OK, I'm jumping the gun a bit, but I'm hearing a lot of chatter that indicates that Linda Darling-Hammond is almost certainly getting the Department of Education's #2 job. I suspect the news will come next week. The Reform-o-Meter will be waiting.

It almost seems too good to be true, but lo and behold, a ???gang??? of moderate Senators from both sides of the aisle are pushing to reduce the amount of money in the stimulus package going to schools. Before you call me a Scrooge, let me remind you why this is good news: as previously structured, the Senate plan was basically a huge bailout of local school systems. And perhaps such a bailout makes sense if your only purpose is to keep any teachers or school bureaucrats from losing their jobs. (I'm not an economist; maybe that is precisely what we should do to stave off a depression.) But educationally, it's terrible policy, because it rewards states and districts that have been profligate with their spending (which has doubled in real dollars in the past twenty-five years) and which have locked themselves into unsustainable spending far into the future. So if throwing an enormous amount of money at the schools is a bad idea, throwing a really large amount of money at the schools (as these moderates propose) is a less-bad one.

But if it's a bailout (and let's be honest: it's a bailout), it should come with some strings. Financial service companies have had to limit executive pay; the auto companies and their unions have had to get rid of the ???jobs bank.??? What should educators and their unions give up in return? In my view, the leverage from these dollars should be used to push states to get rid of policies that artificially inflate school costs and unnecessarily lower school quality, and particularly teacher quality, such as:

• Strict tenure protections for teachers with seniority. At the least, these protections should be pushed back several years so that administrators can remove ineffective instructors before they gain excessive ???due process??? rights. (Even liberal Ohio governor Ted Strickland seems to agree.)

• ???Last hired, first fired??? rules. Yes, ladies and gentleman, these provisions can be found in state law in some places (including Ohio???Governor Strickland?). And they serve to discourage good people from entering the classroom.

• Rigid class size reduction requirements. Everybody loves tiny classes but folks, we can't afford them. The world will not end if we put 28 children with one teacher. States should follow the Gubernator's lead here and untie the strings that come with class size dollars.

• Pension promises that we can't keep.

For the federal funds to have leverage, though, the Secretary of Education needs to have some sort of discretion so he can make a deal with the states and push them in these directions. The House version of the stimulus bill includes a $15 billion incentive fund that could be used for this purpose, but the moderates would strip that piece out of the package too. That's a mistake. (Though the House draft is far from perfect, as much of its focus is on addressing the inequitable distribution of teachers, a serious problem but one that neither the states nor the feds are well suited to solve. In fact, it might be unsolvable. Better to focus on policies that would boost teacher quality overall than try to play Robin Hood.)

There's going to be a stimulus package (which is a good thing) and there's going to be a lot of money for the schools (which is too bad). Given that, the best case scenario would combine spending that is less extravagant than originally proposed, and reforms that are bolder than currently envisioned. President Obama: are you willing to take that deal?

That's the word on the street (and on the hill). As I explain below, that's not such a bad thing. But it would be a huge setback for the Administration, which needs to get its messaging straight on this piece of the stimulus. Will it stimulate the economy? Is it a bailout? If it is a bailout, what will the government expect from the nation's public school system in return? And if it's a long-term investment in America's future, why not wait and debate that through the regular appropriations process?

We've pointed out some of the provisions of Ohio Governor Ted Strickland's education plan that we aren't too fond of.???? But that's not to say the entire plan is without merit. There is much we actually like in the plan and his recommendations around teacher tenure and retention are especially promising.

Currently, Buckeye State teachers can be awarded tenure after their third year of teaching, which is the standard in most states. Under the governor's proposal, teachers won't be eligible for tenure until their ninth year in the classroom. According to the National Council on Teacher Quality's TR3 database, just eight states grant tenure later than the third year: Connecticut, Illinois, Michigan, North Carolina, and South Dakota at four years and Indiana, Kentucky, and Missouri at five years. The governor's tenure proposal would be a big deal in any state, but it's shocking, and impressive, coming from a Democrat in a strong union state like Ohio.

Strickland's plan would also raise the bar for dismissing teachers to bring it in-line with that of other public employees. Under current law, tenured teachers can only be dismissed for ???????gross immorality or inefficiency,??????? a hard thing to prove that results in either costly, drawn-out litigation or teachers remaining in the classroom who just shouldn't be there. Under Strickland's plan, teachers could be fired for ???????just cause,??????? the same as their fellow unionized public employees.

These changes alone aren't going to rid Ohio's classrooms of bad teachers. District and school leaders will have to do their part by conducting regular and meaningful evaluations of teachers so that they are well-prepared to make their case if and when a teacher should be dismissed or denied tenure.

In his State of the State address, Governor Strickland said: ???????Let me say that not everyone is cut out to be a teacher???????. But even for teachers already in the field, we must have the ability to remove them from the classroom if their students are not learning.??????????? His tenure and retention proposals are smart and fair.???? Let's hope that he can see these provisions through to the final version of the budget that goes into effect July 1.

We love the blogsophere over here at Flypaper, which is why we want to tell you about a neat new blog launched today: Mind the Gaps. It's the brainchild of ConnCAN, a Connecticut-based advocacy group, and will keep tabs on the Nutmeg State's "twin achievement gaps--between the haves and have-nots in Connecticut, and between even our high-achieving children and their peers around the globe." Since CT Gov Jodi Rell just released her new budget, there's sure to be many meaty developments right around the corner. So what are you waiting for? Go check it out!

We know you wait, every week, with bated breath for your RSS feed to tell you that the Gadfly has arrived. Well, wait no longer. In the top spot, find a thought-provoking (and chillingly true) editorial from Raegen T. Miller and Robin Chait of the Center for American Progress. Maybe it's time to scrap "last hired, first fired" provisions, they argue, since not only do they potentially lower the average quality of the teaching force but send a disturbing message to entire profession: when it comes down to the wire, seniority wins out over effectiveness. Yikes. Then get the story on Ohio Governor Ted Strickland's long-awaited (and, yet, still disappointing) education reform plan. It's got some good ideas... but plenty of bad ones too. Take "evidence-based models," for example, which Strickland thinks are the bee's knees. Newsflash, Ted, evidence-based models have been blown open as an unreliable, unscientific load of crock (to put it mildly)! Our VP of Ohio Programs and Policy, Terry Ryan, gives you the scoop.??

Further in, get the story on Minnesota Q Comp's 99 percent pay out rate (it's a MERIT pay system... you do to the math), more 21st Century skills nonsense, Bay State Supt of Education Paul Reville's reviling comments on Massachusetts' top notch standards and assessments (this is what Walter Matthau would call Bad News Bears, folks), Miami-Dade's teachers, who're still asking for raises as the district contemplates how to make up an already sizeable budget deficit (take one for the team, guys!), and the tough time Schwarzegger's having out on in sunny California for his plan to give districts more flexibility??with their dollars. You'll also find the low-down on the National Council for Teacher Quality's 2008 yearbook, a report on middle school achievement and college readiness from the makers of the ACT, and the latest stats on online learning.??

Of course, don't forget to also listen to the podcast, in which you'll get both Diana Ross and The Terminator (who else can promise that combo?). Furthermore, if you're on the job hunt, Philanthropy Roundtable is looking for a new??deputy director of K-12 education programs. Last, but not least, please join us on February 23 for a stupendous event of heavy hitters that will introduce our long awaited report, The Accountability Illusion. (RSVP to Christina at [email protected].) The report itself will be released February 19. Let us just warn you now--it's a page turner. Trust us.??

All that and more... right here.

President Barack Obama takes to the pages of the Washington Post today to defend his stimulus plan . I don't quarrel with his larger points???that the economy is tanking and now is the time for action???but I found his education passage extremely disappointing:

Now is the time to give our children every advantage they need to compete by upgrading 10,000 schools with state-of-the-art classrooms, libraries, and labs; by training our teachers in math and science; and by bringing the dream of a college education within reach for millions of Americans.

We're going to give our children ???every advantage??? by upgrading their school facilities? I can't think of a single serious, credible study that says that an upgrade of school facilities will be the cure for what ails our schools. Now, if you want to launch public works programs to infuse the economy with cash, I'm fine with rebuilding schools instead of rebuilding roads. But let's get real about the likely impact on learning: nada.

And I'm totally perplexed by the line about ???training our teachers in math and science.??? That's a fine idea, but somehow, with $140 billion in new spending, I don't think it found its way into the bill! If someone knows what he might be referring to, please let me know.

Here's the President's dilemma on the education piece of this bill: most of this money is designed to keep school districts from making budget cuts. It won't actually spur much of anything ???new??????it will just keep teachers from losing their jobs. But it's not very fun to make the argument that we should spend $100 billion in order to pay for the same old lousy schools we've had for decades. Actually, now that I think about it, perhaps these few lines ARE the best that can be said about this portion of the stimulus. And how telling is that?

Photograph from White House website

Our Reform-o-Meter is getting a workout now that the Obama Administration is announcing new Department of Education appointees daily. (Almost as frequently as it announces the tax problems of Cabinet nominees or their spouses .)

The latest is Russlynn Ali , currently the director of Education Trust-West , who was nominated to be Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights . And let there be no doubt: she's a butt-kicking, take-no-prisoners, storm-the-barricades, scream-at-the-top-of-your-lungs reformer. As one friend asked me, ???Can we turn the dial to 11????

Now, this would be a good time to point out that ???reform??? comes in lots of shapes, sizes, and shades. If you've been reading some of the things I've been writing, like this, for example , you know that I'm not entirely enamored of Education Trust-style reform. I think the group is much more optimistic about the federal government's ability to do good in education than the evidence supports. They were responsible for some of the most problematic features of No Child Left Behind, particularly the ill considered ???highly qualified teachers??? provision. And they've been lukewarm to charter schools and the broader school choice agenda.

Still, on our scale, it's only fair to call Russlynn Red Hot (in terms of reform, I'm saying!). But here's a wrinkle. Enforcing civil rights is a key function, but it's not a policy role. Russlynn will be leading an office of 600-plus, but she'll be sitting six blocks away from Arne Duncan and focused on managing the day-to-day work of handling civil rights complaints. So for putting this reformer par excellence in a secondary role (which I'd rank a 2 on a scale of 1 to 10), I think the nomination deserves no better than a ???warm.???

Do you agree? Cast your vote below.

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Deandre M. Ellis most certainly had other things on his mind than vocabulary words and Number 2 pencils last week as he prepared for the New York Regents exam. No, Ellis, a former Schenectady High School student, was probably more concerned with whether his wig was on straight, his eyelashes curled, and his apparel appropriate--and if he'd get caught by the test monitor. And he was right to be worried. His transgression? Going to the test in drag. Problem is that he didn't just dress up as any girl; he dressed up as a current female student at Schenectady High School in order to take the Regents exam for her. Talk about testing anxiety. The reason for his charade remains unclear--an early Valentine's Day gift gone awry?--but the consequences were swift and harsh; Ellis was arrested by local police. We can only ponder the young man's thought process as he drove to the test site that morning: Pencils? Check. Watch? Check. High heels? Check. Wig?

"Police: Regents taker an imposter," Steven Cook, Daily Gazette, January 29, 2009

"Police: NY boy dressed as girl to cheat on exam," Associated Press, January 29, 2009

Every day, sometimes several times a day, the media report more rounds of layoffs at major American firms, from Microsoft to Caterpillar to Fidelity to Macy's and beyond. But the private sector is not the only one hemorrhaging jobs in the current recession; school districts from coast to coast are letting go of employees, too. Indeed, saving "literally hundreds of thousands of teaching jobs" is one of Secretary of Education Arne Duncan's primary arguments in support of the massive federal "stimulus" bill, which would provide over 100 billion dollars to local schools.

Duncan is right to worry about stemming teacher layoffs, but there's more to this problem than simple job-loss numbers. That's because, as currently structured in most places--and locked into collective bargaining contracts, board policy, sometimes state law--such lay-offs can undermine not just the size but also the quality of the teacher workforce, both immediately and well into the future. That's because of which teachers are laid off and what signals this process sends to other educators and future candidates.

When a school district announces layoffs, often called a reduction in force (RIF), you know which teachers will get the axe: the newbies. It's a vivid illustration of the "last-hired, first-fired" rule, often found in the public sector but rarely in the private. It's designed to be objective, and administrators feel comfortable defending it. Its effect, however, is to protect seniority. In public education, in particular, it also avoids running afoul of tenure laws for, typically, none of the teachers selected for separation will have been in the district long enough to earn that coveted employment status. Unfortunately, seniority and tenure have almost nothing to do with quality teaching--or with matching good teachers with needy kids, ensuring that critical subjects are adequately staffed, etc. In general, teacher contracts or state law simply requires that the number of years employed by that district determine who will stay and who will be let go. Teacher quality--the ability to foster successful learning in children--almost never enters the picture.

Considering that teacher quality is the single most important school-based determinant of students' academic progress, it's essential to understand how layoffs affect it. In the short run, it may be a wash, since teachers with just one or two years of experience tend to be less effective than those with a few more years in the classroom. (Most research indicates that this "experience factor" tapers off within five years.) Dismissing novice teachers may actually improve the average level of skill of a district's teachers.

But sacking teachers from this group may also have a negative effect on average teacher quality, since some of the most energetic and positive teachers are those with little experience. For example, Teach For America corps members, who are carefully selected for their academic strength and their commitment to working in high-poverty schools, have been shown to be at least as effective as more experienced teachers. And what about teachers who are new to their current district but have strong track records elsewhere? They are just as vulnerable to being laid off as hapless rookies.

Thus, the immediate effect of a RIF on the overall quality of a district's teaching force depends on the prevalence of particularly capable novices and highly effective veterans who lack tenure. But that's just the beginning. This method of laying teachers off also powerfully signals those considering a stint in public education that, when push comes to shove, what really matters is seniority. This signal, invariably amplified by local media interest in layoff stories, makes it harder for districts to attract the kind of teachers they will need in the future--energetic, committed, and effective teachers who want to be rewarded for efficacy rather than the duration of their service.

Imaginative districts and determined leaders can find ways to maintain a high-quality teaching staff even when layoffs are unavoidable. Early retirement incentives, for example, can encourage tiring veteran teachers to make space for energetic newcomers. But seniority has to be addressed, too, whether by modifying the teacher contract and/or altering state law. When teachers must be let go, districts need the freedom, the wisdom, and the will to lay off the least effective. Mountains of student achievement data--much of it attributable to NCLB-induced annual testing--can be linked to teachers and can inform these decisions. Such data didn't exist during the last big wave of teacher layoffs during the recession of the early 1990s. But now that they are available, efforts to bring these data to bear on questions about teacher quality should be redoubled, especially when it comes to identifying chronically ineffective teachers.

Reliance on "last hired, first fired" rules highlights the inadequacies of the current human resource systems in public education and the need to rethink the teacher tenure process. Districts should work to ensure that only effective teachers get tenure and that effective younger instructors aren't sacrificed because of antiquated seniority rules. Today's economic cloud could even turn out to have a silver educational lining if states and districts use the current crisis to revamp their HR systems and ground rules. Just about everyone knows that would make for better education. The present confluence of budget stringency on the one hand and the press for stronger school performance on the other hand may be just what's needed to effect these important reforms. 

Miller and Chait are Senior Education Policy Analysts at the Center for American Progress.