Blowing up Boxes at Starbucks

Against the wind. I'm still runnin against the wind. I'm older now but still runnin .... against the wind.

As the debate about public school reform raged this morning within the Starbucks crowd, I couldn't help but recall Bob Seger's song. Just why is this so very damn hard?

In a previous post, Reforming Public Education, 2/10/05, I reviewed the Claremont Institute proposal for California: Fire 30% of the bureaucrats, increase teacher pay 10.7% and save $1.2Billion per year. Done and done, or so I thought.

Today Dr.Dave made it clear why my solution is so grossly insufficient. Paying poor teachers 10.7% more isn't going to magically transform them into good teachers, he said. Darn, the idealistic liberalism that still occupies my soul caused me to overlook a basic fact of life. Generally speaking, the best and the brightest do not go into teaching. Look at the faculties of your local grade schools, high schools and junior colleges: How many teachers are from the top quintiles of schools like Berkeley, Stanford, USC, ...? In the sciences and math, how many of the teachers even have degrees in their subject? If we really want to attract outstanding students to the teaching profession, a 10.7% raise is not going to cut it.

Furthermore, Dr. Dave said, there is a glut of teachers out there, effectively depressing the salary scale. Zone Bridge friend Marianne, a teacher, says that more and more teachers are entering the profession from online degree mills. So what is to be done?

Explode the boxes! The first step is to institute merit in the teaching profession. The Governator is pushing the idea very hard. Arnold is demanding that teacher pay is based on merit and teachers' continued employment depend on classroom performance. Usually California is out in front of the nation on reforms and just about everything else. On this topic, however, states such as Minnesota, Tennessee, Ohio, Colorado, are taking the lead in establishing a merit model where performance determines raises.

Once a merit model is established, the cream will rise to the top, and the dregs will be easily identified. The next explosed box is the outdated tenure system. Fire the bottom 10% of the teachers based on performance. Do it again the next year, and the next.

Meanwhile, use the saved money to hire much better teachers at substantially higher salaries. Instead of hiring 10% after the first year, hire only 5% at 50% higher starting salary. Use the 10.7% raises obtained from eliminating the bureaucrats to reward the best teachers on a sliding scale, starting at zero raise for the 11th percentle (those who just escaped losing their jobs) up to say 20% for the 99th percentile.

Continuing this process leads to larger class sizes. So be it. A Wall Street Journal article by Chester Finn points out that over the last 50 years the number of pupils in US schools has increased 50% while the number of teachers has tripled. Talk about a glut! (Thanks to Ralph at From LA to El Dorado for the pointer.) So if we want to attract the best students into the teaching profession offer them starting salaries around $60,000 and pay the best teachers over $100,000, just by increasing class sizes. And don't let the liberals tell you the learning will be inadequate.

Quality learning will be assured through the dual mechanisms of hiring the best teachers and blowing up one more box: student tenure. To remain in good standing in a public school, students will be required to do their work and behave themselves.

It is about time that the public education system joins the hard modern world where good behavior and good performance are rewarded while bad behavior and insufficient effort are never tolerated.

It is the least we can do for our children.