[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.

[[Page S6655]]

  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.

[[Page S6656]]

  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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