After a year of negotiations and three weeks of sometimes-brutal internal debate, Newark public school teachers and other staff ratified a historic labor agreement yesterday that will reshape pay and many rules for New Jersey’s largest school district.

Nearly 2,900 members of the Newark Teachers Union voted in the day-long balloting at the NTU’s downtown offices, a nearly unprecedented turnout, and the vote was closer than many expected. The final tally was 1,767 in favor to 1,088 against, or roughly 62 percent to 38 percent.

Union leaders who had backed the deal appeared as much relieved as celebratory when the numbers were announced, citing both the accomplishment of the pact but also the sizable numbers not on board.

Joseph Del Grosso, the NTU’s longtime president, said the agreement is only the first step in developing a workable system to fulfill it. That includes new teacher and staff evaluations and a program for performance bonuses to the most exemplary members, the controversial centerpiece of the deal.

“It’s a great vote, but it’s going to take a lot of work to put this together, that’s the tough part,” Del Grosso said.

Looking tired from a long day in which voting started at 6:30 a.m., Del Grosso said he didn’t entirely blame a third of his voting membership for casting “no” votes.

“It’s a difficult contract; it’s a leap of faith, it really is,” he said. “They took the leap, which I am grateful for. But we now have to show the members how it will work.”

Job Well Done

The plaudits came in from elsewhere, including Newark Superintendent Cami Anderson, who had staked much of her own standing on final passage of the deal.

“Congratulations to the teachers, parent coordinators, teacher’s aides, child study teams, and paraprofessionals who will benefit from the success of this contract, and especially to the students and families of Newark,” she said in a statement released by her office.

“As a lifelong educator, I am thrilled for our teachers here in Newark and for the teaching profession as a whole,” she said.

Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, the national union for the NTU, issued her own press release within minutes of the final vote. Weingarten, one of the country’s preeminent labor leaders, had participated in the final negotiations.

“This contract demonstrates the willingness of Newark’s teachers and the school district to find innovative ways to ensure that quality and experience are recognized and rewarded, making it a full, professional compensation system,” Weingarten said.

“When you put all this together, you come out with a unique, innovative plan that will help boost teaching and learning and will strengthen the teaching profession,” her statement said. “Newark can now be added to the growing list of districts nationwide that are using collective bargaining as vehicles for education reform.”

Beyond Bonuses

The five-year contract has a number of highlights beyond just the performance bonuses, which would bestow an extra $5,000 to those gaining the highest evaluation ratings. They would gain an additional $5,000 on top of that if they work in a low-performing school, and another $2,500 for working in a high-need field like science and math.

In addition, it includes an average pay raise of close to 13 percent over the next three years, one of the higher increases in the state. At the same time, the union would gain a say in those evaluations, with teachers part of the actual evaluation teams, and checks and balances for monitoring the results and providing a process for appeals.

But the membership’s misgivings were evident in interviews with nearly a dozen teachers and other staff as they left the union hall after voting in the late afternoon, many with their children in tow.

Most of those willing to talk said they voted in favor of the deal, but some with concerns over a number of uncertainties still to be resolved with the development of the evaluation system and the peer-review process.

And most concurred it was likely the best deal they were going to get in the state-run district with Gov. Chris Christie at the helm.

“It really was a no-win for us,” said a kindergarten teacher with 20 years in the district who asked not to be identified. “We either turn it down and start over with a governor who won’t hear anything else from us. Or we vote ‘yes,’ and we take whatever they give us.”

“At least we now have something on the table, like it or not,” she said.

Others weren’t so hesitant in their support, including Rosemary Taylor, a psychologist at the McKinley Elementary School and 25-year veteran of the district. She said the performance pay was worth attempting, noting that the extra money could prove a powerful incentive.

“I think it is something that should be tried,” she said. “I think people are worried about who will be judging them, will they be judged fairly. I just trust enough to say let’s try it. Nothing is set in cement.”

And still others said after two years without a contract or any raises, it was time to get what they could. Teachers with advanced degrees could opt to remain on a standard salary track that would not have the performance pay, with 30 days to decide.

“We have been without a contract for so long,” said Leonie Cammock, a fourth grade teacher at the Hawthorne Avenue Elementary School. “For those like us who went back to school and have student loans to pay, we have an added burden and what we have can stretch so far.”

Selling Out

A dissident faction of the NTU had emerged out of the protracted negotiations, openly challenging Del Grosso and the union’s leadership for what they said was selling out their members. Called the Newark Education Workers Caucus, the group has become an ever-vocal presence in public meetings, contending that the deal will only split the union at a time when Anderson is closing and consolidating schools.

Several of its leaders were on hand for much of the balloting yesterday, acting as unofficial poll watchers.

“If we had a multimillion national organization behind us [the national AFT], we would have had a much better outcome,” said Brandon Rippey, a history and sociology teacher at Science Park High School. “They spent a lot of money to convince their members.”

“But the members are scared, fearful, ambivalent,” he said. “I think ambivalent is the best word. They had no confidence in the leadership to do anything better. This is the best we could get.”

Two of the winners are incumbents, including June Atkinson in North Carolina, and Randy Dorn who ran unopposed in Washington. Although the superintendent race in Montana is still too close to call, current Superintendent Denise Juneau holds the lead.

North Dakota‘s new choice for State Superintendent, Kristen Baesler, does not appear to be a leader that will push for reforms that will lift the state from its near last rating on the Parent Power Index.

Education reform took a hit with Indiana electing Glenda Ritz as Superintendent of Public Instruction, ousting current Superintendent and reform-champion Tony Bennett. While newly elected governor Mike Pence holds the same pro-reform mindset as outgoing governor Mitch Daniels, there is no doubt many will be watching Indiana to see if the Hoosier State will continue to live up to its reputation as the “reformiest” state given the difference of opinions between the governor and superintendent.

North Carolina was the only state to elect a reform-minded governor after the last governor was decidedly against changing the status quo. In Indiana, governor-elect Mike Pence will hopefully continue on the path started by governor Mitch Daniels, who signed an expansive voucher program into law and improved charter school legislation.

Six of the eleven states holding elections this year voted to keep their current governor in office: Jack Markell in Delaware, Jay Nixon in Missouri, Jack Dalrymple in North Dakota, Gary Herbert in Utah, Peter Shumlin in Vermont, and Earl Ray Tomblin in West Virginia. Only two of these reelected governors are reform-minded according to CER’s criteria.

Incumbents were not up for reelection in New Hampshire or Washington, but New Hampshire elected a governor with the same negative attitude towards education reform as the previous governor. Results in Washington are still pending, but candidate Jay Inslee, who is not a proponent of reform just like outgoing governor Christine Gregoire, holds the lead as of now.

For a list of governors in every state and where each stands on the three key education reform issues go to http://www.edreform.com/education-50/governor-grades/.

Georgia’s students scored big on Tuesday with a 58% to 42% victory for Amendment One. The Peach State’s ballot initiative on charter schools allows local communities to create more of these important options by amending the state’s constitution to allow other state and local agencies, in addition to local school boards, approve charter schools.

Washington state’s ballot initiative on charter schools is still looking favorable for reformers with a slight lead of 51% for passage. While still not declared a victory, it looks like Initiative 1240 will open up new educational opportunities for families with the creation of 40 new charter schools over the next 5 years. A modest proposal, but it would make Washington the 42nd state to adopt a charter school law and finally bring them into the 21st century of education delivery.

Idaho’s ballot left the fate of three laws, known as the Students Come First laws, up to voters. Unfortunately, the $1.2 million in NEA funding to squash these measures paid off. Voters turned down that reforms that would have paid teachers based on performance, phased out tenure, limited collective-bargaining, and expanded online learning opportunities.

The Indiana Department of Education (IDOE) has partnered with two school corporations — Randolph Central and Milan Community Schools — to explore ways to deliver on the new state-mandated teacher evaluations.

“The old system dictated that teacher pay was based on experience and degrees,” Randolph Central Superintendent Gregory Hinshaw said. “Under this new legislation, that will be restricted to no more than 33 percent of an increase.”

The majority will be based on performance. The idea behind the new system is to create a way for the highest performing teachers to be rewarded, Hinshaw said. Read More…

David Wright, a high school technology teacher in Middletown,Delaware (STODE1), has never taught reading or math. Even so, the state planned to judge his job performance partly on student test scores in those subjects.

That was until last month, when state officials said they would throw out a provision in a new system linking teacher performance to student achievement that assessed educators such as Wright on schoolwide performance in subjects they don’t teach.

“Judge me, fine, just let’s make sure it’s on things that I can control,” Wright, 34, and president of the local chapter of the state union, said in a phone interview. “In the rush to get it done as quickly as possible, they lost some of the logic.”

Delaware is in the vanguard of states developing new systems to evaluate teachers, according to Sandi Jacobs, vice president of theNational Council on Teacher Quality, a nonprofit research and policy group in Washington. Delaware’s struggle may foreshadow complications that New York and other states face as they follow suit. Along with questions about fairness, states are encountering delays because of the complexity of tracking data, conflicts with teachers unions and concern from researchers that the entire effort could be misguided.

President Barack Obama’s administration has made tying teacher evaluation to student performance a centerpiece of its education agenda. Changing evaluations was a requirement for winning grants in the Education Department’s $5 billion Race to the Top program, of which Delaware was an early recipient.

Changing the Metrics

The evaluations also figure prominently in a proposed $5 billion grant program, part of the administration’s fiscal 2013 budget, designed to revamp teacher pay and tenure plans.

States are developing data systems to show how much individual teachers contribute to student achievement. The aim: measuring pupils’ improvement during their time in class, taking into account their skills when they enter. Districts would then combine these measures with more subjective evaluations, such as observation by principals. It’s a shift from gauging teacher quality by the number of years on the job or advanced degrees.

Tying teacher evaluations to student test scores is vital to determine how educators enhance achievement, said Jeanne Allen, president of the Washington-based Center for Education Reform, which supports charter schools and diminished union power.

‘Hire and Fire’

“Until we get to the point that school leadership can hire and fire, and they themselves can be hired and fired based on the value they add to a child’s life, we’re not making progress on improving education,” Allen said by telephone. “Evaluation is the first step, and performance pay is the second.”

Student test scores are one of many components that schools should use to assess educators, Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates wrote today in a New York Times op-ed calling the impending public release of ratings based on student test scores for more than 12,000 New York City teachers “a big mistake.” His charity, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, has spent millions on programs aimed at evaluating teacher performance.

“Putting sophisticated personnel systems in place is going to take a serious commitment,” he wrote. “Those who believe we can do it on the cheap — by doing things like making individual teachers’ performance reports public — are underestimating the level of resources needed to spur real improvement.”

Sea Change

Twenty-three states and the District of Columbia require that objective measures of student achievement, such as student test scores, be included in the evaluation of teachers, according to an October report from the teacher-quality council.

“We’re seeing a real sea change,” Jacobs, the council’s vice president, said in a phone interview. “Two or three years ago, almost no place was using any objective evidence of student performance.”

Pam Nichols, director of communications at the Delaware State Education Association, the state’s only teachers union, with 12,000 members, said officials shouldn’t rush to implement evaluation systems.

“It’s not about getting it done,” Nichols said by telephone from Dover. “It’s about getting it done right, or it’s a waste of money and you’re not really seeing if a teacher is effectively doing what he or she was hired to do.”

Establishing Guidelines

State officials and hundreds of teachers in Delaware, the sixth least-populous state, are working to establish guidelines that will measure student performance on subjects that aren’t tested using the Delaware Comprehensive Assessment System, the standard state exam for grades 3 through 10. According to Race to the Top, they must have the guidelines in place by the start of the 2012-2013 school year, said Diane Donohue, special assistant for educator effectiveness at the state education department.

In contrast with states such as New York and New Jersey, where government and union representatives have sparred, collaboration between the two has been essential, Donohue said.

“It’s hard enough when you are collaborating, let alone if there’s no collaboration,” said Donohue, who was previously president of the union. “You have to have the perspective of all the stakeholders in order for it to work, and you definitely need the perspective of the educators.”

Under Fire

The wisdom of using improvement on student-achievement tests to assess teachers has come under fire from some academics. Too little is known about their accuracy as a teacher-evaluation tool, according to a 2009 report by the National Research Council, a unit of theNational Academy of Sciences.

The student-achievement tests weren’t designed for measuring teachers and may not be sensitive enough for the task, said Diane Rentner, interim director of the Center on Education Policy, a Washington-based research group. “I have a concern that the assessments aren’t quite there to do this on a completely fair basis,” she said in an interview.

No high-performing nation in the world evaluates teachers by student test scores, according toDiane Ravitch, an education historian and former assistant U.S. education secretary under President George H.W. Bush.

“This is madness,” Ravitch wrote Feb. 21 on the New York Review of Books website. “Will we ever break free of our national addiction to data? Will we ever stop to wonder if the data mean anything important? Will education survive school reform?”

New York Agreement

Last week, New York officials announced an agreement with the state’s largest teachers union to save $700 million in federal funding, after U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan warned it would have to return the money if its Race to the Top promise to implement evaluations went unfulfilled. Assessments in local districts will be based 60 percent on classroom observations by administrators, and peer and parent feedback. Forty percent will be split between students’ performance on state tests and locally developed ones.

The National Council on Teacher Quality gives grades to states based on their policies on recruiting, preparing and evaluating teachers. Florida ranks highest, with a ‘B’, because of the variety of its efforts to change teacher policies, such as those regarding tenure.

California got a ‘D-plus’, with the organization saying it hadn’t made progress in changing teacher policies since 2009, such as identifying effective instructors. The state is “encouraging the development of more effective educator evaluation systems,” according to a statement last month from the office of state Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson. The department declined to comment further, said Pam Slater, a spokeswoman.

Nineteen states, including New York, received a ‘C.’ Montana – which had no state policy regarding teacher effectiveness — came in last, with an F. The state is working on an evaluation system now, said Allyson Hagen, a spokeswoman for the Office of Public Instruction.

To contact the reporters on this story: Esmé E. Deprez in New York atedeprez@bloomberg.net; John Hechinger in Boston at jhechinger@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: William Glasgall at wglasgall@bloomberg.net

1.) The federal government should issue guidance to states barring anti-reform school districts from receiving any “Race to the Top” funds. 
”In some school districts, it doesn’t matter whether federal and state law encourages reforms such as performance pay, because teacher collective bargaining agreements in those districts forbid reform. This little-known secret could throw a wrench in ‘Race to the Top’ funding, rendering the ‘Race’ meaningless as a reform catalyst. States should not be permitted to funnel a single dime of ‘Race to the Top’ funds to Districts that have collective bargaining agreements prohibiting, for example, the use of student performance in evaluating teachers. To send money to these districts would be to condone the ‘adults first, kids second’ mentality that has decimated learning in far too many schools.”

2.) The federal government should reward states that provide multiple pathways to teacher licensure. 
”Tying ‘Race to the Top’ funds to a dynamic, highly-talented, and evolving teacher force can yield positive changes for students. The federal government should reward states that utilize all good teacher certification options available – including true alternative certification programs that require high levels of teacher content knowledge. Studies show that well-designed alternative certification programs produce teachers who boost student achievement at faster rates. States that refuse to accept new pathways to certification are denying students access to great teachers.”

3.) The federal government should reward states that develop genuine, data-driven pay-for-performance systems. 
”States that develop and use comprehensive data collection systems to reward teachers who best improve student achievement – whether through statewide models or pilot programs – should get priority for ‘Race to the Top’ funding. While many bureaucrats claim that linking student and teacher data is impossible, the modern workforce in almost every other industry teaches us otherwise. Accordingly, the federal government should demand that states use data-driven models – not half-measures like teacher portfolios – to reward effective teachers.”

4.) The federal government should reward states that encourage Districts to adopt alternative tenure models. 
”Alternative tenure models – such as the ones championed by D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee – have the potential to revolutionize teaching. Under Rhee’s plan, teachers who are willing to defer tenure will receive major financial benefits. Delaying tenure for a modest amount of time can prevent situations like New York City’s notorious “Rubber Rooms,” where thousands of bad teachers are prohibited from teaching but remain on the district’s payroll, costing taxpayers millions of dollars every year. The federal government can use ‘Race to the Top’ to make it easier to terminate teachers who aren’t doing any good for our children.”

5.) The federal government should reward states that protect teacher paychecks. 
”So-called ‘paycheck protection’ is a hot-button issue, but we must revisit it. Teacher’s unions complain – and often rightfully so – about the low pay afforded to first year teachers. But these unions, with their high dues structure and expensive political work, contribute to lower take home pay. Consider California, where some teachers pay in excess of $1,100 in union dues and first year teachers make $39,000. Reducing deducted dues could yield immediate money for cash-strapped educators.”

For more information, see also 
CER Press Release: Jeanne Allen: Federal Race to the Top Funds for State Teacher
Quality Efforts Need Strings Attached, October 8, 2009.

The first real Odd Couples of education led some of the nation’s most fundamental shifts in education, shifts that had once been considered radical.  Looking back through the past sixteen years, it’s clear that while education reform has changed dramatically, broad, mainstream support for bold changes in education existed then, just as they do now.  It was just much less hip to say so.

Then, policymakers who led the fight for charter schools, merit pay (as it was called in those days), vouchers and the like were accused of being part of the vast right wing conspiracy and generally anti-public education, despite the fact that such nomenclature didn’t fit then, just as it does not now. CER’s first work celebrated legislators like Pennsylvania Democrat Dwight Evans, who joined hands with Republican Tom Ridge to pass that state’s charter bill.  Miami Urban League head T. Willard Fair teamed up with Governor Jeb Bush to bring vouchers to Florida, following in the steps of Representative Polly Williams, a former Black Panther, in league with conservative Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson.

These were the first, real Odd Couples of the modern education reform movement.  They were bold, tenacious, and courageous to cross party lines, incur the wrath of unions together and suffer all sorts of education establishment slurs.

Back then, school reformers were on a roll, enacting 22 of the 24 strongest charter laws in the country in just six years between 1992 and 1998. This was after numerous governors’ summits and pre-NCLB.  Only one more strong law would get enacted subsequently and several very mediocre charter laws have dotted the landscape since, with attempts to strengthen them marginal at best and modest by comparison, thinking small strides are better than big ones.

Turns out that’s not the case with anything we need to do to fix schools. So, on the eve of newest Odd Couple’s road show aiming to pick up where the old one’s left off, it’s time to do some honest recapping of history, in the hopes that what was good gets copied, and that lessons in futility do not.

With the theme of making education more competitive in the future, and a plea to put “aside partisanship and ideology,” Newt Gingrich and Al Sharpton will flank Secretary Duncan at the first of several city tours.  Will they allow a real discussion of that city’s charter schools, the vast majority of which data show are succeeding beyond conventional public school achievement?

Wanna talk about closing the gap even more? How about doing something about that city’s union and performance pay?  Think bad schools should be closed? Why not consider giving the poorest children the same access to higher performing private schools that previous odd couples endorsed?

But I’m not hopeful.  Not only did Sharpton bring a phalanx of speakers to the May Education Equality Day rally that called charters divisive and argued for more money as the answer to our education woes, he also tried his best to keep former DC City Councilman Kevin Chavous off the dais because of his crusade for choice programs like the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program.  Chavous and President George Bush were yet another odd couple who got the unthinkable done by being courageous and bold.

Gingrich, on the other hand, has never minced words about his distaste for the teachers unions and understands that money is not the answer.  Education Secretary Arne Duncan is somewhere in the middle, probably leaning a bit towards Gingrich if one had to draw a solid line.

So, while they may think they are doing the public a service by bringing Sharpton around with them, they may actually be giving Sharpton cover to look and sound like a reformer, when he’s anything but.  A serious education reform forum would also have far more reformers on the program, not just administrators who pay lip service. Indeed, one highly successful charter leader was almost nixed for potentially being disruptive. That must be what you call a school where student achievement among poor students of color mirrors that of the wealthy suburbs.

We hope the cast tomorrow – and at subsequent Duncan road shows – have not been carefully chosen to avoid “disruption.”  I wonder how any conversation about an industry that leaves 30% of our kids every year without a high school diploma could or should be harmonious.

Meanwhile, here’s to Odd Couples that truly dare to challenge the status quo – and remain productively employed and engaged despite it.