TEACHERS AGAINST REFORM

TEACHERS AGAINST REFORM
Washington Post: The national teachers' unions want to be seen as defenders of public education and advocates of reform. But when you move beyond rhetoric, you find them too often simply defending the status quo, even when that status quo means inferior education for too many children. Last week the National Education Association, with 2.5 million members the bigger of the two major unions, couldn't bring itself to endorse a modest proposal that linked bonus pay to teacher performance. At its national convention in Chicago, the union also went on record opposing the use of extra pay for "hard-to-recruit" positions such as math and science teachers, in short supply nationwide. The teachers' inflexibility damages their own claims to leadership in the reform debate.
Classroom performance: Around the country roughly 20 school districts and states pay bonuses to all teachers in a public school if its test scores rise. In Denver, teachers in 12 elementary schools went even further last year and volunteered for a bonus program based on improving performance in their individual classrooms. Other jurisdictions are exploring peformance-based bonuses, and the NEA's leadership asked union members to endorse a set of standards for bonus compensation programs.
The proposal was a modest one. It called for local unions to be involved in setting objective criteria. It opposed relying on standardized test scores. It emphasized that the system shouldn't diminish the status of teachers who don't receive the additional compensation. But it was too much for the members to swallow. Opponents warned that school districts would use the programs to lower overall salaries, or that teachers competing for bonuses would flee from hard-to-teach students. NEA president Bob Chase said many teachers have had to contend with "a hostile attitude by some legislatures, governors and school boards that want to pay some teachers more than others as a cost-cutting measure." The practical effect of their decision will be that local unions that want to negotiate such plans ... will work without technical support from the national union.
Yes, salaries overall should rise, both to adequately compensate current teachers and to attract badly needed new ones. But in a system of professionals, as teachers want and deserve to be considered, there has to be room to provide incentives and to reward exceptional performance.
THE IRONY OF STARR AIDE'S TROUBLES
Scripps Howard: Washington is a town that loves leaks. It showers in them in the morning, consumes them for breakfast, lunch and dinner and bathes in them at night -- but never mind. When the going got especially tough for President Clinton during the height of the Monica Lewinsky scandal, his lawyers attacked Kenneth Starr's independent counsel operation, insisting it had leaked privileged grand jury information.
Many observers assumed it had -- that's how the place operates, right? -- but Starr, a man of probity, was deeply concerned that a New York Times story had included his view that it was constitutionally permissible to indict a sitting president. He therefore looked into how the story got out and eventually asked his press aide, Charles Bakaly, to resign, referring the matter to the Justice Department.
It turns out that the leak chiefly in question was not illegal. Chief U.S. District Judge Norma Johnson had decided it was, but an appeals court noted that Starr's views on indicting presidents revealed nothing about grand jury proceedings. Bakaly is nevertheless going to stand trial on a charge of criminal contempt of court, it was revealed this week. The issue is not whether he leaked when he should not have leaked, but whether he lied about leaking.
Irony atop irony: If Bakaly did in fact lie to investigators, that was obviously wrong, but irony is piled atop irony here. The president of the United States, in the view of not a few legal experts, committed perjury in testimony before a grand jury. It is scarcely outside the realm of possibility that he and some of his minions obstructed justice. While he was impeached and may be disbarred as an attorney, he remains in office. It's his accusers and those around them that have had the most reason to fear criminal punishment -- first Linda Tripp because of her taping of Lewinsky, and now Bakaly, whose troubles began apparently because he was doing what press aides in Washington do.