One supposes there is something of value in the latest edition of MetLife’s annual survey of the nation’s teaching and school leadership corps. I guess. Your editor has to agree with Education Week scribe Steve Sawchuk’s assertion that the survey tends to be more of a Rorschach Test for your positions on transforming American public education than a reliable indicator of what is going on in districts and school operations. I am personally skeptical of MetLife survey in large part because the conclusions reached by its authors tend to ignore their own results.

There is the fact that 82 percent of teachers surveyed are either “very” or “somewhat satisfied” with their jobs; this a point that the authors fail to note even as they proclaim that teacher satisfaction continues to decline. But even if satisfaction is a rather loaded term. For most of us, that can depend on the environment in which we work, the ability to do meaningful activities that achieve ultimate goals, the level of autonomy given to get work done, the amount of ridiculousness with which you must deal with either from colleagues, supervisors, or clients, and how much of the demands you are facing you feel don’t make sense (even if from the perspective of customers and leaders, it most-certainly does). When it comes to the nation’s four million teachers, this can be even more varied. A teacher working in the woeful districts in Detroit or Indianapolis, for example, will have a different view of their own satisfaction than a teacher working in a reform-minded district such as New York City, or even an instructor working in suburbia; there are also different reasons for the dissatisfaction based on the years a teacher has worked in a district (and how comfortable they have gotten with not being subjected to any kind of performance management).

There’s also the differences be a newly-hired teacher, a longtime veteran heading into retirement, or even a mid-career teacher . For the latter two, in particular, the changes to the profession brought upon by systemic reform — including the use of objective student performance data in teacher evaluations — can be quite a cause for dissatisfaction, even if the changes being wrought are beneficial both for kids and their younger colleagues. Even the teachers’ own quality of work makes a difference in deciding whether they are or aren’t satisfied. High-quality teachers may not always be very satisfied with their work product, while laggards often are; laggards also tend to be the biggest screamers in teachers’ lounges, so that matters too. The reality is that the teaching profession is changing — and must change — in order to help all students get a high-quality education. Which means that those in the profession and aspiring teachers coming into it must have the talent necessary to deal with the sophisticated, hard work it always was (as well as becoming). And not every teacher currently working in the profession will want to adjust to these realities.

Meanwhile the survey’s revelation that 97 percent of teachers give high ratings to their colleagues is rather meaningless largely because most instructors are solo practitioners who work in silos, and therefore can’t really provide good judgement on how well their colleagues do in classrooms. Considering that many teachers also lack the subject-matter competency, strong knowledge of instructional method, and entrepreneurial self-starter ability needed to be high-quality professionals — a fault largely attributable to the failures of the nation’s university schools of education — one has to greet that particular survey result with skepticism. This is also true for the results of principal’s perceptions of teacher quality; as Dropout Nation Contributing Editor Steve Peha made clear in his special report on school leadership, far too many principals see themselves more as colleagues of teachers with higher job titles than as school leaders charged with smartly ascertaining the quality of their staffs. Given that far too many principals also lack the strong training needed to properly manage teacher performance (or their entire buildings), along with the reality that most still don’t have enough authority to actually make hiring and firing decisions, you can’t give much credence to the survey results on that front.

All that said, the MetLife survey does offer some decent data on the reality facing principals that their roles as school leaders are changing. And for reformers, the results point to the need to overhaul how we train school leaders at all levels — as well as abandon the traditional district model — in order to build cultures of genius that help all of our children succeed.

The fact that 53 percent of principals surveyed admit that evaluating teacher quality is either challenging or very challenging (as well as the statement by 46 percent of their colleagues that such decisions aren’t all that challenging to them) points to two realities. The first? That far too many of our school leaders don’t always know how to use objective data (including student surveys and Value-Added test score growth evidence) to make smart decisions in staffing decisions. The second: The fact that most districts still don’t provide principals with the tools to make such decisions. Certainly the opposition of National Education Association and American Federation of Teachers affiliates in using objective data in teacher evaluations is part of the problem. So is the fact that many states are still struggling to develop data systems that allow for such data to be useful in making staffing decisions. But save for the likes of New York City, most districts have not invested in data systems or information technology infrastructures on their own in order to equip their school leaders to overcome those obstacles. And the fact that most teacher performance management and hiring decisions remain the province of central office bureaucrats (along with practices such as seniority-based assignment rules) all but ensures that school leaders can’t either make such decisions or develop the skills needed to make smart decisions in the first place. Of course, the fact that central district bureaucracies often tend to be places where laggards have failed upward also means that staffing and leadership decisions are often in the hands of folks who shouldn’t be checking coats at Ruth’s Chris.

That 97 percent of principals surveyed admit that “strong operational skills” are critical to success in their jobs (along with the admission by 69 percent of those surveyed that the responsibilities of school leaders is different than what they were five years ago) is a clear sign that more are realizing that the concept of principals as lead teachers is an outdated concept, especially when other sectors outside of education have long-ago realized that specialization in management and leadership are critical skills that are often not connected to making an organization successfully do its business. Certainly it is good for school leaders — and all leaders in every field — to understand the mission and activities of the organizations they run (as well as know about the complications of successful execution on the ground). At the same time, the days of the principal teacher are long gone because the work of operating schools is complicated. The role will become even more complex, especially as more districts either embrace (or are forced to accept) the Hollywood Model of Education in which traditional schools essentially become charters, solo operations not tied to central bureaucracies. For districts and schools, the principal should be overseeing the work of a curricula or instructional director, who can be a high-quality teacher with strong leadership and management skills, yet not exactly interested in the overall management of a school. That curricula or instructional director, in turn, can manage the performance of teachers in classrooms, and be held accountable by a principal for what does or doesn’t happen in improving student achievement.

The realization that operational skills are critical should matter to reformers because the movement hasn’t done much to develop programs to help them do so. As I mentioned last month in a piece on information technology infrastructure, reformers have spent so much time on “cage-busting leadership” mantras (as well as on the much-needed revamp of teacher training) that they have neglected the need to train school leaders on the basics of management. If school leaders cannot manage the operational basics correctly, their ability to build cultures of genius will be severely compromised; after all, it is hard for a teacher to take a principal or superintendent seriously on instructional and curricula matters (much less listen to chatter about busting cages) when their bosses can’t even get the e-mail servers running properly.

Meanwhile the fact that only 49 percent of principals surveyed say that they engaged in some kind of mentoring with another school leader indicates the lack of strong professional development for school leaders. Given the low quality of many of our school leaders, this lack of interaction may actually be a good thing in some sense. At the same time, the fact that so many principals don’t even get to learn from high-quality colleagues means that we aren’t developing good-and-great leaders who can help our children succeed. While the Eli & Edythe Broad Foundation and Education Pioneers has much-admirable work on developing a new generation of school leaders (and bringing talent outside of education into the sector), we need more organizations to focus on the important work on helping those leaders hone their talents. We’re not talking about the crap-work that is traditional professional development; we’re talking about borrowing from other successful models for leadership development outside of education and putting them to work in this sector.

Certainly the MetLife survey isn’t nearly as valuable as it could be. Yet it at least offers reformers some ideas as to what to focus on in terms of recruiting, training, and equipping school leaders in order to build brighter futures for our kids.

Covering the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s efforts on the school reform front — along with the usual angst among traditionalists and even some conservative reformers about its influence on education policy — is old hat for yours truly as well as for nearly any education reporter and commentator on the scene. So the piece by otherwise-stellar Heartlander Editor Joy Pullman on the foundation’s role behind the effort by 45 states and the District of Columbia to enact Common Core reading and math standards was a bit ho-hum. Except for the fact that so many Common Core foes quoted in the piece were spinning the philanthropy’s efforts as some sort of conspiracy against the American democracy

As Huffington Post‘s Joy Resmovits noted yesterday on Twitter, there has been nothing stealthy or hidden about the role Gates Foundation has played in advancing Common Core standards. More importantly, the momentum for Common Core standards has been happening long before Gates Foundation entered the picture. As I noted last year in my commentary on Common Core, moving toward national curricula standards has been as much a goal of the school reform movement (particularly standards and accountability advocates such as the Thomas B. Fordham Institute) as expanding school choice. And given that many on the traditionalist side, including the American Federation of Teachers, have also been thoughtfully supportive of moving toward common curricula standards (yes, I know I said something nice about the AFT), it is hard to argue that this is just some idea that originated solely with Gates Foundation’s leaders.

Meanwhile the argument advanced in the piece (insinuated by the otherwise-sensible Jay P. Greene declaration that the Gates Foundation “orchestrated” the adoption of Common Core) that the standards were enacted without any sort of democratic input fails to consider the actual process involved. This included a lengthy comment period conducted by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers, the outfits that represent elected state chief executives and the state school chiefs who are often elected or appointed by state boards of education. It also included the adoption by 45 state education boards, including those of Alabama, Colorado, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Ohio, and District of Columbia (which are elected by the public), along with other state boards appointed by governors (and, in some cases, with consent of state legislatures). No matter what one wants to believe (and no matter your editor’s opinion about the abysmal structure of state education governance), arguing that the adoption of Common Core is some corporate conspiracy — an argument advanced by those traditionalists who also oppose the standards such as Susan Ohanian — doesn’t actually wash in reality.

But the latest piece on Gates Foundation’s efforts, along with some claptrap from the American Principles Project (which landed on the pages of the Washington Examiner), once again brings up an aspect of the anti-intellectualism that tends to predominate in American public education: The idea that private-sector players (including wealthy philanthropists) cannot possibly have anything more than a nefarious interest in using their resources, financial and otherwise, in advancing systemic reform. This sentiment is usually typical among traditionalists, who engage in the kind of conspiracy-theorizing that would put smiles on the faces of John Birch Society members and so-called Kennedy assassination experts such as Mark Lane. But sadly, as seen with the battle over adopting Common Core, this anti-intellectualism has even become endemic among otherwise-sensible movement conservatives, and abetted by conservative reformers such as the otherwise-laudable Jay P. Greene, who should know better. Such faulty thinking gets in the way of what should be thoughtful, sensible thinking about the need to provide all children — including those from poor and minority backgrounds — the comprehensive college-preparatory learning they need for success in the knowledge-based global economy. More-importantly, such thinking by movement conservatives and conservative reformers fails to keep in mind the need for Gates Foundation and other philanthropists to counter what has been, until recently, the out-sized influence of National Education Association and AFT affiliates, whose defense of failed policies and practices have condemned millions of poor and minority kids to economic and social despair. 

For all the talk of school reform philanthropists as what some such as Michigan State University Assistant Professor Sarah Reckhow call “shadow bureaucracy”, there is hardly anything shadowy about what they do. Gates Foundation, in particular, offers a database on every dollar it has ladled out to reform outfits for the last two decades, while the Walton Family Foundation publishes a rather lengthy list of every dollar it hands out to reform outfits. Meanwhile every reform outfit receiving Gates Foundation and other reform philanthropist support (including some for which the RiShawn Biddle Consultancy, a firm owned by the editor of this publication, has previously or currently consults) spends plenty of time noting how the foundation supports its efforts. [Dropout Nation, by the way, is funded solely out of your editor's considerable and God-blessed personal resources. But it would gladly take Gates Foundation money if needed, and doesn't look down on publications that do.] This is certainly far more-public disclosure than that that of the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers, which use their combined $152 million in spending in 2011-2012  to aid and abet their defense of traditionalist thinking.

One can certainly question whether Gates Foundation is getting enough bang for its buck in focusing on education policy efforts as well as on working with school districts on overhauling teacher evaluations. In fact, the success of philanthropists such as Walton (with its focus on expanding school choice and advancing Parent Power), along with that of earlier generations of reform-minded philanthropists such as Sears, Roebuck & Co. titan Julius Rosenwald (whose efforts with Booker T. Washington to build schools helped black children get what was then considered high-quality education in an era of Jim Crow segregation), brings that question up in ways that may certainly be uncomfortable to Allan Golston, Vicki Phillips, and their teams of grant managers. But Gates Foundation and the Microsoft tycoon who founded it with his wife is doing nothing more than what any of us would do if we had that kind of cash (and what those of us in school reform without it are doing right now): Using their dollars and influence to engage in efforts to improve the world in which they live, and have an equal self-interest in leaving their mark on it. This is something that all of us, especially those conservative reformers who, like the rest of the movement, boldly seek to transform American public education, should want and welcome. After all, as I have pointed out ad nauseam, it is the new voices coming from outside education — and even from outside of communities, especially those whose children are devastated the most by educational neglect and malpractice — who will help overhaul the super-clusters of failure that make up American public education. 

From your editor’s perspective, one can understand why Common Core opponents have now embraced the kind of conspiracy-theorizing reserved for the likes of once-respectable education historian Diane Ravitch and her ilk. After all, the arguments they have advanced so far haven’t really stood up to scrutiny. The idea that standards-setting and curricula development should be best left to traditional districts (along with their staffs of teachers and school leaders), fails to admit the reality that this has been the norm for most of the past 140 years — and it clearly hasn’t worked. Given that far too many teachers lack the subject-matter competency to teach reading, math, and science — and that the nation’s ed schools are failing mightily in training aspiring teachers before they leave the classroom (including National Council on Teacher Quality’s conclusion that only 11 of 71 ed schools  it surveyed in 2006 adequately trained future teachers in reading) — expecting teachers and school leaders to develop curricula and standards on their own is just pure folly. A complaint mounted over the past few months — that Common Core’s reading standards requiring students to read more non-fiction — will lead to fewer students reading The Canterbury Tales has put Common Core foes into the embarrassing position of playing to the anti-intellectual disdain for nonfiction among many reading instructors (who haven’t figured out that the cannon of great books includes such famed texts as John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty) and the incompetence of school leaders (who are too lazy to pay attention to what is required under the standards). And when Common Core foes are confronted with the fact that all of our kids — especially the poorest of them — are getting low-quality curricula that hardly prepares them for success in school or in life, it becomes difficult for them to mount any compelling argument against the standards.

Certainly Common Core is no cure-all for what ails American public education. In an ideal world for those of us who want to fully abandon the traditional district model, common curricula standards wouldn’t even be necessary. But then, there are no silver bullets in the first place, and we don’t live in ideal.  This isn’t even to say that there aren’t legitimate qualms about Common Core or that reformers shouldn’t argue with reformers about strategies and policies; conflict is an essential element of the school reform movement’s intellectual vibrancy, something that traditionalists lack.

What is clear is that the standards do is provide a key step in providing comprehensive college-preparatory standards all children — especially our poorest kids — need and deserve. As with proficiency targets, standards are more than just benchmarks of what kids should learn. As with so much public policy, it is a clear communication in action of the expectations we have for our society, especially when it comes to ensuring that every child gets a high-quality education. Through Common Core, we are basically making plain what is we know is so: That all kids, regardless of background, can master college-preparatory curricula, and should get high-quality teaching, nurturing school cultures, and strong school leaders. It would be nice if most Common Core foes would concede that point instead of engaging thoughtless conspiracy-theorizing that embarrasses them.

Meanwhile the movement conservatives and conservative reformers who engage in bashing Gates Foundation (and other reformers) for playing a proper role in the education space fail to remember the fact that it isn’t the only player — and may not even be the most-powerful. Let’s not forget the traditionalists, who also bask in financial resources, and may actually command even more dollars because of their influence over the districts, university schools of education, and array of other organizations through which most of the $591 billion in taxpayer dollars devoted to education flow. The NEA and AFT, for example, command $713 million in 2011-2012 in forced dues payments made by teachers regardless of their desire for membership; add in their affiliates, and the unions are billion-dollar enterprises with the bureaucracies to match. The unions  have long-influenced those dollars thanks to state laws and collective bargaining agreements that structure how dollars (in the form of teachers and their compensation packages) are directed to classrooms, and, until recently, successful lobbying and campaign finance activities at the state and district levels. 

This influence matters. After all all, the NEA, the AFT and its allies  perpetuate practices and ideologies — including the Poverty Myth in Education — that have essentially allowed far too many educators to write off poor and minority children as being unworthy of a good education. They have consistently opposed any form of real school choice that allows children, no matter their station in life or their condition of birth, to escape dropout factories and failure mills. They have defended a system in which a child’s zip code determines the quality of their education — and can wreck their futures (and even land parents unwilling to accept this in the criminal justice system). They have supported seniority-based teacher compensation systems that have kept high-quality teachers from getting the rewards they deserve, as well as supported ed schools whose abysmal recruiting and training has done damage to children in classrooms. Meanwhile their unwillingness to address issues such as the crisis of low educational achievement among young males of all races pretty much shows where they truly stand on helping all kids succeed, especially those from poor and minority backgrounds. It isn’t difficult to understand why Dr. Steve Perry took time earlier today to compare AFT President Randi Weingarten to the infamous segregationist Bull Connor.

The reality of traditionalist influence is one reason why the presence of the Gates Foundation, along with other voices (including those from outside traditional education circles) is critical to advancing systemic reform. Yet this effort is derided by traditionalists who want to keep the very status quo that Gates Foundation, movement conservatives, and conservative reformers all agree need to be tossed into the ashbin of history. By engaging in conspiracy-theorizing, Common Core opponents end up supporting the very traditionalists who oppose their own solutions for transforming American public education. Solutions that the Gates Foundation also supports.

It would be nice for movement conservatives and conservative reformers spouting Common Core conspiracy theories to take pause and give some thought to what they are actually opposing. Thinking things over is what smart conservatives actually do before standing athwart anything yelling ”stop”.

The school reform movement needs more Margaret Thatchers. Not less.

You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train, is the name of liberal historian Howard Zinn’s biography. The book’s title speaks to its message, and it’s a message that some in the education movement should take to heart. Some in education, with the best-intentions, would argue that the key to reforming schools is for all stakeholders to come together, work together, and do – say it, together – “what’s best for kids.” This idea has a simple, intuitive appeal. But it is also wrong.

This philosophy is typified by Teach for America founder Wendy Kopp, whom, as an alum, I think has done so much for the school reform movement and to whom I  owe my own involvement in education. Most recently, in response to an open letter penned by TFA alum and education traditionalist Gary Rubinstein, Kopp wrote: “Education leaders and districts across the country have shown us that we can bridge traditional divides and work together to do what’s best for kids. But we have to stop thinking of ourselves as locked in an ideological battle and focus on doing everything in our power to give students today the education they deserve.”

A post on the TFA blog by an alum and Chicago Public Schools administrator offered a similar perspective regarding the Chicago teachers’ strike: “[W]hat I’ve learned more than anything over the past decade was that we are on the same team. We have to be, or else we won’t solve this… We need to do what’s best for kids.”

Everyone – from Diane Ravitch to Michelle Rhee – can agree with these sentiments: that we should “do what’s best for kids” and “give students the education they deserve.’” The fact that these statements can garner such widespread agreement shows just how content-less they are. They beg the questions: What type of education do students deserve? What is best for kids?

It’s particularly problematic that Kopp seems to create a dichotomy between ideologues –those “locked in an ideological battle” – on the one hand, and those who want to do what’s best for kids, on the other. In actuality, ideologues not only want what’s best for kids, they actually have ideas – some good, some bad – for how to achieve results. Reformers emphasize school choice, parental empowerment, and teacher quality; traditionalists focus on class size, early-childhood education, and wrap-around services. [Editor's Note: Kopp also fails to understand the historical and intellectual importance of conflict and being divisive in driving movements that have improved the lives of all people.]

It seems to me that part of the problem in education is not too many, but rather, too few ideologues. It’s not ideological, perhaps, to be okay with the status quo; it’s not ideological to lack strong opinions or avoid advocating for any change; it’s not ideological to go along to get along. Indeed, Teach For America’s mission is at bottom an ideological one – specifically, the ideology, which some people still disagree with, that talented young people can help improve schools and education policy.

If Kopp is focusing on the increasingly vicious attacks by the likes of traditionalists Diane Ravitch and Karen Lewis or some of the harmful and distasteful rhetoric on the reform side, then I agree. I favor engagement over name-calling, substance over shouting, discussing ideas over demeaning people.

In fact, it’s completely appropriate for Kopp, as the leader of a diverse, high-profile organization, to avoid taking stances on divisive issues. That’s fine, and I agree that TFA’s role should be to foster discussion about rather than provide answers to these tough questions. With that in mind though, it’s equally inappropriate for Kopp to critique the “ideological battle” or to peddle the non-substantive “do what’s right for kids” model.

There are times when compromise may be necessary and effective. But not always, and not necessarily. The desire to compromise can lead to stagnant policies, Pyrrhic victories, and the compromising of the powerful ideal that TFA espouses: “that one day, all children in this nation will have the opportunity to attain an excellent education.”

It’s possible that this vision can be reached by bridging old divides and coming together. But just likely is that an uncompromising, ideological vision of change to our education system may, in fact, be what’s best for kids.

Within the past year, the Obama Administration’s effort to eviscerate the accountability provisions of the No Child Left Behind Act has done plenty of damage to efforts to advance systemic reform and help all children get high-quality education. The move by the administration to allow 34 states and the District of Columbia to evade No Child’s Adequate Yearly Progress provision, as well as ditch the 100 percent proficiency target (which is really 92 percent or so once all the legal exceptions are in place) with supposedly “ambitious” yet “achievable” goals, has led to an embrace of soft bigotry of low expectations for poor and minority kids that reformers have long opposed. As a result, many states (most-notably Virginia and Florida) have defined proficiency down, setting low expectations for districts and schools to improve the achievement of the poor and minority kids in their care. And in the process, the Obama administration has implicitly accepted the soft bigotry of low expectations long a part of American public education that is an underlying reason why so many children have been condemned to poverty and prison for so long.

So it is amazing, bewildering even, to read U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan declare in a letter to California Board of Education Chairman Michael Kirst that he was rejecting the Golden State’s effort to gain a No Child waiver because it failed to meet what he considers to be a “high bar”.

Certainly the plan offered up by Kirst and Supt. Tom Torlakson was nothing more than an effort to gain the federal government’s blessing to evade systemic reform that began two years ago when Kirst, Torlakson, and once-and-future governor Jerry Brown took their respective jobs. It is also clear that Golden State officials should be embarrassed for such retreats from helping all students succeed such as the abolition of a state law requiring districts and schools to teach Algebra 1 to middle schoolers by eighth grade (and help those kids get the college preparatory curricula they need). Yet the fact that Duncan declares that California’s plan failed to meet the administration’s “high bar”, especially when the U.S. Department of Education blessed equally lackluster plans from the likes of Virginia, is laughable at best.

Duncan’s statement is even more ridiculous given the stated reason why the administration rejected the waiver request: The lack of an overhauled teacher evaluation system that features the use of objective student test score growth data in performance management. It is admirable that Duncan is still pushing strong for teacher quality reform, and it is sensible that the administration doesn’t bless the continued insistence of the Golden State’s legislature and political leadership on doing the bidding of the National Education Association’s and American Federation of Teachers’ affiliates there. But the fact that the administration has granted waivers to states as New York, Oregon, Michigan, and Kansas, which have either yet to fully implement the evaluation overhauls they promised or just rolling them out in a pilot stage, makes one wonder how serious it is about truly revamping how teachers are recruited, trained, evaluated, and compensated. Especially given that at least one state, New York, is still battling with the AFT’s Empire State affiliates to put the evaluations into place. By only citing the lack of a teacher evaluation overhaul plan in rejecting California’s waiver request, one can also speculate as to whether the administration would lower the bar further if Golden State officials only played along with its plans.

One wouldn’t blame Kirst, Torlakson, or Brown if they responded to Duncan’s letter by pointing out the various failings of the waiver gambit such far. There’s the administration’s willingness to grant waivers in spite of the concerns of peer review panels it appointed to vet those proposals about the failures of states such as New Mexico to consult with American Indian tribes as required under the waiver process (as well as under the U.S. Constitution, and other federal and state laws). The threesome could also point to how the Obama administration’s blessing of Plessy v. Ferguson‘s-like proficiency targets that has already stoked the ire of civil rights activists and more-sensible reformers throughout the country (and in the Old Dominion, thoroughly embarrassed the administration enough to force the state to set higher expectations). Kirst, Torlakson, and Brown can even argue that the Obama administration is talking out of both sides of its mouth. It’s rather ridiculous for the Duncan to call out California to not meeting a high standard that is both arbitrary and not all that exacting based on the evidence.

Of course, this would also put the threesome on the spot for their lack of leadership on the education front. But then, both California’s officials and the Obama administration have proven less than stellar in asserting the kind of leadership needed to beat back low expectations for our children.

One thing is clear from the move by the American Federation of Teachers’ Chicago affiliate to go on strike — and the union’s overall quest to once again render the district to the servile state it was in before former Mayor Richard Daley took control of it two decades ago: This isn’t exactly beneficial for the Second City’s children. While current Mayor Rahm Emanuel and schools czar Jean-Claude Brizard have developed contingency plans to provide school meals and safe environments to students during the work stoppage, the district has fallen on the job by not hooking up with a blended learning provider such as Rocketship Education to provide online instruction and curricula during the breach in order for kids to keep up with their studies.

The fact that the district hasn’t taken up some of the suggestions offered by Dropout Nation back in June on how to capitalize on the AFT’s use of its nuclear option — including offering up a Parent Trigger provision allowing Second City families to take over and overhaul failure mills and dropout factories in their neighborhoods — also gives pause about whether Emanuel and Brizard can rally communities to their side. The district also made a mistake last month  in conceding an important trump card in its favor — the move to increase the time students spend getting instruction each day by 39 minutes – when it agreed to hire 477 teachers instead of forcing the AFT to allow teachers to work longer than the six hours or so worked each day on instruction (or an hour less than the time spent by peers in New York City). Certainly your editor doesn’t think increasing school time on its own will improve student learning; but the district could have easily made the point to the public that the teachers’ union decided to stop work in part because it didn’t want the kids to spend more learning. And negotiating with the AFT behind closed doors does little to help families or other taxpayers understand the district’s positions.

At the same time, the Chicago strike needed to happen. It offers an opportunity for Emanuel, Brizard, and other reformers throughout the nation to crystallize the critical educational, economic, and social reasons why we must continue the overhaul of American public education.

As Dropout Nation readers know by now, the strike is the culmination of two years of effort by Karen Lewis, the bellicose head of the AFT’s Chicago unit, to roll back Daley’s reforms, and oppose the efforts that Emanuel wants to put in place. Driven by the demands of Baby Boomers in the rank-and-file to preserve the lavish traditional teacher compensation system (which includes average annual salaries of $71,000, near-lifetime employment, and defined-benefit pension benefits) at the heart of the local’s (and the national union’s) influence, the need to stem a two decade-long decline in influence over education policy at both the local and Illinois state levels, and Lewis’ own likely desire to succeed Randi Weingarten as national AFT president, the Chicago local has decided that now is the time to beat back Emanuel, the former congressman who took office last year after serving as President Barack Obama’s chief of staff.

But so far, the AFT hasn’t gained much sympathy, either from parents or taxpayers. For good reason.

Given that the AFT insists on salary increases of at least 16 percent over four years, especially in a time in which most families can’t even dream of such high pay hikes and amid the city’s long-term fiscal woes, the union comes off as being fiscally inconsiderate. [That the union decided to strike just after rank-and-file members collected paychecks this past Friday -- ensuring that the union collected its booty through dues -- strikes everyone observing the strike as especially cynical.] The fact that Emanuel has backed away from his push to replace obsolete seniority- and degree-based pay scales for a performance-based model (as well as agreeing to even restore part of the four percent hike that the district moved to rescind earlier this year), is another reminder that the AFT is being particularly unreasonable. This is especially true when families take a look at the defined-benefit pension that pays current retirees an average of $57,144.41 (based on Dropout Nation‘s estimate of the payout by the pension during the 2010-2011 fiscal year) — and the $20 billion in teachers’ pension deficits and unfunded healthcare liabilities (as of 2011, according to the city’s teachers’ pension board) they and their children will bear for decades to come as a consequence for the lavish deal the union struck with the district.

It also hasn’t escaped many Chicago families that the AFT is as much about its effort to maintain influence as it is about pay and working conditions. This has been clear even before the strike two years ago when the union successfully took the city to court over then-CEO Ron Huberman’s decision to unilaterally end the use of quality-blind reverse-seniority layoffs, which toss out less-senior teachers regardless of their success in improving student achievement while allowing veteran instructors to keep their jobs regardless of their work product. Even as the AFT proclaims that it wants to improve education for Second City children, the very fact that it has spent the past three months threatening a strike (and pusillanimously, during summer, when families are less likely to pay attention to negotiations), and then walking off the job during the second week of the school year, belies all those pretenses. So do complaints from Lewis and hard-line activists within the union about Chicago’s efforts to use student test score growth data in evaluating teachers (and thus, being subjected to more-stringent performance management) and demands for smaller class sizes, even though the evidence after three decades shows that decreasing number of students in the classroom doesn’t improve student achievement or teacher performance. [That picket lines no longer work as a way to gain sympathy from the public, which has become more savvy about unions in general paying folks off the street to stand in and carry pickets in place of better-paid rank-and-file, also plays a part.]

The clear presence of charter schools in the city, whose doors remain open while traditional district schools are shut down also hurts the union’s ability to argue against expanding school choice. If anything, vouchers and charters become even more popular with families because they are no longer subjected to the whims of an AFT affiliate more concerned with its self-interest than the children these parents love — especially in light of the continued need to reform education in the City of Big Shoulders.

These are not just issues in Chicago.  Over the past couple of years, AFT and National Education Association affiliates have battled fiercely with governors such as Scott Walker in Wisconsin and Chris Christie to preserve the array of deals that have made teaching the most-lucrative profession in the public sector (and the one least-subjected to performance management). More often than not, the two unions have lost (and spectacularly so, in the unsuccessful effort by the two unions to recall Walker) because they have lost the political and economic high ground. With taxpayers struggling with $1.1 trillion in pension deficits and unfunded retired teacher healthcare costs and increasing evidence that traditional teacher compensation does little to reward high-quality teachers and improve student achievement, the NEA and AFT can no longer argue that their formula works. In fact, the two unions find themselves in a quandary, proclaiming that teaching conditions need to be improved in order to ensure student success even as they defend the very practices (including shoddy, subjective classroom observation-based evaluations, and degree- and seniority-based pay scales) that essentially keep high-quality teachers regardless of experience from reaping well-deserved rewards for their work, and perpetuate cultures of low expectations and abuse that hurt top-performing teachers and children alike.

But while AFT and NEA affiliates have battled at the district level with reform-minded school leaders in cities such as New York, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C., over such matters as the use of student test score growth data in teacher evaluations, reverse-seniority layoff rules, and performance-based pay scales, the two unions have managed to avoid work stoppages in big-city districts until now. For good reason. Most districts with elected school board members, fearful of the public relations hit that strikes used to incur (and also concerned about keeping the campaign donations they got from union coffers), have been more than willing to simply let union officials have their way. Even reform-minded districts such as New York City have been skittish about the possibilities of work stoppages — and have done all they can to stop them.

But with the AFT in particular (and teachers’ unions in general) in desperate need of a victory, Chicago has become a battleground. It is the wrong one to boot. Emanuel can’t exactly claim any rhetorical victory and has done itself no favors by taking the extended learning time issue off the table and agreeing to spend $50 million to hire teachers in order to relieve current instructors of having to work longer hours; the fact that Brizard is essentially absent without leave makes one wonder whether he is truly the mayor’s school reform czar. But the union’s fiscally irresponsible demands have given the mayor another weapon in articulating how he is working to continue the transformation of education in the city without bankrupting it. And by backing off some of the more-radical reforms (including performance-based pay) while still pushing to end degree- and seniority-based pay scales, Emanuel also comes off as being more-reasonable than his AFT counterpart. giving him room to strike for even stronger reforms down the road.

Meanwhile the Chicago strike gives reformers across the nation a rhetorical opportunity to demonstrate the essential cowardice of NEA and AFT influence. The very fact that the union would rather attempt to shut down student learning in a traditional district than give up compensation systems that even younger, more reform-minded teachers no longer think are valuable to them, is a compelling example of what happens when arrogance, hubris, and adherence to failed thinking becomes more important than thoughtful consideration of how to help children and good-and-great teachers succeed.

Yesterday’s release of the findings from the independent investigation by former FBI Director Louis Freeh into Penn State’s handling of information on the criminal and pedophilic behavior of former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky revealed a lot that was shocking. The evidence that the university’s now-former president, Graham Spanier, continued to cover up his knowledge (and that of his colleagues, including legendary football coach and all-around slime Joe Paterno) of Sandusky’s criminal activities — including the now-infamous 2001 discovery of Sandusky raping a child in the university’s showers by assistant coach Mike McQueary — should be more than enough to subject him to an indictment; so should the evidence that Spanier aided and abetted Sandusky’s evil-doings by giving him an emeritus professor status (despite not having the standing, morally and otherwise, for the role), and even striking a deal with his now-defunct Second Mile charity. Meanwhile the revelations that now-deceased Paterno, former vice president Gary Schultz and ousted athletic director Tim Curley continually sought ways to keep Sandusky’s crimes under wraps, both in violation of federal and state laws — and, more importantly, without a hint of guilt or shame — along with the consequences of their inaction that have been borne by young men who deserved better, proves Edmund Burke’s adage that evil triumphs when supposedly good men do nothing. Those who try to defend these men, including Sabermetrics mastermind Bill James, and Paterno’s own son, should stop defending the abominable and indefensible.

Yet, as Dropout Nation noted back in November when the Penn State-Sandusky scandal broke out, none of this is shocking. When loyalty is more immediate and valuable than morality, and when institutional and personal power is left unchecked and out of balance, institutions and people become corrupt absolutely. More importantly, it is a sad reminder of the frailties of human nature. Far too often, those we consider to be “good” people are far too willing to let evil take hold wherever it chooses to go. These are the important reasons why we must hold even our closest friends responsible for their actions, regardless of the possible loss of camaraderie, why sunlight and transparency are critical in holding institutions and organizations responsible, and why we must overhaul (and even shut down) institutions whenever they fail the moral code. It is also why it is important to remove failed institutional leaders regardless of one’s regard for their successes; when they fail in holding colleagues accountable and taking needed action to correct problems and crises, they will also fail morally, especially when it comes to our most-vulnerable children.

But let’s not think the failure of leadership at Penn State is an isolated incident. It is also endemic in various ways throughout American public education.

There’s the scandal that has engulfed the Los Angeles Unified School District over over the long career of former Miramonte Elementary School teacher Mark Berndt, who now faces 23 charges of what the law politely calls lewd acts upon a child. The discovery and prosecution of Berndt’s misdeeds, the revelations that Berndt may have been engaging in such misdeeds for more than two decades, and the arrest of another Miramonte teacher, Martin Springer, shed a harsh light on how L.A. Unified’s school leaders — including previous superintendents and the school board — have failed the children in their care.  And not just in terms of allowing abuse. The fact that L.A. Unified’s school leaders has done a shoddy job of evaluating its teachers — with 60 percent of tenured veterans and 30 percent of new hires going without performance assessments in the 2009-2010 school year, according to the National Council on Teacher Quality — is evidence of how poorly the district has done in living up to its obligation of providing all children attending its schools with high-quality education.

Then there is the continuing failures of Indianapolis Public Schools Superintendent Eugene White, who has presided over the district’s slide in status as an educational going concern. Last week’s news that IPS allowed 27 percent of students in the Class of 2011 to graduate despite failing Indiana’s end-of-course exams was just the latest example of how White’s seven-year tenure as its chief executive has done little to help the poor and minority kids who attend its schools get a high-quality education. Same with woeful data on the minuscule number of IPS students taking college-preparatory courses, and being able to read at proficient levels. But the starkest example came just a few months earlier, when IPS expelled Darnell “Dynasty” Young, who was bullied throughout his time at the notorious Arsenal Tech high school because he was gay, for firing a weapon in school in order to defend himself from another round of bullying. One can’t defend Young’s decision to bring and use a weapon in school. But the fact that Arsenal’s school leaders and teachers did little to thoroughly stamp out the harassment that led to Young taking such drastic action exemplifies how White’s failures at the top (especially in his unwillingness to toss out IPS’ abysmal school managers, and promotion of nepotism and ineptitude throughout the ranks) flow downward into the everyday experiences of children in the district’s care.

Certainly scandals can happen even at the best-performing and most reform-minded districts. New York City, for example, has had to tangle with the spate of intrigue at its James Madison High, which has been at the center of several scandals, including one involving a teacher, Erin Sayar, allegedly abusing her position of power over children by engaging in a relationship with one of her students. But there is a difference. While the leaders overseeing failing and mediocre schools and districts tolerate such behavior — even allowing teachers bullying children to remain in their jobs — their counterparts exercised strong leadership by school leaders by sacking those who shouldn’t be in classrooms or schools (even at the expense of tangling with National Education Association and American Federation of Teachers affiliates demanding “due process”), and reminding all who work in schools that their first obligation is to the children for whom schools are at the center of their lives. Strong leaders also realize that tolerating neglect, abuse, and malpractice, educational or otherwise, is a slippery slope downward into the abyss. This isn’t to say they are just heavy handed; after all, to err is human, and we will not always do well. At the same time, it is easier in the long run to avoid educational and moral quicksand than it is to emerge from it.

This is especially true when it comes to leadership. The same negative impact of laggard teachers on high-quality colleagues noted in this week’s Dropout Nation Podcast on teacher quality reform also apply to school leadership. Failed school superintendents, administrators, and principals are cancerous to the cultures of the schools in which they are allowed to fester, often pushing out good-and-great teachers and colleagues in leadership (or if they try to stay, weakening their ability to improve student achievement). Because these failed leaders are also too unwilling to embrace innovative approaches to helping all kids succeed, have no interest in strongly evaluating and mentoring teachers, and lack the will to advance much-needed reforms at any level, they are also too willing to let laggard teachers and administrators stay in jobs causing damage to children and communities alike. And since they turn a blind eye to the educational neglect of kids, they also tend to be unconcerned with their emotional and physical well-being; as seen in the case of former Jersey City Superintendent Charles Epps, who called his students “dirty, nasty, bad”, they are often the ones perpetuating this abuse and setting bad examples for those who they are supposed to lead.

This is why school reformers must work as hard to remove laggard school leaders from schools and districts as on moving low-quality (and in some cases, criminally-minded) teachers from classrooms. The effort to use student performance data in evaluating principals, superintendents and even school boards is an important place to start. Allowing for the use of student surveys such as the Tripod system developed by Harvard’s Ronald Ferguson and Cambridge Education in principal and other school leader evaluations (as well as measuring how those leaders successfully launch innovative reforms) also makes sense. Meanwhile we must also continue to overhaul how we train school leaders and expand the talent pool from which they come. Given the reality that school leaders at the building level will have to have real management expertise — which is often different from being a successful classroom teacher — this also means pulling from the private and nonprofit sectors as the Eli & Edythe Broad Foundation has done as part of its reform efforts.

At the same time, reformers must also take heed of the failed leadership in other systems and institutions that flow into — and are fed into by — American public education. Our juvenile justice systems, for example, are infamous for subjecting far too many kids to abuse and denial of due process. This includes the scandal in Luzerne County, Pa., in which more than 2,500 juvenile offenders were convicted by former judges Mark Ciavarella  and Michael Conahan in order to funnel $1.3 million a year in taxpayer dollars to cronies operating two private jails by tossing alleged youth offenders, to the abuse and judicial misbehavior in Indianapolis’ juvenile court under the watch of longtime judge, Jim Payne (who has unfortunately, escaped criminal charges and banishment from public life). Given that schools are often responsible for referring kids into juvenile courts, often for truancy and other issues that should be addressed by schools and families, it is important to do our part in keeping children from such damaging misfortunes. Reformers must also tackle the nation’s foster care ghettos and how traditional districts fail to help prepare these young men and women to succeed in higher education and career once they age out of those systems.

Last year, the U.S. Department of Justice revealed that one out of every three kids held in 13 juvenile jails and prisons were sexually abused by guards, other employees, or fellow inmates. This included 37 percent of kids imprisoned at Maryland’s Backbone Mountain Youth Center, and Indiana’s Pendleton juvenile prison. Nationally, 12 percent of all juvenile prisoners reported molestation and other forms of sexual abuse.

Five years ago in Indianapolis, the city’s juvenile court system was rocked by scandal after allegations surfaced that nine employees at the juvenile jail were sexually abusing youth offenders. The news came after revelations of rampant overcrowding. Prosecutors couldn’t sustain those charges in court. But your editor would reveal that alleged juvenile offenders were often denied attorneys and, in some cases, were being falsely convicted of crimes. For example, one 16-year-old was convicted by one juvenile court magistrate for allegedly molesting her three year-old son and photographing the action; the conviction was overturned after appellate judges found that the photo used to justify the conviction actually showed the young woman kissing her child’s belly. Another 16-year-old was held in juvenile jail for 70 days — 69 days longer than allowed under Indiana state law — without so much as a trial.

School reformers need to heed these lessons of Penn State and tackle failed school leadership. Because there are far too many institutions in American public education that have proven be as morally, criminally, and educationally corrupt as Graham Spanier and his former colleagues in Happy Valley.