TIDBITS AND OUTRAGES
The Day the PTA Stayed Home In the wake of all the bad publicity our public schools received this past year, education has become a major political issue. But one politician-Lamar Alexander, the...
...Beginning this May, qualified individuals with no education school training can acquire “on-the-job teacher certification .” Before the reform could be adopted, Kean had to outmaneuver the teachers union as well as the deans and professors of education schools, who feared a threat to their livelihoods...
...As for overcoming the doubts of the education establishment, a particularly effective lobbyist was Dr...
...It was too late to plan a strategy to save the plan in the 1983 legislature...
...Kent Weeks, president of the Nashville school board, which has jurisdiction over 10 percent of all the students in Tennessee, says his board never took a public stand on the plan...
...The clear though unstated purpose of the bill is to weed out bad teachers already in the system, a problem Tennessee’s new plan inadequately addresses...
...To finance the reforms, Alexander proposed a one-cent increase in the state’s sales tax...
...Unfortunately Kean’s efforts have not included a major initiative to improve the quality of teachers already in the system...
...Gone is the risk of losing tenure...
...he says he was on the fence about the plan until the final vote...
...In his 1978 campaign, Alexander says he found parents generally “inattentive to their schools...
...Clinton’s plan requires two tests: the first measuring “functional academic skills,” the second, knowledge of subject matter...
...Currently, a tenured teacher in Tennessee can renew a 10 year certificate simply by completing eight credits in education courses during those years...
...the ad sneered...
...He described the problem bluntly in a television commercial he made in 1983, exhorting viewers to join his ad hoc group, Tennesseans for Better Schools...
...After sending out mailings about the new incentive pay plan to many of the state’s local Parent Teacher Associations, she tried to arrange informal meetings to explain the plan to members...
...Like its parent organization, the National Education Association, the TEA has long fought efforts to institute merit pay and stiffer evaluation standards...
...In New Jersey, there is a quieter-but in many ways more profound-educational reformation occurring...
...The quotas Alexander proposed were 11,500 Senior teachers, and 4,650 Master teachers--16,650 slots in all for Tennessee’s 46,000 teachers...
...Alexander had suffered the worst defeat of his governorship...
...The plan went through many changes over the months...
...Plans to convert the elusive Speaker of the House, Ned McWherter, were even more carefully orchestrated by the governor’s staff...
...They were leery to speak .” “I’d have thought the parents would be a strong advocate group for children,” she says...
...Those who wished to compete for the large bonuses-and all new teachers- would be reevaluated every five years...
...But not even the national publicity his Master Teacher plan received could keep the teachers lobby at bay...
...School board members paint the same scene of apathy by parents and subtle pressure by the union...
...Education courses will not count .) Once recertified, teachers apparently are home free...
...After 10 years, our best teachers make this much,” he says, as the camera zooms past him, jacket cast aside, chalk eraser in hand, to the figure $16,079 scrawled on the blackboard...
...A pause...
...The evaluations would be based heavily on classroom performance...
...In June, McWherter, a Democrat, found himself on a speaker’s panel with President Reagan when the President visited a Knoxville high school and the two exchanged pleasantries about the future of American schools...
...Alexander had a plan that would do something about it...
...Representative Stephen Bivens, for example, a schoolteacher-turned-local banker from east Tennessee, a longtime TEA supporter, and chairman of the Select Committee studying the plan, was flown to conferences in Denver, West Palm Beach, San Antonio, Williamsburg, and New York City-to “present the views of the study committee...
...It could turn out to be no more than a bloated piece of machinery that falls down, or a bloated seniority plan based on’ no strong evaluation system,” observes Lewis Lavine, one of Alexander’s aides...
...Marjorie Pike was elected president of the union in July, soon after Alexander regained momentum...
...But on January 26, 1984, almost a year from the day he first introduced his plan, Alexander’s allies in the Tennessee legislature were forced to strike a muddy compromise with opponents of the bill...
...It’s by far the most difficult thing I’ve ever been through in my life...
...John Rucker, for example, is a Democrat from Murfreesboro who first ran for the state Senate in 1976, in a three-way primary...
...Proponents of such bills-and everyone else concerned about the quality of our schools-would do well to understand some of the lessons Alexander learned in Tennessee...
...David K. Wilson, former treasurer of the Republican National Committee, was instructed to raise money...
...It called for the creation of a “career ladder” for teachers that would offer the best instructors raises of up to $8,000...
...But it’s just been ‘listen to this side,’ ‘listen to that side,’ and don’t take a position .” The PTA State Committee failed to endorse the plan until the following November...
...Instead she would usually arrive to find that formal debates had been scheduled...
...This is the most important proposal I will make in my eight years as Governor,” he declared upon unveiling the plan...
...I’ve seen her knock, scratch, and pinch,” says McWherter, “but she’s also practical and reasonable...
...However, the governor made it clear from the start that he would not sign the omnibus package if the controversial career ladder plan was chopped out...
...Alexander won his much cherished “career ladder"-but he lost or compromised on several other key issues he believed necessary to insure that the ladder didn’t become just an expensive, and perhaps ultimately useless, addition to an already complicated system...
...Oh, that sounds so terrible,” she said, adding that she knew of no specific incidents where children had been penalized because their parents took a stand in favor of the incentive pay plan...
...This would keep costs manageable, and insure that the top two rungs on the ladder retained their distinction...
...The Arkansas Education Association called the tests “insulting and degrading” and threatened lawsuits...
...The call for a career ladder was just one part of a ten-point reform package that also included many other improvements, such as mandatory kindergartens, more computer classes, and some attractive sweeteners for higher education interest groups, such as building a new library for the University of Tennessee at Knoxville...
...But he lost or compromised on most of the five key principles he felt were necessary to insure the integrity of the plan...
...As soon as he unveiled his reform package, Alexander appointed a 13-member staff to galvanize public support...
...They show up at your rallies...
...Tennessee isn’t the only state where reformers like Lamar Alexander have been willing to risk the wrath of entrenched interest groups to improve the public schools...
...There was a chance “to educate them,” as Lavine put it...
...To avoid cronyism and possible use of the system to get rid of teachers for political reasons, the evaluations would be performed by Master teachers and .others from outside the district...
...That was a big flaw in [Alexander’s] argument,” says Marjorie Pike, president of the TEA...
...Merit is now a recognized criterion for paying teachers...
...For all intents and purposes, the plan was dead...
...Average teacher salaries-in 1983, estimated at $18,230 a year-put the state 43rd...
...TEA with sugar Why was Alexander thwarted in his efforts to dramatically restructure the teaching profession in Tennessee...
...And our worst teachers make this much,” he explains, as viewers see a close up of the same $16,079...
...all new teachers- would be reevaluated every five years...
...Alexander was quickly transformed from a bruised and defeated local reformer to a national celebrity, a crusader ahead of his time...
...The Tennessee School Board Association endorsed only the concept of career ladders, but never any of the actual bills...
...The five-year recertification requirement remains intact...
...TEA flexes its muscles not so much with money-the group gives only from $300 to $500 to each local candidate it endorses-as with its extraordinarily efficient manpower machine...
...Still, the experience in Tennessee is a vivid illustration of the obstacles awaiting reformers in other states who take on vested interest groups like the teachers’ unions...
...I was convinced I won in ’76 because of their support I’ Once in Nashville, a legislator finds that the TEA has hardly forgotten him...
...This would help poor districts compete for talented teachers...
...A $1,000 Supplement...
...How did this plan compare with the final compromise signed into law this March...
...Union members have fought for such popular issues as free textbooks, state-funded kindergartens, special education programs, and improved vocational education courses...
...Janice Shelby, an assistant commissioner at the state Department of Education, was assigned the task of mobilizing parents...
...Under Alexander’s plan, teachers could avoid recertification only if they elected not to get on the career ladder...
...Over 4 years the total-would be 20 percent...
...Both broke with the TEA over the career ladder bill...
...He didn’t take into account that for just that little bit of money, teachers could have lost so much .” Alexander finally responded to this initial criticism by offering a $1,000 bonus for most teachers...
...I saw poor management, lazy management...
...An informal head count revealed that Alexander was about 20 votes short of the number needed in the House to pass the crucial sales tax...
...We wanted teachers to look up to the top of the mountain and think, ‘ I could get there some day,’ as one of his aides put it...
...His impressions were dismal: “I met teachers, saw the elementary school curriculum, saw some schools didn’t have any curriculum...
...But whether it will actually have any teeth at Level I-where atleast 55 percent of the state’s teachers will be-is now a “big if,” according to state Senator John Rucker...
...Horror stories abound: one man, a retired professor of college physics, head of the New Jersey Physical Science Association, and an experienced tutor of high school students preparing for the Advanced Placement physics test, was not even allowed to donate his time to a high school physics department...
...If parents came at all, they were overshadowed by the teachers...
...4) The number of teachers who could reach the top two rungs of the ladder would be strictly limited...
...On election day, there were eight or ten of them out by the polls for me, saying, ‘Don’t forget to vote for John Rucker for state Senate.’ They know 50 percent of your neighbors I’ Rucker said they’re more active and aggressive than other groups...
...On the state level, more than 30 lobbyists are on call and can follow up on their candidates once they are in office...
...Meanwhile in Arkansas and New Jersey...
...The titles Professional, Senior, and Master were changed to Level I, 11, and I11 because the Tennessee Education Association objected to titles that “implied competency,” and because black legislators complained that the term “Master” conjured up disagreeable connotations of servitude...
...But Alexander only offered a 2.5 percent increase the first year...
...But Alexander realized the problems in Tennessee went deeper than money...
...Why haven’t they spoken up...
...There was something fundamentally wrong with how the state’s teachers were evaluated and rewarded...
...he didn’t offer the same enticements to the less influential members, many of whom felt obligated to the TEA for years of political support...
...And with strong leadership, the new evaluation system, confused as it may seem, may prove superior to the current evaluation procedures...
...But just as Alexander saw his program diluted, in part because he failed to work out his evaluation plan for teachers before presenting it to the legislature, the efforts of Governor Bill Clinton of Arkansas and Governor Thomas Kean of New Jersey, while commendable, also could have gone further...
...But he was determined...
...Few doubted that Alexander could muster a good fight...
...Often the PTA local chairman turned out to be a teacher, and if that were the case, they were accepting mail only from the union,” Shelby says...
...Maybe parents were concerned about how their child would be affected in school,” she began...
...These “discussions” often were “disasters,” she recal1s:“Sometimes there were 150 people, many of them teachers...
...Even so, by the prevailing standards of the teaching profession-where tenure was granted routinely after a few years, where raises were based solely on seniority and the possession of academic credentials, and where firing a teacher was nearly impossible save in the case of gross misconduct-Alexander’s scheme was nothing short of radical...
...That plan was first presented to the Tennessee legislature in January 1983...
...Moreover, all current teachers were in effect grandfathered onto the career ladder’s first rung, where the bill provides an immediate bonus of $1,000, via a special “fast track” with such minimal requirements that legislators say even the weakest teachers should be able to pass...
...Legislators who had seldom set foot outside of Tennessee soon found themselves being flown in the state plane to education conferences across the country...
...Even Alexander admits to a begrudging admiration for her tenacity and political skills...
...No career ladder, no bucks for anything else, he warned, using the same tactic that Bill Clinton, Arkansas’ governor, would use successfully later in 1983 (see sidebar, p.50...
...And they are talking to parents, talking to school board members...
...Alexander had spent a lot of time cultivating Republican and Democratic leaders in the House and Senate...
...YOU don’t have to change one thing you’re already doing in teaching,” explains Senator Anna Belle O’Brien, chairman of the Senate Education Committee...
...Invitations poured in for him to appear on “McNeil-Lehrer,” the “Today Show,” “Nightline,” and more...
...There are no limits anymore on how many can become ‘best .’ And it may be no easier to fire a bad teacher...
...Hope Aldrich is a writer living in Washington...
...There are the TEA mailings at least once a week, says Anna Belle O’Brien, including newsletters, announcements of “meetings in your area, or an award they want to give you for your help with the handicapped...
...His plan would cost $1 billion over three years, which would require a hike in the sales tax-this in the fifth poorest state in the country, where unemployment stood at an unprecedented 13 percent...
...He lost on the quota proposal...
...3) The evaluation of teachers would be shifted from the school district level to the state...
...The evaluation procedure itself no longer would be a negotiable item in local collective bargaining...
...TEA also has a long-standing reputation for being the “good guys” in the education arena...
...Alexander wanted to build a summit into the flat and unvarying career track...
...But to get those raises, the teachers, called “Senior” and “Master” teachers, were to be judged by their classroom performance-not solely according to their seniority or academic degrees...
...In its final form, the plan gives more teachers a little, fewer people a lot...
...I’m going to fight for it as hard as I’ve ever fought for anything in my life...
...All you have to do to receive an extra $1,000 per year under the Master Teacher plan is virtually give up tenure, agree to some kind of evaluation by your peers who have been labeled Master Teachers, and agree to a five year or less employment contract with your local school system...
...The evaluations would be based heavily on classroom performance...
...TEA has a political action committee in almost all the state’s 145 school districts...
...The parents were intimidated...
...He lost on salaries...
...During his 1978 campaign, Alexander took a much-publicized 1,000-mile walk across the state...
...WOW...
...Governor Lamar Alexander of Tennessee was popular and politically savvy...
...Would Rucker support it...
...It was not an argument to which Alexander found the legislators receptive...
...degree a hefty $25,682 a year, could easily lure away the most talented teachers of districts with lower salaries such as Hancock, which pays the same teacher $15,675...
...The idea seemed so simple-rewarding outstanding teachers .” Building a summit What happened in Tennessee has national implications...
...The bungled timing gave the leadership of the teacher’s union a tactical opening they could exploit to mobilize opposition to the plan...
...He also testifies to having felt pressure from his teachers...
...There, he hobnobbed with governors Bob Graham of Florida and Jim Hunt of North Carolina, who had also proposed major school reform bills...
...A special certifications commission would develop stiffer and uniform standards for all the state’s school districts...
...I thought it was time to put partisan views aside...
...New Jersey, like other states, receives hundreds of offers each year from eager, capable people to teach in the public schools...
...If he has a master’s degree, no coursework is required...
...2) A teaching certificate would be valid for no more than five years for teachers on the career ladder...
...Alexander, a Republican governor, faced 2-1 Democratic majorities in both the state Senate and the House...
...But the TEA had its own battle plan...
...All the more reason O’Brien and Governor Alexander were upset when, only weeks after Alexander proposed it, the teachers announced their adamant opposition to his reform bill, and began a massive campaign to kill it...
...It was just at this low point that the Reagan administration released the now-famous “Nation At Risk” report-a report that loudly applauded incentive pay plans...
...The union also made efforts to portray Alexander’s plan as politically motivated, a thinly disguised step toward national office...
...Legislators would talk as if their only constituents were the TEA,” Alexander said...
...Our best teachers should get higher pay for doing a good job...
...Paul Glastris Alexander also had to make serious compromises on recertification...
...Rucker became one of its sponsors and admits he fears what the consequences may be in his reelection campaign this year...
...increases of 7 to 10 percent will go this year to all current teachers, regardless of performance...
...and] how dominant the teacher union was, how inattentive parents were...
...The TEA criticized his having a Washington based public relations firm “that told him what to sag’ and charged that the petitionshehad gathered with the names and addresses of citizens supporting him were really collected for use in later campaigns...
...An editorial in The Wall Street Journal hailed him as one Republican governor who “has put his money where his mouth is .” Alexander and his staff shrewdly realized that this flurry of national attention might pay off with the legislators in Nashville...
...Without the cap, wealthy districts like Oakridge, which pays a teacher with 15 years experience and an M.A...
...The state’s Education Professional Negotiations Act-a bill the teachers strongly supported-was coming up in the legislature...
...Not every state has as persistent a school reformer as Alexander...
...Wilson did fine...
...Leo Klagholz, himself a former dean of an education school, who backed the plan...
...their teachers...
...The bill might have offered a substantial, across-the-board salary increase for all teachers in exchange for their support of the new career ladder...
...Then he got a lucky break...
...But the union had some legitimate concerns about the new plan...
...In fact, the criteria for evaluation weren’t drawn up until April, and the complex details weren’t finished until 11 months after Alexander introduced his reform package...
...He spent four months on the road, slept in 81 homes, and visited dozens of schools...
...Nor is it any easier to fire bad teachers to make room for the new ones under Kean’s plan...
...For the past few years the administration of Governor Thomas Kean has been remaking the state’s teacher certification apparatus...
...They would tell me ‘I’ve got 400 teachers...
...It was at this point that McWherter helped engineer the compromises that diluted the major provisions of the plan but allowed Alexander to salvage the career ladder concept...
...In May, he was hustled off to Raleigh, North Carolina, to attend a conference sponsored by the Education Commission of the States...
...The trouble is teachers who flunk the subject area test only need to take six hours of additional college credit in their subject area...
...The state ranks 47th in spending per pupil...
...Shelby would speak for “her side,” and a union spokesman was ready to tell “their side I’ Sometimes her advance mailings were thrown out and never reached the membership...
...There are no limits on how many teachers can become the “best .” After a fierce battle, he also had to compromise on his desire to switch the evaluation process from local to state control...
...There we were, a 13-member staff, $60,000 sitting in the bank, and a governor who was pretty frustrated,” said Lavine...
...Shelby’s experience was dramatically different...
...The Tennessee Education Association, founded in 1867, boasts a membership of more than 80 percent of the state’s 46,000 teachers...
...They don’t mind getting out and saying they support you...
...Tennessee, remember, had some of the lowest salaries in the nation...
...One of their leaflets, for example, pictured a Pac-Man as an underpaid teacher about to gobble up the $1,000 bonus...
...But there were too many legislators who didn’t hear from parents, not to mention voters who had no connection with the unions...
...a Gallup poll a year ago found that the public supported merit pay by a 2-1 margin...
...She paused again...
...She adds that they visit her office every week, and she never fails to see several of them attending her education committee meetings: “No other group is that thorough .” She says, “They’re also fair, honorable, factual...
...When Rucker said yes, they endorsed him, gave him $500, and went into action: “They run ads in the paper for you, they go out, door to door, handing out cards for you,’’ said Rucker...
...Representative Bob Rochelle, a freshman, was typical...
...But nothing compares to this...
...That’s where they get their power...
...They don’t sever relations over one bill I’ (Rucker and O’Brien will soon find out how true this actually is...
...he raised $110,00 within the first ten days...
...Nevertheless, the bill passed, along with a one-cent increase in the sales tax to support an increase in the base pay of all teachers...
...Even then, the preparation was so rushed that the associate professor from Vanderbilt University hired to develop it resigned in disgust...
...If the teacher failed repeatedly, he would lose his license-that is, he would not be permitted to teach...
...He then voted against it, in part, he says, “because I never detected a consensus from the local citizens .” Of course, considering the strength of the union, Alexander did win some important victories...
...You know, if word got back to...
...The state must refuse them because they lack the proper credentials from an education school...
...I t was also full of political risks...
...Once he announced his candidacy, he said, the local teachers union immediately called him in for an interview...
...The method of selecting the “best” has been muddied, clumsily split between local and state authorities...
...I’ve got to go hear from them .’ I’d say, ‘Well, you’ve got thousands of parents too...
...They respect you when you can only support them nine times out of ten...
...The result was a clumsy system where local districts will evaluate teachers who are on the first rung of the ladder, but the state will do so at Level I1 and 111...
...But originally five key principles underlay Alexander’s call for a career ladder: 1) Major salary increases would go only to those on the top two rungs of the ladder...
...the new law says nothing about subsequent retesting...
...Constance Elliot, state president of the FTA, claimed that policy decisions are a matter for school boards, not ITA’S...
...A number of commissions, including the President’s Commission on Excellence in Education, would shortly recommend such a plan...
...5) A cap would be placed on the number of Senior and Master teachers funded by the state in any one district...
...The TEA also selected a new “general,” who in many ways was Alexander’s match...
...That made me think this was an opportunity for Tennessee to really step out front in a bold way...
...I’ve spent 70 percent of my time on it .” He tried a weak smile...
...So this January, when Alexander decided to try and rush his plan through a special session of the legislature, Pike had her troops firmly in line...
...After a teacher gets tenure-in Tennessee usually three to five years after entering the profession-he or she receives predictable salary increases based solely on seniority and the academic degrees they possess...
...The major reason was the opposition of the teachers’ union-a force he admits now that he naively underestimated...
...In Arkansas, controversy erupted last fall when Clinton proposed that all teachers pass tests before being recertified...
...To become a Senior or Master teacher, an instructor had to demonstrate “proof of successful continuing performance in the classroom .” (Senior teachers also needed at least eight years of experience, master teachers at least 13 .)Those who qualified received pay hikes of $4,000 and $8,OOO, respectively...
...Politicians who are willing to take the considerable risks necessary to improve the schools must do more than educate people...
...Alexander and his team had hoped that the group of “educated” legislators would carry the plan, even in the absence of grassroots support...
...the National Education Association spoke of a national campaign to dissuade teachers from going to Arkansas...
...The TEA’S opposition was hardly surprising...
...Yet his roots in the small town of Maryville, where his mother taught kindergarten for 35 years, made him just as comfortable talking to concerned citizens in the state’s many small communities...
...I’ Town without PTA The tenor of this ad confirms the judgment of Keel Hunt, Alexander’s staff advisor on education, that “there would have been union opposition [to the evaluation plan] in any event .” Still, the absence of a plan gave the TEA one more argument to use in its strategy of portraying teachers as victims, and helped dilute the grassroots support Alexander needed to fight his battle in the legislature...
...Hunt, Graham and others encouraged him to get interested in school reform, McWherter recalled later, pensively puffing on a long cigar, “Because it would be good for the South...
...By proposing that teachers be paid according to some measure of merit, Alexander was endorsing an approach that would soon gain wide public support...
...He was popular-reelected to a second term in November 1982 with 60 percent of the vote-and politically savvy...
...He points out that evaluations at that level will be controlled locally, and subject to the collective bargaining process...
...I’ve run for office three times,’’ he said wearily...
...And in some states, the teachers are even more powerful than they are in Tennessee...
...After all, school boards employ teachers, and teachers are the essential ingredient that make schools work .” Soon Alexander and his staff had to concede they had miscalculated: there would be no grassroots support for his plan...
...As the legislature hammered out the final points of the bill last February, Alexander seemed more like a beaten man than a victor...
...Teachers in the professional category would get only a minimal pay increase of less than 2.5 percent during the first year of Alexander’s program...
...They have to mobilize the public to fight alongside them...
...Starting salaries in some rural Tennessee districts were as low as $12,170...
...One of the union’s major tactics was to shift attention away from issues like competency and evaluations, and to focus on stiffer standards for student teachers and the need for a pay increase...
...she was asked...
...The teachers were much more vocal...
...That’s not right,” he continues...
...Another complaint of the TEA was that teachers were being asked to accept a whole new evaluation procedure that hadn’t been tested anywhere-or, for that matter had not even been written...
...They’re very respected people in my counties,” says O’Brien...
...This was the price, his supporters concede, of avoiding all-out fights in the state legislature, where the teachers unions have as much-if not more-clout as they do in Tennessee...
...But one politician-Lamar Alexander, the I Republican governor of Tennessee-had public education on his mind long before the latest flurry of commission reports and stump speeches by presidential candidates...
...And I saw the results-poor scores .” Some of the problems in Tennessee were directly traceable to money-or the lack thereof...
...In April a committee vote shunted it aside for a year’s study by a select committee...
...As for the career ladder-the centerpiece of the reform program-Alexander proposed creating three different categories for tenured teachers: Professional, Senior, and Master...
...Even so, the sales tax barely slipped through with a 52-45 vote in the House, and by a 19-13 margin in the Senate...
...If the teacher failed repeatedly, he would lose his license-that is, he would not be permitted to teach...
...His connections to the Tennessee business community gave him ready access to money...
...Alexander got his career ladder...
...even then the ITA didn’t register a lobbyist at the legislature to work on the plan’s behalf...
...But the TEA’S main strength, as always, lay in the legislature itself...
...He won the unions over by asking them to help design the on-the-job training program...
...This contrasted with the existing system, which made no distinctions among tenured teachers...
...Those teachers were very quick out of the gate, very clear, very opposed,” he said...
...just how inattentive, he now found out...
...Though the state is supposed to “review” all 145 districts’ evaluation procedures, Rucker says it’s difficult to predict how effective this mammoth review process will be...
...More than 25 state legislatures are grappling this year with innumerable proposals to improve the schools...
Vol. 16 • June 1984 • No. 5
