Teachers, both in K-12 public education and at our institutions of higher education, enjoy a level of job security that simply does not exist in any other sector of the economy. The online magazine Slate has an article today that discusses the origins of teacher tenure at the K-12 level. It’s an interesting read with quite a few good links.  Here is an excerpt:

In 1909. Until the early 20^th century, teachers had few protections. According to anecdote, they were fired for flunking the children of powerful parents, holding unpopular views, or simply getting old. Politicians sometimes replaced teachers as part of the infamous spoils system. The National Education Association began pushing for tenure in 1887, as a means of ensuring that employment decisions were based on merit rather than politics. Tenure also protected minority teachers in an era of weak civil rights law. But even then, school administrators worried that such a system might destroy “the important incentive to effort which makes retention in service depend upon usefulness and ability.” New Jersey went ahead and passed the first tenure law for experienced public school teachers in 1909, followed by Montana in 1913, Massachusetts in 1914, and New York in 1917. (America’s most famous fired teacher, John Scopes, wasn’t protected by tenure. In 1925, Tennessee hadn’t yet adopted the system. Scopes was too green to have tenure, anyway. He was in his first year when he started teaching evolution.) Today, every state has some form of tenure.

Economists have long disliked strong job protections because they distort peoples’ effort, create a rigid labor market that is enormously inefficient, and make it difficult for institutions to remove their worst performers. Freakonomics author and University of Chicago economist Steven Levitt lays out the case for the ellimination of tenure on his blog here and here.

It would seem that the leaders of the Democratic Party have been listening. The Obama administration has supported tenure reform as part of its education initiatives while poring an unprecedented amount of money into public education. Unsurprisingly the leaders of the teaches unions, being the membership maximizers that they are, have not taken kindly to the suggestion of tenure reform. A recent New York Times article highlighted the snubbing of the administration at the recent union conventions. Dennis Van Roekel, president of the National Education Association, is quoted as having told attendees, “Today our members face the most anti-educator, anti-union, anti-student environment I have ever experienced.” I suppose one out of three aint bad.

The unions are fighting hard to best the Obama administration on their own turf. They have Rep. David Obey of Wisconsin doing their bidding. Obey pushed a bill through the House last week that redirects money away from the administration’s reform oriented priorities and toward maintaining the status quo. Several democratic senators are fighting back. I’m not sure who will win this particular fight, but I am sure that the unions will continue to fight reform tooth and nail. And, this is a fight that is sure to damage the unions reputation and lessen their political influence along the way.

The bottom line, tenure as we know it is on its way out, and the teachers unions in their tone deaf obstinance are moving ever closer to irrelevance. The times they are a changin’.

The Arkansas Department of Education released the End-of-Course exam results for the 2009-2010 school year today. You can find the press release here and the data here. And, here are a few highlights from the release.

Results from the state’s 2010 End-of-Course exams show gains over last year in algebra I and geometry achievement levels for public school students, but they reveal a decline in biology scores.

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The algebra I and geometry End-of-Course exams are used in the calculations to identify schools in need of improvement under the federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act (No Child Left Behind). A score of “proficient” – which is higher than a score of “pass” — must be attained under the federal requirements.

On the algebra I End-of-Course Exam, 73 percent scored proficient or higher in January and 76 percent did so in April

On geometry, 76 percent scored proficient or higher in January and 69 percent did in April

On biology, 40 percent scored proficient or higher in January and 36 percent did in April.

“The good news is more than nine out of ten students passed this test the first time around,” said Tom W. Kimbrell, Arkansas commissioner of education, “but the great news is that three out of four are mastering algebra at a proficient level.”

There wasn’t really enough coverage this week about the demise of the so-called “climate-gate” scandal.  Sure, you can read in the Washington post here, or the Wall Street Journal here, or CBS News here how Michael Mann–one of the scientists whose reputation was tarnished by accusations that he had “fudged” data–was cleared by Penn State of any misconduct or wrongdoing.

From CBS News:

“The review cleared Mann of charges that he falsified climate change data, manipulated that data, improperly refused to share his research data and–generally behaved badly by trying to discredit other researchers’ work.”

From the Penn St. report:

“…the Investigatory Committee determined that Dr. Michael E. Mann did not engage in, nor did he participate in, directly or indirectly, any actions that seriously deviated from accepted practices within the academic community for proposing, conducting, or reporting research, or other scholarly activities.”

In response, the Republican chair of the House Science Committee, Sherwood Boehlert, said that “the attacks on scientists were a manufactured distraction, and today’s report is a welcome return to common sense.”

Media Matters is asking whether the news outlets (think Fox) that so-heavily pushed the climate-gate story will be as eager to report about the investigation that puts the controversy over Mann to rest.  Not likely. The coverage in Sunday’s Dem-Gaz amounted to about a one-inch by one-inch sentence in the newspaper’s sidebar.

That’s pretty much how it goes.  It’s much easier to start a lie than to end one.  “Climate-gate” will be forever with us.  It will always give certain people who prefer conspiracy theories to common sense a way to believe what they want to believe.  Accusations certainly don’t need to be true to be effective, they only need to be made.

Hat tip to Max Brantley over at the Arkansas blog for keeping up with news related to the West Memphis Three.  The Jonesboro Sun is doing a 4-part series based on interviews with Damien Echols.  You can check out part 2 here.

Good luck finding part 1.  It was up yesterday, but the Jonesboro Sun’s webpage is about as clunky as they come.

I have been having a discussion with Max Brantley over at his blog. The discussion has centered on the Office for Education Policy reports that investigate the effects of charter schools on desegregation efforts in Pulaski County. Yesterday Max claimed that the authors of the reports had “fudged the numbers.”  Having read the reports and looked at the data, it was obvious that Max’s claims were far from truthful. I felt obliged to jump into the fray. I thought it might be interesting to our readers to repost the ensuing discussion in the comments section of our post dealing with the subject. You can find the discussion here.

Well, Little Rock School District lawyer Chris Heller and his little lap dog (Max Brantley) are at it again. Over at the Arkansas Times Blog Max, Heller’s ever-reliable mouthpiece, is claiming that the Office for Education Policy (OEP) “fudged the numbers” in their reports on charter schools and segregation in Pulaski County.  Heller dug through a bunch of OEP emails he got through a FOIA, and thinks he has found a “Gotcha.” Max, doing his part, was more than willing to believe him and post the allegations.

The claim of “fudging” is a serious one, amounting to academic dishonesty, if found to be true. However, if not true, the claims made by Max and Heller represent plain idiocy at best or a failure of morals at worst.

First off, let’s dispense with the ridiculous claim that the OEP “fudged the numbers.” I have read their report and looked at their data. There are no inconsistencies between the numbers in the report and the e-mail produced by Heller.  They in no way changed or otherwise altered the data to yield a  particular result.

Second, no information was withheld.  The email posted on the Arkansas Times Blog was sent a couple of days after the report was released.

In the end, Heller cares very little about truth. He simply wants and is paid well to keep the desegregation money flowing to the Little Rock School District.

So, what’s all the fuss about? Well, Heller takes umbrage to the fact that the researchers did not disaggregate the data presented in the report to the school level. The report considers the effect of charter schools on the traditional public school sector (of which magnet schools are a subset). The report finds that a majority of the transfers are enhancing the levels of racial integration for the traditional public schools. Nothing in Heller’s memo or the OEP email changes this result. In fact, Heller fails to address the substance of the report in any way.

Instead Heller is completely focused on a very small subset of schools, the magnet schools. Why you might ask? When the magnet schools were set up by the 1989 Settlement Agreement it was stipulated that the magnet schools should have a student population “which is fifty-percent (50%) black and fifty percent (50%) non-black.” Heller has been wielding this 50/50 standard, meant only to apply to magnets, as a means to limit charter school enrollment. The 50/50 standard is of particular use to Heller because the demographics of Pulaski County are nowhere near 50/50.  Thus no school which pulls representatively from the surrounding community will be able to meet the 50/50 standard. I’ve dealt with the 50/50 standard before here, but suffice it to say the standard is arbitrary and capricious.  Any school that has a 50/50 ratio in Pulaski County is segregated by definition because it deosn’t match the demographics of the community.

The bottom line is that Heller, in his infinite wisdom, decided post hoc what question the researchers should have answered. He then considers the fact that the researchers were so brazen as to not answer his specific question as evidence of wrongdoing.

Or will they?  After not receiving any raises last year, University employees are going to have to wonder for another six months whether or not they’ll ever see the merit raises that were promised to them this year.  (Bobby Petrino and John Pelphrey, however, will get their raises either way).

I don’t always agree with Mike Masterson of the Dem-Gaz, but his article about the UA-Board-of Trustees-approved merit raises was spot-on.  You can read it here.  Below I’ve reprinted some of his best points.

“Who can university presidents and chancellors trust if their decisions, and those of their trustees, can be overruled by a governor? Must university trustees now check with the governor before making decisions about managing their institutions? If so, then of what real use is a university president, chancellor or board of trustees?

Injecting state government directly into the decision-making machinery of a university sets a dangerous precedent. Doing so makes it extremely difficult for university leaders to confidently manage when they don’t know if their decisions might be nixed a week later by a bureaucrat or the governor.

Why would a governor even get involved in these sorts of decisions when the state provides less than half of what’s required to educate a college student? And where do the boundaries exist in such instances, if at all? With curriculum? Admissions? Hiring? Administration?

Did the governor and the state’s chief financial guru not realize that UA-Fayetteville already had announced and programmed the raises into its computers? If so, why didn’t they talk with UA leaders before issuing what amounted to a political edict to recall those increases for the time being?

It’s the poorly timed, uncommunicative and needlessly heavy-handed way this unexpected disappointment unfolded that has left leaders at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville wondering what authority, if any, they truly have within their own institution.”

I would add one more point.  Masterson mentions that University leaders are left wondering what power they have, and in the case of Chancellor Gearhart and Vice Chancellor Pederson, I agree.  They’re out there trying to do what is best for their employees but they lack the power to do much in this situation.  I have less sympathy for Sugg (whose annual salary, by the way, is over a half-million dollars a year).  He didn’t have to accept the recommendation from the governor, there was nothing binding about it.  In the end, the most Beebe could do was “encourage” that the U of A not give raises at this time.

But Sugg quickly announced that there would still be no raises because he felt “we should honor the request of our governor.”

Honor the request of our governor?!   What kind of good-ole-boy rhetoric is that?!

Here’s an idea for Alan Sugg:  If you feel like honoring someone, how about honoring your commitment to the 1,200+ employees of the U of A who were promised raises?

Over at Education Next, Paul Peterson has a very astute piece about the good news found in the recently released evaluation of the DC voucher program (full disclosure, I am a co-author of the federal report).  You can read Peterson’s article here.

This is the same voucher program that Mark Pryor and Blanche Lincoln voted to kill.

Some jerks in Mississippi (they’re probably hanging out with Houston Nutt as we speak) have a problem with Saturday’s planned gay pride parade in Fayetteville. 

The president of the “American Family Association” told the Northwest Arkansas Times:

“We call on Mayor Lioneld Jordan of Fayetteville to cancel his plans to issue a proclamation celebrating homosexual behavior and Gay Pride,” wrote Tim Wildmon, association president, in a statement. “There is nothing about homosexual conduct to be proud of, and much to be ashamed of.”

It’s all pretty laughable, really.  Check out the fun they’re having over at The Fayetteville Flyer.  Matthew Petty even posted a letter from one of the nutjobs.  In the letter the guy calls us…wait for it…Gayetteville!

UPDATE: Sigh, looks like Fayetteville’s in the national media.  Again.

John McWhorter has a nice review of my book in The New Republic. A highlight:

Buck’s terrific book is longer on analysis than prescription; but its analysis comprises such invaluable history, and so deftly counters any fears underlying the pretense that the “acting white” charge is fictitious, that I cannot imagine we will soon see another book so utterly necessary on what used to be called the Race Question. Buck has cleared the ground of many illusions and innuendos, and this can only help us to get closer to a solution for the vast problem that still remains.