New Democrat Update

IMPROVING STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT

The Denver Public Schools and its teachers union, the Denver Classroom Teachers Association, have offered a revolutionary proposal, that if approved by rank-and-file teachers, would make DPS the only large urban school district in the country to directly link individual teacher compensation to student achievement. Suburban and rural districts in Colorado and the rest of the nation should take note.

Under the Denver proposal, teachers could earn up to $90,000 early in their careers if willing to work in struggling schools and demonstrate consistent improvements in student achievement. That upside potential looks a lot better than the current maximum salary of $65,000 (which requires a doctorate and working on the job for 25 years).

The reforms recognize teacher pay has significantly lagged behind the compensation offered other highly skilled professionals. The status quo treats outstanding educators quite poorly.

At the same time, simply raising teacher pay across the board will not do the trick. Performance-based compensation is not an alternative to raising teacher salaries overall - it is something that should be encouraged whatever the general level of teacher salaries.

The plan will help DPS compete for the best teaching "material" in the marketplace at a time when teacher shortages in some disciplines are creating a crisis severely affecting our most vulnerable students. Just as important, there is evidence that performance-based pay especially attracts talented young teachers, who prefer flexibility and an opportunity to excel.

The quality of teachers is the single most important in-school factor in determining how much students learn, dwarfing, among other components, class size. A school's ability to attract quality teachers is the most important ingredient determining its ability to educate its students.

In a groundbreaking study of second to fifth grade students in Tennessee between 1991 and 1995, researcher William Sanders found that a child who winds up in the bottom one-third after a year with a poor teacher, would have finished in the top one-third if they had had an excellent teacher for that year. Improvement is even more pronounced over time.

Accountability is meaningless without the resources that make it possible to achieve the desired results. Voters are more than happy to pay teachers more if the emphasis is on performance, rather than a one-size-fits-all pay schedule that only considers seniority and education degrees (which research does not link to better student outcomes) and disregards the differing difficulty of teaching assignments. Political support also increases when the public sees serious reforms succeed in the toughest and neediest schools, the very places least likely to get highly qualified teachers.

Denver’s proposed pay structure is also very fair to teachers. It focuses on how much value a teacher adds to what students bring with them. An educator with students that initially have low scores and then raises them up to average will be rewarded more than one that starts with high-scoring students and merely keeps them at the same level. That will encourage the best teachers to work at the neediest schools because that is where the greatest opportunity for improvement in achievement exists.

In addition, it emphasizes objective criteria for increased compensation - improvements in student test scores. That avoids the problems educators have had with the “merit pay” proposals of the past - subjective evaluations through “peer review” and administrator decisions.

For those concerned with “teaching to the tests,” they should be indicting the test, not performance-based compensation. If the right measurement tools are being utilized, "teaching to the tests" makes a lot of sense.

The experience with performance-based compensation just south of Denver has been very good. In Douglas County for the last ten years, teachers have earned thousands of dollars in bonuses for demonstrating mastery of particular areas and annual raises - but only when rated “proficient” in all areas. The district’s students score better than average on statewide skills tests.

Initial support for the plan is very impressive. For example, both Elaine Gantz Berman, president of the DPS Board of Education, and Becky Wissink, president of the district’s teachers union, have praised the plan publicly.

In addition, the proposal smartly gives incumbent teachers the option to stay status quo or move into the new system (all newly-hired teachers will be required to operate in the new system). In England, where Prime Minster Tony Blair offered teachers a similar deal, 80 percent chose performance-based compensation.

Everyone knows that teaching is a difficult job and many teachers are sorely underpaid for the long hours and their hard work. This plan provides teaching, just like other professions, with opportunities for truly professional career paths and exceptional pay in return for demonstrated excellence.

Denver’s teachers should agree.

DEMOCRATS ON NATIONAL SECURITY

Democrats must always remember that the first responsibility of any government is to protect its citizens from harm, which today, in large part, means winning the war on terrorism. Ordinary Americans are feeling more worried about a potential foreign attack since the Cuban missile crisis of the early 1960s. Democrats must revive their historical and successful tradition of muscular internationalism - a core set of convictions that defends American values and interests with force when necessary.

As Ronald D. Asmus and Jeremy D. Rosner point out in the March/April 2003 issue of Blueprint, Democrats should not be intimidated about the GOP’s so-called strength on national security issues. As acknowledged by none other than Newt Gingrich, the need for unilateral force against Iraq was a huge diplomatic failure - and clearly troubled the American people. The administration’s speed in turning the world’s good feelings toward the U.S. after 9/11 into such intense anti-Americanism in less than two years must have set some kind of record.

However, it is not enough to merely harp on Bush’s failures without offering clear, compelling and better alternatives. For example, Democrats should favor redoubling efforts to get bin Laden, pressing the Saudis to stop spreading hatred and financing terrorism, strengthening our homeland defenses with more firefighters, police officers and other first responders and getting serious about achieving true energy independence.

We must also ask the American people to play their part in this new and different kind of war. Rather than telling folks to go out and shop, we should challenge them, as President John Kennedy did, to “ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.”

Finally, our party should take the lead on new initiatives that will rebuild NATO and develop new international alliances. Our focus should become one of “political preemption” - promoting democracy and free markets all over the world. That initiative will attract allies, rather than antagonize them.

Will Marshall President of the DLC’s think tank, the Progressive Policy Institute, summed it up nicely in a recent Washington Post op-ed. British Prime Minster Tony Blair and New Democrats here at home “see no contradiction between national strength and international cooperation, between the willingness to use America's power for liberal ends and the recognition that working through global alliances and institutions makes us stronger, not weaker.” That approach would make the American people feel a lot safer.

Such a view sharply contrasts with much of the left’s reflexive “No, Never ” to the use of force. That automatic answer will never make sense to the American people.