How to pay for teachers? Certainly not by maintaining the status quo.

My recent report on the high cost of teacher retirement packages definitely struck a cord with some folks. Reason‘s Brian Doherty notes that the teacher pension and healthcare deficits are part of an even-larger problem of funding civil servant retirements. Neil McCluskey at Cato offer their own thoughts, based in part on his own fine study of teacher compensation.

Meanwhile a couple of readers didn’t fully understand the argument being made — that teachers, for all their complaints about low play and demands for “respect” (i.e. money) — are among the best-compensated and best-protected professions. Think about it: The average teacher in TK states will

All that said, teacher compensation is out of whack: The lack of strong, objective annual evaluation of performance means that highly-effective teachers are paid as well as teachers lagging in subject-matter competence and instructional talent. The compensation system rewards veteran teachers, regardless of their ability, even though teachers are most likely to be effective during their early years in the classroom.

The real question isn't about the effectiveness of vouchers, but about assuring every child gets a chance at a high-quality education that gets each one on the path to success in their life. (Photo courtesy of Viewimages)

NEWS AND COMMENTARY FROM AROUND the dropout nation. Updates are marked with an *:

• Widespread academic failure — on an international scale: Last week, during a debate with immigration skeptic Norman Matloff, he disputed my citing of PISA and TIMMS international testing results, which showed American students scoring in the 95th percentile — the nation’s best students — trailing their peers in ten countries. He continued arguing that the academic underperformance was merely limited to an “underclass” of poor students, even though these are unlikely to be the poorest students and more likely to be the product of middle-class households. Now, at Edspresso, Vicki Murray and Evelyn Stacey of the Pacific Research Institute offer more evidence that academic failure and underperformance extends beyond the poorest Americans. Half the students at one in every ten middle-class California schools, for example, are failing the state’s CST standards test.
• The source of academic struggle: EducationNews.org’s Michael Shaughnessy interviews George Leef, who had written a piece earlier this week on the woeful math instruction training at America’s education schools. Leef offers another reason why many teachers have become inept at teaching math: “Many students grow up with teachers who have been trained to think that feeling good is more important than getting correct answers.” And the administrators and the parents sometimes engage in the same garbage. Why does anyone think social promotion — moving kids from grade to grade despite failing school — continues to exist despite evidence that it is an abject failure?
  
• The value of vouchers: Edsize’s Leo Casey accuses voucher supporters of cherry-picking studies that support their positions. Jay Greene responds by listing a series of different studies proving the value of the school choice plans. Greg Forster joins the fray by offering the Milton and Rose D. Friedman Foundation’s latest report on the Ohio voucher program. Andrew Coulson also joins in on the fun. All of this began with Greene demanding that Casey and his allies in the Broader, Bolder Coalition submit their concept for school reform to major study.
• At least the argument isn’t pointless like the debate over whether it is proper for the latest book released by Fordham to have “Paternalism” in the title. Or the debate among priests over how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.
  
• And the usefulness of national standards: Neil McCluskey of Cato calls out Fordham and Mike Petrilli for not responding to McCluskey’s question (and that of Eduwonk’s Andy Rotherham) as to whether the political forces at the state level that often collide over development of curriculum standards won’t rear themselves during the development of national standards. Petrilli responds. All I’ll say is if you think the battle between advocates of phonics and supporters of whole language was rather nasty, wait until USDOE tries to develop standards for history. The NAACP, La Raza and the Knights of Columbus will get into this, along with the NEA, the AFT and the other usual suspects.
  
• Here is the REL WestEd study of dropouts and the revolving door at San Bernardino schools mentioned on Dropout Nation last week. Read. Think. Take action.
  
• But will they keep them there: Schools in Texas are trying to get dropouts to re-enroll in school. But they have until the end of September to make it happen. Or else they won’t get any money for them. Yes, it is always about the money.
  

Starting early to prevent dropouts. Courtesy of mindoh.files.wordpress.com

All that is happening inside — and outside — the dropout nation. Updated throughout the day:

1. No Child debate? What No Child debate?: Cato’s Neil McCluskey wonders why folks such as himself — who oppose a federal role in education — weren’t invited to the Newtalk.org debate on what to do with the federal education law? The host, John Merrow gives him an answer McCluskey considers “a very narrow exchange.” He is right.
2. Expanding school choice, California stye: Some $100 million may be spent on building new charter schools under SB 658, which would also fund year-round schools, according to George B. Sanchez of the L.A. Daily News. The latter part of the bill — and the far larger section, at least fiscally — is why the state teachers union is willing to buck its traditional resistance to expanding charters. Who knew a little wheel-greasing would help in expanding school choice? Anyway, this move is far more positive than the effort attempted by the state House leadership in Indiana last year to essentially vut off funding to charters.
3. A benefit of immigration — Good teachers (thanks to Alexander Russo): Importing Filipino natives to the United States in order to teach English and Math once seemed to be confined to the Clark County school district in Las Vegas and other West Coast districts. Now, notes the Washington Post Magazine, they are even helping suburban D.C. school districts fill their shortages. Students get the instruction they need to keep from dropping out. And the teachers? They get to help their families back home.
4. More state gaming of No Child (Subscription required): As if Mississippi – whose graduation rate for black males is just under 50 percent for the Class of 2006 — actually needed to lower its curriculum standards. All the state board of education did was merely move above bare minimum. And that’s just following other states in fostering what the folks at Fordham would call the proficiency illusion.

"Play 01" by RiShawn Biddle

What’s going on inside — and outside — the dropout nation.

1. Grad rate inflation: One out of every three California freshmen who made up the state’s original Class of 2007 likely dropped out, according to the state Department of Education. Sure, nine percent of them are considered “completers” or having gained a GED or a certificate of completion of some kind. Either way, the reality is they are dropouts and haven’t gotten a high-quality education. Meanwhile one out of every four students in L.A. Unified’s original class of 2007 failed to graduate. Just 6.5 percent of the original class of 2007 at the Animo charter high school run by Green Dot schools — whose battles with L.A. Unified over the former’s expansion is legendary — dropped out. But for federal reporting purposes, those numbers are meaningless: Based on the federal government’s more-inflated graduation rate calculation, nearly 80 percent of the Class of 2007 graduated. How nice. The Mercury-News has more on this.
2. And for the Hoosiers out there: Here are the graduation rate stats for Indianapolis Public Schools and the state as a whole. Yes, the numbers are les miserables.
3. Meanwhile, Dan Weintraub explains in Education Next how the Terminator was laid low by the state’s powerful teachers’ unions. For Sherman Dorn, an apparent skeptic about the role of teachers’ unions in state policymaking, this may serve as another example of how teachers’ unions skillfully work the corridors of the nation’s statehouses.
4. Is improving the quality of America’s teaching corps the answer to improving education? I say it’s just one of the answers, but not the only one. And Mike Petrilli over at The Education Gadfly argues why it may not be the answer at all.
5. Intra-ed policy dust-up: EdSector’s Kevin Carey and Neil McCluskey at Cato trade shots over the latter’s most recent policy brief. Carey insists that McCluskey exemplifies that there may be a “libertarian conspiracy” to end the nation’s public education system. McCluskey accuses him of engaging in a smear campaign. I’m just going to let these guys argue among themselves.
6. Jay Greene explains why the No Child Left Behind Act isn’t, as opponents of the law claim, an unfunded mandate. Sample quote: “I do not believe that a single tenured teacher out of the more than 3 million teachers currently working in public schools has been fired, experienced a pay-cut, or otherwise been meaningfully sanctioned because of NCLB.” Good point.