(From EducationNext, May 17th 2012)

Every few weeks, a group of education reform advocacy organizations (ERAOs) gathers in Washington, D.C., to compare notes and plot strategy in what is (half in jest) referred to as “fight club.” Like the subject of the 1999 David Fincher movie, this fight club sees itself as the underdog in an epic struggle for freedom and equality. While the target of the film’s ire is consumerism, these national ERAOs and their counterparts at the state level are focused on enacting sweeping education policy changes to increase accountability for student achievement, improve teacher quality, turn around failing schools, and expand school choice. As Terry Moe documents in his recent book, Special Interest, for decades the politics of school reform have been dominated by the education establishment, the collection of teachers unions and other school employee associations derisively called the “blob” by reformers. But the past two years have witnessed an unprecedented wave of state education reforms, much of it fiercely opposed by the unions. The ERAOs played an active role in pushing for these changes, and it is clear that they are reshaping the politics of school reform in the United States in important ways. But does the reform blob really stand a chance of defeating the education blob?

What Are the ERAOs?

Interviews with ERAO leaders reveal that the challenges of implementing No Child Left Behind (NCLB)—in particular, states’ efforts to game its accountability, choice, and school restructuring mandates—spawned the creation of policy advocacy organizations that could push for reform in state capitols. As Joe Williams, executive director of Democrats for Education Reform (DFER) explained, “There was recognition over time that good ideas alone weren’t enough and weren’t going to get us across the finish line in terms of systemic reform. There needed to be a significant investment of time and resources in advocating for political changes that would enable and protect reform.” The largest of the ERAOs (in terms of staff, budget, and reach) are Stand for Children, StudentsFirst, the 50-State Campaign for Achievement Now (50CAN), DFER, and the Foundation for Excellence in Education (FEE), but this remains a relatively decentralized and fragmented movement. Different groups embrace somewhat different policy agendas and tactics, from grassroots mobilization to lobbying policymakers and operating political action committees.

By Howard Blume

(From LA Times, May 16th 2012)

A Bay Area nonprofit backed partly by groups known for battling teachers unions has filed a lawsuit seeking to overturn five California laws that, they say, make it too difficult to dismiss ineffective teachers.

The suit, filed on behalf of eight students, takes aim at California laws that govern teacher tenure rules, seniority protections and the teacher dismissal process.

"A handful of outdated laws passed by the California Legislature are preventing school administrators from maintaining or improving the quality of our public educational system," according to the lawsuit, which was filed Monday in Los Angeles County Superior Court and announced Tuesday.

The group behind the legal action is the newly formed Students Matter. The founder is Silicon Valley entrepreneur David F. Welch and the group's funders include the foundation of L.A. philanthropist Eli Broad.

The suit contends that teachers can earn tenure protections too quickly — in two years — well before their fitness for long-term employment can be determined. The suit also seeks to invalidate the practice of first laying off less experienced teachers during a budget crisis, rather than keeping the best teachers. And it takes aim at a dismissal process that, it alleges, is too costly, too lengthy and typically results in ineffective teachers holding on to jobs.

(From LA Weekly, May 15th 2012)

Update: Rhee herself and Parent Revolution didn't file the lawsuit -- they're just on the plaintiff's advisory board. Clarifications throughout.
California's teachers have long been protected by a series of state laws -- lobbied into existence by powerful teachers unions -- that make the ineffective ones almost impossible to fire.

Now, in the largest state lawsuit of kind, a new organization called Students Matter, advised by the key players behind the controversial "Parent Trigger" law, alleges in L.A. Superior Court that strict tenure and seniority rules are ruining the K-12 system:

"These laws force school administrators to grant new teachers 'permanent employment' after only 18 months on the job -- well before the teachers' effectiveness can be determined -- and force school administrators to keep teachers in the classroom long after they have demonstrated themselves to be grossly ineffective."
Spokespeople for both the California Teachers Association and United Teachers Los Angeles tell LA Weekly that they're still reviewing the lawsuit, and won't be commenting at this time.

But the suit is likely throwing union offices into a tizzy today. It would be a huge blow to their clients, and would essentially strip cushy union contracts of all that makes them so cush. Union executives have worked long and hard to make California's teachers so untouchable, and this legal attack seeks to unravel all their hard work. See: "LAUSD's Dance of the Lemons."

A nonprofit backed partly by organizations known for battling teachers unions has filed litigation challenging the constitutionality of California laws that make it more difficult to fire or lay off ineffective teachers.

The suit, filed Monday in Los Angeles County Superior Court and announced Tuesday, takes aim at five California statutes that govern teacher tenure rules, seniority protections and the teacher dismissal process.

“A handful of outdated laws passed by the California Legislature are preventing school administrators from maintaining or improving the quality of our public educational system,” the lawsuit says.

The group behind the legal action is called Students Matter, a newly formed nonprofit that defines its mission as changing “outdated and harmful state laws that prevent the recruitment, support and retention of effective teachers.”

In its complaint, the suit contends that teachers can earn tenure protections too quickly -- in 18 months -- well before their fitness for long-term employment can be determined. The suit also seeks to invalidate the practice of laying off less-experienced teachers first, rather than keeping the best teachers. And the suit takes aim at a dismissal process that, it claims, is too costly, too lengthy and typically results in ineffective teachers holding on to their jobs.

Teacher unions have defended tenure, seniority and dismissal rules as important and frequently necessary job protections. They've insisted the problems in education lie elsewhere, such as in funding levels that have dropped in California.

LOS ANGELES, May 15, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Yesterday afternoon, the nonprofit group Students Matter (www.studentsmatter.org) sponsored a groundbreaking lawsuit against the state of California and the California Department of Education to strike down outdated state laws that prevent the recruitment, support and retention of effective teachers. The lawsuit focuses on improving overall teacher effectiveness because of the critical role teachers play in their students' lifetime achievement. Click here to view complaint: http://studentsmatter.org/legal-filings/complaint-for-declaratory-and-injunctive-relief

The lawsuit asks the court to strike down state statutes related to the guarantee of permanent employment after only minimal and cursory reviews; bureaucratic procedures that make it prohibitively expensive and time-consuming to dismiss ineffective teachers; and Last-In First-Out (LIFO) seniority-based layoffs that ignore teacher effectiveness. Unlike many previous education lawsuits brought against the state, the lawsuit sponsored by Students Matter would impact all school districts throughout California.

Students Matter consulted with a range of education experts and organizations in the development of the lawsuit to determine how to best bring about improvement in student achievement, and has formed an Advisory Committee which includes Alliance for a Better Community, Students for Education Reform, Democrats for Education Reform, Parent Revolution, CORE, Students First, The Education Trust-West and New Schools Venture Fund (partial list).

Theodore J. Boutrous and Theodore B. Olson, two of the lead attorneys who are fighting to overturn Proposition 8 in federal court on behalf of the American Foundation for Equal Rights, head up the Students Matter legal team.

(From Education Week, May 15th 2012)

A handful of California parents have sued the state over five laws that allegedly concentrate poorly performing teachers in schools that primarily serve disadvantaged and minority students.

Filed today in the California superior court, the lawsuit takes aim at California rules that: require tenure be granted after only two years, before a teacher's performance has been well documented; create some dozen steps in the due-process procedures for dismissing teachers for poor performance, which the plaintiffs say allows that process to drag on for months or years; and mandate that seniority serve the major factor (barring a few exceptions) in determining which teachers are laid off during reductions-in-force.

Read the full article here.

(From MLive, May 10th, 2012)

LANSING, MI - Parents might know what an A means when they see it on a report card, but what if their school was graded “blue?”
The state Education Department is backing away from its plan to grade schools using three colors -- red, yellow and green -- to one that would use five colors, saying it would be more helpful to parents.

But several education advocacy groups say the new plan is better than the “traffic light,” but still falls short of a report card system they said works well in other states and gives parents a clear indication of a school’s progress.

“We're glad to hear about the five categories -- a big improvement for the new public reporting system,” said Amber Arellano, executive director of the Education Trust -Midwest. “We still think parents intuitively understand an A to F system better than a color system. For example, what does "yellow" mean to a parent in terms of school quality?”

The color-coded plan also contradicts the recommendation from a new legislative education quality work group, which has called for a report card as one of several proposed reforms.

The ranking system is part of the state Education Department’s application to the federal government to waive No Child Left Behind requirements, which aimed for having all students become proficient in key subjects by 2014.

(From Detroit Free Press, May 10th, 2012)

Parents would get clearer information about the quality of schools under a change state officials are making to revamp the school report card system.

The Michigan Department of Education, as part of a request to waive some of the rules of the federal No Child Left Behind Act, had planned to create scorecards for each school that would assign green, yellow or red ratings based on how well the schools met academic goals.

But under that system, most schools would be rated yellow -- meaning they had met most of the goals, but not all. And a coalition of groups said in a letter to state Superintendent Mike Flanagan last week that most schools in urban areas such as Detroit would receive red ratings, meaning they hadn't met most or any of the goals.

"This ... would give parents little to no differentiated, understandable information by which to make high-quality, thoughtful school placement decisions for their children," the coalition said in the letter.

The state is listening. Flanagan said during a State Board of Education meeting Tuesday that, in response to feedback, the state will move to a five-tiered rating system, rather than a three-tiered system.

Two more colors would better delineate schools and districts, provide more clarity and "help parents make an informed choice," MDE spokeswoman Jan Ellis said.

Shaton Berry of Warren, president of the Michigan PTA, said a five-rating system might help with distinguishing "what the differences are" among schools.

By Joe Williams

(From New York Daily News, May 9th, 2012)

It’s springtime in the city, which means that once again the leaves are budding, the Yankees are trying to figure out some pitching issues and the United Federation of Teachers is filing another questionable lawsuit seeking to block Mayor Bloomberg and Chancellor Dennis Walcott from managing the city’s 1.1 million-student public school system.

The annual rite of passage for the UFT’s lawyers shares the same goal that similar lawsuits have had in the last few years: to gum up City Hall’s push to simultaneously reduce the number of bad schools in the city while increasing the number of good schools available to families.

For the sake of public education in the city, this case needs to be tossed on the scrap heap alongside last year’s baseless UFT/NAACP suit, which sought to block the opening of many charter schools.

The new UFT lawsuit (the city’s principals union is also a plaintiff) seeks to stop the city from closing two dozen persistently failing public schools and from replacing up to half of the schools’ staff as part of sweeping turnaround efforts citywide.

But the ironies are thick — and reveal just how intellectually dishonest the union is prepared to be in order to stymie reform.

After months of unsuccessfully trying to halt the closures, after falsely complaining that the city’s sole education policy boils down to closing schools, the UFT’s lawyers are suddenly shifting gears.

The lawsuit filed Monday argues that what the city is doing isn’t actually closing schools at all, and therefore — based on the teachers’ contract — these schools ought to still be run according to a host of contractual rules and procedures that don’t give the chancellor power to do much of anything.

And, based on the Olympic class waffling Romney has exhibited throughout his campaign on issues such as student loan interest rates, the DREAM Act, the education budget, and a federal role in education (or lack there of), their prediction is quite grim.

Read the full policy brief and view DFER's Education Report Card grading both Romney and Obama here.

"This dubious request has no merit whatsoever and is clearly an attempt to obscure the fact that Democrats who are passionate about public education - both in Los Angeles and around the nation - are stepping up to support Brian Johnson in his race to win the 46th Assembly District seat. We encourage Democratic education reformers to support Brian's campaign today here."

Democrats for Education Reform, based in Washington, DC, is a political action committee recognized by the Federal Election Commission. It has chapters in a dozen states, and state-based political action committees in many of those states. For more information, go to www.dfer.org.

UPDATE: Brian Johnson's campaign responds here. 

President Barack Obama and Republican hopeful Mitt Romney haven't been talking much about education's toughest questions aside from recent attention on student loan interest rates.

To that extent, neither are even discussing their own successes in school reform, largely because of a party-base problem, Andrew Rotherham writes for TIME.

While Obama has four years of presidency under his belt, and an extensive education record to show for it, some are wondering how Romney's platform and past achievements in the area would translate in the Oval Office.

In a policy brief released Friday by the Democrats for Education Reform, DFER Policy Analyst Omar Lopez, DFER Massachusetts State Director Liam Kerr and DFER Director of Federal Policy Charlie Barone write a tough review of "What Kind of President Would Mitt Romney Be on Education," and grade both the presumptive nominee and Obama in an "Education Report Card."

"It will be critical to educate voters on what the likely result of a Romney administration would be on education policy for both the middle class and our most economically vulnerable," the DFER authors write. "Nothing short of an abandonment of the issue of school reform, a rejection of bipartisanship, and a shirking of responsibility to help college students and local schools with precious federal resources at a time when their own budgets are tighter than at any time in recent history."

Overall, Romney supports testing and accountability, merit pay and school choice, but is skeptical of the role of unions and efforts to reduce class size. He recently backed Obama's student loan proposal to keep interest rates from doubling to 6.8 percent on July 1. The issue has received criticism from conservative interest groups like American Action Forum, which argues that the higher rate would only cost each student an average $1,000 more in debt over the term of the loan, or around $7 per month in future payments.

But as the DFER authors point out, Romney also supports Rep. Paul Ryan's (R-Wis.) "A Roadmap for America's Future" fiscal year 2013 budget proposal, which would cut Pell Grant eligibility. The proposal would therefore reduce total Pell grants by about $170 billion over the next decade -- largely affecting poor students -- and allows for Stafford loan interest rates to double to 6.8 percent. It would also end student loan interest subsidies for those in school and make Pell spending discretionary instead of mandatory.

(From Detroit Free Press, May 4th, 2012)

Michigan has to jump through a few more hoops if it wants to get out from under some of the strict rules of the federal No Child Left Behind law.

That law, now widely panned by many as being too unrealistic because it requires all students to be proficient in reading and math by 2014, penalizes schools that don't meet the mark.

And greater numbers of schools are falling short of the goals, many because they aren't showing enough improvement on state exams. That's why the U.S. Department of Education has told states they can apply for waivers from the rules.

Michigan applied in February, with a plan that would allow the state to better intervene in the schools that need the most help and make schools more accountable for student performance. The state's plan also would allow the state to set lower proficiency goals for schools.

But like most states that applied for the waiver, Michigan got a letter back from the feds outlining a number of changes that are needed in order for Michigan to get approval.

The feds said they were mostly pleased with the state's application, telling State Superintendent Mike Flanagan in a letter last month that, "You and your team deserve great credit for your efforts thus far."

The feds detailed four pages of changes and clarifications that are needed, but three were highlighted as among the most significant. Among them, the feds are concerned that too little weight is given to graduation rates. Michigan's plan would have it count 10% toward a school's accountability rating.

They're also concerned that there is no official plan to pilot new systems for evaluating teachers and principals. That concern was raised before the Michigan Council on Educator Effectiveness, which was formed last year to come up with the new evaluation system, recommended a pilot program. That recommendation came last week.

(From Chicago Sun Times, May 3, 2012)

For much of the last year, while parents, community leaders and policymakers have been focused on bringing much-needed improvements to the Chicago Public Schools, the teachers union has been not-so-secretly planning to hold our city -- and our schoolchildren -- hostage by calling for a strike.

A teachers strike -- something Chicago hasn't seen since 1987 -- is a big deal. It's a nuclear option for defiant union negotiators who don't get their way.

One reason there aren't as many teachers strikes around the country as there used to be is that everyone involved -- including teachers -- recognizes the havoc created for families and for students who need every minute of education possible to keep pace with their peers around the country and around the globe.

Strikes are extremely dangerous, which is what makes them effective as political tools.

This is why it is so upsetting that the Chicago Teachers Union has been so reckless about playing the strike card. This does not sound like a union that has any respect for the principles of collective bargaining, where both sides work in good faith at the bargaining table. Rather, union bosses like Karen Lewis seem intent on thuggery and intimidation to get their way outside of the process.

While the rest of the city has focused on how to provide students more time for learning, the CTU has very publicly pushed its members towards a strike. If the union follows through on its threats to walk next school year, hardworking families would be burdened with millions of dollars in lost wages and emergency day-care costs.

A practical look at the education laws established by Congress over the past half-century shows three things that Congress is uniquely positioned to do well: promote equal educational opportunity, set goals and keep score, and invest in research and development. Further historical reflection also shows that Congress has two significant limitations: an inability to respond quickly and a limited capacity to monitor and enforce.

Read the full article here.