Arne Duncan, the new head of the Educational Department, has moved from his roots in the Chicago public school system to the issues facing the school system nationwide. Fully equipped with 5 billion dollars of stimulus money and a plan for merit pay public school programs, Duncan appears to have nothing in his way from achieving his goals. He is even noted to be close personal friends with President Obama, who supports the policies Duncan has proposed to implement in schools nationwide.
Politico reports that while heading the Education Department in Chicago Duncan “shut down 60 schools, reopened a dozen” and, when he realized that teachers could not step up to the merit standards he held, he “increased the number of teachers who had national board certification.”
It is not a wonder then that test scores improved as the standards and requirements decreased.
The major problem with a merit based educational system is that teachers cannot choose the students they teach or a student’s motivations to learn. An individual’s testing abilities are not only determined by his or her current teacher but also the study and learning habits acquired over time from previous teachers as well as social and familial conditions.
The Huffington Post compares these standards to a car dealership where the owner goes up to a salesman and says, “here are 30 adults chosen at random. Your salary depends on being able to sell all of them cars—a standard car, at that—regardless of their needs, desires, or ability to pay.” Despite the motivations behind Duncan or Obama, who hope to achieve the ultimate goal of improving the educational system, data and merit based systems are not the answer when factors outside of one’s control can severely skew the results of one’s achievements. While one should be rewarded for good work and receive penalties for smaller efforts, a reflection of how much time a teacher spends outside of the classroom and tries to reach students may be a more accurate measure of teaching skills and efforts. That method, however, may be a much more difficult way of recognizing a teachers accomplishments.
The Federal Educational Department seeks to nationalize an issue previously viewed as a state and local issue. By implementing a data based educational system to track progress in public schools, Duncan seeks a system completely run by merit pay. Although politicians such as the President believe this is an appropriate and necessary course of action, teachers and teachers unions have greeted this policy with staunch resistance.
Since, these unions have historically been a strong base for Democrats, their protest against these actions could influence the administration with its course of action. If they do not, however, we may begin to see unions drift from the beloved Barack Obama and resort to alternative alliances. This may be one of the first real tests to see whether the President puts his supporters or his policies first.
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