During last night's Democratic Presidential Primary Debate, in response to a question on education, Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE) said "[t]here's two things everyone knows. The smaller the class size, the better the outcome; and the better the teacher, the better the outcome." That's more or less on track, though I would add that parental involvement can make a big difference too. But it's hard for school boards to have an influence on parents. So, how can we convince good teachers to stay in tough schools? The usual answer is to raise salaries. But because most teachers' union contracts require little or no pay differential, it's difficut to raise salaries in just the troubled schools [That's not a jab at the teachers union; it's just the way things are today]. So raising salaries becomes more expensive, and teachers won't have any incentive to work in tough schools.
Via Kevin Drum, a new study out of California suggests that the real reason teachers leave failing schools is that the pay is poor relative to what they feel they have to put up with, "Classroom interruptions, student discipline, increasing demands, insufficient supplies, overcrowding, unnecessary meetings, lack of support—all play a role in burning out teachers. So, unsurprisingly, establishing discipline and eliminating bureaucracy ought to be top priorities at low-performing schools. Getting rid of bad teachers or preventing them from getting in the door in the first place—something I think would help—is apparently less important.
There's a mini-trend to have the Mayor's office re-take responsibility for managing the public school system from local school boards. The theory goes something like this: voters have a hard time paying attention to the umpteen local races, so we might as well put responsibility for the issue that matters most--education--with the election that matters most (this is ironic, since in many cases school boards exist to protect the mayor & city council members from the volatile ups and downs of the school system). In addition, ambitious mayors will be happy to take control of and credit for improving schools, and unpaid or poorly paid school board members may be happy to give up their night jobs. Mike Bloomberg in New York City is the biggest example of this trend, but new DC mayor Adrian Fenty seems to be trying to be the next one in line.
According to this article published in Act Locally SF (and later at the DLC-based Progressive Policy Institute's website), it's not clear that changes in government on their own lead to a better outcome. Intuitively this makes sense; the mayor has to have a substantial commitment to improving school quality; he (or she) still has to herd cats to push through whatever reforms he thinks will help; and he (or she) has to find reforms that will work. None of those are guarantees.
The wonks at PPI suggest giving the mayor chartering authority, which will (a) ensure that the mayor only charters schools that are high quality lest the scandal of a poor school kill his re-election bid, and (b) increase competition and hopefully prod the school board, and (c) give everyone a pony. Okay, I was kidding about the pony part. But seriously, part (b) seems suspect; urban school districts must already compete with suburban districts. So, color me skeptical on the magical powers of charter schools in this case; we'd be better off overhauling the school district's bureaucracy and keep the schools publicly managed.
$240 million over ten years is an awful lot to spend on bike trails. Seattle's most recent budget includes $122 million for the Parks department out of a $3.4 billion total budget, so if this new Master Bike Plan is entirely new money, we're talking about increasing the total budget by 1% and the Parks budget by 20% (though obviously all the money wouldn't come out of the Parks Department)
The article doesn't state whether mayor Nickels's plan represents $240 million in new money, or some new money plus a rearrangement of existing city funds. But either way it's definitely a bold proposal.
Personally I think if we're going to be voting on Sound Transit 2 and some future Viaduct replacement plan and 520 replacement and the Master Bike Plan, something's gotta give. After all, the next mayor has to have something to do.
|
Last
updated by Nicholas Beaudrot on 09:59 04 April 2007
During last night's Democratic Presidential Primary Debate, in response to a question on education, Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE) said "[t]here's two things everyone knows. The smaller the class size, the better the outcome; and the better the teacher, the better the outcome." That's more or less on track, though I would add that parental involvement can make a big difference too. But it's hard for school boards to have an influence on parents. So, how can we convince good teachers to stay in tough schools? The usual answer is to raise salaries. But because most teachers' union contracts require little or no pay differential, it's difficut to raise salaries in just the troubled schools [That's not a jab at the teachers union; it's just the way things are today]. So raising salaries becomes more expensive, and teachers won't have any incentive to work in tough schools.
