Pay teachers more, demand results

This is an important and worthy initiative -- a grand, bipartisan bargain:

With student performance still dismal 23 years after a federal report proclaimed "a nation at risk," it's just possible that a decisive, bipartisan "grand bargain" can be struck to improve the public schools.

The deal would be: Republicans agree to more equitable distribution of school funding -- including higher teacher pay -- while Democrats agree that teachers should be paid for performance, not just seniority.

Two national initiatives give rise to hope that that the decades-long right-left battle over education, accountability versus money, can be broken at last and the public schools improved.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has launched a project along with the conservative American Enterprise Institute, the liberal Center for American Progress and the moderate America's Promise that will start by publishing report cards on each state's progress on school reform.

Good for Klein!

A star figure at the second annual Aspen Institute Ideas Festival -- attended by several hundred, mainly liberal intellectual and financial glitterati -- was Joel Klein, the former Clinton aide who is now chancellor of New York City public schools.

Klein made a riveting case that teachers-union contracts are the main obstacle to improving urban education.

"The contract protects the interests of adults at the expense of kids," he told a rapt audience, describing how it bars pay differentials based on student performance and service in difficult schools; makes it impossible for principals to fire underperforming teachers; and allows teachers to choose their own professional development tracks, regardless of supply-and-demand needs, such as those for more math and science teachers.

And Wendy is, of course, absolutely right:

At Aspen, Wendy Kopp, founder of the nationally celebrated Teach for America volunteer program, said teacher quality and school leadership are far more important than money in determining student success.

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Pay teachers more, demand results

Morton Kondracke, Detroit News

http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2006607180301

With student performance still dismal 23 years after a federal report proclaimed "a nation at risk," it's just possible that a decisive, bipartisan "grand bargain" can be struck to improve the public schools.

The deal would be: Republicans agree to more equitable distribution of school funding -- including higher teacher pay -- while Democrats agree that teachers should be paid for performance, not just seniority.

Two national initiatives give rise to hope that that the decades-long right-left battle over education, accountability versus money, can be broken at last and the public schools improved...