A vast improvement on what we have now

California K-12 education reform: the state vs. the union

As you know, President Obama hopes to improve education in this country, and so he’s dangling huge chunks of money for states to spend—but only if they go along with his favored reforms, including the pursuit of charter schools and teacher evaluation using student test scores.

Owing especially to that last thing, California won’t be eligible for Obama dollars, unless the state's laws change.

As the NYT reported yesterday (Dangling Money, Obama Pushes Education Shift), California’s legislators are scrambling to do what is necessary to knock loose some of those dangling dollars, but that means rewriting a law “that prohibits the use of student scores in teacher evaluations….”

Naturally, that law “had strong backing from the state teachers union.” The union is really down on using student test scores to evaluate teachers.

The Times describes Obama’s new rules (for fed money) as follows:

The proposed rules … [that likely will be adopted after 8/28] require states to show they are fostering innovation, improving achievement, raising standards, recruiting effective teachers, turning around failed schools and building data systems.

But the major teachers unions have long opposed “using test scores in evaluations, saying misuse of ambiguous data could lead to unfair dismissals.”

It seems to me that we should work hard then to overcome ambiguity and unfairness, not refuse to consult test scores. The notion that there can be no fair procedures for teacher evaluations that use test scores strikes me as absurd on its face.

The Times quotes Education Secretary Arne Duncan:

“In California, they have 300,000 teachers” he said. The top 10 percent are the “best in the world,” he said, the bottom 10 percent, “should probably find another profession, yet no one in California can tell you which teacher is in which category.” ¶ Something is wrong with that picture,” he said.

Yep. (See also Obama chides California for not using test scores to evaluate teachers)

A health care debate primer

I recommend reading economist Paul Krugman’s primer on the health care debate in yesterday’s New York Times (The Swiss Menace). Krugman briefly describes three approaches to providing universal health care now used in the “advanced world”:

1. “In Britain, the government itself runs the hospitals and employs the doctors”

2. “The second route to universal coverage leaves the actual delivery of health care in private hands, but the government pays most of the bills.” (Canada, France)

3. “…[T]he third route to universal coverage relies on private insurance companies, using a combination of regulation and subsidies to ensure that everyone is covered.” (Switzerland)

Krugman briefly identifies myths surrounding each of these approaches.

Obama’s proposal, says Krugman, essentially is “a plan to Swissify America, using regulation and subsidies to ensure universal coverage.”

That’s not Krugman’s favored approach, but, he says, “a Swiss-style system of universal coverage would be a vast improvement on what we have now.”