[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 156 (Tuesday, October 18, 2011)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6654-S6656]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
EDUCATION REFORM
Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I am delighted the Senator from
Colorado is in the chair when I speak. I want to speak on a subject
where he is the foremost expert on the day-to-day operation of school
systems. He will appreciate and understand what I am about to say in
ways that many people will not.
Yesterday I had a telephone conversation with a member of an
editorial board of a prominent newspaper in this country who asked me
this question. She said: Senator Alexander, how can you and the
National Education Association possibly be together on the teacher
evaluation question? How can you justify that? Then she said: When has
the NEA ever done anything to encourage the evaluation of school
teachers? That is a good question. Both questions are good questions.
What she was referring to, of course, was the draft announced yesterday
by Senator Harkin and Senator Enzi, who are the ranking members of the
Senate committee that handles education.
It included a provision on evaluation of teachers and principals. At
my suggestion, and that of others, but contrary to the suggestion of a
number of people, it does not include an order from Washington that all
15,000 school districts have a teacher and principal evaluation system.
It does not include a definition of what it should be, and it doesn't
include the opportunity for the Education Secretary, whoever it may be,
to then issue a number of regulations defining what a teacher and
principal evaluation system would be in Denver or in Maryville or in
Nashville. What it does include is the following: For the first time it
specifically allows a State to spend its title II money that is the
$2.5 billion of Federal funds that goes to States. It allows that money
to be spent to design and implement a principal-teacher evaluation
system that is related to student achievement.
In my view, that is the holy grail of public education. If we could
ever figure out how to do that and to get everybody to do it, I think
it would do more than any other single thing we could do to help our
children learn what they need to know and be able to do, except some
law that would make everybody better parents, and I don't know how to
pass such a law. So that is the first thing the Harkin-Enzi draft
includes about teacher and principal evaluation.
In Tennessee, for example, that would mean there would be about $41
million this year that could be spent for that purpose. There are about
63,000 teachers in Tennessee, so that is about $660 per teacher per
year of Federal funds that could be used to design and implement a
teacher and principal evaluation system related to student achievement.
This is the first time that has been specifically allowed.
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Secondly, there is something in the draft legislation called the
Teacher Incentive Fund. Many school superintendents, such as the
distinguished Senator from Colorado, know that program very well. We
know in Tennessee because of the work in Memphis. Basically it is a
grant that was included as a result of language in No Child Left
Behind. Secretary Spellings then beefed up the program, got the money
appropriated, and it recognizes the difficulty of figuring out how to
reward and evaluate teachers in a fair way, especially if you are going
to base compensation on that. It says, if you want to do it, we will
give you some money to help you try to do it. So you can do it one way
in Knoxville, another way in Denver, another way in Los Angeles.
Hopefully what will happen over time is we will find lots of fair ways
to reward outstanding teaching and determine outstanding teaching, and
smaller school districts and other school districts can borrow ideas
from one another. That has been a big success. Secretary Duncan
supports it. It has support all the way around. President Obama has
supported it.
The third thing that is available for helping develop teacher
evaluation systems is a program called Race To The Top. There is $700
million in Federal money for fiscal year 2011. That is a lot of money.
States had to compete based upon, among other things, their ability to
develop teacher and principal evaluation systems. I can brag about this
because I had nothing to do with it, at least recently. My State of
Tennessee won that competition. It won $500 million, which has been
spent to develop and implement an evaluation program for all the
teachers in Tennessee.
Then there is another item in this draft which fits in here. I would
call it the Secretary's report card. All previous Education
Secretaries--and I am one of them--have tried to use the bully pulpit.
So have Presidents. When I was Governor of Tennessee and we were
working on a master teacher program, President Reagan came to Tennessee
to say it was a good idea. That was very helpful to me at that time. He
didn't say this is how you should do it. He said, I recognize what you
are doing and I applaud it and encourage it.
Bill Bennett, when he was the Secretary of Education for President
Reagan, went to Chicago and said they had the worst schools in the
country. That made a lot of news.
But when a Secretary uses that bully pulpit, he can make a
difference. We have a very good Education Secretary right now, Arne
Duncan. What he now has at his disposal no one else has had before. He
has 8 or 9 years of reporting requirements of schools all across the
country, and there are about 100,000 public schools for which he has
this information. He can go around the country and say: This is good.
This is bad. I will put the spotlight here. I will brag on this. Let's
do more of this. He can do that in a way that nobody ever could before.
So this is what is in the draft we are talking about that would for
the first time get the Federal Government significantly involved in
creating an environment for teacher-principal evaluations related to
student achievement. One is $2.5 billion of Federal dollars in title
II. All of it can be used for this purpose if States want to. No. 2,
there is the Teachers Incentive Fund. That was $399 million this year.
Race to the Top was nearly $700 million. Then there is the Secretary's
Report Card.
I responded to my editor, who called me, and said: Look, I know
something about this. In 1983 and 1984, when I was Governor of
Tennessee, we became the first State in the country to create a
statewide system for rewarding outstanding teaching and paying those
teachers based upon that.
At that time, in Tennessee--or anywhere in the country--not one
teacher made one penny more for being a good teacher. Not one teacher
made one penny more for being a good teacher. So that is what we did in
1983 and 1984.
She said: How hard could that be? Everybody knows some teachers are
better than others. We all know that when we put our children into
school. Everybody knows that. Why can't we evaluate teachers? How hard
could that be?
Well, I was a little bit amused by that because those were exactly
the same kinds of questions I was asking in frustration 30 years ago. I
would say it to every college of education in the country. I could not
find a single one that would help me in any significant way evaluate
outstanding teaching.
Now, that may sound like an overstatement. But it is not much of an
overstatement.
I had dean after dean, education professor after education professor
say: You cannot do that. You cannot determine that one teacher is
better than another one, especially if you plan to reward them,
compensate them based upon that.
I found that patently ridiculous--patently ridiculous.
Just like the editor was trying to tell me every parent knows that.
My mother put me in one first grade instead of another first grade in
Maryville, TN, because she thought one teacher was better than the
other. She had an opinion about that. She was a teacher herself, so
perhaps she knew.
We all have those judgments to make. IBM hires a lot of education
people. They have teachers and they know some are better than others
and they pay them correspondingly. Colleges and universities hire a lot
of teachers. They pay teachers all the way up the ladder, from lower
amounts to very high amounts for distinguished professors. They can
find a way to make a distinction, but somehow we got into this rut 30
years ago that said: We cannot make any distinction among teachers
based upon their ability to teach, especially related to student
achievement, and then we especially cannot take the next step and pay
some more than others.
The reason I thought that was such an urgent problem 30 years ago was
because we cannot trap women in our schools anymore to teach. Women are
in the marketplace now. That is what we did for many years. So if we
want to attract and keep the very best men and women teaching in our
classrooms, we need to be able to recognize excellence when we find it,
to encourage it, and to reward it with compensation.
I can remember sitting around with a group of Governors in 1980 when
the late Bill Clement, Governor of Texas, said to mostly a group of
Democratic Governors: When is one of you--and he used another word--so-
and-sos going to get the courage to take on the NEA? What he meant was,
every single one of us knew that the National Education Association had
its foot on everyone who tried to pay some teachers more than others.
Well, I was young and maybe did not know better, so in my second term
I created a bipartisan commission with the Democratic leaders of the
legislature, and we set out to figure out a number of things about
education, including a master teacher program. The long and the short
of it was, we did that. It took a year and a half of my time as
Governor. I must have spent 40 or 50 percent of my time every day
engaged in an ongoing brawl, mainly with the National Education
Association, as to whether we could do this.
They defeated my proposals in the first year. I came back in the
second year and won by one vote, and we put in place a voluntary
program that before long up to 10,000 Tennessee teachers voluntarily
went into a career ladder program, became master teachers, and many got
10-month and 11-month and 12-month contracts. It raised their pay. It
improved their retirement. It gave them distinction. I have teacher
after teacher come to see me today to thank me for that, including the
current leadership of the Tennessee Education Association, whose
organization killed the program after I left office.
So it is appropriate to ask: Senator Alexander, why are you and the
National Education Association in cahoots on any sort of teacher
evaluation proposal?
Well, I want to say briefly why. A lot has happened since 1983, 1984.
Governor Hunt, Democratic Governor of North Carolina, and others have
worked to create the National Board for Professional Teaching
Standards. The NEA and the American Federation of Teachers both
participated in that. That was a step forward in recognizing and
certifying outstanding teachers.
AFT, the American Federation of Teachers, has always been open to
this proposal. I remember the late Albert Shanker telling me: Well, if
we have master plumbers, we can have master teachers, especially if you
are going to pay them more. He invited me to come out to his national
convention in Los Angeles to talk about it.
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President Bush and Secretary Spellings, with the Teacher Incentive
Fund, and President Obama and Secretary Duncan, who have taken a lead
on this, despite the fact that it is not popular with many of the
constituents of their party, have stuck their necks out on this, and I
applaud them for that.
The Gates Foundation has put money behind it. Bill Gates has told me
personally this is one of the two things he wants to do in education
with the time and the money he has.
So there is a consensus. Everybody might not say, as I do, it is the
``Holy Grail'' of K-12, but there is a consensus that finding fair ways
to reward outstanding teaching through teacher and principal evaluation
related to student achievement is urgently important.
So it is very tempting just to pass a law in Washington to say: Let's
order it. Let's just do it. Well, that is not the way things work in
the United States of America. We did that with professional
development. The law now says, with all that $2.5 billion: Do it. Have
professional development programs.
I do not know what the Senator from Colorado thinks, but my view--and
I do not think Secretary Duncan would mind my repeating his comments
often--that is the biggest waste of money we have in the Federal
education program. It is not well used. We say: Do it, and so they have
all these programs. Teachers know it is a waste of time, and everybody
knows it is a waste of time. We are not spending that money wisely.
So why are we to think, if we just say, create a teacher evaluation
system all across the country in 15,000 school districts, people will
just say, OK, they have to do it to get the money, and they will just
do it? I think it would be the kiss of death for the whole movement.
Although it is tempting to do it that way.
Then, yesterday, on my way up here, in my little hometown of
Maryville, TN, I picked up the newspaper and it reminded me of why I so
strongly believe it is a good idea to create an environment in which
school districts and States can create teacher and principal evaluation
systems and it is a bad idea to order it, define it, and regulate it
from Washington.
Here is the headline. I mentioned this yesterday in my remarks on the
floor: ``Evaluation of Teachers Contentious.''
Now, here is the State of Tennessee--Mr. President, could I ask
unanimous consent for 3 more minutes?
Mr. MORAN. Mr. President, I certainly have no objection.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. ALEXANDER. I thank the Senator from Kansas, and I will kind of
speed up my comments a little bit. But I might take 4 minutes, unless
that is a problem.
Mr. MORAN. I certainly have no objection.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. ALEXANDER. I thank the Senator from Kansas because I would like
to make my point, if I may.
Remember, the State of Tennessee won Race to the Top. It has been
working on teacher evaluation for 25 years. It developed the Sanders
Model, which was the first real way that we related student achievement
to teacher performance. May sound easy. It is pretty hard. Nobody else
would do it.
This professor at the University of Tennessee's Agriculture
Department, a statistician, said: I think I can do it. He did it, and
it is being used all around the country in many places--but not
everyplace. Some do not have confidence in it.
So Tennessee wins $500 million in Race to the Top--to do what? Have a
teacher and principal evaluation program. Here they are doing it.
Twenty-five years of experience, and it is the front page news:
``Evaluation of Teachers Contentious''--all the struggles with that
program.
Then we get here into what is involved. It says:
Under the new system--
This is the Tennessee system of evaluation--
tenured teachers will be evaluated at least four times each
year. Nontenured teachers will be evaluated at least six
times each year. . . .
Teacher effectiveness ratings are calculated using a
formula that is 50 percent qualitative and 50 percent
quantitative. The quantitative portion combines student
growth (35 percent) and student achievement (15 percent).
Now, they are having a tough time down in Maryville, TN, and
Nashville, TN, about implementing their own proposal. It says:
State officials are also traveling across the state to meet
with stakeholders.
The state Department of Education's Advisory Group will
bring revision recommendations to [the] Education
Commissioner. . . .
That's Kevin Huffman, one of the best in the country.
Based on the proposed revisions, the recommendations might
need to be brought before the State Board of Education.
Do we really want them to come to Washington after they get through
with that and say: OK, now we have it figured out. We are having a
really hard time doing it. You tell us what to do. You define what we
ought to do. And may we please have your permission to do things this
way instead of that way? I think not. I think that would be the kiss of
death for any movement for teacher-principal evaluation.
So my plea is that we show some restraint, that we recognize that
just a little movement here makes a big difference there when we are
dealing with 3.2 million teachers, when we are dealing with 100,000
schools, and 15,000 school districts.
Secretary Duncan, whom I greatly admire, says:
A comprehensive evaluation system based on multiple
measures, including student achievement, is essential for
education reform to move forward. We cannot retreat from
reform.
He is exactly right. But that does not mean we need a national school
board. That is what a Governor, a legislator, a school district, local
people ought to be doing, working with teachers.
So the NEA and I may have the same position today on whether to have
a mandate definition and regulation from Washington on teacher
evaluation. We may agree. I cannot speak for them. But I will be
watching--as I did 30 years ago, as I did 15 years ago, as I did 20
years ago as Education Secretary--to see what they are doing in
Tennessee.
Are they making it easier for Kevin Huffman and the Governor and the
legislature to implement this award-winning teacher evaluation program
or are they making it harder?
So I hope we will have a good, full debate as we move to the markup
in the next few days. I respect the enthusiasm of all those who want to
begin a process for teacher and principal evaluation. I would like to
believe that no one wants it to move more than I do. I have watched it
for 30 years. I have fought everyone who is against it for 30 years,
and I strongly believe the right way to do it is to recognize that
education is like jobs. Both are national concerns, both are of
interest to the Federal Government, but we cannot create them from
here. We have to create an environment in which local people, State
people, can create better schools and create better jobs, and, in this
case, a mandate definition and regulation from Washington, a national
school board, would be a terrible error.
I thank the Presiding Officer, and I thank the Senator from Kansas
for his courtesy.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kansas.
Mr. MORAN. Mr. President, I commend the Senator from Tennessee for
his remarks. I believe that while what happens in Washington is
important, we really do change the world one person at a time, and it
happens at home in classrooms across America each and every day, and
there is no more noble profession, other than parenthood, than that of
a teacher. They make a tremendous difference in the lives of Americans
each and every day, and I commend them for that. I also commend the
Senator from Tennessee for his passion for education.
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