Saturday, March 5, 2011
A Bad Deal for Taxpayers
"401(k) plans are a bad deal for taxpayers. Dollar for dollar, a traditional pension plan yields more pension benefits than do 401(k) plans because 401(k) management and investment fees are three times higher. And professionals who manage money in pooled pension funds usually get higher returns than workers who manage their own 401(k) accounts. The only clear winners when pensions switch over to the 401(k) plans are brokers and bankers.
The form of pension plan influences the type of employee attracted and retained. Want an old cop to retire? Want to offer a career path to a young, earnest would-be teacher? Use a traditional plan. Risk seekers and high turnover workers tend to prefer 401(k) plans; but do taxpayers prefer those characteristics in a public employee?"
Source:
http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/02/27/why-not-401ks-for-public-employees/401ks-a-bad-deal-for-taxpayers
The form of pension plan influences the type of employee attracted and retained. Want an old cop to retire? Want to offer a career path to a young, earnest would-be teacher? Use a traditional plan. Risk seekers and high turnover workers tend to prefer 401(k) plans; but do taxpayers prefer those characteristics in a public employee?"
Source:
http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/02/27/why-not-401ks-for-public-employees/401ks-a-bad-deal-for-taxpayers
Teacher Unions
"The entire point of seniority-based systems like the ones that many teachers unions have negotiated is to protect long-serving teachers from losing their jobs when the budget gets tight. Think about it – if a teacher who has served for 25 years is fired, you could probably replace them with two rookies for almost the same price. That’s a bargain for the taxpayer in the short-term, but not very good for the teaching profession in the long-term. For those of us who take the long-view seriously, this has serious implications for our education system and its ability to attract talented teachers down the road.
Furthermore – and even better for politicians – the teacher will either lose their pension or face a massive reduction in pension benefits, saving governments a ton of money. You can see pretty quickly how teacher retention becomes a problem, and how young people thinking about becoming teachers might take a different career path. No, job security is not the only important factor, but in a profession with lower pay and less advancement options, benefits and job security are important. When your job is constantly hanging in the balance of budgetary decisions, you might as well make more money than a teacher.
Ezra implicitly blames teachers for poor results and for not implementing a system that would not only weaken their political power and likely their standard of living, but also make the profession far less appealing to new teachers. Never once does he address alternatives to layoffs or why so many of these states are facing budget shortfalls to begin with (hint: this is also not the fault of teachers). Nor does he examine whether those states which do not have seniority-based systems are fairing any better than those that do in terms of teacher quality or student success. This not only perpetuates the anti-union narrative, it affirms the ‘government is out of money’ fallacy touted by budget hawks and conservatives across the country.
It’s important to remember that this new batch of Tea Party conservatives will use any means at their disposal to weaken the influence of organized labor and the public sector – including lines like “Even the liberal, Ezra Klein” when justifying their attacks on teachers and teachers unions. Perhaps we should write our reform-the-unions columns with more caution." -E. D. Kain
http://blogs.forbes.com/erikkain/2011/03/01/ezra-klein-on-reforming-teacher-unions/
Furthermore – and even better for politicians – the teacher will either lose their pension or face a massive reduction in pension benefits, saving governments a ton of money. You can see pretty quickly how teacher retention becomes a problem, and how young people thinking about becoming teachers might take a different career path. No, job security is not the only important factor, but in a profession with lower pay and less advancement options, benefits and job security are important. When your job is constantly hanging in the balance of budgetary decisions, you might as well make more money than a teacher.
Ezra implicitly blames teachers for poor results and for not implementing a system that would not only weaken their political power and likely their standard of living, but also make the profession far less appealing to new teachers. Never once does he address alternatives to layoffs or why so many of these states are facing budget shortfalls to begin with (hint: this is also not the fault of teachers). Nor does he examine whether those states which do not have seniority-based systems are fairing any better than those that do in terms of teacher quality or student success. This not only perpetuates the anti-union narrative, it affirms the ‘government is out of money’ fallacy touted by budget hawks and conservatives across the country.
It’s important to remember that this new batch of Tea Party conservatives will use any means at their disposal to weaken the influence of organized labor and the public sector – including lines like “Even the liberal, Ezra Klein” when justifying their attacks on teachers and teachers unions. Perhaps we should write our reform-the-unions columns with more caution." -E. D. Kain
http://blogs.forbes.com/erikkain/2011/03/01/ezra-klein-on-reforming-teacher-unions/
There Are No Silver-Bullets in Education Reform
"The Obama administration’s Race to the Top program intensified the demonizing of teachers, because it encouraged states to evaluate teachers in relation to student scores. There are many reasons why students do well or poorly on tests, and teachers felt they were being unfairly blamed when students got low scores, while the crucial role of families and the students themselves was overlooked.
Teachers’ despair deepened last August when The Los Angeles Times rated 6,000 teachers in Los Angeles as effective or ineffective, based on their students’ test scores, and posted these ratings online. Testing experts warn that such ratings are likely to be both inaccurate and unstable, but the Times stood by its analysis.
School reformers create a seductive narrative for the media and lawmakers alike. Foundations are lured to support radical changes because they promise radical results. It’s much more glamorous, after all, to put money into shiny new charter schools than to give those dollars to school districts. School choice and accountability sound good on paper, and films like The Lottery and Waiting for Superman pull on our heartstrings and paint pictures of selfish teachers lobbying hard against their own students. These films ignore not only the external factors leading to school failure – including poverty, lack of funding, and other societal issues – they also gloss over the many failed charter schools and choice programs across the country. Advocates of choice and accountability and the modern charter-school movement brush off the wildly varying results found from one charter school to the next. Like traditional public schools, charter schools with a higher percentage of white and Asian students and lower numbers of ESL students and other disadvantaged students fair much better than those with more mixed populations....
The accountability movement has shifted the focus away from American ingenuity and creativity in favor of strict testing regimes in an attempt to compete with Japan and Finland. This is the wrong approach. As our nation grows in wealth and technology, American public education should be a reflection of these changes. American schools may have been founded along industrial lines, but accountability efforts only entrench this attitude. If anything, we should be looking for ways to make education more creative and diverse, and to make American students more well-rounded and independent. The current reforms achieve just the opposite."
http://blogs.forbes.com/erikkain/2011/02/28/there-are-no-silver-bullets-in-education-reform/
Teachers’ despair deepened last August when The Los Angeles Times rated 6,000 teachers in Los Angeles as effective or ineffective, based on their students’ test scores, and posted these ratings online. Testing experts warn that such ratings are likely to be both inaccurate and unstable, but the Times stood by its analysis.
School reformers create a seductive narrative for the media and lawmakers alike. Foundations are lured to support radical changes because they promise radical results. It’s much more glamorous, after all, to put money into shiny new charter schools than to give those dollars to school districts. School choice and accountability sound good on paper, and films like The Lottery and Waiting for Superman pull on our heartstrings and paint pictures of selfish teachers lobbying hard against their own students. These films ignore not only the external factors leading to school failure – including poverty, lack of funding, and other societal issues – they also gloss over the many failed charter schools and choice programs across the country. Advocates of choice and accountability and the modern charter-school movement brush off the wildly varying results found from one charter school to the next. Like traditional public schools, charter schools with a higher percentage of white and Asian students and lower numbers of ESL students and other disadvantaged students fair much better than those with more mixed populations....
The accountability movement has shifted the focus away from American ingenuity and creativity in favor of strict testing regimes in an attempt to compete with Japan and Finland. This is the wrong approach. As our nation grows in wealth and technology, American public education should be a reflection of these changes. American schools may have been founded along industrial lines, but accountability efforts only entrench this attitude. If anything, we should be looking for ways to make education more creative and diverse, and to make American students more well-rounded and independent. The current reforms achieve just the opposite."
http://blogs.forbes.com/erikkain/2011/02/28/there-are-no-silver-bullets-in-education-reform/
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
A Review of Learning About Teaching by the National Education Policy Center
In other words, teacher evaluations based on observed state test outcomes are only slightly better than coin tosses at identifying teachers whose students perform unusually well or badly on assessments of conceptual understanding. This result, underplayed in the MET report, reinforces a number of serious concerns that have been raised about the use of VAMs for teacher evaluations."
http://nepc.colorado.edu/thinktank/review-learning-about-teaching
http://nepc.colorado.edu/thinktank/review-learning-about-teaching
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
A Republican Friend of Mine Wrote This
A Republican Friend of Mine Wrote This:
Why SB5 and the Kasich Proposals are NOT Conservative. Here is why Republicans should oppose it:
• A key principle of conservatism is local control. In SB5, the state moves in and removes control from school districts to do what they deem best. For instance, local districts would not have the power to offer step increases to teachers, regardless of how little money the district receives from the state. This is the exact type of thing that incenses Republicans at the state level when the national government is taking the lead. Doing the same would be an exercise in hypocrisy.
o A related point on local control: It’s understandable that the legislature must cut state funding to schools in order to balance the budget. There is no reason that can’t be done without this bill. Cut funding as necessary and let the local districts determine the cuts that will be made. I can assure you that school districts operating with 15-20% less state revenue will not be offering increases in benefits or salaries to educators. Similarly, given those constraints any union that wanted to be taken seriously would not ask for them. Many would accept paying more into health care.
• Conservatism, by definition, is a philosophy based on maintaining traditional institutions and making gradual, measured change when necessary. SB5, as currently written, does no such thing. It destroys the positive along with the negative, ultimately leaving students and teachers as the victims. Are there areas to reform? Certainly. Look at matters such as sick day reform, tenure limitations (not elimination), a state health care pool (negotiate for one company, but allow the percentage of the premium paid by each local district to remain a bargaining issue to a reasonable degree), limits on districts picking up the employee’s share of STRS, perhaps making it easier for employees to opt out of joining unions- particularly the NEA & OEA, and even limitations on wage increases tied to the amount of funding a particular district receives from the state.
• Conservatives understand that incentives attract quality employees. If teachers (or plumbers, CEOs or members of the governor’s cabinet) are paid poorly, poor teachers will enter the profession. If teachers are paid well, many of the best and brightest will bypass high-paying private sector jobs for the teaching profession. Likewise, eliminating all step increases will drive some of the best teachers out. I SEE THIS HAPPENING RIGHT NOW IN MY DISTRICT & THE BILL HASN’T EVEN PASSED YET. Education is too important to be a profession for mediocre talent.
• Less money spent on education at the state level opens the door for the federal government to increase aid to fill part of the vacuum. With federal aid come expensive federal mandates that will eventually lead to federal, rather than local control on a variety of things, including curriculum and performance standards. Do you really want Department of Education bureaucrats in Washington telling teachers in Ohio what “truths” need to be taught and tested about the New Deal, the United Nations, economic systems, climate change, religion, or political parties? These are just a sampling of social studies issues. Add other subject areas and the list is endless.
• This bill creates new and expensive bureaucracy. Who will be developing and creating the new performance reviews that “merit” pay will be based upon? What will their salaries and benefits be? Studies show very inconsistent findings regarding merit pay for teachers. Most, in fact, show that it does not improve education. We will be spending money on bureaucracy to implement unproven or even counterproductive methods. That is the definition of wasteful government spending.
• The bill has hidden costs to taxpayers. It will cost time and money to train teachers and administrators in the new performance reviews. It may open the door to costly litigation by employees who disagree with the reviews. Districts will inevitably hire consultants to advise them on how to implement all of the changes associated with the bill. This is money that need not be spent.
• Passage of this bill, in current extreme form, will result in the demise of the Republican Party in Ohio for a long time to come. Although a minority of teachers are Republicans, it will alienate nearly all (my estimation is about 40%) of those who are. It’s astonishing, right now, how many traditionally very loyal Republican teachers have one foot out of the door of the Republican Party. This is to say nothing of firemen or policemen. Simply put, passage of this bill as currently written will halt the passage of important Republican policies for decades to come. Is it really worth killing the Republican agenda for twenty years?
The budget can be balanced without this bill.
A note to my Democrat friends: You can save your “I told you so” propaganda, too. Part of the reason teachers unions are in the situation we are in right now is because of the antagonistic nature of the NEA, OEA, and some local unions. There is no reason for teachers unions to be active regarding issues that have no concrete impact on teaching and learning. The NEA or OEA have official positions on the following issues: a balanced federal budget (oppose), Obama Care (support), same sex marriage (support), and abortion (support). Regardless of what you think of these issues, teachers unions should not be involved in them. If you don’t think that this riles up conservative politicians who are now in positions to weaken unions, let this be your lesson in politics.
Why SB5 and the Kasich Proposals are NOT Conservative. Here is why Republicans should oppose it:
• A key principle of conservatism is local control. In SB5, the state moves in and removes control from school districts to do what they deem best. For instance, local districts would not have the power to offer step increases to teachers, regardless of how little money the district receives from the state. This is the exact type of thing that incenses Republicans at the state level when the national government is taking the lead. Doing the same would be an exercise in hypocrisy.
o A related point on local control: It’s understandable that the legislature must cut state funding to schools in order to balance the budget. There is no reason that can’t be done without this bill. Cut funding as necessary and let the local districts determine the cuts that will be made. I can assure you that school districts operating with 15-20% less state revenue will not be offering increases in benefits or salaries to educators. Similarly, given those constraints any union that wanted to be taken seriously would not ask for them. Many would accept paying more into health care.
• Conservatism, by definition, is a philosophy based on maintaining traditional institutions and making gradual, measured change when necessary. SB5, as currently written, does no such thing. It destroys the positive along with the negative, ultimately leaving students and teachers as the victims. Are there areas to reform? Certainly. Look at matters such as sick day reform, tenure limitations (not elimination), a state health care pool (negotiate for one company, but allow the percentage of the premium paid by each local district to remain a bargaining issue to a reasonable degree), limits on districts picking up the employee’s share of STRS, perhaps making it easier for employees to opt out of joining unions- particularly the NEA & OEA, and even limitations on wage increases tied to the amount of funding a particular district receives from the state.
• Conservatives understand that incentives attract quality employees. If teachers (or plumbers, CEOs or members of the governor’s cabinet) are paid poorly, poor teachers will enter the profession. If teachers are paid well, many of the best and brightest will bypass high-paying private sector jobs for the teaching profession. Likewise, eliminating all step increases will drive some of the best teachers out. I SEE THIS HAPPENING RIGHT NOW IN MY DISTRICT & THE BILL HASN’T EVEN PASSED YET. Education is too important to be a profession for mediocre talent.
• Less money spent on education at the state level opens the door for the federal government to increase aid to fill part of the vacuum. With federal aid come expensive federal mandates that will eventually lead to federal, rather than local control on a variety of things, including curriculum and performance standards. Do you really want Department of Education bureaucrats in Washington telling teachers in Ohio what “truths” need to be taught and tested about the New Deal, the United Nations, economic systems, climate change, religion, or political parties? These are just a sampling of social studies issues. Add other subject areas and the list is endless.
• This bill creates new and expensive bureaucracy. Who will be developing and creating the new performance reviews that “merit” pay will be based upon? What will their salaries and benefits be? Studies show very inconsistent findings regarding merit pay for teachers. Most, in fact, show that it does not improve education. We will be spending money on bureaucracy to implement unproven or even counterproductive methods. That is the definition of wasteful government spending.
• The bill has hidden costs to taxpayers. It will cost time and money to train teachers and administrators in the new performance reviews. It may open the door to costly litigation by employees who disagree with the reviews. Districts will inevitably hire consultants to advise them on how to implement all of the changes associated with the bill. This is money that need not be spent.
• Passage of this bill, in current extreme form, will result in the demise of the Republican Party in Ohio for a long time to come. Although a minority of teachers are Republicans, it will alienate nearly all (my estimation is about 40%) of those who are. It’s astonishing, right now, how many traditionally very loyal Republican teachers have one foot out of the door of the Republican Party. This is to say nothing of firemen or policemen. Simply put, passage of this bill as currently written will halt the passage of important Republican policies for decades to come. Is it really worth killing the Republican agenda for twenty years?
The budget can be balanced without this bill.
A note to my Democrat friends: You can save your “I told you so” propaganda, too. Part of the reason teachers unions are in the situation we are in right now is because of the antagonistic nature of the NEA, OEA, and some local unions. There is no reason for teachers unions to be active regarding issues that have no concrete impact on teaching and learning. The NEA or OEA have official positions on the following issues: a balanced federal budget (oppose), Obama Care (support), same sex marriage (support), and abortion (support). Regardless of what you think of these issues, teachers unions should not be involved in them. If you don’t think that this riles up conservative politicians who are now in positions to weaken unions, let this be your lesson in politics.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)