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As the Obama administration prepares to award the first round of Race to the Top grants to states with education reform plans, Gov. Jim Doyle and Democrat lawmakers are determined to give the rest of the country a head start.
U.S. Education Department officials have identified a handful of policies that promote reform and improve student achievement. The New Teacher Project, a nonprofit organization whose mission is to recruit and develop outstanding teachers, measured states and the District of Columbia against these guidelines and found Wisconsin ranked dead last.
Wisconsin’s main problem is that it bans the use of student achievement data to evaluate teachers, a policy the education secretary called “ridiculous.” In a speech this summer, Secretary Arne Duncan told the audience to “think about that, laws that prohibit us from connecting children to the adults who teach them.”
It means Wisconsin is one of three states that isn’t even eligible to compete for a portion of $4.3 billion budgeted by the federal stimulus bill
After this revelation, the state Assembly convened six times in September and October, but never took steps to improve our state’s position. Last Friday — just prior to adjourning for 11 weeks — Democrats finally passed legislation they say will allow Wisconsin to compete for Race to the Top dollars. Unfortunately, the bills do little more than provide Doyle and Democrats political cover.
A bill allowing the superintendent of public instruction to intervene in failing schools wasn’t brought up and a plan for mayoral control of Milwaukee Public Schools has yet to be introduced. The Democrats’ marquee proposal permits school districts to use standardized test scores as one measure of teacher performance. It makes for a good sound bite, but the devil is in the details, as they say.
The bill says school districts can’t establish a teacher evaluation plan unless it’s agreed to by the teachers’ union during contract negotiations. Allowing feedback about who is doing a good job in your child’s school to be held hostage by union demands is absurd. But, even worse, the teachers’ union will help design the evaluation. Students would jump at the opportunity to choose the criteria on which they are graded. But the pitfalls in such a system are no different than in what Doyle and Assembly Democrats are proposing.
Even worse, the bill prevents school districts from discharging, suspending or disciplining teachers on the basis of student achievement data. If teachers can’t be held accountable for their duty to teach, the evaluations are meaningless and won’t lead to improvements at our schools. The Race to the Top guidelines envision states using data on teacher and principal effectiveness for the purposes of evaluation, compensation, promotion, tenure and dismissal.
Last week, President Obama told Madison middle school students that “we’re saying, if you’re committed to real change in the way you educate your kids; if you’re willing to hold yourselves more accountable; if you develop a strong plan to improve the quality of education in your state, we’ll offer you a grant to help make that plan a reality.” Madison Democrats don’t appear to have given the president’s words much thought.
Rep. Mike Huebsch, R-West Salem, represents the 94th Assembly District.
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