Former Seattle Mayor Norm Rice weighed in this morning on education reform and he nails it! Read his piece in The Seattle Times. Thank you for standing up for our children, Mayor Rice.
The potential benefits of education reform—including linking student performance to teacher evaluations and compensation—far outweigh maintaining the status quo. The Seattle proposal for teacher evaluations includes safeguards that the teachers' union itself proposed—a 4-level rating system and multiple evaluators (not just principals as is the case today). Those parts of the proposal that link student performance to teacher compensation will only apply to new teachers; current teachers can voluntarily choose to be part of the new system or stay with the current method. (Here is a independent, side-by-side comparison of the proposed contract from the school district and the teachers' union response.)
Education reform is more than teacher evaluations and compensation. What's needed is a thorough reexamination of how we deliver public education and hold those responsible—administrators, principals, teachers, support staff—for the results. No one suggests this is
easy work; it will be difficult and take time. I know we all want the same result—better public education for our children that gets them to a successful high school graduation prepared for college and the career of their choice.
We also face serious challenges with children who are not prepared to learn at an early age. Many of our city's kids enter kindergarten woefully behind their peers in their ability to process information, follow directions, pay attention to simple tasks, and play respectfully with others. By third grade if a child is not reading at grade level, we know what their education future holds—a likely failure to graduate from high school.
Remember, about one-third of Seattle's public school kids will not graduate from high school. Of those who do graduate, only about a quarter to one-third will be prepared for college level work. Very soon in Washington State, two-thirds of all jobs will require a college level degree. Every year that goes by without serious reform to address these failures means thousands of our children enter adulthood with one arm tied behind their back. They face a very, very steep climb to a productive and independent life.
As a City Council member, I see the impact of these statistics—an employment pool that is inadequate and means our state will continue as a net importer of job seekers, continued high demand on very limited social services, a weakening of our democracy which relies on an informed and educated public, and crime and social disorder. Want proof of the public safety impact? Visit the King County Jail and you'll learn that approximately two-thirds of the inmates never graduated from high school.
There are many factors at play here, for certain. Poverty, broken families, inadequate parenting, low expectations, breakdowns in community norms and social institutions, to name a few. But we dare not allow these factors to become excuses for inaction.
I've written previously on this topic here.