The last 36 hours have left me puzzled as to why the teachers unions aren't declaring victory. The Obama Administration, after a year of promoting tough love school reform, handed them a gift in the shape of its ESEA blueprint, and in particular its approach to accountability. As I told NPR, if enacted into law,this proposal would mean that the vast majority of the nation's schools could breathe easier than they do under No Child Left Behind, because Uncle Sam would stop harassing them. No more labeling them "in need of improvement" because a few kids failed the state test. No more pressure to squeeze out art and music and history in order to keep up with NCLB's ever-escalating demands on math and reading achievement. No more of most of the stuff the unions have decried for a decade.
Nevertheless, the unions are up in arms with the Administration's insistence that the very worst schools in the country face tough interventions, possibly including removal of their teachers. This largely reflects union politics; I hear union leadership is facing huge blow back from President Obama's embrace of the mass firing at Central Falls. So we have both Randi Weingarten and Dennis Van Roekel complaining that the proposal "scapegoats" teachers. Yet how many schools will share the fate of Central Falls? A few hundred? A few thousand even? Meanwhile, upwards of 80,000 schools will have the NCLB monkey lifted off their backs. This proposal is great for 3 million teachers and the unions are worried that it's bad for a few thousand of their peers?
But I think there's something more subtle, and more important, going on here. The unions have noticed that the miniaturization of education reform is underway. First there was systemic reform, then school reform, and now teacher reform. The Administration's call for states?? to put rigorous teacher evaluation systems in place, combined with its retreat from school-based accountability, demonstrates current reform thinking: what matters most is teacher quality. Great teachers should take that as a compliment; the unions take it as a threat.
-Mike Petrilli
