Matthew Yglesias (March 19, 2007) - Politics of Resentment, NEA/AFT Edition (Domestic Policy)

"Double spending per student, for all I care."

That sounds like a great idea. A voucher system where a reasonable amount of money is spent on the vouchers. What do we, liberals, have to lose?

Posted by golddog | March 19, 2007 1:18 PM

Hmm, "bust the unions?"

Somewhere in the web, there might be someone who said he would accept a voucher proposal as long as it was not actually limited to approved religious organizations, but merely allowed religious organizations to compete with other organizations on an equal footing. And somewhere, there is probably a right-wing blogger who would immediately characterize that as "as long as he can suppress religious organizations." But how many A-list right-wing bloggers would do that?

Posted by William Newman | March 19, 2007 1:20 PM

Matt writes: "People have some genuinely weird ideas about teacher's unions, who are held to have almost mystical levels of power over the political process along with a spookily powerful malign impacts on the education system."

"Mystical"? Not in California, where the California Teachers Association is extraordinarily powerful. Here's what the L.A. Times had to say in an Oct. 16, 2005, editorial:

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that union members cannot be forced to finance political activity, and Proposition 75 merely requires that public employee unions get written consent from their members before their dues and fees are used for political purposes. Currently, union members must request specifically that their dues not be spent on politics, and there is some question about how realistic a choice this is in some unions. Shifting the burden to the union to gain the consent of a member -- as Washington, Utah and other states now require -- does not seem onerous, and may even encourage greater accountability on the part of union leadership.

Proposition 75 opponents argue that this is unfair because there is no similar move to curtail the discretion of business lobbyists to invest shareholder resources in politics. But the analogy is flawed, given that this initiative applies only to public employee unions. It's not private businesses that sit across the negotiating table from public employee unions; it's the taxpayers and their elected representatives, acting as stewards of the public interest.

If this notion sounds almost quaint, it is, because it has become so divorced from reality. At many levels of government, public employee unions, aided by their political war chests, have gained control over both sides of the negotiating process. When public employee unions wield the type of influence they now do in California, too much governing becomes an exercise in self-dealing.

To take one example, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has acknowledged it will take a "holy jihad" to assume control of the local school district because teachers unions are so powerful in Los Angeles and Sacramento. Although the mayor opposes Proposition 75, his statement illustrates the need for it.

That said, this measure will hardly take public unions out of the political game. They will still be able to raise considerable sums to influence elections, and they will face no restrictions to continue spending on "issue advocacy." Nor are we under any illusion about the partisan motives of many of Proposition 75's backers, who see this as a means of making it harder for Democrats to raise campaign cash.

But the tactical political repercussions here are not so easily discerned. Democrats may become more popular among voters if they are seen as less beholden to special interests. Moreover, this page will continue to support campaign financing proposals that help cleanse the political system, including more public financing of elections.

For now, Proposition 75 constitutes an important step in the right direction
END EDIT

In California, at least, it is not a right-wing or Mickey Kaus fantasy that teachers unions are a dominant political influence.

Posted by Chris | March 19, 2007 1:51 PM

Suffice it to say that were Megan's deal wherein liberals get to get literally everything we want on education policy as long as she gets to bust the unions actually on the table, I'd take it.

Well, it should be your starting point, at least. Now all that needs to be reached is the question of how much funding and what exact regulations need to be placed. Republicans have already de facto conceded on regulating schools via NCLB, so the crucial issue is funding.

Posted by right | March 19, 2007 1:58 PM

Presidential candidates are bad examples for this. For education, the guv'nor or one's state and the state legislature is what matters, not the President. All in, that's not an example of the world behaving incorrectly.

At the state level, boy is that wrongheaded. Take NJ for example. Gov. Corzine recently had a mini sort of scandal, that wasn't too damaging since nothing technically illegal occurred. He made a rather large loan to a govt employee union boss that he later forgave, which is what a bribe looks like in this case. Remembering that teacher's unions are just the largest and most influential govt employee unions, and criticisms of teacher's unions apply to all govt employee unions what's wrong with this picture?

Ordinary political bribery, like a kickback to the mayor for a paving contract, or a robin hood scheme run by a big muckety muck for a large corporation done through a cattle future trading account owned by the governor's wife, are bad things but the price society pays for allowing non rich people to run for public office, and on the whole the good from allowing non rich, therefore potentially bribable, people to hold high office outweighs the inevitable downside, or at least I think so. But in this case Corzine, who certainly did not get rich investing unwisely is bribing a govt employee union boss presumably so he could run on the donk ticket for state office. That's $*&#'ed up, but is how the Dem party currently works. Is this a good thing for someone who is into progressive policy goals and wants to use the Democratic Party as the vehicle for realizing his aspirations?

Posted by j mct | March 19, 2007 2:06 PM

Taking this as an open education thread, I'd just like to mention public school open enrollment, which has been in place in Minnesota for many years. There are different forms, but the maximum form is that parents can enroll their kids in any public school in the state, regardless of residency. This gets rid of the "trapped in failing public schools" problem.

Some form of open enrollment is in place in 12 Midwestern and Western states, plus Arkansas and Oklahoma.

You don't hear about open enrollment much. It's a possible bipartisan first step -- some of the most liberal, most unionized states already have it. There are two reasons why I think it's so low-profile.

First, it makes progress without busting unions or releasing money for church schools. Second, it reduces local control of the schools and threatens "neighborhood schools", thus also threatening de facto segregation.

It seems to me that this is something that Democrats could emphasize, thus giving them a positive issue to work with. I'm not sure that NYC or Massachusetts would go for open enrollment, though.

Posted by John Emerson | March 19, 2007 2:24 PM

I don't know how powerful teachers unions are or aren't in reality.

But the fact is, two of the most important public school reforms - merit-based pay for teachers, and allowing teachers to be fired - haven't been implemented, despite the fact that policymakers have wanted these things for quite some time.

If it's not the unions blocking these reforms...then who?

Posted by Mr. Noah | March 19, 2007 2:26 PM

Isn't the "rest of the story" the fact that Corzine had a personal relationship with this (female) union boss? You wouldn't normally make payments to union bosses out of nowhere, but I've certainly forgiven debts to ex-girlfriends before.

Posted by Steve | March 19, 2007 2:27 PM

I still don't understand how exactly vouchers help improve education for anyone other than the kids who get the vouchers-- which would take educational money from the kids still in public school. I mean, people say that vouchers would create competition for public schools... but that competition already exists. There already are private schools. Vouchers would increase the number of people with access to those schools, but so what? A public school isn't a restaurant; the principal doesn't get rich (or poor) relative to the number of customers.

As far as getting rid of bad teachers-- once again, there's this disconnect between the ideology and the reality. There's no actual hard evidence to say that there are all these terrible teachers, but say you're right-- there simply aren't enough teachers to fill available positions already. Where are these new teachers going to come from to fill the posts of the fired teachers?

Posted by Freddie | March 19, 2007 2:42 PM

In Los Angeles, at least, all this stuff about needing to fire teachers is just another red herring. Not only is it entirely possible (though not easy) to fire teachers if principals go through the process, but getting rid of bad teachers isn't the problem. The problem is attracting good, qualified teachers. The teacher shortage exists and the good teacher shortage is a calamity. And that will remain a problem until all of us free market-loving Americans recognize that we need to actually pay teachers a good salary if we want educated and talented young people pursuing it as a career. Despite all the professed interest in educating our children, and all the self-serving crap about "not just throwing money at the problem", we aren't willing to make teaching kids financially rewarding. We still expect teachers to either be only educated/skilled enough to earn $45k annually or take the job because they love it. Of course this argument comes most often from conservatives who want high quality schools but can't abide the idea of paying for them with taxes. There are undeniably problems with the teacher's union, but if you agreed to pay highly qualified teachers 80k per year, not only would you find a lot more highly qualified teachers, but the union would probably give a lot of ground on some of their more problematic positions.

Posted by Mavis Beacon | March 19, 2007 2:47 PM

Purely anecdotal, but I know from my own time in Catholic schools that a nonunion, "at will" employment system doesn't automatically lead to the accountability that the libertarian right assumes.

I had plenty of terrible teachers but many of them were kept in the system for as long as the school could hold onto them.

The worst example was a high school history teacher who would go for days doing absolutely nothing in class. He's still at my old school, where he's been for nearly thirty years. And all of the other teachers knew how bad he was. My brother ended up teaching at our alma mater and he confirmed that this teacher's reputation was just as bad with the faculty as with the students.

I think he stayed on because he was a savvy office politicker and he'd been there long enough to know where important bodies were buried, so to speak. But it certainly wasn't a union that kept his dead weight around.

Posted by Brendan Sexton | March 19, 2007 2:52 PM

I agree with pretty much MBeacon says, except to remind that private schools don't pay their teachers anymore than the public schools.

I think this just goes back to MY's common lament, that pretty much nothing can be done about education that doesn't just end up correlating with socioeconomic status.

Posted by Tony V | March 19, 2007 2:53 PM

I can't speak to other regions but teacher unions have very little presence or power here in the South. And, of course, that is why Alabama and Mississippi lead the nation in every measure of student performance. Oh, ... wait, that chart was upside down.

Posted by dwight Meredith | March 19, 2007 2:59 PM

Corzine's 'loan' was in the six figures, IIRC was close to 500,000 bucks. Presumably he passed her the check over a candlelight dinner. What a gentleman!

Let's see, $500,000 for a few dates. I will not think bad things about a lady's honor!

Posted by j mct | March 19, 2007 3:01 PM

I think this just goes back to MY's common lament, that pretty much nothing can be done about education that doesn't just end up correlating with socioeconomic status.

This is true, and may always be true, but if we can improve education for all students, from top to bottom, and the gap still persists, we will still have improved education, right?

The achievement gap, it's pretty clear to me, is not something that can be solved in the schools themselves.

Posted by right | March 19, 2007 3:20 PM

right: No, that's not what I meant. Even absolute improvements generally shuffle out when you filter out economic status. That has been the overwhelming evidence of years of school-choice studies, which MY has linked too often in the past.

While I feel teachers should be paid more, it's notable that private schools could pay teachers more, but instead reach pretty good education outcomes without doing so.

Posted by Tony V | March 19, 2007 3:33 PM

The pro voucher crowd needs to explain how deunionized vouchers are going to catch up a child who arrives at kindergarten without knowing her letters, numbers or colors because nobody ever read to her.

Posted by Jalmari | March 19, 2007 3:36 PM

Good point, Tony V. My undestanding is that private schools attract good teachers by

a. making the job more satisfying with better prepared and more adept students (because many of them come from well-to-do families), proper facilities, and smaller class sizes.
b. paying for the support staff (including college counselors, admin staff, and psychologists) that help produce good outcomes
d. hiring intelligent and qualified individuals that haven't met the specific education requirements mandated by the state, county, and NCLB.

Posted by Mavis Beacon | March 19, 2007 4:06 PM

The pro voucher crowd needs to explain how deunionized vouchers are going to catch up a child who arrives at kindergarten without knowing her letters, numbers or colors because nobody ever read to her.

Because she will arrive at a better kindergarden.

And the vouchers aren't "deunionized," silly; the private schools are.

Posted by right | March 19, 2007 5:09 PM

Because she will arrive at a better kindergarden.

Who will? This particular kindergarten student? What about the other kindergarten students who don't get vouchers? What if she is special ed? What if she has an emotional disturbance? What if her behavior prevents her from performing?

And I would like to point out again that the idea that private schools are always better than public schools is supported by very little actual evidence. And any gap in test scores can be explained by the fact that many private schools (and almost all private high schools) have minimum academic standards that have to be met in order for a particular child to attend. They only let in academically qualified students, so-- surprise, surprise-- they have academically qualified students. It's like the private high school in my area, again. They brag about better median test scores than the local public high school. But in order to get into the school, they have to demonstrate good academic history and pass an entrance exam! Of course the kids are going to test higher; they had to pass a test to get in! What about the problem kids, the ED kids, the behavior problems who are in public schools? They are the ones who drag down the test scores for public schools, and are precisely the kids private schools just will not take (no matter how much they talk about "extending quality education to others.")

I work at a elementary school in an urban school district. My program is a special, segregated population for children with severe emotional disturbance. The kids I work with every day are deeply disabled. But 95% of them take the same standardized tests that any other kid in their grade level takes. That testing data is pooled with all the other data for state performance evaluations. We give 2 hour tests (because we are legally required to) to children who are incapable of watching an hour long movie. Private schools test better because private schools forbid or get rid of the kids who don't test well.

Posted by Freddie | March 19, 2007 5:23 PM

Mavis Beacon writes "In Los Angeles, at least, all this stuff about needing to fire teachers is just another red herring."

No, it's not.

Aug. 3, 2005 Los Angeles Times: When Teachers Don't Make the Grade

The Los Angeles Unified School District has attempted to dismiss just 112 permanent teachers — or about one-quarter of 1% of the district's 43,000 instructors — over the last decade. Some were fired, but most resigned or retired.

"It takes two to three years to effectively remove someone who is not helpful to children in the classroom," Los Angeles schools Supt. Roy Romer said. "That's too long."

END EXCERPT

And as last week's massive study of California education noted, just making it easier to fire teachers would encourage more effort from marginal teachers.

Posted by Chris | March 19, 2007 5:40 PM

Vouchers would increase the number of people with access to those schools, but so what? A public school isn't a restaurant; the principal doesn't get rich (or poor) relative to the number of customers.

I think the idea is that even having more competition among just the private schools will lead to greater innovation, which can then be adopted by all schools, including those that don't operate on a profit motive. The illustration for this is that the Post Office has improved its services since FedEx, DHL, and co. got off the ground. I'm not necessarily endorsing this viewpoint, but there it is.

Posted by JP | March 19, 2007 6:02 PM

Is there an allowance for transportation issues as part of the voucher system? I realize the money theoretically covers this, but I would think that even with some sort of transportation stipend or whatever, many parents would be unable to get their kids to a school across town because of time constraints or simple lack of means. I suspect busing would be...difficult.

Posted by mark | March 19, 2007 6:11 PM

Here's the article that Chris doesn't link to: http://www.nje3.org/newsarchive/7_31_05/LATimes_Whenteachersdontmakethegrade.pdf

And let me reiterate, bad teachers are a problem and not being able to fire bad teacher isn't good. But a much, much bigger problem in Los Angeles (and this study is California, not Los Angeles) is hiring and retaining good teachers. Firing teachers is politcally low-hanging fruit. Fixing the educational problems of Los Angeles (and the rest of the country) are not.

The study you reference also pointed out that it would take billions, maybe a trillion, to fix California's educational problems. And what did Arnold say, "The money alone won't solve any problems." Meaning that there won't be more money.

"And as last week's massive study of California education noted, just making it easier to fire teachers would encourage more effort from marginal teachers." I view this attitude very skeptically. It would certainly encourage a certain type of behavior, better teaching doesn't strike me as the most likely one.

Posted by Mavis Beacon | March 19, 2007 6:13 PM

"The illustration for this is that the Post Office has improved its services since FedEx, DHL, and co. got off the ground."

With the above example, JP makes a great point. Voucher proponents are not saying that private schools will be a cure all, but that the competition will force innovation among both private and public schools, and when something is found to work, it will force other schools to emulate that change to "keep up."

Many here are frustrated because voucher proponents can't point to specific changes to be made that would allow students to receive a better education. The purpose of the voucher system is to create an environment that encourages teachers to come up with those changes themselves and then creates incentives for those methods to be replicated elsewhere.

Posted by golddog | March 19, 2007 6:23 PM

Thanks, golddog. Even so, I remain skeptical of vouchers, partly because of the transportation issue mentioned above, and partly because in the education sector (unlike with most other products) the self-interest of "customers" might not necessarily line up with improving the quality of education. I think Matthew may have blogged this second point before.

Posted by JP | March 19, 2007 6:49 PM

With the above example, JP makes a great point. Voucher proponents are not saying that private schools will be a cure all, but that the competition will force innovation among both private and public schools, and when something is found to work, it will force other schools to emulate that change to "keep up."

I'm not trying to be a jerk or to be obstinate. A big part of my rejection of vouchers comes from the fact that there are many things about private school I deeply disagree with, and I disagree with them being publicly financed (particularly because 85% of private schools are religious schools.) I do recognize that many voucher advocates are trying to make a real difference in improving education. But this is what I don't understand.

1) Vouchers allow people who can't or won't pay for their child to attend private schools to go to those schools. How does transferring a child-- or 100, or 1000, or whatever-- encourage innovation? Is the idea that the tuition paid for by vouchers will be "seed" money which creates some new educational initiatives that will trickle down to public schools? I have to say as someone with a career in education, I've never really heard the opinion that schools need some sort of "breakthrough" in terms of actual pedagogical method. The breakthrough would have to come in the form of bureaucratic or administrative restructuring. But that isn't going to apply to private schools anyway.

Is the idea that vouchers will increase the competition between private and public schools, in that vouchers will move students away from public schools and into private? So what? I don't think principals or school boards sit around like the board of a retail store worried about less "customers". The idea that declining enrollment creates pressure on the bureaucratic apparatus seems unfounded, to me. Again, the school board doesn't generate profit for itself. More students don't create more money for school systems, they create less. I think the people in charge of my school would be ecstatic if enrollment dropped. Unless you're talking about a truly massive restructuring of our educational system, one that creates enough room in private schools so that they can take on a significant percentage of overall students, you just aren't going to create a need to "keep up".

I think that people are assuming too grand a project for school vouchers. I think that, for a great many school voucher proponents, improvements to education for everyone is besides the point. They want money to send their kids to private schools, or they want their private school to have access to government money. These large schemes to improve education for everyone through vouchers for a few are, I think, just the product of political necessity.

Posted by Freddie | March 19, 2007 6:56 PM

As Mark Kleiman has pointed out, the part of the country where teachers are generally not unionized is the South, which overall has the worst educational outcomes. I'm not saying the lack of unionization is responsible for these--higher levels of poverty is the obvious explanation--but it's hard to construct an argument that teacher unions have a horrible impact on education from this example. Of course, that will never stop the RWNM from trying.

Posted by beckya57 | March 19, 2007 7:15 PM

1) Unions really are not the problem
2) It is pointed out that private schools do not pay more than public schools. This is generally true. Private schools also get to select their own student body. Private schools that outperform public schools generally have taken on a much easier task by selecting above-average schools.
3) I've always thought "good education" was a child's right, not a parental right.
4) Haven't we realized yet that "vouchers" are simply a pie-in-the-sky idea that is never supposed to be implemented on a large scale, and exists solely as a way to send less money to the public school system? Oh, and it exists as a wedge issue to pit urban voters against teacher unions.
5) Oh - and teachers' wages? They suck. So let's stop talking about the power of the union. If the unions had any power, teachers would make real money.

Posted by RickD | March 19, 2007 7:56 PM

Duh. It's two things republicans hate: education and unions. It IS an entity of mythic proportions to them.

Posted by sherifffruitfly | March 19, 2007 9:35 PM

There's even the possibility that vouchers would act as a disincentive to innovation.

If St. Local Country Day School for Christian Gentlemen now gets, say $15,000 p/a for tuition, and

Big Consolidated School District issues vouchers for $9000 p/a, its per-student annual expenditure,

Then St. Local can raise its tuition to $26,000 without itbecoming one iota less of a sacrifice for any of its present students to go there, meaning no loss of customers, and without changing anything that it does.

Guaranteed increase in profit, from the public fisc, without any improvement the service it delivers?

This is the miracle of the free market?

Posted by Davis X. Machina | March 19, 2007 10:23 PM

Guaranteed increase in profit, from the public fisc, without any improvement the service it delivers?

This is the miracle of the free market?

A voucher system is not an attempt to produce a perfect free market in education. It's an attempt to produce a freer market than the current Soviet model we employ. And yes, just like with all of the free money the government dumps into the health care sector, and the higher-ed sector, vouchers will definitely cause inflation higher than the background rate of inflation in the private K-12 sector. But for at least the last 30 years private the average private K-12 tuition has run about half of the average public school expenditure per pupil, so initially we'll be breaking even. Most private schools currently run on very tight budgets and pay their staff significantly less than public school staff earn. The private schools are after all currently competing with a free good.

Now, if parents were allowed to rollover any unused funds from one year's voucher to the next, the effect you describe in your post would be considerably lessened.

yours/
peter.

Posted by peter jackson | March 19, 2007 11:48 PM

The pro-voucher crowd are the same people who claimed that "NAFTA will be good for the working class by forcing it to be more competitive," and "Welfare reform will be good for the poor because it will prevent the culture of poverty from spreading," or "breaking the air traffic controller union will be good because it will reduce flight prices." In other words, they are either Republicans, or they are daft.

Everyone who supports vouchers simply ignores the fact that the most important variable for educational outcomes is SES, and anything that doesn't affect inequality of SES doesn't address the "problems" in urban schools. The "problem" isn't lazy teachers (no evidence to support that), dumb teachers (no evidence to support that), or malevolent teachers (no evidence to support that). Its aimless, violent students who undermine the learning process. Everyone wants to dance around that problem and pretend that it isn't the cause of all of this. Mularkey! If teachers could boot violent kids at a moments notice, the public school system would be "fixed" overnight. No voucher program in the world, other than one where families are directly funded by the government out of poverty, will overcome this.

Furthermore, there is an entire industry devoted to widening the achievement gap between the wealthy students and the poor students. If the neo-liberals keep selling vouchers as a way to "solve the problems of education," poor parents will not feel as though the education system is "fixed" until that gap is eliminated, even if (assuming the wild hypothetical launched by "Goldman" and "right") the quality of education somehow improves. But hey, just keep whistling a union busting tune; as Jane Galt demonstrates, that's all vouchers are.

Posted by Father Figure | March 20, 2007 12:02 AM

Not to comment hog, but neo-liberals never want to discuss the fact that our current education system was designed to educate roughly half of the population. Look at high school graduation rates before the 1940s; they were always below 50%. What everyone is essentially talking about is forcing a system to educate people it was not designed to deal with.

Posted by Father Figure | March 20, 2007 12:36 AM

The private schools are after all currently competing with a free good.

The private schools are also not paying for some very expensive externalities. One-fourth to one-third of a public district's expenditures are mandates that a private school can duck -- school lunch programs, school clinic, special education, transportation, etc.

E.g. The local, and well-thought of, Catholic day prep high school here runs a single bus. The local public high school, eleven, albeit for 165% of the Catholic school's enrollment.

Posted by Davis X. Machina | March 20, 2007 12:55 AM

Politics of Resentment, NEA/AFT Edition

Comments (35)

Search

Books by Matthew Yglesias

Recent Comments

Recent Posts

Weekly Archives

Categories