July is usually the time for blockbuster action at the movie house, not the schoolhouse. This summer is different.
Major school reforms are unspooling in as many as a dozen states, including Illinois. These laws bring the promise of a transformation just as dramatic as — forgive us — anything that Decepticons could manage. (Ask your kids.)
It starts with giving parents more options about where their children can go to school.
The American Federation for Children, a Washington D.C.-based school choice advocacy group, dubs 2011 “The year of school choice.”
This reform juggernaut is offering hope to tens of thousands of kids stuck in dismally performing public schools, answering the prayers of thousands of parents who want a better education for their kids, now.
*Indiana lawmakers passed one of the most ambitious voucher programs in the country. It covers students whose parents earn as much as $61,000 a year for a family of four. Within three years, there will be
no limit
on the number of vouchers available to eligible students. That’s epic.
*Ohio quadrupled to 60,000 the number of tuition vouchers available to students by 2013.
*Milwaukee’s 20,900-student school voucher program will add 3,000 kids over the next two years, thanks to Wisconsin lawmakers. The state also kicked off a choice program in Racine for 750 students.
*Congress revived Washington D.C.’s “opportunity scholarship” program, so hundreds of children from low-income families can attend private schools of their parents’ choice.
*Arizona created a savings account program to help parents with special needs children pay for private school tuition.
*Oklahoma started a tuition tax credit program to help fund private school scholarships for low- and middle-income kids.
This wave of choice lifts charter schools, too. Tennessee and North Carolina eliminated caps on charter schools. Maine passed its first charter law. Indiana cleared the way for more universities to sponsor charter schools. Charters can take over empty school buildings there for $1.
***
Illinois, unfortunately, has not been nearly as aggressive as other states in promoting school choice.
Lawmakers did pass a bill this year that would set up a statewide charter-granting commission. It would hear appeals from charter organizers who are rejected by local school districts. That would help good charter schools overcome local inertia and intransigence. We strongly urge Gov. Pat Quinn to sign this bill.
Illinois led in another vital area: Teacher accountability.
The state’s new school reform law makes performance — not seniority — the driving factor in who gets to teach in the classroom. Performance will count when schools have to lay off teachers. The law also targets tenure only for the best-performing teachers and streamlines the process for firing the worst teachers.
The push for performance is taking hold across the country. Florida passed a potent bill that ties teachers’ pay raises to student performance, eliminates tenure for new teachers and allows tenured teachers to give up that protection in exchange for higher pay based on strong results.
Lawmakers in Michigan, Idaho, Nevada, Ohio and Utah overhauled teacher accountability, too.
Days ago, the nation’s largest teachers union, the National Education Association, acknowledged that teacher accountability is key to helping students learn. The union said student test scores may be considered in evaluating teachers. We applaud the NEA for softening its long-standing opposition to using standardized student test scores to judge teachers’ performance.
The union leaders set some caveats: Such tests should be used
if
they’re shown to be “developmentally appropriate, scientifically valid and reliable for the purpose of measuring both student learning and a teacher’s performance.”
And how many tests currently meet that standard, according to the union? Answer: None.
Sigh.
NEA president Dennis Van Roekel insisted to us that the union is “dead serious” about this shift in thinking. We hope so, because in a growing number of states, including Illinois, evaluating teachers via student growth
already
is in the works. Robust buy-in from the NEA sure would help those state efforts succeed.
Some Illinois schools will roll out evaluation systems in 2012. By 2016, all Illinois public schools must use student growth as a significant factor in evaluating teachers.
No, standardized tests don’t tell the whole story about a teacher’s performance. Nor will any test ever be a perfect measure.
But there’s strong evidence that teachers can be fairly rated based on students’ progress on standardized tests from year to year. Such analysis helps administrators — and parents — identify teachers who consistently help students advance.
Lawmakers across the country are demolishing the education status quo with gusto. They’re championing choice and accountability.
But let’s remember, laws don’t teach kids. We count on good teachers and involved parents to do that. Come fall, real students will sit in front of real teachers across the country. All of these changes in law give the best teachers more incentive to succeed and all kids a better chance to learn.
