their attitudes and their belief in the importance of data.

“Closing gaps among racial groups and across income levels motivates the commitment to teaching for so many,” Coggins said.

In 1987, the majority of teachers had 15 years of experience, according to a study by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania. Now, with about half of new teachers leaving urban classrooms within three years, teachers with just one year of experience are the most common in U.S. classrooms. And each year, 200,000 new teachers enter the profession, 65 percent of whom are recent college graduates.

Mark Teoh, director of research and knowledge at Teach Plus, said that these new teachers were most likely students during or after the introduction of the No Child Left Behind Act in 2002, and said their attitudes show they are more accustomed to testing and accountability than their more experienced colleagues.

At a time when states are introducing the Common Core standards and new evaluation methods, Teoh says these shifting teacher attitudes could influence education reform, as policymakers hear “what kind of profession these teachers want to see, and what kind of workforce they want to be a part of.”

The report also highlights problems that come with a younger, less experienced teaching force. Teach Plus recommends including teacher opinion in policymaking and encouraging newer teachers to take on leadership roles.

“There’s definitely room and a hunger for these teachers to be part in the policy process itself,” Teoh said. “They’re the ones who are there all the time, and they can provide the feedback, guidance and perspective that [are] needed.”

From left, Ms. Rhonda Winston, Davion Sims (in her lap), MeKenzi Stephens, Eziyah Robinson, Kimiyah Nuttall, Kaitlyn White and Eben Banks Jr. at Little Angels Day Care, which is part of the Building Blocks program. (Photo by Kim Palmer)

The request to expand Mississippi Building Blocks follows increasing media coverage  of early education in Mississippi, one of 11 states in the nation, and the only state in the south, that does not fund pre-K.  The program works to improve school readiness for children in the state with the highest child poverty rate, and some of the lowest test scores in the nation.

Claiborne Barksdale, CEO of the Barksdale Reading Institute, which helps fund Building Blocks, said during a news conference earlier this week that money will run out before the fifth year if the state does not contribute. Former president and CEO of Netscape Communications, Jim Barksdale, told WLBT that this program is essential for Mississippi’s future. “These children are better prepared for kindergarten which means they’re better prepared to go on to school life ahead of them,” Barksdale said. “They’re better prepared to be contributing citizens of this state.”

Mississippi has more than 1700 child care centers in the state, but quality varies greatly. There are no consistent education standards, and early childhood teachers are not required to have more than a high school diploma or GED.

Building Blocks has helped over 500 early childhood programs teach literacy and school readiness skills.

The program provides equipment, a research-based curriculum, and teacher training in 31 Mississippi counties. A University of Missouri study found the program had a positive impact on children’s skills and social emotional development, and children in the program, when compared to a control group, had double the scores on school-readiness skills assessments. The program has also proved to be affordable— since its inception four years ago, it has been sustained entirely by private funding.

Mississippi’s Department of Education has already requested an unprecedented $2.5 million in the 2014 budget request for an early education pilot program, but  Gov. Phil Bryant has not commented on whether Building Blocks will receive any of those funds.

The Hechinger Report, via partnerships in Time and NBC News, has highlighted problems resulting from the lack of high quality early childhood education in the state.

1857: The National Education Association (NEA) is founded in Philadelphia by 43 educators. The new union focused on raising teacher salaries, child labor laws, educating emancipated slaves and how the forced assimilation of Native Americans affected their education.

Chicago Teachers Federation meeting in the 1920s

1897: The Chicago Teachers Federation is formed to raise teacher salaries and pensions. At this point, teacher compensation mainly consisted of room and board in the local community.

1902: Teachers, parents and students unite in Chicago for the first teachers’ strike, which occurs after a teacher is suspended for refusing to allow a disruptive child back into her classroom. According to journalist Dana Goldstein, the strike helps the newly formed CTF.

1906: In New York, the Interborough Association of Women Teachers fights for equal pay for equal work. During this time, teacher salary is based on position. Secondary-school teachers are paid more than elementary-grade teachers, and non-minority men are paid more than women.

1916: The American Federation of Teachers is created in Chicago as several local unions band together. The AFT focuses on salaries and discrimination against female teachers, including contracts requiring that they wear skirts of certain lengths, teach Sunday school, and not receive “gentleman callers more than three times a week,” according to American Teacher magazine.

1920s -1940s: Strikes are rare, since striking workers were often fired quickly and laws in some states make government worker strikes illegal. Unions focus on improving pay, improving conditions in school, and increasing federal aid to schools.

1950s: The NEA affiliates with 18 black teacher’s associations in states where segregation is rampant. By 1951, 98 percent of urban school districts are paying teachers based on professional qualifications rather than on the grade they teach.

1959: Wisconsin becomes the first state to pass a collective bargaining law for public employees. Union membership increases across the country as more states pass similar laws.

1962: The New York City teachers’ strike lasts one day, but shuts down more than 25 of the city’s public schools. Time labels it the “biggest strike by public servants in U.S. history.”

Florida teachers displaying protest signs during their walkout in 1968 (Courtesy the State Archives of Florida)

1968: Florida statewide teachers’ strike—More than 40 percent of Florida’s teachers strike over salaries and funding for classrooms. This is the first statewide strike in the nation.

New York City teachers’ strike—Three separate walkouts close schools for 36 days. The strike occurs after the newly created school board in Ocean Hill-Brownsville, Brooklyn, dismisses mostly white and Jewish teachers from the majority black district. The UFT demands that the teachers be rehired. The strike ends after the state steps in, and the teachers are reinstated.

1970s and 1980s: Striking breaks out across the country. Although it is illegal in Minnesota at the time, a 1970 strike by Minneapolis teachers over low salaries prompts the state to enact the Minnesota Public Employees Labor Relations Act, which protects teachers’ ability to strike. Strikes also take place in Philadelphia, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Chicago, over pay, medical benefits and contract demands. “The same issues were involved, same picketing, same closing of schools, all of that is identical” to the issues in the recent Chicago strike, said John P. Hancock, Jr., a lawyer in Detroit who represented school boards in two Michigan strikes during this time. “It was really awful.”

1990s- 2000s: Laws restricting collective bargaining rights and the differences in contracts and salaries between districts have greatly diversified the role of unions in each state. Unions have taken stronger positions in political campaigns to support like-minded candidates. They have also been vocal about changes to teacher evaluations, an increased number of charter schools, and the introduction of merit pay, and still have the power to impact education reform rollouts in some of America’s largest cities, as was demonstrated in Chicago.

Chicago teachers strike (Photo by br5ad)

Teacher union leaders and district officials reached a tentative compromise on Friday afternoon, after drawn-out negotiations over compensation, the length of the school day and teacher evaluations. But when union delegates met Sunday, many were unwilling to vote in favor of the deal, because they either opposed it outright or wanted more time to go over the details.

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel is seeking a legal injunction to end the strike in the nation’s third largest school district on the grounds that “it was called over issues that teachers are not legally permitted to strike about and that it endangers the health and safety of children,” according to The New York Times.

“I will not stand by while the children of Chicago are played as pawns in an internal dispute within a union,” Emanuel said in a statement. “This was a strike of choice and is now a delay of choice that is wrong for our children.”

As the strike continues, parents, teachers, experts and advocates in Chicago and around the country are weighing in. Some, like former District of Columbia Public Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee, take Emanuel’s side.

“We heard a lot of talk from union leadership about fewer students in each classroom, about improving training, and about the very real challenges teachers face. But by extending the strike tonight, the union proved that this wasn’t about addressing any of those issues,” Rhee, founder and CEO of StudentsFirst, a group that aims to mobilize parents and to serve as a political counterweight to unions, said in a statement. “It’s clear this was only about job security and compensation for union members.”

Terry Moe, a professor at Stanford University and author of Special Interest: Teachers Unions and America’s Public Schools, wrote an op-ed for CNN similarly arguing that the strike—and collective bargaining in general—is harmful to Chicago’s school children.

“The purpose of the Chicago school system—and of the American school system more generally—is to educate children,” Moe wrote. “The way to assess collective bargaining is not to ask whether it works to bring labor peace. It is to ask whether it promotes the interest of children in a quality education. And the answer to that question is no, it does not. Not even remotely.”

Education historian Diane Ravitch argued last week on NPR, though, that the strike was a way to ultimately help children. “I think the union has a vision of a school system that has the kind of resources where children get what they actually need,” she said on The Diane Rehm Show Wednesday. “[The strike] has to do with all the specific issues, but with a larger vision of what’s the best kind of education for children.”

Teachers union members across the country have thrown their support behind their striking peers. Emanuel pointed to the Boston Teachers Union, which recently finished its own tense negotiations over a new evaluation system without striking, as an example the Chicago union should follow.

In response, the Boston union took out a full-page ad in the Chicago Sun-Times to publish a letter to Emanuel. “Thank you for mentioning our contract settlement, which came about as a result of a mutually respectful conversation between the parties,” the union wrote. “Perhaps you can learn from us—and begin to treat your own teaching force with the same respect.”

Saturday, teachers from Wisconsin, Minnesota and other states came to Chicago to lend their support to teachers in a rally.

And the union says it’s receiving a great deal of parental support as well. A poll released last week found that 55.5 percent of parents supported the union’s decision to go on strike, while 40 percent opposed it.

For other parents, frustration grew as the week went on. “Our kids were being used as leverage,” Chicago parent Humberto Ramirez told The Chicago Tribune. “I certainly don’t begrudge any benefits of salaries the [teachers union] has been able to negotiate, but [they] put so many people in a terrible inconvenience simply because they have this grand union agenda.”

The talk soon turned to teacher salaries, and through the day, that topic came up, over and over again.

Research has shown that teachers are the single most important in-school factor for affecting student performance, so attracting and keeping good teachers has become a priority across the country. But educators at the conference stressed that the strongest teachers may be leaving the field because of concerns over salary or the belief that teaching is not a respectable profession. And, they say, the field may not be attracting the strongest potential teachers for those same reasons.

“I want teachers to be treated like brain surgeons, and assume that every single day that they go into work is a challenging day,” said Ninive Calegari, panelist and president of the nonprofit advocacy group The Teacher Salary Project. “What offends me is that they then go home to financial stress, and that’s unfair and as Americans, we should be offended by that.”

As it stands now, the National Education Association reports that beginning public school teachers can be paid anywhere from around $24,000, which is the average in Montana (and the lowest in the country), to nearly $45,000, the average beginning salary in New Jersey.

Salaries also vary within states, depending on district pay-scales, experience and the teacher’s education level. In districts that have introduced merit pay, teacher bonuses are typically based on how students perform on standardized tests.

Linda Darling-Hammond, a panelist and professor at Stanford University who is outspoken on education issues, highlighted the disparity between U.S. teacher salaries and those in high-performing countries like Finland and Singapore. In those countries, teachers and doctors have comparable salaries, and teacher education programs are extremely selective.

In Finland, where only one in 10 applicants is accepted by teacher education programs, the teaching profession is highly respected and attracts the nation’s top college graduates.

“People respond to you depending upon how much money you make as far as the authority you have, the prestige,” said Brian Crosby, a panelist and co-chair of the English Department at Hoover High School in Glendale, Calif.  “Teachers do not have the amount of salary they need to have the level of respect they deserve.”

The comparison to Finland and the issue of teacher salary kept coming up through the day.

“We are not Singapore, we are not Finland, we have a different set of circumstances,” said Kaya Henderson, chancellor of the District of Columbia Public Schools. “At the same time, we have to continue to hold these children to high standards.”

Some districts have seen salary levels directly affect their ability to attract and retain teachers. In Tennessee, Metro Nashville Public Schools this summer raised beginning teacher salaries by more than $5,000 a year, to $40,000. As a result, school officials said they had a flood of applications—over 1,000 for about 540 positions.

Meanwhile, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg School District, in North Carolina, which has experimented in the past with bonuses based on test scores, was recently identified in a study as a district that has failed to keep enough good teachers. This year, Charlotte-Mecklenburg teachers, who start at $34,000, received their first pay raise in four years. New Superintendent Heath Morrison is also investigating how to raise morale and provide more support to teachers as a retention strategy.

But the teacher strike in Chicago, where the average teacher salary is $71,236, demonstrates that for many teachers, salary is only one critical issue.  Chicago teachers are some of the most highly paid in the nation, but even the offer of a 16 percent pay raise over the next four years has not deterred them from striking over other issues, like teacher evaluations and job security.

While raising salaries may not be a main focus of education reform, several members of the panel suggested that it might be the best starting point when it comes to making teaching a more respected position and attracting quality teachers. “In order for our country to be successful in the future, we need to have college students want to teach the same way they want to get into medical school,” said Calegari. “I think that that standard would really protect the future of our country.”

(Photo by Sarah-Ji)

Chicago teachers went on strike Monday, after protracted negotiations over wages, length of the school day, health benefits and new teacher evaluations failed to yield a new contract for members of the city’s teachers union. (A new round of negotiations could end the strike by 2 p.m. Friday, however.)

This year, the Chicago Public Schools planned to roll out a new teacher evaluation system tying at least 25 percent of a teacher’s rating to student test scores. The district is ahead of a state law that requires new evaluations to be adopted by the 2016-17 school year.

Stricter evaluation systems for teachers have been a signature of President Barack Obama’s education reform efforts, but they have been hotly contested by teachers around the country.

Republican challenger Mitt Romney has tried to elevate the strike into a national political issue. He released a statement on Monday condemning the teachers unions and his opponent. “President Obama has chosen his side in this fight, sending his vice president last year to assure the nation’s largest teachers union that ‘you should have no doubt about my affection for you and the president’s commitment to you,’” Romney said. “I choose to side with the parents and students depending on public schools.”

Yet, so far, President Obama has chosen to stay out of the strike in Chicago, citing it as a local dispute. U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan issued a brief statement saying he hoped “the parties will come together to settle this quickly and get our kids back in the classroom.”

Political analysts and strategists at the national level have suggested that the longer the strike lasts, the worse it could be politically for Obama. “There’s no doubt that this hurts President Obama,” Michael Petrilli, executive vice president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute and former official in President George W. Bush’s administration, told The New York Times. “He needs teachers to be energized and to go out and knock on doors and man phone banks for him. Right now they’re watching his former chief of staff go toe to toe with the teachers’ union in Chicago. This is not a position that the president wants to find himself in.”

But the Chicago strike is just the latest—if most dramatic—incident in a series of confrontations between teachers unions and the Obama administration. In particular, Obama has pushed for policies like merit pay and increasing the number of charter schools, which unions have vehemently opposed.

Several teachers who spoke with The Hechinger Report at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C., last week said they had no problem overlooking disagreements with Obama in order to support him in his re-election bid. Romney’s plans, including his desire to expand school choice, were not an appealing alternative to them. And American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten praised Obama for not getting involved at a Chicago press conference, and assured The Report that she saw no conflict between supporting striking teachers and supporting the president.

Does the strike hinder Obama’s re-election hopes? Tell us what you think in the comment section below.

President Barack Obama delivers remarks on higher education and the economy at the University of Texas in Austin, Texas August 9, 2010. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

Up until last week, education was rarely addressed on the campaign trail. But the stakes for the future of the U.S. education system are high in this election: The Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), which funds and delineates the federal government’s role in the nation’s schools, will most likely be reauthorized in the next four years.

The last revision of the bill, President George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), has been heavily criticized for its reliance on standardized tests and seemingly unattainable standard of universal proficiency by 2014. President Obama would ease up on some of the law’s restrictions, but maintain a robust federal role in local schools. Romney would move to reduce the government’s investment and involvement in education.

President Obama and Romney do share some common ground in their education platforms; both support charter schools, for example, and merit pay for the country’s best teachers. They both also speak of our failing schools and the pressing need to prepare American students for global competition. But the paths they would take to do this differ in important ways.

The Obama administration has largely used a carrot-and-stick approach to changing the education system. Over the past six months, the Department of Education has granted waivers from NCLB penalties to 26 states in return for promises that they will introduce other education reforms and accountability measures.

Under Obama’s Race to the Top initiative, a competition in which states promised a series of changes to their education systems in return for federal money, an unprecedented number of states are overhauling how teachers are evaluated, paid and let go.

Some Republicans have criticized Obama’s education initiatives as overreaching by the federal government. Although Romney would not eliminate the Department of Education – as President Ronald Reagan once sought to do – he would consolidate the agency with another or “perhaps make it a heck of a lot smaller,” he told donors in April.

Mitt Romney (Photo by Gage Skidmore)

Under a Romney administration, school choice would be a priority. The Obama administration has thrown its support behind charter schools – awarding some points in Race to the Top for states that raise caps on the number of charters. Romney, though, wants to see a school choice system that includes vouchers for private schools in addition to more charters.  Romney’s white paper on education calls for low-income and special-needs students to be able to go to any school, public or private, of their choice, using funds from the federal government.

Romney’s support of private sector involvement in education extends into higher education.  He wants to allow private bank involvement in student loans (Obama eliminated their role in March of 2010). He has also praised for-profit, private colleges and campaigned on their campuses. Romney argues that for-profit schools increase competition in the post-secondary landscape and can help keep the cost of college down.

The Obama administration is one of many critics of for-profits, arguing that they leave graduates with large loans and few employment opportunities. Under Obama, the Department of Education developed regulations that will pull federal financial aid from schools where graduates are unable to find “gainful employment.” Romney would repeal this.

Due to Tropical Storm Isaac, the Republican National Committee Convention is off to a slow start; all speeches for the evening have been postponed until later in the week. Starting tomorrow, check in with The Hechinger Report this week and next for analysis of speeches, coverage of off-the-floor convention events and exclusive interviews with national education leaders.