The 21st Century Principal

If I wanted to design an education budget that gives the “appearance” of supporting teachers and educators, what would that budget look like? What if my long term goals are to get the state out of the education business and turn that entire enterprise over to the private sector? How can I continue to “starve” public education to achieve this goal? Here’s what I might do.

First of all, since I would have to give some raises in pay during election years, I would, but do so strategically. I don’t really want young college students choosing education as a career, because then I would have to keep paying them and ultimately give them some kind of sound benefits and retirement. I want young teachers and young teachers only, so I make sure that teachers in the first 10 years or so get paid well. I would not want to pay them too much after that. In fact, I would take away experienced teachers' longevity pay and any other incentive they might have to teach beyond 10 years or so. I don’t value experience nor getting higher education degrees, so I would disincentivize those things as well. The goal in my planned destruction of public education is to attract teachers who use the job as a stepping stone to other careers, so keep the pay for experienced teachers flat.

Secondly, I would look for strategic areas in the education budget that would have the greatest negative impact on public education in this state if they were cut. I would cut a bit here and there, change funding structures that in the end result in cuts. I could cut special programs like at-risk funding to make it even more difficult for schools to meet the needs of students, so I can say public schools are failures. I would keep textbooks and instructional supply budgets flat, so teaching becomes even harder. That has the duel effect of making sure no one chooses teaching in a public school as a long term career. It also makes sure that teachers can’t claim to be successful too much. After all, if my ultimate goal is to put public education out of business, can’t have teachers being successful.

Thirdly, I would tighten the accountability screws even tighter. I could use tests as bludgeoning instruments to further beat up the education system. Give schools ratings using these test scores (grade them on an A-F grading scale), and make it difficult for them to obtain the highest ratings. That way, we can use numbers, which I know everyone believes don't lie, to declare more and more public schools a failure. I would also use tests and a testing process that does not give teachers too much feedback on teaching. Can’t have them getting quality, timely testing data that can then be turned around and used to improve teaching and learning. After all, we don’t want public schools to succeed. We want them to fail, so we can then create a whole industry to take over the education enterprise.

Fourthly, I make sure teaching is no longer a profession. Tenure has to go so I try to pass laws with incentives for teachers to give it up or I pass laws so that it quietly goes away. After all, if the destruction of public schools is my ultimate goal, I don’t want due process rights to get in the way of getting rid of teachers when it becomes necessary to get rid of them. For example, at some point, I might want to toss teachers out to balance budgets or to keep from having to pay retirements. I also don’t want teachers in the system who might ask too many questions. If there’s no tenure, and they get too close to the truth, I can toss them out.

Finally, I add more money to voucher programs to continue the process of getting students out of public schools, and I promote legislation that supports the idea that “any-old-charter-school-will-do." It really doesn’t matter if charter schools or private schools are more effective. In fact, they can be less effective. All I want to do get students out of public schools and the funding that goes with them. That way I can continue to starve public education even further, as their ADM drops. I also cut the automatic funding stream too, that way I use it to further the public education starvation process.

With just these five steps, I can move the state closer to dismantling public education and turning education over to private enterprise, and give the "appearance" that I support education. I could simply use a four-pronged approach:

1) Make public school teaching less of a profession and a less attractive career,
2) Strategically cut money from the budget that has the greatest negative impact on public school success,
3) Institute measures to begin getting students out of public schools, after all this will in turn start pulling money from public education, thereby continuing the starving process,
4) Ramp up regulation, accountability and testing, and use both to bludgeon public schools and educators so they aren’t seen as successful.

This entire plan would perhaps so negatively impact public schools that the public would be screaming that they be closed.

Hmmmm…does all this sound familiar to anyone in North Carolina? I’ll let you be judge.

According to North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory’s press conference (which you can see here from WRAL), he is going to seek the following in his budget which he plans to present to the North Carolina State Legislature:

• Expansion of early childhood education by about $3.6 million.
• Increase textbook funding by $23 million.
• Increase beginning teacher pay from $30,800 to $35,000 over the next two years.
• Provide an average 2% pay raise for experienced teachers.
• Institute a new long-term pay plan for teachers that combines experience, education, merit, mentoring, and market needs. In addition he seeks to offer higher pay to teachers choosing to work in hard-to-staff schools.

At this point, it appears that McCrory’s long-term pay plan which he called “Career Pathways for Teachers” looks to be a compromise between the idea of merit pay and traditional ways in which teachers are rewarded. Giving teachers pay raises based on experience and degrees formed the basis of North Carolina’s previous teacher pay scales.

What will be perhaps harder to implement is the idea of merit pay, especially if based on test scores. The obvious problems being that not all teachers’ classes are subject to tests, and the fact that current use of value-added and growth scores are being increasingly challenged in the courts. I would also add that the reliability and validity of value-added measures and their use in a high-stakes manner are also disputed as well. Add these concerns with the fact that studies on merit pay tied to student achievement mostly show that such pay schemes do not work any way, and it would seem this part of the pay plan is a waste of time and money. 

McCrory’s idea to offer higher pay to teachers choosing to teach in hard-to-staff schools is also not surprising. This has been tried as well and with mixed results. McCroy’s idea of letting market conditions determine teacher pay may seem sound to those outside education, but one can only imagine what that measure will do to morale and collaboration in a school.

Governor McCrory also stated that he was committed to moving the decisions regarding this differentiated pay scheme to the local level which is interesting, but it remains to be seen how that will actually be implemented. The question will be how much freedom local districts will really have and how much will be dictated from above. Also, how willing are districts to take on this task? Most struggled with simply trying to identify the top 25% under a bill passed during last year’s legislative session. This was due in part to trying to find a way to fairly and effectively identify deserving teachers. Is the legislature willing to budget enough money for everyone who qualifies, even if that amount is more? Or would they simply give districts a set amount of money and tell them to distribute it as a bonus? Performance pay schemes have been implemented before in North Carolina but were abandoned when the state could no longer afford them. Under the old North Carolina ABC for Accountability program, teachers could receive $1,500 or $750 based on their school’s test performance. This pay stopped when the budget collapsed and there was no political will to find the money to continue funding it. Will politicians in Raleigh be committed to the pay scheme or will they once again abandon it when “times get tough?”

As an educator, I applaud Governor McCrory for listening to educators which it is clear that he has done in some of his proposals. All teachers do deserve pay increases. The past few years have not been kind to North Carolina teachers and teachers nationwide. The real test Governor McCrory faces is whether he can get this plan, or some variation of it, through a legislature that has demonstrated an incredible unwillingness to budge from many of its far right stances.

Last summer, our North Carolina Legislature handed all our state school administrators a hand grenade with the pin pulled. Under a law that they passed, school districts were tasked with finding a way to identify the "top 25%" of all teachers. The law did not specify how this identification was to be done, but it mandated that districts offer bonuses to whoever was identified as the top 25% of teachers in the schools. Then, those who accepted these bonuses were to automatically lose their tenure and be immediately placed on contracts.

The problem, as many districts quickly discovered, lay in trying to find a way to equitably identify this top 25 percent. You can't use just test scores because so many subject areas are not subject to testing. When it comes to other characteristics of teaching, how could you possible quantify and narrow down who falls in the top 25% category and not inadvertently and arbitrarily leave someone out who deserves the designation too? Some districts have struggled with trying to find a way to implement this impossible law, often wasting a great deal of man hours implementing what clearly has to be one of the most ridiculous laws passed during last year’s session.

That’s when some districts  decided to fight having to implement the law. Two districts, Guilford County and Durham School District challenged the law in court, and as WRAL is reporting, a judge has  issued injunction allowing these two districts to avoid implementing it. It's not clear yet whether that injunction applies across the state. (See "Judge Gives Teachers Victory in Tenure Battle.")

While the injunction blocking its implementation makes a great deal of sense, what is amazing from the WRAL story is how quickly Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger spokesperson Amy Auth tried to spin this as efforts by government bureaucrats "to deny top-performing teachers from receiving a well-deserved pay raise." What Ms. Auth apparently doesn't quite get is that the lawsuit wasn't brought on by bureaucrats; it was brought by a group of concerned educators and baord members as well as others who saw how ridiculous and impossible this law was to implement in the first place. Phil Berger has demonstrated he does not respect teachers and educators, and for his spokesperson to pretend to have the least bit of concern for teachers is beyond belief.

Under Phil Berger and Thom Tillis’s legislative leadership and with NC Governor Pat McCrory’s endorsement, North Carolina education suffered greatly last year. This North Carolina Legislature has worked extra hard to pass many of the American Legislative Exchange Council's (ALEC) laws. It is no secret that this legislature, Phil Berger, Thom Tillis and Governor Pat McCrory are do not appear to be friends to public education and to educators, and no amount of spin is going to hide that.