Bruce Baker brilliantly explains how absurd the reformy policies are in both Philadelphia and Tennessee.
In Philadelphia, teachers are being blamed for a massive deficit that was in fact caused by historic state budget cuts.
In Tennessee, the reform plan is to tie teachers’ licenses to test scores, even though only 1/3 teach tested subjects.
Baker explains:
“The true reformy brilliance here is that these changes, with little doubt, will cause the best teachers from around the region and even from Finland, Shanghai and Singapore to flock to Tennessee to teach…at least for as long as they don’t roll a 1 and lose their license (pack your dice!). In fact, it is a well understood reformy truth that the “best teachers” would be willing to take a much lower salary if they only knew they would be evaluated based on a highly unstable metric that is significantly beyond their direct control. That’s just the reformy truth! [a reformy truth commonly validated via survey questions of new teachers worded as “don’t you think great teachers should be rewarded?” and “Wouldn’t you rather be a teacher in a system that rewards great teachers?”]
“No money needed here. Salaries… not a problem. Resource-Free Reformyness solves all!
“All that aside, what do we know about the great state of Tennessee?
“Tennessee is persistently among the lowest spending states in the country on its public education system.
“Tennessee is not only one of the lowest spenders, but Tennessee spends less as a share of gross state product than most other states.
“Tennessee has one of the largest income gaps between public school enrolled and private school enrolled children, and has among the higher shares of private school enrolled children.
“Tennessee has relatively non-competitive teacher wages with respect to non-teacher wages.”
Let see if Tennessee races to the top as it sheds teachers.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Here’s the Secretary of Education selling the Tennessee law. You know what you won’t find in this advertisement for Milton Friedman’s educational theories? The word “public”.
They’ve abandoned public schools.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/americas-kids-need-a-better-education-law/2013/08/25/fb71add8-0a90-11e3-8974-f97ab3b3c677_story.html
I cannot imagine what a Duncan-Gates-Walton written NCLB would look like. Full-on no holds barred privatization, at the FEDERAL level. Are there any actual Democrats in Congress who support public education that we can contact to hold it up?
Dear Diane;
I am so grateful for your blogs. I taught in the Phila. public schools for 31 years. It is not just a lack of funding that is the problem. Years ago the Pa teachers retirement fund was in such good fiscal health that it helped to bail out the city of Phila when they were in financial trouble. When a certain Republican became governor, he decided that the retirement fund was in such good shape, he would not add the promised matching funds. When the stock market crashed, of course there was not as much cash available for the retirees . Now, of course, the teachers are being blamed for the deficits. The only reason that the state did not change the terms of the retirement system for teachers this year is that it would cost the state over a billion dollars to change it. This was told to me by a Republican legislator in my district. That idea has been tabled until the fall. There is always more to the story than at first glance.
Thanks for the service you provide,
Judy
Well, I think there’s more to the story than even at second glance. I don’t think the governor of Pennsylvania has the power to just “decide” to cancel employer contributions when he thinks the fund is in good shape. More likely, what happened in Pennsylvania was similar to what happened in many states. First, the public pension funds discounted (and continue to discount) their future obligations by a very aggressive rate, based on the expectation that investment returns would continue to be around 8% for infinity. (Privately managed funds use a discount rate or 4% or 5%.) Second, the reason the Pennsylvania pensions were in such “good shape” in the 1990s is because they were treating the massive stock market runup as real investment gains, and these gains were so huge on paper that little to no employer contributions were necessary to keep the funds fully funded (or so went the logic). Third, when the gains evaporated in the 2000s, the state legislature tweaked the accounting rules to allow the funds to stay “fully funded.”
This story played out all over the country in plain sight in the 2000s. It wasn’t a secret. Public employee unions not only knew about it but signed off on it (often in exchange for benefit enhancements). Today, major pension funds are still using aggressive return rates to understate future liabilities and to underfund pensions. And again, it’s not a secret, and again, the unions support it. Why? Because funding a pension using conservative accounting would cost billions of dollars in additional employer contributions right now. So the funds keep punting, and the problem gets worse and worse. The states, the pension fund boards, and the unions all know it, and unless the fund’s finances have completely collapsed, they’re all ok with it.
Some one should have sued.
Who sets the projected rate of return. I think I heard that that was being done in California or Illinois recently too.