Would We Get Better Results if the Wall Street Journal Gave Merit Pay for Better Reporting?

"Of course, not everything you try works." 
- Joel Klein on wasting $57 million on failed merit pay schemes.

Hey, Joel, how about "nothing you tried worked?" Except turning the UFT into a wus, which in the ed deform world is all that really matters anyway.

From the Joel Klein School of Management

I was howling with laughter after reading this article on teacher merit pay in the WSJ today blaming poor results on the NYC merit pay boondoggle on the fact that entire schools got pay instead of individual teachers.

In 2007, New York City and its teachers union launched an experiment to determine whether rewarding teachers with extra cash would boost student performance.
Four years and $57 million later, the answer appears to be no. Backers of incentive pay are blaming the way New York's program was structured, and school and union officials are pointing fingers at each other.

Researchers posited that because the bonuses were based on how well entire schools performed, and how well they performed compared to similar schools citywide, the money didn't offer much incentive to individual teachers to excel.
"It was clear in 2007 that this plan wouldn't enable the best teachers to earn dramatically more, and therefore would likely be limited in long-term effect," said Bryan Hassell, co-director of Public Impact, a research and consulting organization that is often at odds with the teachers union. He wasn't involved in the studies.
"This plan paid chump change compared to what the best teachers should be earning for reaching more kids successfully," Mr. Hassell said.

Boy, if only they has offered individual teachers lots more money instead of chump change. The scores would have soared. Just like they did in Washington DC under Michelle Rhee.

The funniest lines in the entire piece belong to "no excuses" Joel Klein who always makes excuses:

"I believe and have always believed in merit pay at the individual teacher level," said Joel Klein, who was then schools chancellor. "The union would agree only to a schoolwide program. It made sense to try. Of course, not everything you try works," he said. Mr. Klein is now an executive at News Corp., which owns The Wall Street Journal. 

Poor Repert. He hires a guy who made a $57 million losing bet. A guy who believed individual merit pay would work but because the union wouldn't sign onto that tossed enormous amount of money into the trash because "It made sense to try."

No follow-up on this issue from reporter. Like, do you think it was wise to spend so much money that could have been used for real instruction or supplies on something you just wanted to try? Like in throwing it against the wall to see if it sticks?

Let's parse the reporting a little further:

Research is mixed on merit pay's success. A rigorous and closely watched study of a Nashville incentive-pay program found it didn't improve student test scores, while a study of Denver's merit-pay initiative found it attracted higher-quality teachers and kept them in hard-to-staff schools. [CONVENIENTLY LEAVING OUT - BUT DIDN'T IMPROVE SCORES]
But there is a key difference between those programs and New York's. Both Nashville and Denver directly linked performance pay of teachers to the performance of students in their classes. The Denver program also considers classroom evaluations as part of the bonus pay and allows teachers in non-tested subjects to get cash based on schoolwide improvements.

So, the Nashville experiment which DID use individual merit pay failed but Denver is somehow counterposed as not failing to justify saying "Research is mixed on merit pay's success" when in fact there it also failed in raising scores. In fact research has been clear that merit pay has been a total failure wherever it has been tried. But here comes a bait and switch tactic by saying the Denver experiment "attracted higher-quality teachers and kept them in hard-to-staff schools." Exactly what is meant by higher quality teachers? Based on what? Test scores? Or were they from Teach for America which automatically makes them higher quality in the world of ed deform?

A working paper (pdf) just released by Harvard University economist Roland G Fryer flatly contradicts the argument. In a randomised trial in more than 200 New York City public schools, he found "no evidence that teacher incentives increase student performance, attendance or graduation". On the contrary, Fryer reported that teacher incentives may actually decrease student achievement, especially in larger schools.

Another failed ed deform "experiment" on the children in this country. But why site research that refutes WSJ editorial policy? 

Sorry, I have to give this piece an "F". But I have an idea for how Rupert can improve the quality of reporting on the WSJ. Launch an experiment to determine whether rewarding reporters with extra cash would boost performance.

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Check out Norms Notes for a variety of articles of interest: http://normsnotes2.blogspot.com/. And make sure to check out the side panel on right for news bits.

The Failures of Katie Couric as a Reporter: Biased 60 Minutes Report on Zeke Vanderhoek and TEP Charters

Katie Couric after reading Ed Notes on her 60 Minutes TEP segment

REVISED Tuesday, March 15, 12:30 PM
NOTE: I revised this as my column this week for The Wave.

by Norm Scott

Katie Couric exhibited a failure of epic proportions as a so-called reporter in her 60 Minutes interview (http://bit.ly/fPqMMk) on The Equity Project charter school lead by another former Teach for America who spent his 10 minutes in the classroom, Zeke Vanderhoek. (Did you know that 30% of NYC charter schools are lead by TFA alums - talk about cult to school pipeline?) The program was an unadorned ad for an attack on teacher tenure and seniority rights and Katie jumped right in. Her next job will undoubtedly be at FOX.

They had the obligatory kid who talked about how the public school teachers didn't care about him. Gee, I've heard a hell of a lot of former charter school teachers who not only found their teachers uncaring, but actually abusive.

Vanderhoek is making his bones on paying teachers 125K a year in what amounts to a full time and full day job.  Leonie Haimson calls him a shameless self-promoter. "He is clearly a genius at self-promotion, if nothing else. Though the test scores at his school turned out to be terrible, he still managed to score a profile in 60 Minutes."

Couric did bring up the fact that TEP's scores were lower than the public schools in the area (only a 31% pass rate) but didn't drill too deep on that one. You know the line: it takes time to reverse the effects of those awful public schools that actually had higher scores even though they pay teachers half as much.  Or - wink, wink - just go our and cream kids with higher performing potential.

This fall, Vanderhoek proved that just about any hokey ed deform idea will get you lots of publicity. An article by Justin Snider of the Hechinger report that Leonie called "highly deceptive [by] claiming the very existence of this charter school proved that teacher quality is more important than class size."

Listen to this drivel by Snider:

The reality, though, is that of all the things we should worry about in providing a quality education to our children, class size isn't high on the list. Teacher quality matters a lot more. Zeke Vanderhoek, the founder of The Equity Project Charter School in New York City, knows this. His teachers are the most highly compensated public-school educators in the country, earning minimum salaries of $125,000 per year. How does the school afford such salaries? Because Vanderhoek decided he'd much rather have the nation's top educators teaching classes of 30 students rather than mediocre folks teaching classes of 20 students.

Mona Davids of the NY Charter Parents Association said, “He should fire himself now. Equity Project only had a 31% pass rate. Where's his accountability?”

Even the NY Charter Center, the well-funded charter school booster, admitted such in its latest report:

Naturally, Couric dragged out that old warhorse, Joel Klein to discuss the tenure issue. In a case of bad reporting, she failed to raise just a few questions she could have asked. For Katie's future reference, I will list just a few she might try the next time.

Klein is asked by Katie how you get tenure and responds:

Klein:  if you have a pulse you get tenure.... tenure is something you get for showing up.

Fantasy questions from Katie:

·      Mr. Klein, how long were you in charge of the NYC schools? Wasn't it 8 years?

·      Mr. Klein, did you realize that 60% of the current teaching corps in NYC has been teaching for 5 years or less? If you look at the totals over 8 years the number of teachers hired under your tenure might be as high as 70% (or more).

·      Mr. Klein, scuttlebutt has it that 80% of the current corps of principals was placed in their positions since you took over the NYC schools.

·      Mr. Klein, isn't it true that principals are the ones who grant tenure?

·      Mr. Klein, what do you have to say to the fact that a majority of the teachers who you claim are granted tenure for merely breathing have been granted tenure by the 80% of the principals who were appointed under your tenure as head of the NYC schools.

·      Mr. Klein, explain exactly who should be held accountable if teachers receive tenure for merely breathing?

·      Finally: How dare you Mr. Klein try to perpetrate these lies and slanders regarding tenure on the American people?

By this time Klein is sweating bullets and runs off the stage with his coat over his head - and Katie never gets to ask about the scandals and massive incompetence, things that will hopefully one day truly lead to Klein taking the perp walk with his coat over his head.

Ahhhh, real journalism is fantasyland.

END OF COLUMN

Read Leonie's full post: Zeke Vanderhoek, relentless self-promoter

 -------

Afterburn
So, how much fun was it to receive an email from CBS today touting Katie and her piece?

Hello,

This week on 60 Minutes Overtime, Katie Couric Katie Couric discusses her report on the ground-breaking New York City school known as TEP (The Equity Project), her own experience with mentoring students, and the accusation that teachers are "greedy."

To view the video, click here:
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504803_162-20042201-10391709.html

Tiny URL:  http://bit.ly/eApWza
  
Let me know if you have any questions.

Jenifer Boscacci
CBSNews.com
415.344.2441
Jenifer.boscacci@cbs.com

Hmmm. I think I'll send my list of questions to Jenifer.

Leonie Haimson did some work on the segment and posted at NYC Ed News listserve:

See video of last night’s 60 min: segment on TEP Charter school, featuring Joel Klein attack on tenure and celebrating the fact that Zeke Vanderhoek fired two of his teachers – that he had so carefully recruited. One was a sped teacher from Arizona who had moved to NYC to take the job.

http://bit.ly/fPqMMk

Strangely, the segment never mentions the large class sizes that supposedly allows him to pay $125,000 per teacher; instead Couric claims the trade off was that teachers had to take on  additional admin responsibilities.

For my earlier post on this school: Zeke Vanderhoek, relentless self-promoter

It sparked a few comments:

-----

Mel:

The report says 247 kids and 15 teachers, all of whom actually seem to teach.  Ratio of about 16.5 students to a teacher. There are no quick fixes.

-----

Leonie

It’s clear from the video that class sizes are much larger than that.  Some are clearly special ed teachers and intervention specialists.

-----

Diane Ravitch
Does the school have a library? a librarian? a school nurse? a social worker? guess not. What is its attrition rate? Anyone know?

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Check out Norms Notes for a variety of articles of interest: http://normsnotes2.blogspot.com/. And make sure to check out the side panel on right for news bits.

There's still a week left for Joel Klein to be taken out of Tweed with his coat over his head

At my farewell to Joel speech at the PEP meeting I was going to mention my 6-year old prediction but didn't feel like being that mean. Klein's deal with Rupert Murdoch whereas Klein will be profiting from policies he set as chancellor smells bad enough but in the "government is there to serve the corporation, real estate interests and the wealthy in general" political world we live in my prediction looks like it will go down in flames. I was sent this little tidbit about Pearson's "benevolent" foundation by a teacher:

I'm noticing that Pearson are the new darling publishers in the schools. I've been trying to figure out why and came across this:

http://www.pearsoned.com/press/2010/01/06/pearson-foundation-invests-3-million-to-expand-new-leaders-for-new-schools-efforts-to-transform-urban-schools.htm

 “New Leaders for New Schools has been a vital partner in helping New York City address the challenges of secondary school reform, and we look forward to continuing to work together successfully,” said Joel Klein, Chancellor of the New York City Department of Education. “New Leaders’ approach in recruiting, training, and supporting principals has helped move us closer to our goal of having a highly-effective leader in every school.”

 Oh, well, Pearson will make enormous profits by using its foundation to promote policies that will ensure they get a big piece of the pie. But we have been saying all along that the ed deform movement is all about wresting control of the stupendous money spent on education out of the hands of the public - a key piece is centralizing control of the schools into as few hands as possible - mayoral control is a prime example. Imagine if companies like Pearson had to deal with 32 separate school districts.

And then I always wonder about the relationship between Klein and Bill Gates. I haven't been around schools much but I was a tech guy since the mid-80's and from what I see, there are a lot less Macs than PC's - my district was all Mac but now seems much less so. It would be interesting to hear what other tech people have to say - any pressure out there over the years to get PCs over Macs?

And don't forget the $80 million (and more I bet) ARIS boondoggle. Can't we link the Citytime scandal to that? (See the stuff RBE at Perdido Street has been doing- How The CityTime Scam Worked)

Remember, there are only a few shopping days left to get those cuffs on Uncle Joel.

Afterburn

As scandal erupts and arrests are made, warning signs for CityTime fraud were there all along

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Check out Norms Notes for a variety of articles of interest: http://normsnotes2.blogspot.com/

The Teaching Profession: Out With the Old, In With the New

The Sunday Times book review section review "Shock of Gray" a book about the aging world population, posing the issue of older people vs. younger people for jobs in addition to the fact that as birth rates drop there are fewer workers to support the elderly. What is of interest to us is when the author, Ted C. Fishman, refers to "age arbitrage" where companies trade in their older employees for a younger, cheaper work force elsewhere - outsourcing - attributing this to globalization.

This got me to thinking about what we've seen here in NYC within the teaching ranks and the growing assaults on senior, higher paid teachers. First we saw Joel Klein claim early in his tenure that seniority was harming poor kids because the most experienced teachers could transfer out to better neighborhoods while at the same time attacking senior teachers by claiming the very same seniority transfers were foisting incompetent teachers on principals. He also attacked the "bumping" rules where senior teachers had the right to bump junior teachers within the same license area. The 2005v contract killed these seniority rules and created a pool of ATRs, the use of these senior teachers as short term of long term subs.

Then Klein implemented what he called fair school funding, where for the first time a school was charged for the costs of the teaching staff. Thus, a school with a lot of teachers with over 22 years making a hundred thousand a year (by the way, giving big raises at the top was part of the long-term plan- call it an investment - to create such a gap in salary between new and senior teachers as to start the pressure cooker boiling) could afford less teachers, thus giving principals an incentive to go after the higher salaried teachers.

The next level of attack is coming from the likes of the Bill Gates foundation and Arne Duncan who want to totally revamp salary structure to be based on the scores of each individual teacher using value-added. Part of this attack is to degrade teacher experience. As Susan Ohanian wrote which we quoted Gates' spokesperson Vickie Bernstein in our post ( Calls to action for teachers -) the other day:

Lest you doubt the triage metaphor, consider Vicki Phillips' recent remarks to the National PTA. Phillips is the Education Director for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

So we know master's degrees have almost no value.
We know certifications don't make a difference.
We know that after three years, seniority doesn’t really matter . . . After year three, teachers usually don't get significantly better or worse. 

So you see where this is going. Degrade the profession, use more TFA temps, etc. By increasing non-unionized charters - pay the salaries to make them competitive with the public schools but demand 30% more work, no pensions and possibly lousier health plans - they ultimately will be able to drive down every one's salary so one day we are back to the 50's, with a basic non-unionized work force making peanuts and with lousy working conditions.

The next step will be to demand that when layoffs come, seniority be thrown out - this will be a focus for Cathie Black. Part of their game plan it so appeal to the newer, younger teachers who will demand they be kept on while older higher salaried teachers are let go. Watch the value-added scores be released just in time - can't you see a list in the NY Post of every teacher making a high salary and their value-added score compared to lower salaried teachers in their school? That's coming folks, to a school near you.

Should see this picture for teachers within the context of Fishman's book, as part of a worldwide trend? Or is this a unique case?

AFTERBURN
For those of you who thought of Joel Klein as incompetent - with his multiple reorganizations and all the other hazarai, I disagree. His job was not to improve education or even about education. It was about ideology and to do what I described above. In the latter he was brilliant - a master, especially with a cooperative UFT - non incompetent either by the way, as solidfying and holding on to power is the prime directive and they have done that as well as Klein has done his work.

More PEP POO: The Big Hug

 I'm processing the wonderful videos of the Real Reformers in action last night but this 2 minutes segment of Joel Klein actually sort of praising Ed Notes and giving me a hug was easy to get up on you tube. Reminds me of my principal who when told by the district they were hiring me away said, "My car was stolen today but this makes up for it." A few months later she was hugging me when I came to the school. And then there was that hug from Randi at her last Exec Bd. meeting.

Gee, affection seems to grow the less proximity I have to people. I ought to take a long vacation away from my wife, who considers me the most annoying man on earth. I haven't asked her exactly how many men she is comparing me to.

Before you see the video of a parting hug between Joel and I at last night's PEP, your homework is to read these 2 posts:

Separated at Birth: Joel and Norm - I Miss Him Already

 

Assessing Joel Klein: What Influenced Him in the Late 60's? What If He Had Remained a Teacher?

 

Klein finally admitted we were twins, saying each of us felt the other was the evil twin, funny coming from a guy who hangs out so much with Evil Moskowitz.

This never would have been on the record if Julie hadn't ran over to the camera - gee, thanks. I've written two pieces on Joel Klein which are companions to this video. I wanted to hug Joel as a way to say thank you for the way he has helped galvanize opposition to the ed deformers by an amazing group of Real Reformers. Would I have met Julie and Alev and the rest of the CAPEers? Or Leonie and Lisa and Mona and Khem and Bonnie -  some of the leading ladies in the parent wing? Or the wonderful young teachers getting involved with GEM if not for Klein's policies of closing schools, favoring charters, forcing co-locations, multiple reorganizations, etc. THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU JOEL KLEIN. May your successor continue your work of helping us organize Real Reformers.

Of course the reaction of my friends - as you can hear - was not totally positive. James Eterno sent over hand lotion. People shunned me - saying they won't come near me until I showered. They're all just haters. (But the depth of hatred towards Joel Klein is awesome - and let me say right here, I am not a hater. I love everybody.)

Some complained that I had let Klein use me to make himself look good. Since when has Klein ever cared about looking good? Well, maybe this was for the press to show what a good guy he is. But really, as my wife who has no connection to anything education-wise said- why should he care about trying to look good? He's gone. In fact, he gave Ed Notes, which has absolutely hammered him, some cache by calling it "powerful and  pointed." It reminded me of the early editions of the print version around 1997. Soon after Randi took over the union, she opened up a Delegate Assembly by holding up Ed Notes and saying, "I love reading Ed Notes." Of course, all the Unity clones now felt it OK to read it and during meetings if you looked down from the stage, you would see half the people holding up Ed Notes and reading it.

Lot's of people speculate whether Joel Klein believes his own bullshit. Some say he knows it's all a con. I take the other view and think he is a True Believer who is passionate about what he has done. I've been in his presence too often not to see the flashes of anger and passion. I do not think it is an act.
I'll say more on this issue another time.

Oh, and what were those words that Joel whispered in my ear? I'll take that to my grave. Or at least until the next post.