If not Superman, what are we waiting for?

Having seen Waiting for ‘Superman’ last night, I thought it would be appropriate to blog about what I see to be the dilemmas in education policy and offer some ideas for solutions.

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Some of the problems highlighted in the movie were teachers unions, a lack of options to students, and burdensome regulations coming from multiple places.

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In addressing teachers unions, the movie stated out how a teachers’ contract serves as a barrier to reform in schools. At one point in the movie, the silver screen is filled with teachers sitting silently in chairs while the narrator states that they wouldn’t even allow a vote on whether or not they wanted merit pay that could double their salaries. Earlier in the movie the head of the teachers’ union was passionately saying that they as the teachers union were fighting for kids. And when you look only at turning down a higher salary that would certainly seem to be the case. And they may feel that they’re fighting the good fight, but I don’t think it is creating incentives that give kids a truly exceptional education.

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This summer, working as a VISTA, I spent the summer alongside three other VISTAs in Austin and was a part of a much larger group that was based in the Twin Cities. We were all paid the same thing – and we knew this. We all had the same job description, which was about 75 percent working independently with kids and 25percent working together on community projects. After a couple weeks of work, we began summer school, where we each worked with a teacher, taking specific students out of class for a half an hour each day to work on extra reading-oriented activities.

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Knowing that I had a unique opportunity to work educationally with kids while not being seen as a teacher, I put a lot of effort into figuring out each of the kids different interests, learning styles, and, most importantly, making a lesson plan each day that was interesting and different enough from a typical lesson to be interesting to the kids. I did what I could to relate to and have fun with the kids, because I figured that my month with them wasn’t enough to make a significant difference in their scores, but it was enough time to be a positive model for them – someone fun that also liked reading. But my style was nothing like that of the two other women I worked with.

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They were both seniors, on track to graduating with a major in education. They kept a more formal relationship with the kids, working on lesson plans keeping. And while this seemed to be alright because it is what most of the other teachers were doing, it did nothing to take into account the interests of the kids. If we blame professors for not making things interesting for us as college students, we would be hypocritical to expect kids to fabricate an interest in daily work. One fellow VISTA even bragged about not having to do much because the teacher she was working with had provided tons of worksheets (probably the single most fear-inspiring word to a kid) for her to use. Throughout the summer, this woman also complained about how she did so much more work than everyone else around her. But what I noticed was rather her willingness to bow-out of duties when she had determined that someone was not pulling his weight. For example, one of member of our group missed a fifteen-minute session where we were preparing for one of our community activities. He did not miss out on much work, and even if he had been there, I doubt that there would have been something for him to do. Despite this, she decided that because she had done more than her share and that she was going to do less in the future.

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But back to the idea that we were all paid the same – and knew it. This was just a small example of how this created incentive for her to not put forth her best effort. Any extra effort she put didn’t get her any more than she already was. Now, I recognize that many teachers get into the profession because of an altruistic desire to teach America’s children. And that is fantastic, and I’m glad for it. But I do think that it is too much to expect that teachers maintain that drive despite the lack of any incentive to keep innovating. The rest of the world works on incentives. For the benefit of all kids, teachers should too. The positive for teachers is that they will be rewarded for putting forth effort they can be proud of. My only concern, which is a big one, is how this merit-pay will affect underperforming schools. I want to create incentives for teachers to work hard but I don’t want to created disincentives for teachers to take jobs in low-income districts.

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Since this blog is getting long, I think I’ll save my thoughts on charters and regulations for a later date. Sadly, it’s not like the education problem in America is going anywhere.