Two Thoughts on Education This Week: Matt Damon’s Wrong Identity
Photo courtesy of Fame Pictures
This is No Action Film — Or What Teacher Compensation Must Be for Kids and Taxpayers: As a son with a mom of my own (and a husband whose father-in-law was a longtime teacher and school administrator), I can appreciate actor Matt Damon’s passionate defense of traditional teacher compensation (and opposition to testing) at last week’s Save Our Schools rally. But that’s where it all ends. While Dropout Nation appreciates all voices, no matter whether they are in education or not, weighing in on this debate, Damon is certainly wrongheaded in his arguments. And when it comes to the costly traditional system of teacher compensation, Damon is not only off-target, but really doesn’t have his facts straight.
Despite what Damon (and smarmy Daily Show host John Stewart) thinks, the real issue with teacher compensation has nothing to do with whether teachers are overpaid or underpaid. The reality is that teachers are well-compensated, especially when one considers that they get near-lifetime employment, nearly-free healthcare and defined-benefit pensions worth as much as $2 million over a lifetime. At the heart of the debate are two critical questions. The first? How effective is teacher compensation in fostering student achievement, recognizing the high-quality work that good-to-great teachers do, and in transforming dropout factories, failure mills and mediocrity malls into cultures of genius in which children can reach their potential. The second? How effective is teacher compensation compared to its costs to the families and taxpayers who must bear it.
The first question has been answered a long time ago. There is no correlation between degree- and seniority-based pay scales (and the additional degrees and experience that comes with it) and student achievement. As Dan Goldhaber and Michael Hanson proved in their 2009 study, a teacher is no better after 25 years on the job than after four years. Nor does the rest of traditional teacher compensation — including extra pay for attaining certification from the National Board of Professional Teaching Standards, defined-benefit pensions or the near-lifetime employment granted through tenure — do anything to improve student success.
Traditional teacher compensation also doesn’t provide recognition to good-to-great teachers for their high-quality work and doesn’t help foster cultures of genius and student success. In fact, if anything, the array of fringe benefits actually acts as barriers. Seniority protections from layoffs (and the wide use of reverse-seniority layoffs) lead to quality-blind reductions in force that send talented less-senior teachers onto the streets while protecting laggards with more-seniority. Seniority-based assignment rules allow laggard teachers to bump high-quality colleagues from their jobs, and keep principals and districts from improving the quality of instruction in dropout factories.
And because tenure is so-easily granted to teachers during the first years of their career — in 35 states during the first three years in the classroom — this creates cultures of mediocrity and complacency in which good-to-great teachers aren’t recognized for their work and younger, talented teachers are dismissed by veterans (including those who are mediocre). Because laggards are allowed to gain tenure so easily, they are protected from dismissal, acting as cancers in school cultures. Meanwhile young, talented teachers must wait a decade or longer to gain the full rewards of teacher compensation, reaping inadequate pay even if they are doing great work. This is one reason why half of all ed school students never make it into classrooms — and another half leave the profession in five years. It is also why so few of our most-talented collegians want to become teachers in the first place.
As for the second question? The answer is also a big fat no. States must wrangle with $137 billion in budget shortfalls in the coming two fiscal years, and deal with $1.4 trillion in long-term teachers’ pension deficits and retired teacher healthcare benefits. The average state spent 34 cents on benefits for every dollar of teacher salary in 2008-2009 versus 28 cents six years ago. And yet, families and taxpayers are paying for a system in which 150 young men and women each hour, teens who look like Damon and look like me, drop out into the economic and social abyss. In a time in which education is critical to ending poverty, stemming unemployment and preserving the America’s Dream, the traditional teacher compensation system does not work.
Damon is probably a well-meaning guy. But what he defends is a system that is a failure for the very children, taxpayers and good-to-great teachers about whom he professes to care. And it’s unfortunate that he doesn’t recognize this.
What he should recognize is that everyone — including good-to-great teachers, families, taxpayers and, most of all, children — deserve is a teacher compensation system that recognizes and rewards good-to-great work. This includes providing teachers with evaluations based on student achievement, using value-added measurements of test scores that have proven to be reliable over time. This includes replacing degree- and seniority-based pay scales with performance-based salary bands that allow young teachers to gain raises immediately during their career and can attract young, talented collegians to the profession. And it includes performance bonuses, including grants that can be used by teachers to start programs that help improve student achievement and even start their own schools. In short, what everyone deserves is the same kind of performance-based model found outside of education — including in Hollywood — from which the likes of Damon has benefited.
You would think Damon, an actor whose own good wealth has come because of being compensated for delivering blockbuster films and critically-acclaimed appearances, would appreciate the idea of good-to-great teachers being recognized and rewarded for objectively improving student achievement over time on a consistent basis, no matter the conditions in which they work. You would think that Damon would want the Jaime Escalantes, John Taylor Gattos and Steve Evangelistas to get A-list paychecks for their great work, while not rewarding those who are below average, whose educational neglect and malpractice leads far too many young men and women into poverty and prison. And you would think that as a businessman aware of the high costs of doing things poorly, Damon would recognize that you can’t continue a system in which everyone is paid the same wage, regardless of their contributions to the bottom line — in education, that being young men and women well-prepared to write their own stories and even, become the next Matt Damon.
But, let’s say this: At least Damon is paying attention. I, for one, welcome his voice. Now, I invite him to read Dropout Nation, learn more about the nation’s education crisis, and move away from defending a failed vision.
What Arne Hath Wrought: No Child Reauthorization Department: When one reads Tennessee’s request to the U.S. Department of Education for waivers from No Child’s Adequate Yearly Progress accountability requirements, one is struck by the low bar the Volunteer State has set for itself when it comes to student achievement. It only hopes to have 51 percent of seventh-grade students proficient in math by 2014-2015, versus the 29 percent for seventh-graders in 2009-2010. It also wants at least 60 percent of third-graders reading proficiently within the next four years (the proficiency goal for 2009-2010 was a mere 42 percent). And yet, state officials complain that because they are finally forcing school districts to actually improve student achievement (after years of dithering on bolstering proficiency requirements), the districts will not meet the aspirational 100 percent proficiency provision in the next few years.
This waiver request should be tossed back to Nashville into a statehouse trash bin. But chances are that Department of Education officials will grant that request for reaching the low bar. Why? Because U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has painted the department — and the Obama administration’s education reform efforts — into a corner with his gambit to force Congress into a speedy reauthorization of No Child on the administration’s terms.
As Dropout Nation has been pointing out for a while now, Duncan’s move has been a blunder. It has ssentially given House Education and the Workforce Committee John Kline what he wants — the gutting of No Child’s accountability provisions — while also giving him the ability to claim that the administration’s effort is executive branch overreach. Meanwhile Kline isn’t moving any faster on reauthorization, and is essentially passing bills that are essentially end-runs around both No Child and Obama’s school reform goals. Congressional Democrats such as Kline’s predecessor as chairman, George Miller, have also rejected Duncan’s waiver gambit, largely because they see how it will weaken accountability and let states go back to setting low expectations for poor and minority kids. And Duncan’s move has not won him any support from the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers, who want a full rewrite of No Child on their terms that will give them victory with which they can rally their members and rebuild their influence.
Meanwhile the move has has a destabilizing effect on state-level reform efforts. Reform-minded governors, who must also be thoughtful about their re-election prospects, no longer have a tool with which they can beat back NEA and AFT affiliates. While states have made some great progress this year on school reform, Duncan’s campaign to weaken No Child has actually made it more difficult for them to take up the very measures he proposes. Add in the fact that Duncan no longer has the money needed to run his competitive grant efforts and leverage reform efforts, and these governors are shuffling to keep their efforts going.
All in all, Duncan has made a mess of things for his allies and for the president himself. Given Obama’s low popularity numbers, the blundering couldn’t have come at a worse time. The president needs a substantial domestic policy victory, and education was the one area in which such wins could be delivered with strong bipartisan support.
Certainly the school reform movement, and the Obama administration needs Duncan to keep school reform at full speed. He has proven capable of doing this during his first two years in the job. It will be interesting to see how Duncan pulls off his strategy and keeps the ball moving on the administration’s reform efforts into the next year.
Errata: A few assorted thoughts.
- I’m staying out of the latest fracas between Mike Petrilli and Education Sector over the National Council on Teacher Quality’s latest report on training aspiring teachers, and whether the study will be valuable or important. All I will say is that one must consider this: That Ed Sector is a competitor of sorts with NCTQ on the teacher quality reform front. That Fordham’s president, Checker Finn, is a longtime member of NCTQ’s board. And given that I have worked with NCTQ, Fordham and Ed Sector’s current executive director at one point or another, I think they all contribute plenty to the discussion about reforming how we recruit, train and compensate teachers. There are bigger fish to fry than each other. This is one of the times the school reform movement needs a little kumbaya.
- Your editor isn’t surprised that the Government Accountability Office has found problems with the turnaround efforts implemented under the School Improvement Grant program. As I noted ad naseam, school turnarounds rarely work, often because the cultures of the districts running the failing schools are often as toxic as the failure mills themselves. Because of the limits on using value-added data in evaluating and building strong teaching staffs, it’s incredibly difficult for turnaround leaders to take the steps needed to systemically fix schools. And given that schools are dismissive of engaging parents and allowing them to play strong decision-making roles in school turnarounds (a recommendation made last year by Anthony Bryk, John Easton and the University of Chicago team in their book on successful school overhauls) the efforts are often doomed.
- As for MSNBC talk show host Lawrence O’Donnell’s Damon-related diatribe on last night’s Last Word? Dropout Nation offers him a chance to actually learn more about the issues. And that’s all.
David B. Cohen
654 days ago
Did you listen to Damon’s speech? I didn’t hear him defend anything like what you say he defended. The main idea I heard was that he thrived in school because his teachers had the autonomy to provide a rich and engaging curriculum, that teachers nurtured in him a set of skills not on the tests, and that test-based (faux)accountability is a failed approach to policy. The closest you get is that he said teachers’ jobs shouldn’t be on the line over test scores – which is more in line with the research and educational measurement experts than anything put forward by the current edreform movement.
It’s nice that you welcome anyone who’s interested to engage in the debate, but I have to say I’d be willing to engage with you more often if I didn’t find that every three months or so when I read your posts, that you’ve distorted someone’s position or assumed things that they didn’t say. I won’t assume your reasons for doing this, but you might consider that it gives the appearance that you either don’t know the real content of the text or speech you criticize, or, that you find it easier to critique a position by presenting an over-simplified version of it.
RiShawn Biddle
654 days ago
Actually, I did David, as well as listen to his remarks afterward to Reason. So, yes, I did, to the entire discourse (in fact, the false, baseless fears of testing will be discussed tomorrow here in Dropout Nation). But, of course, as you usually do, any position taken by those with whom you disagree must either be a distortion of what those with whom you agree say. But then, the issue isn’t any distortion, but disagreement. Thanks for trying.
But, I am curious, David: Do you really think the system in place actually works? And does keeping it in place help kids. Let’s get to the brass tacks and start talking turkey.
Thanks for your thoughts.
Nate Grosshandler
651 days ago
RiShawn,
A few comments from myself regarding this piece in reference to some of your statements in the post and your comment above:
1) “The reality is that teachers are well-compensated, ” – Yes, I would agree here and I think both sides need to move past this. Over our lifetime, educators are fairly compensated, not too low, not too high.
2) “There is no correlation between degree- and seniority-based pay scales (and the additional degrees and experience that comes with it) and student achievement.” – I find it interesting that you make such a statement by citing one study among many. The fact is studies have produced varying results on this topic, and the opposite seems to be supported by more studies than not when it comes to secondary education. You can review this meta analysis by the Center for Education Compensation Reform : http://cecr.ed.gov/guides/researchSyntheses/Research%20Synthesis_Q%20A2.pdf
3) “Traditional teacher compensation also doesn’t provide recognition to good-to-great teachers for their high-quality work and doesn’t help foster cultures of genius and student success.” – Again, see my answer to #2. But, let’s say your statement is fully based in fact, which it is not; We typically see higher compensation in urban areas, because it is more difficult to recruit and maintain effective teachers due to the increased educational and social obstacles these educators face.
4) “And because tenure is so-easily granted to teachers during the first years of their career” – Says who? You? Interesting that your previous posts referenced supportive data, yet here you turn opinion into fact. Have you ever gained tenure in a public school system? Have you ever been charged with granting tenure in a public school system? If the answer is no, well you really have no place making this statement. Many schools have or are moving towards tenure defense actions where tenure candidates present quantitative and qualitative data to a panel, which combined with administrative reviews is charged with granting tenure.
5) “But, I am curious, David: Do you really think the system in place actually works? And does keeping it in place help kids.” – Now this is from your response above. And, I have skipped a bit because I feel your post went way off target and you cite facts which support the second part of this statement. But RiShawn here is my biggest issues with people like you (Know it all non-educators), you take this stance that because educators do not support more standardized testing, tenure elimination, merit pay, or what other new idea is out there, that we feel the system is perfect. I will stand from and center with you saying that our public education system fails children. Not all children, but some children. Things need to be fixed. Rejecting these ideas does not mean we stand for the status quo. Stop assuming that those who oppose reform projects by people who have never been in a classroom or school recently want things to remain exactly the same. I am open to any ideas which will improve education for all students, but some ideas are just stupid or won’t change anything.
RiShawn Biddle
651 days ago
Nathan:
First, thanks for your thoughts.
On points two and three: If you read the report that you have cited, it clearly states that “the majority of studies” show no correlation between degree attainment and student achievement. And when it comes to experience, most of the gains in teacher ability are in the early years of their career, which, again, is what your evidence clearly states; while some studies do show some additional gains over time, most of the gains in teacher skills is in the first four years of teaching.
On point four: While more states and school districts are moving towards making tenure attainment more rigorous, in most states and school districts, the reality remains that newly-hired teachers don’t get the strong scrutiny needed to determine whether they should gain near-lifetime employment. Just because some districts are moving more toward scrutiny doesn’t mean that it is widespread, or that the methods you cite (which usually don’t rely on actual objective evidence of student achievement) are effective in determining teacher quality.
On point five: Let’s be clear: I’m not saying that those who oppose reform don’t care about children. Or that you want to keep things exactly as they are. But the solutions you argue are merely small ball fixes in a time in which education needs a full, systemic overhaul. What you argue for (and argue against) essentially keeps in place a system that is a failure for far too many children, especially kids who share my skin color and background. Certainly, I am passionate about this issue: I will be the father of young black men and women who will have to attend schools that don’t work for them or for other children.
This isn’t to say that any one solution will be the silver bullet. Nor should one say that standardized testing is perfect. But we live in the real world and anything created by man will never be perfect. The goal should be to develop the best possible tools for improving education. And right now, testing, including standardized testing, is the best way to measure student, teacher and school achievement over time. You cannot improve what you don’t measure — and the data from standardized tests are the most-objective data available.
And finally, please stop with the arrogance of expertise. Let’s be clear: American public education has been left to experts — teachers, principals, superintendents, ed schools and teachers unions — for most of the past century. And that hasn’t achieved any results, either for students, taxpayers or even for teachers. You can’t simply demand that taxpayers and those who want the best for children should just continue to trust and leave things to “experts” when the experts aren’t delivering in an age in which education is more critical than ever. And given the high costs of education (nearly $600 billion a year, not including defined-benefit pension deficits), there is no way that families, taxpayers and others can just leave
Here’s the reality: When it comes to practices needed to improve education, educators are probably the least-knowledgeable. For one, save for those coming into education late in their adult lives, their knowledge is limited to teaching, a critical skill that doesn’t always translate to the other areas of delivering education. For the most part, educators are not going to be well-versed in such areas management, information technology, data analysis, and contracting — all considered specialized skills outside the education sector. My colleague, Steve Peha, makes this point in his series on developing school leadership (http://dropoutnation.net/2011/04/28/the-peter-principal-or-the-critical-need-for-school-leadership/). And, as Michael Bromley has pointed out, since most teachers have no experience in other sectors in which they must earn income based on performance (either in the corporate sector as employees or as entrepreneurs), they are not the best judges of how they should be paid (or even if they are over- or underpaid).
Some will interpret this as any anti-teacher statement. But it is not. It is an acceptance of reality. Journalists and editorialists, for example, are poor judges of their own work product because they are not the end users. This is why the media sector uses metrics such as ad revenue, readership numbers and Web traffic to judge value. It is also why reader opinions are as critical to measuring quality as peer judgements. If this is true for the media sector, it is also true for education.
The reality is that the reform of American public education will require everyone, including educators and those who are outside of classrooms. There isn’t a reformer that thinks that teachers and school leaders aren’t critical to overhauling American public education. And educators shouldn’t think that they are the only ones that can actually lead reform. And ultimately, parents must be the lead decision-makers in education because it is their kids who attend the schools at the center of their lives and their communities.
Thanks again, Nathan, for your thoughts. I will say that you have given me some things to think about.
Nate Grosshandler
651 days ago
I have to say, your response sounds much more like someone who understands education than your original post. I would suggest you be more careful in your wording of certain statements, because your statement, “a majority of studies” is much more accurate than the absolute statement you made in your original post. In addition, I would be interest in correlation data, regarding when new teachers pursue advanced degrees. I’d wager it is in the early time frame, which correlates with increased effects on student achievement.
Your comment, “Let’s be clear: American public education has been left to experts — teachers, principals, superintendents, ed schools and teachers unions — for most of the past century.” is way off. In fact, the greatest influence on public education has been politicians. NCLB and other state level educational policies have stripped local school districts and their staff from delivering an educational product which meets the unique needs of its community. Instead, they are forced to comply with layers and layers of policies which has created a “one size fits all” approach to education. Furthermore, our nation’s drive towards high stakes testing forced educators to adhere to preparing for tests as opposed to delivering high quality educations to our students. For example, let’s look at where I live, NJ. I invite you to review our curriculum standards which all teachers and schools are to comply with:
https://www13.state.nj.us/NJCCCS/Worldclassstandards.aspx
Pretty impressive right? Now, try to find me where skills such as organization, high level thinking, and how to learn are included. you won’t because it doesn’t exist. We are stuck teaching our children what to learn, not how to learn.
Now your comment “Here’s the reality: When it comes to practices needed to improve education, educators are probably the least-knowledgeable.” Ummmm, what? Based on what? Do we have great, good and poor educators…yes! But this statement you make here is just bizarre and foolish and generalized to a level of stupidity which I put you above. I’ll ignore this and chalk it up to an ill thought out statement. If you would like me to reference educational leaders who have published works in the areas you mention are deficit, I will. You colleague’s article also generalizes one situation. i will gladly e-mail you reports I have generated which use data to justify spending. In fact, i find it insulting, when people like the writer ASSUME that a lack of corporate leadership experience means one doesn’t possess leadership abilities. I’d also like to point out the author’s reference to the lack of energy by the principal due to exhaustion. Did he ask why he was so tired? My best guess is because he has non-stop paperwork to complete in the name of accountability by mean of federal and state level legislation, and would rather get to being and educational leader than a paper pusher.
Finally your statement, “The reality is that the reform of American public education will require everyone, including educators and those who are outside of classrooms.” is so true. However, I will argue it is people like you who are creating a separation between these groups (yes, i know it goes both ways), but when concerns and criticisms come from educators they are dismissed by endless arrogance because everyone knows better, including you.
So here are a few of my ideas (not because you asked)
- Scale back the “stakes” of high stakes testing.
- Make schools more teacher centered, not test centered
- Provide educators with the skills necessary to develop goals that may or may not have to do with student achievement and to collect the data to appraise themselves. I wrote a blog about this : http://childswork.com/blog/2011/08/creating-data-beyond-standardized-testing-results/
- Revise, not do away with, tenure.
- Reduce federal and state oversight of SUCCESSFUL schools. We are pushing a one size fits all approach geared towards low achieving schools, which is having a negative affect on our successful schools.
- Let’s look at successful schools. All schools, public, private, charter and find out what is working and why. I promise you it has nothing to do with more testing or monetary incentive.
- Let’s let the local citizens of each district judge their district, not politicians who see education reform as a gateway to prominence.
Finally, I’d invite you to review this: http://www.trelease-on-reading.com/no-dentist.html
Interesting to hear from the other side, isn’t it. Now the question is, will you listen? Or just continue to dismiss our thoughts, ideas, concerns because you know better.