That Used to Be Us_ How America Fell Behind in thted and How We Can Come Back - Friedman, Thomas L. & Mandelbaum, Michael [65]
This not only gives all teachers a chance to learn from their best colleagues but also, added Johnston, creates “an incentive for our best teachers to stay in the classroom. Right now, as a teacher, the only way to get substantially more pay is to leave the classroom and become a principal. Now you have another career ladder.”
In China, for instance, there are four levels of proficiency in the teaching profession, and in order to move up a level, teachers have to demonstrate their excellence in front of a panel of reviewers. The highest level is called “Famous Teacher.” It is a hugely prestigious position in China.
Third, tenure in Colorado will be based on performance rather than seniority. That is, tenure, while not eliminated, will have to be earned and re-earned. Rather than being granted permanent tenure on the first day of his or her fourth year, now a teacher will have to earn tenure by producing three consecutive years of being rated an “effective” teacher. That teacher will then have to continue performing effectively to keep that status. If you are rated “ineffective” for two years, you lose your tenure. That does not mean you lose your job; it just means you are on a one-year contract.
That leads to the fourth principle: In Colorado the old law for teachers stipulated that in the event of cutbacks, the last hired were first to be fired, even if that was not in the best interest of the school or the students. Not anymore. “Now,” explains Johnston, “the law says that whenever principals have to make reductions in force, the first criterion is ‘teacher effectiveness.’ You have to keep your most effective teachers. And only in the event of a tie does seniority kick in. An effective second-year teacher trumps an ineffective twentieth-year teacher.”
The fifth principle gives principals the power to hire their own teachers. That is, the school district cannot take ineffective teachers, whom no school wants to hire, and force them on a school. Teachers who are not hired by any school on their merits after one year get released.
How in the world did they get this bill passed, given all the oxen it gored? “We made the case to all the groups involved as to why this was really in their interest,” said Johnston. He and his political allies showed the NAACP how school systems were dumping their worst teachers in predominantly black and Hispanic schools. They showed business leaders and the chamber of commerce how subpar students were leading to subpar employees. They went to the two big teachers’ unions in Colorado, said Johnston, “and we said, ‘You all know that you have some great colleagues and colleagues that you have been carrying for years. There is no reason to do that anymore.’”
The key breakthrough for Johnston, though, was getting the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), led by Randi Weingarten, to support the legislation. Weingarten staked out a gutsy position. The National Education Association, the other big teachers’ union, opposed the law, although a number of NEA union representatives in Colorado broke ranks and testified for the bill.
Weingarten, the president of the 1.5 million–member AFT, explained to us why her union supported the Colorado reform. For her and her union members, she said, the key question was how teachers get evaluated. They understood that the old system of granting automatic tenure was not sustainable. But some of the new systems—in which, for example, a teacher has five unannounced evaluations of thirty minutes each by a master teacher or principal, and virtually their entire evaluation is based on those brief visits and the students’ standardized test scores—are too limited, she argued.
“We need evaluation systems based on multiple measures of both teacher practice and what students are learning,” said