A Revolutionary Approach to Public Education
In the face of challenging budget cutbacks and a need for students to compete on a global basis, many school districts are looking to elevate student performance while reducing costs. While this may seem like a daunting task, many school districts have been able to dramatically improve academic performance while become more cost-efficient.
Led by Chancellor Michelle Rhee, Washington, D.C. has been at the forefront of revolutionizing public school education by replacing a tenure-based system with a merit-based system that rewards effective teachers and administrators.
How successful has Michelle Rhee been?
Prior to Rhee’s tenure, less than a third of D.C.’s elementary students were performing math at their grade-level. Two years later, nearly half of D.C.’s elementary students are proficient in math and reading. Their high school students have also achieved double-digit growth rates in proficiency levels.
Formula for Success
Michelle Rhee’s success as Chancellor of D.C.’s schools has been based on a fairly simple formula:
- Recruit and reward strong teachers and administrators.
- Purge ineffective teachers and administrators.
- Assess performance based on student academic scores (e.g., API) and classroom teacher evaluations.
- Encourage healthy competition between traditional public schools, private schools, and charter schools. “I would never, as long as I am in this role, do anything to limit another parent’s ability to make a choice for their child. Ever.”
We live in unprecedented times where schools must simultaneously reduce costs and prepare students to compete in a global workforce. The D.C. school system’s approach is just one arrow in the quiver to achieving academic excellence.
9:54 AM on August 17th, 2009
Yeah, tenure-based systems have NEVER made sense to me. Seniority is overrated. Job performance should be what counts – especially when children are involved.
10:46 AM on August 17th, 2009
Teaching doesn’t pay well and it’s a lot of work. If not for the job security of the tenure-based system, why would anyone get into teaching.
11:33 AM on August 17th, 2009
Hi Anonymous,
We cannot speak for all the teachers, but we know many K-12 teachers personally from both public schools and private schools. We can say unequivocally that none of the teachers we know personally was inspired to go into teaching by the tenure system.
1:21 PM on August 17th, 2009
Just a shot in the dark here…maybe they like kids?
I wasn’t interested in tenure at all when I started. Summer vacation was a nice incentive though.
11:30 AM on August 17th, 2009
Teachers are paid much more than I am, an average of $20,000 more depending on district, plus they get summers and two weeks at Christmas off. It’s a pretty sweet gig. But like any other job, teachers should be rewarded by good performance, period.
12:18 PM on August 17th, 2009
Why don’t you go to college and become a teacher?
3:55 PM on August 17th, 2009
Because I went to colleges (two of them) to work in publishing.
4:03 PM on August 17th, 2009
What’s Anon 12:18′s problem? I am college-educated and have a great job. Unfortunately, in my industry, that equals $35K/year. But I’m young and (hopefully) have years of promotions and salary increases ahead. Teachers do GREAT work for our children and community, but I don’t believe they’re underpaid. My sister makes $50K as an entry-level elementary teacher, and she gets a quarter of the year off, plus a grade-level assistant to help with curriculum. That is generous, IMHO.
6:00 PM on August 17th, 2009
You know who’s underpaid? Teachers that teach in the cities. Teaching in Dublin is a breeze compared to what some teachers in other areas have to deal with, and they get paid so little for it.
Anyway…the 10 weeks off for summer is a god-send for teachers that get to school at 7, are home at 5, and grade papers until 8 or 9. Especially elementary school teachers with all the prep and clean up of various activities that day. Oh man.
2:26 PM on August 17th, 2009
Very good article. I totally agree that the tenure-based system is the problem here. It reduces competition and accountability for individual teachers. There is almost no mechanism to get rid of lowest-performing teachers and motivate highest-performing teachers. In fact, it tends to award those mediocre teachers who have stayed forever.
It seems the new Secretary of Education Arne Duncan is on the right path to bring merit-based system to public schools. But the teacher unions in California are so powerful that they will fight against it till the very end.
4:42 PM on August 17th, 2009
Unlike most professions, teaching does not have a career track. You’re basically a teacher for 20 years. I feel it would be unfair for an older teacher to compete with a fresh grad who is full of energy and enthusiasm.
6:19 PM on August 17th, 2009
Lecturers/professors in colleges have career paths, right? Why can’t we establish similar kind of levels for teachers in public schools?
6:49 PM on August 17th, 2009
Hi Anonymous,
Whether or not a college lecturer is on a career track depends on the type of university. If the college is primarily a teaching college, a lecturer may be a competitive candidate for an assistant professorship, if an opening becomes available. For most research-focused universities, assistant professors typically gets about 7 years to prove themselves before they are considered for tenure. The decision to promote assistant professors to associate professors typically depend on the quality of publication the candidates produce during that trial period. The quality of data generated by the assistant professors is usually a reliable indicator for the amount of research grant they can pull in for the university.
6:04 PM on September 8th, 2009
It would be more unfair to STUDENTS to keep a teacher based solely on seniority without taking his/her ability into context. Older teachers simply need to keep up with these “energetic and enthusiastic” young teachers–continually growing and improving their craft. I have great respect for excellent longtime teachers, but unfortunately, tenure systems allow mediocre and downright bad teachers keep teaching. And, in this conversation, everyone seems more concerned about teachers’ job security than the quality of education. That’s ass-backwards.
7:43 PM on August 17th, 2009
Just wanted to clear up a couple of misperceptions
Teachers are not paid for the summers they have off. They can opt to have part of their pay deferred each month so they will get a check year round.
On paying for merit how do you base pay on student test scores? If students do not have parents who are active in their lives by helping them with their homework or feeding them properly for school then it does not matter how good the teacher is. Test scores are always higher for students whose parents take an active role in their childs education.
I am not saying that the current merit system is not flawed, but the current merit system as stated here is flawed also.
9:36 PM on August 17th, 2009
I am not an expert in this field. Just a thought on this merit-based system: In order to be fair, how about distributing students equally by race, sex, parents’ education level, family income level, etc among all the classes in the same grade? That will essentially eliminate the parents’ factor you just talked about. In that case, it should be a fair competition among the teachers (within the same grade).
10:15 PM on August 17th, 2009
How does that eliminate the parent factor?
There are several things that make me wary about linking state standardized test scores to who gets to keep their job.
In most cases, the test scores have little to no bearing on the kid’s grade. Some kids completely blow off the test because they think it’s a waste of time. Many teachers are trying to rectify this situation by offering incentives, but this will always be a factor.
If teachers are competing amongst themselves to achieve the highest scores to keep their job, you have teachers teaching to the test. Some people may think this is fine, but as a teacher, having a test dictate my livelihood is liable to make me more rigid and less fun as a teacher as far as planning interesting and creative lessons. Having it all about the test is boring for kids and soul-sucking for teachers. This one is harder to explain.
Lastly, why can’t teachers be retained based on reputation? If kids are doing well and ENJOYING themselves in class, and if parents are hearing good things about certain teachers, isn’t that good enough?
Test results are important, but they can’t be the last word in keeping one teacher over another.
10:37 PM on August 17th, 2009
Let me guess…Dublin High School.
11:14 PM on August 17th, 2009
My assumption is that parents involvement with students’ education is highly related to parents’ education level, income level, race, etc. So if we distribute students evenly based on these factors, hopefully the parents’ involvement and student quality are almost the same statistically. Then we can evaluate the teachers’ performance more fairly.
I do not think the test score should be the sole factor in evaluating the teachers’ performance. As you said, other factors can be considered as well, such as students’ feedback, parents’ feedback, etc. Then combining all these factors with certain weight for each factor, we can evaluate the teachers’ performance on a fair basis. It is by no means perfect. Nothing is perfect in this world:-)
9:35 AM on August 18th, 2009
I don’t think distributing the students will work on the middle and high school level. If performance is heavily weighted on test scores, then I would love to be an AP Calculus teacher.
2:25 PM on August 18th, 2009
In regards to the suggestion of balancing each classroom population equally for parents’ education level, income level, race, etc. is that it not only breaks a number of state and federal discrimination laws, it would require at some point the busing of kids to different schools as we try to balance things out. Rich kids, poor kids, single parent homes, etc. would need to be equalized, in some cases needing to split family members to reach this goal. Sorry, it just won’t work.
11:51 AM on August 18th, 2009
How do we read these CST results for Dublin High? Are they pretty good? Better than last year? How do these results affect the API score?
http://www.greatschools.net/modperl/achievement/ca/56#toc
Thanks for your input in advance.
12:55 PM on August 18th, 2009
The results are listed by grade level (9th, 10th, 11th). The percentages indicate students that scored at the two highest levels (proficient and advanced). Example: For 9th graders taking the biology test, 89% of those students scored either proficient or advanced. Then you read the rest of them like that. Looks like most categories have improved since 2008, so that’s good.
4:04 PM on August 18th, 2009
Thanks for your explanation. That helps me understand a little bit better. But do you know how they are related to the API score?
4:21 PM on August 18th, 2009
http://www.cde.ca.gov/ta/ac/ap/documents/infoguide08.pdf
4:37 PM on August 18th, 2009
Thanks a lot. This is very useful information. It looks like CST results are the most important factors in calculating API score.
3:36 PM on August 18th, 2009
Oh, I guess the 2009 scores came out today, is that why you’re asking?
http://www.insidebayarea.com/trivalleyherald/localnews/ci_13151115
Do these scores have anything to do with API scores? Can we expect a slight improvement in DHS’s API based on these scores?
3:53 PM on August 18th, 2009
Yes, and I think so.
4:03 PM on August 18th, 2009
Thanks for this news. I actually subscribed to Greatschools.net for Dublin High and John Green. I received an alert that new CST results came out today. That is why I was asking about how to read these results.
It looks like Dublin High’s test scores improved some, but John Green’s test scores slightly worse than last year.
6:18 AM on August 27th, 2009
Great schools must have great leaders and this starts with the Superintendant. I read on the district web-site that the school board just approved new contracts for the Superintendant and two Asst. Super’s. But their contracts are not posted to their site? All other agenda matters have back-up materials except for these contracts.
Does anyone have a copy? Aren’t these documents public information? If so, why would the school board not post them for us to see?
4:51 PM on September 3rd, 2009
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/08/31/090831fa_fact_brill?currentPage=1