A "Seismic" shift in school reform?

July 9, 2007

A "Seismic" shift in school reform?

Maybe it's his rock-star public persona and celebrity appeal. Maybe it's his strong oratory skills and ability to bring a crowd to its feet. Or maybe the timing of the moment was just right. Whatever the reasons behind it, an interesting thing happened at the nation's largest teachers union convention--the NEA--last week: Barack Obama said a very, very unpopular thing without getting booed for it.

For years, presidential candidates have been going to the annual National Education Association convention to praise teachers for their hard work on the frontlines of the country's most critical policy issue. And for years, most of these candidates have been quick to offer their support for the union's primary goals of increasing teacher pay and reducing class size. Senator Obama was no different last Wednesday, as he argued for increasing teacher pay across the board, and as he pandered to other NEA positions such as their opposition to No Child Left Behind. At one point in his speech, the Senator declared that he would not support re-authorization of the law unless the law received more federal funding and softened its focus on standardized testing.

But the part of his speech that raised eyebrows throughout the education reform world was when he stated, "If you excel at helping your students achieve success, your success will be valued and rewarded as well." Taken within the context of his entire speech, in which he praised a pay for performance plan being executed in Minnesota, the Senator took a calculated risk by expressing a view in opposition to the majority of his audience: the idea that teachers should be measured and rewarded, at least in part, on their ability to improve the learning of their students. Yet the reaction of the audience was telling - they stood and applauded at the end of his speech as though Barack had just promised them free iphones!

Lew Solmon, the president of the Teacher Advancement Program, a comprehensive teacher pay and career ladder system in over 130 schools, reacted to Senator Obama's bold move with this editorial, suggesting that pay for performance is on its way. Is he correct that a long history of anti-merit pay positions by the NEA is on the march towards inevitable defeat? Maybe so - but what is clear is that the discussion is no longer a non-starter with union heads, and that strong leadership has the potential to push the matter even further. Stay tuned to this issue and to what the exact details of Senator Obama's pay-for-performance plan and education plan are when he unveils them in the next months.

Aaron Tang is the Co-Director of Our Education, a non-profit organization working to build a national youth movement for quality education.