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Let me say from the beginning that I don't think the Center for American Progress and Education Trust are staffed by fools. On the contrary, their leaders are savvy, courageous, talented people who have taken difficult stands against the education establishment. No, my headline refers to the old adage, "Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me." Because if we embrace the latest CAP/Ed Trust proposal on ESEA, we're the fools.
In a paper released last week, the two organizations called for far-reaching federal mandates around teacher evaluation and distribution (in return for receipt of Title II teacher quality funds). It comes complete with NCLB-style formulas, timelines, sanctions, and "incentives"; it's the "Army of the Potomac" at its worst.
Let me give you just a taste. With respect to the new teacher evaluation systems, states would have to:
Ensure that measurements accurately differentiate among teachers, by monitoring?and assuring?alignment among the different measures, including teacher impact on student growth, assessments of classroom practice, and overall teacher evaluation ratings. Also to ensure the validity of all measures, states should publish a report each year showing the average estimate of teacher impact on student growth for each of the performance categories. The Department of Education would provide regulations on procedures for states to use in documenting the validity of the measures; this should require that the numerical order of value-added averages corresponds with the levels of effectiveness and that there are meaningful differences among evaluation categories.
To which one might reasonably say: Are you freakin' kidding me?
Were such a policy to be made law, we know how the story goes?because we've been watching this movie for a decade now. Think "public school choice" or "supplemental services" or "school restructuring" or "school turnarounds" or "highly qualified teachers." There are two themes: The federal mandates fall on deaf ears at the state and local levels (and the U.S. Department of Education finds itself impotent to do anything about it); and the new requirements lead to all manner of perverse incentives.
To be clear, I support the move to stronger systems of teacher evaluation. But to turn this good idea into a federal mandate will poison it.
The two groups seem not to have gotten the memo: The next ESEA is going to have less federal intrusion, not more. In the new Tea Party era, this kind of prescription will be dead on arrival.
And maybe that's the point. These two liberal groups can read the tea leaves as well as anyone, and surely know that if Congress is to act on ESEA this year (or next year, or the? year after that), it's going to roll back many of the intrusive impulses of No Child Left Behind. As true believers in the magical powers of the federal government, CAP and Ed Trust want to encourage their friends on the Hill (read: George Miller) to hang tough and refuse to go along. At least that's my best guess; otherwise, why float such a preposterous proposal?
?Mike Petrilli
