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Union dues case should be reheard by a full Supreme Court

June 20, 2016 By

by Gerard Robinson
The Hill
June 20, 2016

In March, the Supreme Court handed down a 4-4 decision in Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association, a case challenging the constitutionality of compulsory union dues that have been on the books in 23 in states for more than 30 years. For the time being, the split decision left compulsory dues in place. It was also the first big decision since Justice Scalia’s death in February and reminded Americans of what a difference just one Justice can make.

Prior to Justice Scalia’s death, most observers expected that the Court’s ruling would go against the unions. Without Scalia’s vote, the lower court decision remains in place. But Friedrichs is far from over. Issuing a split decision is standard Supreme Court procedure in cases where a Justice with the swing vote retires or dies while the case is under consideration. The procedure is designed to allow either party to petition for a rehearing. In April the Center for Individual Rights filed a petition asking for a rehearing. The court has neither accepted or denied the petition and has “rescheduled” consideration of it for the past six weeks, most likely because there aren’t five votes on either side to make a definitive decision on the request.

We don’t know when the court will consider the petition and issue a decision, but while we wait, it’s worth noting just how common it is to hold over Supreme Court case until a bench of nine justices can make a definitive ruling:

Since 1945, the Court has held over 84 cases that could not be resolved because of a vacancy. All of these cases were later decided by a full bench of nine Justices including cases of national significance such as Brown v. Board and Roe v. Wade.

What happened in the Friedrichs decision is nothing new, and Friedrichs is exactly the kind of case that should be held only once the full Court can render an authoritative decision. Why? Because Friedrichs represents two essential values of the American way of life: free speech and education; and as such, it deserves the attention and vote of every Supreme Court Justice.

At the end of the day, the Friedrichs case is about the First Amendment’s clear prohibition on any form of coerced speech. Forcing tens of thousands of public employees to pay for speech — either the union’s overt political lobbying or the political stances it takes during collective bargaining — violates a core principle of free speech rights. Surely this interpretation is an issue on which reasonable people can and do disagree. Only the Supreme Court can make a ruling on this question, and even the unions would benefit from that ruling. They claim that requiring each member to pay dues is necessary to preserve labor peace and ensure bargaining solidarity. But there can no peace and little solidarity if the requirement to pay dues is illegal.

It is not only public school teachers who have a stake in the outcome of Friedrichs. Families of 50 million public school students — included among taxpayers that invested $344.6 billion into state elementary and secondary education in fiscal year 2014, according to the National Association of Sate Budget Officers — have a lot to say about union-negotiated policies. Some policies greatly benefit families and students. Others undermine public education. Rigid staff assignment policies and teacher layoff rules are two examples. Sadly, policies of this type disproportionately impact families of children in high-poverty schools as well as families of gifted and special needs children.

But so long as states are allowed to collect millions of dollars in coerced dues, the unions have an outsized voice in ongoing debates about improving education. Friedrichs opponents usually overlook this fact. For instance, according to the Center for American Responsiveness, the National Education Association (NEA) spent $92 million, and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) $69 million, on federal candidates and other political activities between 1990-2014. To put this in context, the combined $161 million NEA and AFT spent on political activities is more than JPMorgan Chase & Co., AT&T and Goldman Sachs spent on federal campaigns, combined. When the right to free speech of one group is ignored—be it teachers or families—we all pay the price in an unproductive, one-sided public debate.

No matter the outcome in Friedrichs, unions will not fall by the wayside or disappear. Nevertheless, the voices of tens of thousands of teachers and families will continue to be stifled if Friedrichs does not prevail. The Supreme Court must rehear the Friedrichs case when nine Justices can decide it– not only for the sake of the ten California teachers who brought the case, but also for the thousands of teachers and families around the country whose voices matter in our democracy.

Gerard Robinson previously served as Secretary of Education for the Commonwealth of Virginia and Commissioner of Education for the State of Florida. He is currently a resident fellow with the American Enterprise Institute.  

Filed Under: Opinions

How to make a good teacher

June 20, 2016 By

What matters in schools is teachers. Fortunately, teaching can be taught.

The-Economist

The Economist
June 11, 2016

FORGET smart uniforms and small classes. The secret to stellar grades and thriving students is teachers. One American study found that in a single year’s teaching the top 10% of teachers impart three times as much learning to their pupils as the worst 10% do. Another suggests that, if black pupils were taught by the best quarter of teachers, the gap between their achievement and that of white pupils would disappear.

But efforts to ensure that every teacher can teach are hobbled by the tenacious myth that good teachers are born, not made. Classroom heroes like Robin Williams in “Dead Poets Society” or Michelle Pfeiffer in “Dangerous Minds” are endowed with exceptional, innate inspirational powers. Government policies, which often start from the same assumption, seek to raise teaching standards by attracting high-flying graduates to join the profession and prodding bad teachers to leave. Teachers’ unions, meanwhile, insist that if only their members were set free from central diktat, excellence would follow.

The premise that teaching ability is something you either have or don’t is mistaken. A new breed of teacher-trainers is founding a rigorous science of pedagogy. The aim is to make ordinary teachers great, just as sports coaches help athletes of all abilities to improve their personal best (see article). Done right, this will revolutionise schools and change lives.

Education has a history of lurching from one miracle solution to the next. The best of them even do some good. Teach for America, and the dozens of organisations it has inspired in other countries, have brought ambitious, energetic new graduates into the profession. And dismissing teachers for bad performance has boosted results in Washington, DC, and elsewhere. But each approach has its limits. Teaching is a mass profession: it cannot grab all the top graduates, year after year. When poor teachers are fired, new ones are needed—and they will have been trained in the very same system that failed to make fine teachers out of their predecessors.

By contrast, the idea of improving the average teacher could revolutionise the entire profession. Around the world, few teachers are well enough prepared before being let loose on children. In poor countries many get little training of any kind. A recent report found 31 countries in which more than a quarter of primary-school teachers had not reached (minimal) national standards. In rich countries the problem is more subtle. Teachers qualify following a long, specialised course. This will often involve airy discussions of theory—on ecopedagogy, possibly, or conscientisation (don’t ask). Some of these courses, including masters degrees in education, have no effect on how well their graduates’ pupils end up being taught.

What teachers fail to learn in universities and teacher-training colleges they rarely pick up on the job. They become better teachers in their first few years as they get to grips with real pupils in real classrooms, but after that improvements tail off. This is largely because schools neglect their most important pupils: teachers themselves. Across the OECD club of mostly rich countries, two-fifths of teachers say they have never had a chance to learn by sitting in on another teacher’s lessons; nor have they been asked to give feedback on their peers.

Those who can, learn

If this is to change, teachers need to learn how to impart knowledge and prepare young minds to receive and retain it. Good teachers set clear goals, enforce high standards of behaviour and manage their lesson time wisely. They use tried-and-tested instructional techniques to ensure that all the brains are working all of the time, for example asking questions in the classroom with “cold calling” rather than relying on the same eager pupils to put up their hands.

Instilling these techniques is easier said than done. With teaching as with other complex skills, the route to mastery is not abstruse theory but intense, guided practice grounded in subject-matter knowledge and pedagogical methods. Trainees should spend more time in the classroom. The places where pupils do best, for example Finland, Singapore and Shanghai, put novice teachers through a demanding apprenticeship. In America high-performing charter schools teach trainees in the classroom and bring them on with coaching and feedback.

Teacher-training institutions need to be more rigorous—rather as a century ago medical schools raised the calibre of doctors by introducing systematic curriculums and providing clinical experience. It is essential that teacher-training colleges start to collect and publish data on how their graduates perform in the classroom. Courses that produce teachers who go on to do little or nothing to improve their pupils’ learning should not receive subsidies or see their graduates become teachers. They would then have to improve to survive.

Big changes are needed in schools, too, to ensure that teachers improve throughout their careers. Instructors in the best ones hone their craft through observation and coaching. They accept critical feedback—which their unions should not resist, but welcome as only proper for people doing such an important job. The best head teachers hold novices’ hands by, say, giving them high-quality lesson plans and arranging for more experienced teachers to cover for them when they need time for further study and practice.

Money is less important than you might think. Teachers in top-of-the-class Finland, for example, earn about the OECD average. But ensuring that the best stay in the classroom will probably, in most places, mean paying more. People who thrive in front of pupils should not have to become managers to earn a pay rise. And more flexibility on salaries would make it easier to attract the best teachers to the worst schools.

Improving the quality of the average teacher would raise the profession’s prestige, setting up a virtuous cycle in which more talented graduates clamoured to join it. But the biggest gains will come from preparing new teachers better, and upgrading the ones already in classrooms. The lesson is clear; it now just needs to be taught.

Filed Under: Opinions, Teacher Quality

Jeanne Allen calls out school choice movement

June 20, 2016 By

by John Bicknell
Watchdog
June 20, 2016

Jeanne Allen, founder and CEO of the Center for Education Reform, delivered a stark message to her allies in the school choice movement last week, saying “the movement to ensure educational attainment for all is at a crossroads. We are losing ground in part because we are losing the argument. And our hopes of systemic change — our progress — will be lost, and we will be a nation at even greater risk, if we do not refocus our collective energies and message to connect with the broad universe of education consumers and citizens everywhere.”

Allen says “more was accomplished in the first nine years of the education reform movement than in the past 16.”

Read more here.

Filed Under: CER in the News

Charter Sector Needs Infusion of New Ideas, Center for Education Reform Says

June 18, 2016 By

by Michele Molnar
Education Week, K-12 Parents and the Public Blog
June 17, 2016
Cross-posted from Marketplace K-12

The Center for Education Reform, a longtime charter school advocacy organization, says innovation and momentum within the sector of independent schools has slowed, and needs an infusion of new ideas that incorporate new strategies drawn from education technology and other areas.

At a forum held in the nation’s capital Wednesday, the center released a set of recommendations for how the charter school movement can, in the organization’s view, right the ship and develop new strategies for improvement. The center is emphasizing its priorities by incorporating a tagline: “Innovation + Opportunity = Results.”

Read the full article on Education Week.

Filed Under: CER in the News

Report ignites infighting among school choice fans

June 17, 2016 By

by Jason Russell
Washington Examiner
June 17, 2016

On Thursday, the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools released a report outlining reforms states should make to improve the struggling online public charter school sector. The alliance generally supports charter schools, so it’s made plenty of allies with other nonprofit groups that support school choice. Some of those allies pushed back on the report for suggesting, among other reforms, that authorizers should close chronically low-performing virtual charter schools.

“This research lacks the depth and integrity that we need in educational analysis, and ignores the fact that the voluntary choices of parents — when they have them — may not represent others’ conceptions of what works best for their kids,” Jeanne Allen, CEO and founder of the Center for Education Reform, wrote in a press release. “Researchers agree that this view of the data is superficial and ignores who and what is gained by a particular kind of schooling approach… This report is troubling in that it suggests that the measure of a school’s effectiveness is an average of who gets tested, not who gets served and the conditions under which they enter or leave.”

The push back from PublicSchoolOptions.org was even harsher. “[The report] contains no new information and only rehashes previously released flawed, one-sided data,” the group said in a press release. “The proposal fails to address several key factors calling into question the credibility of its sources and the motives of the authors, organizations that claim to be dedicated to expanding school choice for parents and students.”

According to one study from the Center for Research on Education Outcomes at Stanford University, the average student in a virtual charter school learned nothing in math and learned half as much in reading as the average traditional public school student.

Todd Ziebarth, the lead author of the alliance’s report, told the Washington Examiner that Allen’s and PublicSchoolOptions.org’s critiques of the data “defy logic.” He said the data have been well-vetted over the last seven to eight years, and noted that Allen’s Center for Education Reform uses other studies from the Center for Research on Education Outcomes to show how successful public charter schools are.

“It’s not gold standard research, but it does have student-based data comparing students with similar characteristics against one another,” Ziebarth said. “If you’re going to use data, you have to celebrate gains when you have them but also own up to the shortcomings when you see problems and figure out how to do better.”

“Some of the folks in the movement have sort of become the excuse-making machines that school districts they’ve criticized are being. So when data shows poor performance, instead of honing it and trying to figure out and how to do better, they sort of excuse the results away,” Ziebarth said.

His critics seem to support letting any virtual charter school stay open, as long as it has enough parents choosing it to remain viable.

“Many students who enroll in virtual charter schools do so because of extenuating circumstances or because they simply are not served well in a brick-and-mortar learning environment,” Allen said.

Filed Under: CER in the News

Cheers, jeers for report calling for crackdown on cyber charter schools

June 17, 2016 By

by Martha Woodall
Philadelphia Inquirer
June 17, 2016

The primary author of a national report that calls for a crackdown on low-performing cyber charter schools said Thursday that the goal was to spur conversation. It did.

Hours after the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools released the report, critics of online charter schools said they welcomed its findings and recommendations.

Companies that manage online schools and some charter advocates dismissed the study and questioned the research on which it was based.

Susan DeJarnett, a Temple University law professor who has been researching and writing about problems with Pennsylvania’s cyber charter schools for years, said she was intrigued by many points in the report.

“I certainly think it’s interesting and kind of confirming a little bit,” she said. “I think some of the suggestions they make are spot-on.”

Jeanne Allen, founder and CEO of the Center for Education Reform in Washington, said of the report, “It’s nothing new.”

She noted that most of the data cited in the report were released last fall as part of a large national study by the Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) at Stanford University and others.

Allen called the report “well-intentioned” but said, “We have got to stop making policy prescriptives based on aggregated data and averages that ignore individual outcomes.”

Todd Ziebarth, a senior vice president at the National Alliance and lead author of the report, said the findings on the poor performance of cyber charters were so stark that they prompted his group and others to issue “a call to action.”

The 16-page document said that data from CREDO and other research organizations showed that the vast majority of the nation’s 135 cyber charters perform worse than traditional public schools.

The report urges state education leaders to change policies and increase oversight to improve online charters and close chronically underperforming ones.

The National Association of Charter School Authorizers in Chicago and 50CAN, a nonprofit in Washington that advocates for high-quality education, endorsed the report.

“The hope is it will serve as a foundation for some difficult conversations that need to be had in a number of states about full-time virtual charter schools,” Ziebarth said.

It marked the first time national charter groups had sounded such an alarm.

“It’s one thing for researchers to say this, and another for charter-advocacy organizations,” Ziebarth said. “At the end of the day, we want to see states create a better regulatory environment for these schools that will lead to better performance by the students in them.”

Pennsylvania, which has 13 cyber charters that enroll 35,250 students who receive online instruction in their homes, is one of the nation’s “big three” in cyber enrollment.

None of those schools met the state’s most recent benchmark for academic performance.

State Auditor General Eugene DePasquale, who has called for an overhaul of the state’s 1997 charter law, said he was reviewing the report and thought some of its findings and recommendations – particularly around cyber funding – could be helpful.

As is the case in many states, Pennsylvania cyber charters receive the same funding as charter schools that have buildings.

Connections Education, a for-profit firm that manages 30 cyber charters across the country – including Commonwealth Connections Academy in Harrisburg – said it welcomed an informed conversation about virtual charter schools. However, Connections, which is based in Baltimore, said the report offered no new analysis and perpetuated “false stereotypes” that are at odds with what it sees in its schools.

Tim Eller, executive director of the Keystone Alliance for Public Charter Schools, said that although the state’s cyber charters face academic challenges, parents have chosen to enroll their children in them for many reasons.

Eller, whose group does not represent cyber charters, added: “While academic accountability is critical for any public school, if parents are not satisfied with the education their child receives from a cyber charter school, they can remove their child and enroll him or her in another public school choice option.”

Filed Under: CER in the News

Reaction to Reforming Virtual Charters

June 17, 2016 By

Excerpt from Politico: Morning Education
June 17, 2016

REACTION TO REFORMING VIRTUAL CHARTERS: A report [http://bit.ly/1PuqukS] released this week by three major pro-charter groups calling for an overhaul of the troubled virtual charter schools sector earned praise from education reformers who saw the report as getting “tough on a wayward family member,” tweeted [http://bit.ly/24U7ROn] Andy Smarick of Bellwether Education Partners. Ohio in particular has had trouble holding virtual charter schools accountable. “When national groups that advocate for and champion charter schools question the impact of virtual charter schools on student achievement, policy makers should take note,” said Chad Aldis, vice president for Ohio Policy and Advocacy for the Thomas B. Fordham Institute. “If Ohio leaders are serious about improving student outcomes for virtual school students, they’d be wise to consider these recommendations.”

— But Jeanne Allen of the Center for Education Reform said the report “lacks the depth and integrity that we need in educational analysis, and ignores the fact that the voluntary choices of parents — when they have them — do not represent our conception of what works best for their kids. This report is troubling in that it suggests that the measure of a school’s effectiveness is an average of who gets tested, not who gets served and the conditions under which they enter or leave.”

— Three groups last year — the Center for Reinventing Public Education, Mathematica Policy Research and the Center for Research on Education Outcomes — laid bare in different reports the problems plaguing the virtual charter schools sector. CRPE Director Robin Lake said the research took Allen’s concerns “into consideration and still found some of the most consistently poor results I’ve ever seen in a charter study,” she told Morning Education. “Research should be nuanced but recommendations for policy responses should be clear and firm. Virtual charters have an important role to play, but the ones we have today are simply not fulfilling their promise. Policy action and leadership are urgently needed to close low-performing virtual schools.”

The full Morning Education newsletter here.

Filed Under: CER in the News

An Education Reform Manifesto

June 17, 2016 By

Excerpt from Politico: Morning Education
June 17, 2016

AN EDUCATION REFORM MANIFESTO: The Center for Education Reform released a “manifesto” this week responding to a reform movement that the advocacy group says is in crisis. Nowhere is that more apparent than in New Orleans, the group’s founder Jeanne Allen writes [http://bit.ly/1Q8uv3O]. “For education reformers — the people who dreamed of remaking not only schools, but reimagining school districts and entire education systems — New Orleans reminds us what is possible,” she writes. But now the New Orleans revolution is unraveling, she writes. “Instead of being feted and replicated, the path breaking and life-changing Recovery School District is being assaulted from all sides by the opponents of change,” Allen writes. “Even worse, in the name of ‘local control’ the fate of the charter sector is about to be put in the hands of an institution — the school board — which historically opposes giving any power to schools and autonomy to individual school leaders. This is the same structure, by the way, which doomed New Orleans students to violent and chronically failing schools before Katrina.” CER is redoubling its efforts to focus on innovation and opportunity, leveraging media and attracting new advocates to the cause. The manifesto: http://bit.ly/1W1Cjph.

The full Morning Education newsletter here.

Filed Under: CER in the News

School Reform Advocates Sound Alarm For Innovation And Opportunity

June 17, 2016 By

Hundreds Convene To Disrupt Education and Promote The Opportunity Agenda

WASHINGTON, DC – Leaders in education, business, politics, and media joined The Center for Education Reform (CER) yesterday at The National Press Club to unveil a manifesto calling on all engaged in education and learning to forge a new commitment to innovation and opportunity.

“If we as a movement are to be honest with ourselves, we must acknowledge that our efforts to drive change have hit a wall,” declared Jeanne Allen, founder and CEO of CER. “The reality is that more was accomplished in the first nine years of the education reform movement than in the past 16.”

Allen continued: “Resetting the landscape for structural change in education requires providing maximum opportunities for kids, teachers and families — and the flexibility for innovations to be tested and applied. Every education policy effort going forward must be focused on creating the opportunity for innovation.”

Donald Hense, Chair and CEO of Friendship Public Charter Schools, one of the top charter networks in Washington, DC, echoed these sentiments. “The freedom that charter schools once enjoyed — the freedom to innovate — is now so overregulated. We must give teachers autonomy, and we must hold schools accountable for results.”

For David Levin, President and CEO of McGraw-Hill Education, the imperative to innovate couldn’t come at a more critical time. “Empowerment and diversity can be very powerful and are real assets for the country. But right now we’re failing so many of our minority students. And this only raises the imperative to allow teachers to have the flexibility to experiment with new approaches. Indeed, for an innovator to succeed in education, she needs the license to explore and test and learn.”

The bottom line: “There’s no excuse for the current state of America’s educational system,” said John Engler, President of the Business Roundtable and former governor of Michigan. According to the latest scores on the Nation’s Report Card, less than half of eighth graders can read and do math at grade level. Engler added, “We run the risk of falling even further behind if we don’t incorporate innovation and opportunity as bedrock principles.”

After almost a quarter century of leading the fight for expanded educational opportunities, The Center for Education Reform will refocus its efforts on coalescing all around these principles. Said Allen: “We invite our allies, adversaries, and partners to join hands in a commitment to a new equation for education — Innovation + Opportunity = Results, or Ed Reform I.O.”

Watch the full event, video highlights, and read the New Opportunity Agenda.

 

Filed Under: Press Releases

Statement From CER Founder & CEO On Virtual Charter Schools Report

June 16, 2016 By

WASHINGTON, DC – Jeanne Allen, Founder and CEO of The Center for Education Reform, issued the following statement on a report on virtual charter schools released today:

“While we appreciate the goal and desire to learn more about how online charter schools are impacting student outcomes, this research lacks the depth and integrity that we need in educational analysis, and ignores the fact that the voluntary choices of parents – when they have them – may not represent others’ conceptions of what works best for their kids.

“Researchers agree that this view of the data is superficial and ignores who and what is gained by a particular kind of schooling approach. Many students who enroll in virtual charter schools do so because of extenuating circumstances or because they simply are not served well in a brick-and-mortar learning environment. This report is troubling in that it suggests that the measure of a school’s effectiveness is an average of who gets tested, not who gets served and the conditions under which they enter or leave.

“This report exemplifies precisely why the education reform movement is at risk —its conclusions endanger the ideals of opportunity and innovation that are so desperately needed in education today. We cannot have innovation and opportunity without the ability to try new models, and we also cannot have opportunity and choice without good information to make decisions.”

About the Center for Education Reform

Founded in 1993, the Center for Education Reform aims to expand educational opportunities that lead to improved economic outcomes for all Americans — particularly our youth — ensuring that the conditions are ripe for innovation, freedom and flexibility throughout U.S. education.

Filed Under: Press Releases
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