Jan 10 The Educating Class

New York Times Columnist David Brooks' recent column The Tea Party Teens was quoted by several talk radio hosts, among them Michael Medved when I saw him broadcast live from Fishman's Deli on Tuesday.  Brooks gives several examples how America as illustrated by the Tea Bagger movement is rebelling against what he calls the "educated class."  Since the educated class believes in global warming, abortion rights, and gun control, the rest of rebel against these positions.  I prefer to think we oppose global warming, abortion rights, and gun control by direct reasoning based on principle, history, and reality.  It is the "educated" classes' preference for emotive reasoning away from these precepts that draws our scorn, and their subsequent, predictable failures that drive a much wider unrest.

Let's turn now to Forced Into a Bad Education Idea, a guest commentary in the Minneapolis Star Tribune about the evils of QComp by Ralph Bauer, once executive director of the Transforming Schools Consortium, a national school reform organization.  He would appear to be a member of Brooks' "educated class" but since he is also a former member of the Anoka-Hennepin School Board, I think I'll label him as a member of the "educating class."

Bauer opens with a shot at Governor Pawlenty:

The announcement that the state's largest school district has agreed to adopt Gov. Tim Pawlenty's "QComp" plan ("Anoka-Hennepin teachers near deal," Jan. 5) must come as sweet music to the governor at a time when he is under siege from the courts and school districts for how he handled last year's budget crisis.

It also comes as a huge boost to the presidential aspirations of a candidate who has framed himself as an education candidate largely on the basis of QComp, which ties teacher pay to test scores.

"Under siege?" "Sweet music?"  Hyperbole.  Pawlenty is clearly in charge on the budget.  If anything, it is the Legislature that failed to do its job that will be under siege this November.  And QComp is not and never will be a "huge boost" to Pawlenty's presidential ambitions.  It's largely experimental in size and scope.  It wouldn't help any other candidate, either.

What does Anoka-Hennepin receive in return? Money. This is a district staring statutory operating debt in the eye, so the funds that come with QComp are sorely needed. This, of course, has been the governor's strategy with QComp all along -- hold out the carrot of more funds to districts whose budgets have been cut. According to the state Department of Education website, the carrot amounts to $260 per student, or close to $12 million for Anoka-Hennepin.

Yet until this year, only a fraction of Minnesota districts have taken the carrot. In these financially strapped times, there must be a reason they've chosen to not take the money.

He hasn't established how QComp is a bad idea yet, but he immediately frames it as if Anoka-Hennepin involuntarily sold its soul to get $12 million dollars they cannot do without. Then he contradicts himself in the next paragraph. Most districts are not drinking the QComp kool-aid, nor need to. Why does Anoka-Hennepin? For perspective, know that total annual revenue is over $ 400 milliion.

 

A report issued last February by the legislative auditor outlined some of them. Most notably, it found that Pawlenty's major assertion about QComp -- that it would improve student performance -- cannot be adequately measured using existing data. It chastised the Department of Education for failing to adequately oversee all QComp participants.

QComp is a bad idea -- the wrong solution for the wrong problem.

The Legislative Auditor finds flaws in the execution of QComp, not its results. But it's enough for Brauer to charge ahead with a non-sequitur conclusion.

 

Student performance can be envisioned as a supply/demand equation: Students bring into the classroom a certain level of academic and behavioral demand that a district must meet. If the demand is greater than the resources, performance suffers. Research supports what all teachers and administrators know from experience: that one year you can have a high-demand class that severely taxes your resources and another year a low-demand class.

QComp totally muddles this dynamic. Rewarding a teacher for the test scores of his or her class shifts the focus away from the supply-demand issue. One year a teacher can have a low-demand class, which will probably produce high test scores, and the next year a high-demand class whose scores will probably be lower. Under QComp, one year that teacher is rewarded and the next year penalized, even though it is the same teacher.

If I were a teacher, I'd be insulted by this. Not only does Bauer's metaphor Law of Supply and Demand not work, to contend that I as a teacher wouldn't teach the class any differently year to year is absurd. Regardless, over time such variations even out. It is the Law of Averages that Bauer should apply.

QComp has had no impact on the dynamics and hence no impact on the test scores. Had the money from QComp been put into helping the teacher deal with the high-demand class, it would be better spent.

In essence, QComp says that teachers are the sole problem -- not students, nor parents, nor the curriculum, nor lack of administrative leadership or resources. That is a simplistic and outmoded picture of education that has been contradicted by countless studies, from those showing that a strong principal is a key ingredient to a successful school to those that see parent involvement in a student's homework as important to individual student success to those that have assessed the importance of certain curricula and teaching methods.

Another non-sequitur, that the enlightened self-interest of merit pay won't challenge and motivate a teacher to yes, have an impact on test scores.  That money could be "better spent" on something else he doesn't specify.  Let me guess.  More professional development?  Smaller class sizes?  How will these change the dynamic?  Aren't they also admissions that the teacher is the problem, not skilled enough to handle a nominal class?

Sure, principals and parents matter, greatly so.  But that doesn't mean that we cannot meaningfully compare and contrast the performance of the Third Grade teachers in a specific school, with the same principal and level of parent involvement.  It is simplistic to let the perfect be the enemy of the good.  We should do the best we can to evaluate every employee in a school district, just as the taxpayers are at their jobs.  And speaking of studies, how about those that find a teacher with a master's degree are no better than those without?  Test scores - output, not certification - input, is what matters to the student.

The problem for Anoka-Hennepin is that, given uncertainty over state aid the governor shifted to future years, the district was literally up against the wall. This last session, the governor added a stick to the carrot. The $12 million the district will receive from QComp may help prevent further teacher cuts, school closings and the dreaded statutory operating debt.

The teachers and administrators of the district are good people who want the best for the children of the district. Their decision was not undertaken lightly, but the pressure of the Jan. 15 teacher settlement deadline and the outlook for public education funding left them with few alternatives.

And those few alternatives were?  Unspecified, he has no case.

The question now: How many other districts will be forced into the double bind between a bad idea and equally bad cuts or even financial disaster?

What bind?  What disaster?  The State offers an optional program called QComp.  It does no harm to the students, none that Bauer could delineate above.  You get money for trying it.  There are no regulations, no guns, no walls closing in, no pressure, no deadlines.  It's just a choice.

To take the money for a program and then complain you shouldn't have to implement the program so you can spend the money on something else is not new.  For the "educating class," the end again justifies the means.

Cross-posted and comments welcome at Speed Gibson.