Could raising salaries be the best way to attract and keep better teachers?
Educators kicked off the New York Times Schools For Tomorrow Conference on Thursday morning by addressing a recurring question among teachers: how can the status and perception of the teaching profession be elevated?
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.”
Ed in the election: Is the Chicago teachers strike hurting Obama?
The Chicago teachers strike, which entered its fifth day on Friday, could hurt Obama’s chances for re-election, analysts said this week.
(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.
Poll: Parents and teachers support spending for classroom technology
Parents and teachers are generally united in the belief that the United States should spend more money on technology in classrooms, according to the results of an August poll conducted by the LEAD Commission.
The group, which is studying the way technology can be used in classrooms, surveyed 883 parents and 812 public school teachers to determine if there is grassroots support for major investments in classroom technology. The poll did not ask parents and teachers what kind of technology is currently being used in classrooms, or what the nation’s next steps should be to utilize technology in schools.
Over 60 percent of the parents and teachers polled said that the United States is behind the curve when it comes to using technology in the classroom, and over 90 percent of those polled said that technology is, “important to the education of American students today.”
And at a time when many districts are looking for ways to save money and cut costs, the majority of those polled said that classroom funding should be spent on Internet-connected devices rather than on traditional methods of learning, such as textbooks. However, only 18 percent of teachers polled said they are receiving the necessary training to use technology to its fullest potential in their own classrooms
In a press conference on Monday, LEAD Commissioner and Founder Jim Steyer said the results show him that parents and teachers are invested in improving education by utilizing technology. “They know this is critical. They know their kids need it,” Steyer said.
Despite a general consensus, the poll results varied when other factors, such as income and political affiliation, came into play. Teachers at low-income schools and parents who made less than $30,000 were more likely to say that in the next 10 years, the role of technology will become “much more important” in preparing young people for their future. The same subgroups, as well as Democrats and Independents, were also more likely to support additional investments in technology on the local and federal level.
“With less affluence, there is a greater emphasis on doing more,” said Geoff Garin, president of Hart Research Associates. “Parents and teachers recognize what the opportunities are and are making a pretty clear call for school systems and others who affect education policy to make sure those points of potential are realized as we move forward.”
Since taking office, President Obama has prioritized science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education. The President’s 2012 budget included a proposal for a $90 million investment in the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Education (ARPA-ED) that wouldhelp develop digital tutors, online classes, and “compelling” educational software that would rival video games.
In July, the Obama administration announced a plan to spend $1 billion to create a national corps of STEM teachers over the next four years. This announcement followed a goal set by Education Secretary Arne Duncan and Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julias Genachowski in February: to have all students in the nation using digital textbooks by 2017.
The LEAD Commission plans to release a blueprint in November that will use data from this poll, as well as other research, to recommend ways schools can better utilize technology.
From the convention: Obama says America can ‘out-educate and out-compete’ anyone
President Barack Obama had barely begun his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention on Thursday before uttering a word Republican nominee Mitt Romney didn’t mention until he was three-quarters through: Education.
2012 Democratic National Convention (Photo by Sarah Butrymowicz)
Obama addressed a handful of specific education goals, asking for help in recruiting 200,000 math and science teachers within the next 10 years and in improving early childhood education in the U.S. He also made a clear connection between education and a recovering economy.
“Help give 2 million workers the chance to learn skills at their community college that will lead directly to a job,” Obama continued. “Help us work with college and universities to cut in half the growth of tuition costs over the next ten years.”
Later in the speech, Obama touted his record in both k-12 and higher education. “For the first time in a generation, nearly every state has answered our call to raise their standards for teaching and learning,” Obama said, referring to the Common Core Standards.
That remark was the only allusion to his signature, controversial, Race to the Top program. In a competition for federal grants, states promised a slew of education reforms, including adopting the Common Core. Race to the Top, Obama’s largest k-12 initiative, however, has been missing from convention speeches.
The president’s speech included a dig at Romney’s “borrow money from your parents” advice to students, and continued his argument that education is a gateway to opportunity – and to the middle class – as it was in his own life.
“The government has a role in this,” he said. “But teachers must inspire. Principals must lead. Parents must instill a thirst for learning. And students – you’ve got to do the work. Together we can out-educate and out-compete any nation on Earth.”
The cheering crowd included over 200 delegates who are also members of the National Education Association (NEA), the country’s largest teachers union. Despite disagreements with Obama over policies like merit pay and tying teacher evaluation to test scores, both the NEA and the American Federation of Teachers have thrown their support behind Obama.
“I really do appreciate how he talks about the value of education, the role it plays not only in the lives of the individuals, the young people who are being educated, but the role education plays in our economic development,” NEA President Dennis Van Roekel said in an interview with The Hechinger Report.
Vice President Joe Biden did not focus on education, beyond telling his wife Jill – a lifelong educator – how proud he is of her work as a teacher. And the talk included two quick mentions of college cost and attainment.
On the final night of the convention, some speakers slammed Romney’s education track record and plans. Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter argued that “Romney doesn’t get it.”
“He recently visited a school in west Philly and told teachers he knows more than they do about what works for their students,” Nutter said. “He said class size doesn’t matter.’
“Doesn’t matter if our teachers can’t give our children the attention they need, that doesn’t matter?’’ Nutter asked.
At the school visit, Romney had cited a study that found no difference in class size among different countries as well as his own survey in Massachusetts that found the same thing. “Just getting smaller classrooms didn’t seem to be the key,” Romney said.
Research has demonstrated a murky relationship between class size and student performance; some studies have shown that there is no significant impact. Large class sizes, though, remain a major complaint of parents.
Nutter also criticized Romney for vetoing a bill that would provide universal pre-k in the state. (Romney said it was too expensive and he wanted to wait and see the results of a pilot program first).
And Montana Gov. Brian Schwietzer charged that Romney cut higher education by 14 percent and sent college cost skyrocketing.
“That’s okay for those who can afford it,” Schwietzer said.
As governor, Romney had a plan to consolidate the state’s higher education system that was never realized. Fees at state universities did increase from $2,959 to $4,836 during Romney’s term. And, during the state’s fiscal crisis, the university system was hit with about a 14 percent budget cut, according to the Boston Globe.
Overall, higher education was once again given more attention than k-12 issues. For the third time, Democrats brought college students on stage to praise Obama’s belief in them.
Admiral John Nathman, surrounded on stage by veterans, also took the stage to praise Obama’s work to improve veteran access to higher education.
Representative Donna Edwards (D-Md.) and the actress Eva Longoria also spoke of college costs, taking out loans to getting grants and working to pay for college.
“I did whatever it took and four years later, I got my degree,” Longoria said. “More importantly, I got a key to American opportunity. Because that’s who we are — a nation that rewards ambition with opportunity.”
From the convention: Denise Juneau says Montana not interested in tying teacher evaluations to test scores
Denise Juneau, Montana’s Superintendent of Public Instruction, took the stage at the Democratic National Convention Wednesday to speak highly of President Obama’s views on education – even though she doesn’t always agree with him. Juneau, the first Native American woman to win a statewide election, also spent some of her speech talking about other ways Obama has helped Native Americans.
Denise Juneau
The Hechinger Report caught up with Juneau to find out more about what’s going on in Montana and what she liked and didn’t like about Obama’s first four years.
Q: Under No Child Left Behind, all states must have 100 percent of students proficient on state exams by 2014. The Obama Administration has been granting waivers to states to free them from penalties for not hitting this mark In return, states had to promise certain reforms. Montana didn’t apply for a waiver. Why is that?
A: We actually took a look at our data, even though the bar [of students that must be proficient on state exams] went up this year, we had more students and more schools jump over that bar. So right now we have great education outcomes in our state. We’re fine under the structure of No Child Left Behind. We certainly could use some changes. We’re waiting for Congress to act, which hopefully will happen shortly after the election. For now, we’ll choose the option of staying under that system.
One thing, it’s too much money for us. We’re doing a lot of state initiatives to improve our educational system, primarily around dropout rates. We have revised our state accreditation standards. We want to do it in a way that fits our state. As long as I’m superintendent, we will fight back as hard as we can against tying teacher evaluations to student test scores. And as long as that’s a piece of the policy or money that comes out of the Department of Education, we probably will not participate. That was part of the waiver. We were meeting the requirements. We adopted Common Core. We’re revising and creating a teacher evaluation framework. We’re addressing our low performing school issues. But it has that piece that we can’t buy into yet.
That’s such a central piece of Obama’s teacher effectiveness plans. Does that make it harder for you to support him?
We can disagree on policy — but the value of education, there’s the understanding there that it leads to economic growth. He has made investments in higher education. He understands the need for students to have aspirations and to reach those goals. We can, as a state, disagree with a lot of federal policies that are coming out or pieces of them but knowing that underneath it all, if there’s some flexibility that’s provided in the future around that certain issue, we’ll certainly be a player. Right now, I like his focus on struggling schools. I like his idea of raising the profession and having quality teachers. All of those things, I think underneath it all, we agree on. It’s just how it is carried out. The alternative, of course, would be far worse than what we struggle with now.
What has President Obama done for Native American education specifically?
He actually has an executive order on Indian education [signed in December 2011], which has great intentions in it. The idea of bringing agencies together at the top levels, so bringing the Department of Interior who has a bureau of Indian education schools serving Indian students as well as the Department of Education, labor, policy, bringing all those agencies together to start talking about how to address that structural, the federal responsibility to American Indians from their treaty rights from a long time ago. There is this federal obligation to Indians and part of that is in education. So his executive order that he signed is good. I’m excited about that. He’s appointed a senior policy person to carry out the executive order and we’ll see how that works.
From the convention: Obama sees education as “investment,” not expense
Former President Bill Clinton praised President Barack Obama’s support of community colleges and student loan reforms Wednesday night, in a stirring speech that took on Republican attacks of Obama while praising the president’s record.
2012 Democratic National Convention (Photo by Sarah Butrymowicz)
Clinton highlighted the president’s policy that allows students to pay back loans based on income after graduation. “It means no one will ever have to drop out of college again for fear they can’t repay their debt,” Clinton said. “This will change the future for young Americans.”
Four speeches heavily focused on education, and with a slew of peripheral mentions, the issue continued to hold its place on a list of President Obama’s achievements during the second night of Democratic National Convention.
In contrast, the Republican party devoted just one speech to education over all three nights of its convention.
U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and former North Carolina Gov. Jim Hunt hit many of the same talking points, from merit pay to praising Obama’s Race to the Top initiative. The competition awarded states grants in return for promises to make certain education reforms.
And both Duncan and Hunt touted the President’s record in saving teaching jobs through his economic stimulus funds, with Hunt describing them as “recovery funds that literally kept our classrooms open.”
Duncan slammed Republican nominee Mitt Romney and his running mate Paul Ryan, saying that their budget would cut education by as much as 20 percent. The bill doesn’t specify how much education would be cut, but does call for large cuts in domestic discretionary spending; education falls under this umbrella.
“In order to cut taxes for millionaires and billionaires, Governor Romney will cut education for our children,” Duncan said. “That’s the difference in this election. They see education as an expense. President Obama sees it as an investment.”
Romney and Ryan believe that cutting taxes and eliminating regulations will spur job growth “by magic,” Hunt said.
“This is not a time for America to believe in magic,” he said. “This is a time to drive education forward.”
Hunt also talked about his own education record in North Carolina, noting that the state raised standards and increased teacher pay by 35 percent in four years. “Teachers have the hardest and most important job in America,” he said. “And we should appreciate them, respect them, and pay them well.”
Montana Superintendent of Public Instruction Denise Juneau hit the same message during her address, which also mentioned other ways Obama has helped Native Americans. Juneau, a member of the Mandan and Hidatsa tribes, is the first Native American woman in history to win a statewide election.
“Teachers do the work that matters and we cannot thank them enough,” she said. “For some students school is the only place where they get a hot meal and a warm hug. Teachers are sometimes the only ones who tell our children they can go from an Indian reservation to the Ivy League, from the home of a struggling single mom to the White House.”
Many speakers, including Clinton, mentioned Obama’s efforts to hold down interest rates for student loans. This summer, as a provision to keep rates down was set to expire, Congress came to a compromise that kept them from doubling. Romney also supported this.
For the second night in a row, Democrats brought out a Pell grant recipient to speak, praising Obama for doubling money given to the program, which provides low-income student with grants for school.
“When you’re trying to pay for college, every dollar makes a difference and President Obama has made a huge difference for us,” said Johanny Adames, a student at Miami Dade College. “Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan want to cut the Pell grants that made my future possible… If they don’t invest in my future, do they really believe in America’s?”
The DREAM Act, which Obama has steadfastly supported, also received special attention. The act, which Congress has voted down for more than a decade, would allow undocumented young people who met certain criteria to become eligible for permanent residency. This would allow them to get federal aid for higher education.
Obama circumvented Congress this summer with an executive order allowing these “DREAMers” to be safe from deportation. They still will not be eligible for federal loans and grants for education, however.
Obama did get credit for helping other Latino students attain their goals. “His education policies mean Hispanics will receive and estimated 150,000 more college scholarships,” said journalist and talk show host Christina Saralegui. “He is on our side.”
Unions in general were also singled out in a few speeches. “Many people forget… why we have safe workplaces, health care, the 40-hour week, middle-class wages, all the standards that most people take for granted. That did not just happen,” said Bob King, president of the International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America. “Strong unions and collective bargaining lifted millions out of poverty and built the great American middle class.”
From the convention: Michelle Rhee on how Obama — or Romney — should change education
Michelle Rhee, former chancellor of Washington, D.C.’s public schools, thinks that Democrats have entered a new phase in their relationship with teachers unions. And she thinks a push by Republicans for local control of education is unquestionably wrong.
Michelle Rhee
A political – and often controversial – figure since she started as chancellor in 2007, Rhee will be spending this election season focused on state-level policies. She started her organization, StudentsFirst, to create a counterweight to union political pressure. The organization provides support to politicians of both parties who promise to work for statewide education reforms.
The new effort does not mean that Rhee, a Democrat, doesn’t have opinions about what’s happening on the federal stage. The Hechinger Report sat down with Rhee at the Democratic National Convention to find out what she thinks about President Barack Obama, Mitt Romney and the direction her party is headed in.
Here are some highlights from the conversation:
On the Democrats’ “new day”:
Traditionally, Democrats have not gone against the teachers unions – and many still won’t, Rhee said. But the unions, which have often opposed things like the elimination of the first-in, last-out policy for teacher layoffs or merit pay, don’t hold the same political power they once did.
“It’s a new day for the Democratic Party,” Rhee said. “It’s not a monolith that’s just going to side with the teachers unions come what may.”
Rhee cited education resolutions that were passed unanimously by the U.S. Conference of Mayors this summer. They included supporting teacher evaluations that were 50 percent based on student performance and parent trigger laws — which allow for a majority of parents at a failing school to take it over.
“I think that tells you something,” Rhee said. Her husband, Sacramento, Calif., Mayor Kevin Johnson, chairs the education committee for the conference. “We’ve got a lot of people saying we support unions, we support collective bargaining, we definitely support teachers, but a lot of these policies are things that have to be looked at and things that have to be changed.”
On Obama’s performance – and what should come next:
Rhee praised the president’s education initiatives, including Race to the Top, which awarded federal money to states that promised to undergo a variety of education policy changes. But, she said, the concept shouldn’t necessarily stop there.
“There’s still a lot of other federal funding that there’s no accountability around,” she said. Title I funding, given to schools based on their low-income student enrollment, for instance, could be partly contingent on reforms, Rhee said. For the 2012-2013 school year, Congress approved $14.5 billion for Title I.
“It would probably be a big challenge for [the Obama administration politically,” she said. “The Republicans on the Hill don’t want to fund another batch of Race to the Top dollars. You could continue that dynamic forward with those title dollars.”
On Romney’s education plans:
A central piece of Romney’s – and the Republican Party’s – education platform involves pushing control back down to the local level, something Rhee says she “100 percent” disagrees with.
“We had 14,000 school boards in this country making the decisions for a long time and that is why we ended up where we ended up,” Rhee said, noting that often school boards aren’t composed of educators. “I don’t think local folks know everything.”
“We should not say, well, that kids in Jackson, Miss., should be held accountable to different learning standards to the kids in Beverley Hills to the kids in Worcester, Mass.,” she said. “These children are not going to be competing for jobs against each other. They’re going to be competing for jobs against kids in India and China, and we’re going to have to have a sense of how each of these kids is doing.”
That’s not to say that the federal government should dictate everything about education, Rhee said. She supports both national curriculum standards and the creation of a common assessment. States that fall short should face interventions as laid out by the U.S. Department of Education.
“You have to have a balance,” she said. “The federal government should set very clear standards … There should be flexibility with how we’re going to get there.”
On vouchers:
One area where Rhee and Romney find some common ground is in his proposal to expand vouchers for low-income students. But she’s cautious about being overzealous about this support.
“I think where some Republicans tend to go is they think they can take something like vouchers and that’s just the end all, be all,” she said. “’Let’s just voucherize the system and then we’ll solve all the problems’ … That point of view is – I think – naïve. ”
Students First has identified 37 policies that they think states should adopt in order to improve schools. “I just don’t think you can choose one thing,” Rhee said.
This story also appeared on NBCNews.com.
From the convention: What does a pro-charter president look like?
President Barack Obama and his challenger Mitt Romney have both thrown their support behind charter schools, publicly funded schools that operate outside of district rules. Obama gave states points in his Race to the Top initiative, in which states promised to undergo education reforms in exchange for federal money, for raising charter caps. Romney’s entire education platform hinges heavily on school choice, including charters, vouchers and online schools.
Nina Rees
At the Democratic National Convention, The Hechinger Report sat down with Nina Rees, President and CEO of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, to find out what she thinks of the candidates.
Q. Obama and Romney seem to have common ground on education, but one of the areas that they do differ is how far to take school choice. Do you see any differences in the way that they talk about school choice and charters?
A. If you look at Romney’s past statements about the Obama administration and Obama himself, the one area where he thinks the president has done good work has been in the area of education initiatives like Race to the Top. The key difference is school choice. He’s taken a step further by pushing states to be more aggressive in making choices available to their students, pushing the envelope on inter-district choice, which again hasn’t been mentioned in the Obama platform. Romney’s notion of federal involvement includes giving states more freedom from rules and regulations in exchange for greater information for families to make educated choices and access to those options, which is different from where the president is. His vision right now does include carrots and sticks and continues down the path of No Child Left Behind’s accountability mission, which is that there are going to be consequences if certain goals are not met.
Q. Which vision do you prefer?
A. The National Alliance is a nonpartisan group. We love the fact that charter schools are bipartisan. I think that it’s important to continue in that spirit. And both candidates, quite frankly, so far have been strong on the issue, so I can’t chose.
Leveraging that support in a meaningful way [is key]. You can be supportive but how much money are you going to put on the table? Or how much are you going to push on ESEA to make sure that the current funding streams are reaching the schools?
Q. Regardless of who is elected, what are some things you would like to see happen at the federal level in terms of charter school policy?
A. Certainly funding is a big issue. Making sure that charter schools continue to get access to startup funding is going to continue to be important. The other issue is making sure that the existing funding streams targeted at public education also reach charter schools, since charter schools are public schools. In a lot of cases, unfortunately they’re not getting their equitable share of funding from Title 1 [federal money given to schools with a certain amount of low-income students], from the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. Beyond just increasing funding for the charter school programs, I think it’s also important to look at the laws in place and the regulations in place to clarify a little bit more the fact that charter schools can also apply for [federal competitive grants].
Broadly speaking any and all efforts around weighted student funding, making sure dollars are following children or encouraging states to make sure dollars follow children [is important]. Encouraging inter-district choice or statewide open enrollment also benefit charter schools. So making sure that those policies are promoted at the federal level would be important.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
From the convention: Education finally plays a starring role
Democrats came out strong on education Tuesday, in a night devoted to praising President Barack Obama’s first term in office and focusing on federal education programs and funding from the littlest learners to college students.
Michelle Obama speaks at the 2012 Democratic National Convention. (Photo by Sarah Butrymowicz)
It was a sharp contrast to the Republican convention last week, where education was mentioned mostly in passing until a speech by former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush championing school choice.
Shying away from Obama’s signature Race to the Top initiative, which spurred a slew of states to change their education policies, Democrats sought to draw a distinction between Obama’s willingness to spend on education – particularly in early education and higher education – and Republican challenger Mitt Romney, who Mass. Gov. Deval Patrick claimed had “cut education deeper than anywhere else in America” during his time as governor of Massachusetts.
In contrast, speakers pointed out Obama’s support for early education programs like the federally funded Head Start, which provides free preschool to low-income kids.
“He’s made sure more of our youngest children have the stable foundation that Head Start provides,” said Obama’s sister Maya Soetoro-ng. She noted that she and Obama “were blessed with a mother who taught us that education was the surest path from limited means to limitless opportunities.’’
Keynote speaker Julian Castro, mayor of San Antonio, Texas touched on the need for federally funded education programs. “We know that pre-k and student loans aren’t charity,” he said. “They’re a smart investment.”
And Ryan Case, a Pell grant recipient two semesters away from a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Colorado, took the stage to praise federal education funding and explain why it’s a major reason he volunteers for Obama.
“It wouldn’t have been possible if President Obama hadn’t fought for students like me,” Case said of his upcoming graduation. “There’s just no way I’d be able to pay for school without the Pell grant funding President Obama doubled.”
Pell grants, given to low-income students for higher education, are a major point of contention between Democrats and Republicans. President Obama has increased Pell grant funding, while Republicans have sought to decrease it or limit eligibility for the grants.
Case went on to say that Romney’s plan could reduce Pell grants. “We’d still work as hard,” he said. “We just wouldn’t see that hard work pay off. That’s the difference in this election.”
Also dropped in a few times? That Obama had taken out – and paid – his own student loans.
When they first married, First Lady Michelle Obama said during her speech, their monthly student loan payments were greater than their mortgage.
“We were young, so in love and so in debt,” she said. “That’s why Barack has fought so hard to increase student aid and keep interest rates down, because he wants every young person to fulfill their promise and be able to attend college without a mountain of debt.”
Keynote speaker Castro mocked Romney’s advice to students this summer, when he told them to start a business and borrow money from their parents if they have to.
“Gee, why didn’t I think of that,” Castro said. “I think [Romney’s] a good guy. He just has no idea how good he’s had it.”
The evening also featured a short speech from a veteran who was able to go to school though the Post 9/11 Veterans Educational Assistance Act of 2008. The bill, which pays for full tuition at public universities and partial tuition at private ones for those who served after Sept. 11, 2001, was signed into law under President George W. Bush. Obama, then a senator, supported and voted for it.
Nate Davis, a graduate of Xavier University and current director of veteran affairs at the school, praised the Obama administrations treatment of returning soldiers.
Gov. Patrick offered up another specific example – one of the few direct k-12 mentions of the night. Boston’s Orchard Garden Elementary School, he said, was one of the worst in the city just a year ago. But it’s risen to be one of the best in the state, partially through the help of policies promoted by the Obama administration.
“Today’s Republicans and their nominee for president tell us those [students] are on their own – on their own to deal with their poverty, with ill-prepared young parents, maybe who speak English as a second language, with an underfunded school; with neighborhood crime and blight, with no access to nutritious food,” Patrick said. “For this country to rise, they must rise… They must have a champion in the White House.”
From the convention: Unions need to be part of education reform, legislators say
Legislators from across the U.S. gathered at the Democratic National Convention Tuesday and discussed the need for unions to be a part of any real education policy changes.
State Senator Michael Johnston (D- Colo.) and State Senator Nina Turner (D- Ohio) at town hall hosted by Democrats for Education Reform.
They also noted that that both unions and politics can get in the way.
A town hall hosted by Democrats for Education Reform showcased feuds that have erupted in many states as legislators have tried to push through a litany of education reforms that unions do not necessarily support – such as the use of student test scores in hiring and firing.
And who has been at the helm of many of these bills? Democrats, traditionally seen as the pro-labor political party.
The town hall in Charlotte comes at a time when DFER’s influence is growing. Founded five years ago, the organization works to elect Democrats committed to making drastic changes to state education policies. DFER attended the Democratic convention in 2008, “but this year brings a bigger audience and stature for the group,’’ the New Jersey Spotlight noted.
Examples of the group’s influence became clear when legislators spoke of what is happening in their states.
Marcus Brandon, a member of the North Carolina State House, was the only Democrat to vote for a 2011 bill that lifted the state’s cap on the number of charter schools that were allowed to open. Brandon lamented the political wrangling that kept charters from being required to provide lunch or transportation to low-income students.
Nina Turner, of the Ohio State Senate, discussed how an education reform bill for Cleveland, a city under mayoral control, was crafted with union input and two Republicans and two Democrats working together.
“We held hands the whole way through,” Turner said of the bill, which includes opportunities for new charters to open and changes to the teacher layoff process.
Teresa Ruiz, the state senator in New Jersey who was a driving force behind a bill that changed teacher tenure, was also able to get the union in her state on board.
“We shifted from calling it a compromise to calling it a collaboration,” Ruiz said. Still, Ruiz noted that the bill didn’t go far enough in her opinion; for instance it does not eliminate the first-in, last-out teacher layoff process.
“There is a level of fear,” she said of legislators who are unwilling to go against teacher union requests. “There is a group that can really make a difference [in re-elections.]”
When the presidents of the country’s two teachers union took the stage in the second panel, though, they were in agreement – as they have been – with the need to eliminate poor teachers to improve schools.
Their presence at the convention comes at a time when the relationship between the union and President Barack Obama has been somewhat frayed, the Los Angeles Times and others have noted. It also comes amid protests of the movie, “Won’t Back Down,” which stars Maggie Gyllenhaal as a single mother trying to get her daughter out of their failing public elementary school.
Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, has denounced the film for portraying teachers and their unions as stereotypes and objects of blame.
At the Town Hall, both Weingarten and Dennis Van Roekel of the National Education Association spoke of a different subject: the potential for technology and online classes to support education, although they argued that the concept of “school” as we know it, won’t disappear.
“Unless you can make where [students] come from and where they live [equal]… there’s got to be a place where I can go to get what I need to follow my dreams,” Van Roekel said.
John Katzman, an education entrepreneur whose companies include the Princeton Review and 2tor, which partners with universities to provide online classes, envisioned a future of education full of networks of schools, all catering to different learning styles or focuses.
This would extend to union contracts, he said, advocating an end to a “one size fits all” approach to negotiations within a district.
“Our different goals dictate that there are different schools,” he said. “We don’t have to have all schools alike.”
