Good news for teachers in Missouri.
The group seeking a constitutional amendment to eliminate teachers’ right to due process (aka “tenure”) has decided to abandon its campaign for now. Called Teach Great, the organization hoped to make test scores the key factor in all decisions about teachers.
“The proposed amendment will still appear on the ballot. It seeks to end tenure and require that decisions around the hiring, promoting, firing and laying off of teachers be determined by at least 51 percent on student performance measures.
“Teach Great took on the task of gathering petition signatures and promoting the ideas that are championed by St. Louis financier Rex Sinquefield.” Sinquefield is a billionaire libertarian.
In an earlier post, I wrote that Sinquefield had put up $750,000 to launch the campaign to eliminate teacher tenure.
I wrote at that time:
“Conservative billionaire Rex Sinquefield does not believe that teaching should be a career. He doesn’t think that teachers should have any job security. He thinks that teachers should have short-term contracts and that their jobs should depend on the test scores of their students. He has contributed $750,000 to launch a campaign for a constitutional amendment in Missouri to achieve his aims.
“The campaign, in a style now associated with those who hope to dismantle the teaching profession, has the duplicitous name “teachgreat.org” to signify the opposite of its intent. The assumption is that the removal of any job security and any kind of due process for teachers will somehow mysteriously produce “great” teachers. This absurd idea is then called “reform.” This is the kind of thinking that typically comes from hedge fund managers, not human service professionals.
“Sinquefield manages billions of dollars and is also the state’s biggest political contributor.
“The “Teachgreat.org” initiative would limit teacher contracts to no more than three years. It also requires “teachers to be dismissed, retained, demoted, promoted, and paid primarily using quantifiable student performance data as part of the evaluation system,” according to the summary on the group’s website.”
See? Never give up hope. Bad ideas come and go, and they go away faster when teachers and parents work together.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I will have hope only when I see this defeated.
Be gone test score grubbing pagans!
The true believers of the HIGH Church of Testology are quite difficult to eradicate. While not as prolific as rats and roaches, and with the mind-set of the latter, they can be hardy creatures. Just when you think you eliminated them they come back, again and again and again kind of like Jehovah Witnesses keep coming around.
While this announcement would seem to indicate that I should change my calculations, I’m sticking with 73% against and 26% for the amendment.
I did just read a news report quoting Kate Casas as saying that it was polling that revealed to them that “the time is not right” for their amendment. I haven’t yet seen anywhere where that polling is revealed (who conducted the polling / what the results were).
Sorry to be a pessimist, but the bad news is …..
‘The proposed amendment will still appear on the ballot. It seeks to end tenure and require that decisions around the hiring, promoting, firing and laying off of teachers be determined by at least 51 percent on student performance measures.” – kansascity.com
I am wondering if Sinquefield believes he has spent enough money to get the message out. If there is a low voter turnout, this will likely pass. Opponents must keep up the pressure and galvanize the base to get out and vote.
“I still see this as a fight,” said Andrea Flinders, the president of the Kansas City Federation of Teachers and School-Related Personnel. “We still have to educate the public. The devil is in the details.” – kansascity.com
Appreciate your sentiments — it is a general election, there won’t be “low voter turnout” — beyond that, there WILL be a campaign by school districts against — there are a number of groups already up and running to fight this and they WILL continue!
Amendments do not get themselves passed by being on the ballot alone — they just don’t. For whatever reason, Sinquefield doesn’t want to drop any more money in this — I am guessing he has his reasons — probably something to do with “not polling well” — I don’t think we should just relax, but our chances just went up, I’m sure of that.
This is interesting news for those of us in the show-me state. In Missouri, it takes FIVE years of good reviews for a teacher to acquire tenure. I think that is one of the longest tenure acquisition periods anywhere — maybe the longest. It is reported that Sinquefield and his front group “Teach Great” (Kate Casas seems to be its main spokesperson) paid signature collection workers $7 per signature, and people were asked if they wanted to sign a petition “to support great schools and teachers”. Well, of course, absolutely no honest member of the public is against that.
But something must have convinced Sinquefield and Casas not to dump more money into this ? What could it be ? Perhaps the fact that everyone in education — from parents to superintendents (imagine superintendents reminding teachers to “get registered and vote”) as we unite to back teachers in this way. Several superintendents have stated publicly, point blank, “tenure is NO problem, it does not form any sort of obstacle to removal of incompetent teachers”. Nice to be on the same side as the supes — really nice to hear superintendents making this point PUBLICLY.
And interesting to note that — it appears to me — the fact that Sinquefield/Casas chose to combine anti-tenure with an enormous amount of standardized testing to which our public is generally opposed — is what really motivated the opposition — and caused parents, and admin all the way to superintendents to take the side of teachers!
One final note: Missouri does not have VAM — we do not use test scores to evaluate teachers, by mandate. Of course, there is unofficial pressure on you if you teach in a tested area . . . . some districts more than others.
I keep up pretty well with the ed “reform” / corporate privatizer edu-biz news (thank you, Diane!) — Missouri is a pretty interesting place to be a teacher right now. We have very few charters (and no serious movement to increase their number), are in the process of greatly reducing standardized testing [30 minutes math, 30 minutes ELA for grades 3, 4, 6, 7, full SBAC for grade 5 and 8 (except Alg I kids in 8th grade don’t take the SBAC 8th grade math test), only the math EOC, no SBAC test for high school — kids take the ACT plus a few EOC’s instead]. Note also that Sinquefield/Casa had previously attempted to get our heavily Republican legislature (which IS at the moment convening work groups to replace Common Core or at least modify it) to enact its anti-tenure, pro-standardized testing position into law, and the legislature declined, which is why they put their petition out there — uniting teachers, admin, parents, taxpayers AGAINST (thank you Rex and Kate!).
TJ,
As a fellow Show Me State public school teacher, you are quite correct in stating that we don’t have the total insanities that engulf many other states. There is a reason we’re called the Show Me State and generally MO is conservative in the sense of “show me” why we should change what we’re doing to what you want. The general consensus here is “let these things play out in other states and then we’ll decide.
Everyone with whom I speak and tell that the amendment means that over 50% of our evaluations would be based on student test scores looks at me with utter disbelief usually saying something to the effect of “That’s insane, what if the student doesn’t try?” or something similar. This amendment doesn’t pass the “Show Me” test and isn’t passing.
I’ll bet a favorite beverage on it-to be paid off at the Pink Slip Bar and Grill-even ol hemlock man himself will be celebrating!!
Taking away contractual rights of educators is nothing more than underhanded attempts to take billions of dollars from public schools and place them in the control of the private sector.
The operation of schools is a right of the state. Now this president has taken that right away from the states and forced their hand with taking away federal funds if the states do not comply with ,”Common Core.”
We do not fabricate a product. We teach human beings. Are psychiatrists and other doctors paid according to how many people they cure? It is absurd to believe it is correct to link teachers’ pay with test results of students.
“The operation of schools is a right of the state.”
NO, It’s not a “right”.
It’s a CONSTITUTIONAL DUTY!
Huge difference.
So, I also would like to add to my previous comments that Missouri scores about as well as other states that are substantially “more reform-y / deform-y” — with 34% of our students proficient or advanced on the NAEP. I bet if you talked to people, you would find in EVERY STATE that the right response to “34 % of kids are scoring at the equivalent of an A or at least a B+” would be either “that’s great” or perhaps “that’s too high”. The public — everywhere — has NOT bought into the narrative that EVERY STUDENT should be making A’s or B+’s or that EVERY STUDENT should load up with debt and head for college…. Common Core begins this year in Missouri — but it also may be ending this year in Missouri — obviously, my point is that “we don’t need it” and “obviously, CC isn’t helping where it has been adopted previously”.
The language used to market this legislation echoes the Obama/Duncan rhetoric in the “Great Teachers and Leaders” blueprint, also the policies for teacher evaluation in NCLB, the Teacher Incentive Fund, Race to the Top and the lightly edited McKinsey plan embraced and recycled in USDE’s “RESPECT project” (also deceptively named).
The envisioned plan for the teaching profession in the 21st century under RESPECT is based on an “up or out policy.” You are out unless you produce the test scores required for your rating as effective or highly effective, with the higher ratings weighted for three to five consecutive years of meeting the expected production.
This is just one part of the McKinsey & Co./USDE “vision” of teaching” found at the USDE website key word RESPECT all caps.
No tenure. No school boards, Pensions reduced for older workers in order to offer some benefits to younger workers. Tiers of qualification with different roles. Class size for special education “reduced” to 13 to 15 by increasing other classes to 29 or more students. ( Effectively killing the concept of mainstreaming special education students but no mention of that).
If you are an accomplished teacher here is what you get to do for a little bit more in pay.
“B. Use the most accomplished teachers as anchors for instructional teams. The most accomplished teachers are expected to serve a larger number of students per class (150-200) in longer instructional periods (90-120 minutes), by leading vertically articulated teams of 2-3 pre-professionals (such as tutors or residents) and 1-2 professional teachers. They are supported by technology that permits greater instructional reach through individualizing instruction, online learning experiences, and easy student, family and teacher access to data. Teacher leaders have track records of accomplishment, and they are expected to have the skills and knowledge to lead other teachers. They are responsible for team goal setting based on individual student learning and for managing their teams’ progress toward those goals. They are also responsible for coaching their teammates and for leading the decision making process to advance pre-professional teachers to professional status.”
I have no doubt that Rex’s efforts are refocusing to the candidates for office in Missouri. With no limit as to how much he can contribute to each candidate, his influence is tremendous. I was pleased to see that none of the four candidate he supported in the primary moved on, but I am pretty sure that he hasn’t stopped analyzing which legislative races are likely to be influenced by a big infusion of cash to a particular candidate.
Referring to the comment about the small interest in charter schools here in Missouri, that is only because state law limits where charters can operate. Repeated efforts to lift the cap/geographic restriction have failed. I am certain that if those laws were overturned, charter companies would flock I to the state.
I didn’t mean that charter companies were not interested — of course the charter companies are interested in making a buck any time any where — I meant that we don’t have them (because we don’t allow them) because the state law is what it is, and that there is no serious movement to change that law. Of course, charters are not a good thing in Kansas City — and with really no exceptions, charters have failed to do as well as public schools — but at least in the western part of the state, I do not hear anyone agitating for more charters or the expansion of charter territory (which is probably part of the reason why the legislators do not change the law).