Linking pay to results - not to tenure - could revolutionize public schools

Arnold Schwarzenegger is proving that he is truly the reformer that Californians hoped he would be when they elected him governor just over a year ago. While his rumored budget reforms got the most buzz before his State of the State address, it's his proposal to overturn teacher tenure and link teacher pay to merit and performance that epitomizes his willingness to take on the powerful special interests that control Sacramento.

In California, after completing a two-year probationary period, teachers receive "permanent status" or tenure. Once tenured, it is virtually impossible to fire teachers regardless of poor performance. According to a Pacific Research Institute study of California's teacher-tenure system, a tenured teacher "cannot be dismissed solely for failing to improve student achievement." Worse, "if students consistently fail to advance under one teacher, there is no explicit provision that allows districts to commence the dismissal process." Gov. Schwarzenegger correctly observes that "an educational system that rewards and protects a bad teacher at the expense of a child is wrong."

Indeed, the tenure system has been shockingly effective in protecting bad teachers. In "The Worm in the Apple," an expose of the power of teacher unions, former Forbes editor Peter Brimelow quotes an attorney who says that teacher termination hearings in California are "as detailed, as voluminous and painstaking as the O.J. trial." Take the case of Juliet Ellery, a San Diego-area high school teacher. Ellery refused to answer student questions, demeaned and insulted students, and refused to adhere to lesson plans. Frustrated students circulated a petition to have her dismissed. Yet the district spent eight years and $300,000 trying to fire Ellery. Although her teaching credential was eventually suspended for a year, Ellery returned to teaching after the suspension.

Unsurprisingly, few districts try to fire bad teachers. According to state records, in the Los Angeles Unified School District from 1990 to 1999, only 13 dismissal panels were convened and just one tenured teacher's case went through the dismissal process from beginning to end.

In order to overhaul this dysfunctional system, Gov. Schwarzenegger wants "teacher employment to be tied to performance, not to just showing up" and "teacher pay to be tied to merit, not tenure." The governor's call to action coincides with the views of several influential bodies in the state. The Teaching Commission, chaired by former IBM CEO Louis Gerstner, recently recommended that teacher pay be based on performance as measured by frequent individual teacher evaluations that include assessments of student achievement and other teacher skills.

Further, the commission recommended a value-added assessment system that looks at annual improvements in student performance as measured by state tests. This system would then estimate how much a teacher has contributed to a student's gains, factoring in gains a student was projected to make based on past performance. A teacher who raised students' scores significantly would be deemed effective. In a recent paper, the Pacific Research Institute proposes a value-added assessment model for California that includes many of the elements recommended by the commission.

If asked, individual teachers complain that tenure protects their poorly performing colleagues and forces them to provide remedial instruction to their students. They wonder why failed teachers like Juliet Ellery should receive the same pay as they do. Yet despite the feelings of many in the rank-and-file, the state's powerful teacher unions will fight the governor's proposals tooth and nail. When the Los Angeles school district proposed merit pay for teachers a few years ago, the then-president of the district teachers union warned it would be "a cold day in hell" before the union accepted a plan to tie teachers' pay to student performance.

Gov. Schwarzenegger knows what's at stake in this war of ideas. Addressing legislators, the governor put this fight into perspective saying: "This is a battle of the special interests versus the children's interests. Which will you choose?" Here's hoping policy-makers in Sacramento make the right choice.