Robert Costrell, currently the “endowed chair of education accountability” in the University of Arkansas’s Department of Education Reform (Jay Greene‘s shop), and formerly an advisor to three Republican Massachusetts governors, weighs in on our ongoing debate about the meaning of the Bay State’s achievement gains in the face of a “strong union”:
Let me offer some comments as a State House participant in the Massachusetts ed reform battles in 1999-2006. I served Governors Cellucci, Swift, and Romney and worked closely with our Democratic counterparts. I have written about this experience in the past, and Mike Petrilli’s initial post was absolutely correct: the teacher unions were the largest obstacle to education reform in Massachusetts. In this post, let me add a bit more flesh to Mike’s point, and then try to advance the discussion with the further lessons drawn by Massachusetts’ ed reformers regarding the unfinished business in Massachusetts.
It is indisputable that the Massachusetts Teachers Association (MTA) was the largest obstacle to implementing key elements of the reforms, most notably the MCAS exit exams, which were the main driver of Massachusetts’ success. Diane seems to minimize “the current effort to show that teachers’ unions were no help to education reform in Massachusetts,” as if this were some sort of recent revisionist history. But the “current” effort simply reiterates the well-documented history that was established at the time. The fight against MCAS featured lawsuits, boycotts, demonstrations, and, most famously, the MTA’s $600,000 fear-mongering ad campaign (the ads showed a ticking clock with nervous students, despite the fact that the exams were untimed).
My own contribution to this history was solicited by Diane for her last annual Brookings conference, in 2004, and was published in her edited volume of the Brookings Papers on Education Policy, 2005, pp. 27-37. Tom Loveless’ lead article in that volume identified the unions and other organized interest groups as the major opponents to accountability, and how they had succeeded in state after state. My task was to explain how Massachusetts overcame the MTA-led opposition. At the time, Diane thought my piece was “great.” So I was surprised to read that the lesson Diane now draws from Massachusetts is that “unions do not block academic improvement.” Well, it was certainly not for lack of trying.
Now it is true, as Mike also points out, that the Massachusetts reforms did not meaningfully address tenure, bumping, differential pay, and the like. The 1993 reform law nominally eliminated tenure, but provisions inserted into the bill made it practically just as difficult to remove ineffective teachers as it had been before. So it is certainly reasonable to point out that the success that Massachusetts has enjoyed so far did not require these human resource reforms.
However, the lesson drawn from Massachusetts ed reformers was that these reforms would be required, if the success was to be extended to its failing schools, of which there are still quite a few. This is the knotty problem of “turnarounds.” The 1993 law did not establish an effective method for turning around failing schools, and this unfinished task occasioned considerable effort during the Romney administration. Governor Romney commissioned a blue ribbon panel to examine the issue, co-chaired by Bob Schwartz and Paul Grogan. Their recommendations included the expansion of principals’ powers to remove ineffective teachers from failing schools and to reshape those schools’ workforce. Bob and Paul–both lifelong Democrats (Bob was an advisor to Gov. Dukakis)–testified to the Legislature in support of Governor Romney’s legislation implementing these recommendations. However, the MTA succeeded in blocking the bill, and also Governor Romney’s succeeding bill in 2005 with more comprehensive reforms.
I have not kept up with all developments since I left Massachusetts in 2006 and a new governor took office. But I do know that Mass Insight–an important player in Massachusetts ed reform and currently a national leader in advancing turnaround strategies–is pushing the very type of personnel policies so vigorously opposed by the unions for its Gates- and Carnegie-funded turnaround initiative. True, we do not yet know if these policies will be effective in solving the very tough problem of failing schools. But those who have studied the issue in the context of Massachusetts believe they will improve the odds.
I have not addressed the social science debate in this post, despite the fact that I am an economist. But I was also in the policy arena, and this is the history that I–and many others–lived for those crucial years. In short, the lessons Diane draws from the Massachusetts history about the role of the unions is very different from the lessons drawn by those in both parties who fought the good fight in that state. That role was not benign.
I would like to add to Bob Costrell’s comments above by noting who spoke in opposition to the cut score that the Commissioner of Education proposed for the recent elementary math test given to prospective elementary and special education teachers in March 2009. 27% were allowed to pass without any shadow on their license; an additional 15% were allowed to pass on the condition that they retake and pass the test within five years if they wish to continue working in the public schools. The ONLY group that spoke in opposition was the MTA; Kathy Skinner said: If I gave a test and only 27% passed it, then I would conclude that there is something wrong with the test.” Representatives from our state-level teacher organizations spoke in favor of the cut score and the desperate need to improve prospective elementary teachers’ knowledge of mathematics; the Globe article quoted from the head of the state association for superintendents, who also spoke in favor of the cut score. Fortunately, the MTA could not count on its usual allies on this issue.
But the MTA has consistently been against every attempt to strengthen student and teacher content standards and tests. The MFT (state affiliate of the AFT) has been noticeably silent on most issues that the MTA speaks up for. On the other hand, it has never openly contradicted an MTA position that I am aware of. Sandra Stotsky
It’s bad enough to argue by an anecdote that controls for nothing, but it turns out that the anecdote itself is wrong. Game, set, and match.
Now there’s a real scientific attitude, Stuart. End the match whenever your latest version of the truth goes up on the screed. But really, no matter how many times you say it, it’s still not an anecdote; It’s a state and a country. And children of all demographic and economic backgrounds will likely do better in that strong union state and country than in most non union schools, non union districts and non union states. In fact, based on the latest studies we have, the children are likekly to show greater academic improvement in Massachussets than in the non-union voucher schools of Milwaukee and Washington D.C. So what good is the theory that unions are always a powerful negative factor for school improvement if the theory doesn’t tell us where the kids are most likely to improve?.
Here as elsewhere, your argument flies in the face of the bedrock principle that correlation isn’t causation, which is a reason why one needs to control for all the many other factors that affect educational outcomes.
The fact that you can name individuals (or many individuals) who smoked and didn’t get lung cancer, as well as individuals who got lung cancer without smoking, doesn’t change the fact that when everything is taken into account, smoking causes a higher risk of lung cancer. The same is true here: The fact that you can name certain jurisdictions that (due to other advantages) have managed to attain high achievement despite political pressure from unions, or the fact that you can name certain other jurisdictions that have low performance despite lacking unionization, doesn’t have anything to do with the causal role that unions play.
Do you not understand these elementary principles of social science?
Just to return the discussion to Bob’s excellent post and setting aside the issues about social science –
Bob’s account suggests that teacher unions were a significant negative force in advancing education reform and producing high achievement in MA. Sandy’s comment seconds that account.
So, Sol, do you believe that the teacher unions were a positive, negative, or neutral force in MA?
Diane’s initial post suggested that the unions had no effect either way. Givem Bob and Sandy’s different assessment, what do you think?
I still believe that there is too much mixing of apples and oranges in this debate. First, let’s argue the theory: can an organization that exists only to promote the interests of its (teacher) members benefit an organization (schools) whose primary interests are those of promoting student achievement? I think not. Catholic schools enjoyed a great rein of education excellence because they had teachers (nuns!) who devoted their lives — and their specific interests — to the goal of student achievement. To believe, for even an instant, that a group (teacher unions) whose only objective (dare I quote Shanker?) is the financial interests of teachers — to believe that such a group can contribute to student achievement in the same way as nuns (non-unions) can contribute is a bit like believing that the Rooster raises the sun.
Second, argue the facts. Here, I would agree with Sol and, probably, Diane, that, all “inputs” being equal, unions are among the least consequential. If you could get a union to agree to longer school days, longer school years, uniforms, merit pay, and a core curriculum (a la Hirsch), proficiency level increases would make the union debate meaningless — or, at least, more meaningless than it is if you don’t implement these key pieces of proven education success.
Third, in the end, all roads lead to E.D. Hirsch.
–pm
As my colleague Jay suggests I will ignore Stuart’s silly point about social science and instead answer Jay’s own very pertinent question about what happened on the ground in the run up to significant reform in Massachussetts. So, yes Jay, I will concede that based on Bob’s information, I underestimated the negative role of the MTA in the struggle for Massachussetts reform. That’s partly because in all of my conversations with people involved in the reforms, including Sandy Stotsky and Jamie Gass, I don’t recall anyone describing the unions as a huge obstacle. Rather, I was told that it was mainly the ed schools and the education establishment that put up the toughest opposition. But here’s the larger point: Yes, the unions are sometimes obstacles to reforms that lead to demonstrable student improvement, but there are also other obstacles such as the ed schools, the school boards, the professional teacher organizations like NCTE and AERA. Also, let’s recognize that there are teacher unions and there are teacher unions. While I have absolutely no brief for NEA, the fact is that the AFT has often played a more positive role in pushing for changes in curriculum and in classroom instruction than many of our self styled reformers. Peter Meyer’s observations about E.D. Hirsch are exactly right. And since the AFT happens to be probablly the only major education organization that support’s Hirsch’s ideas, we have to at least give one cheer for one of the teacher unions. All of this suggests that this grand debate about the unions could use more nuance and some respect for empirical facts on the ground and also less grand theorizing — such as the claim that teacher unions always oppose educational progress and depress student achievment. The AFT’s strong support for Hirsch alone undermines that theory.
Hi Sol — give me a call sometime and I’d be happy to talk to you at length about the way the MTA exerts its influence at the Massachusetts State House. You could also talk to Mike Sentance or Jim Peyser, my predecessors, colleagues and good friends at the State House in the battle for ed reform in MA, from whom I learned so much during my seven years there.
Yes, the other organizations you mention were also important obstacles, but more so at the level of working committees on standards at the Department of Education and the like.
At the political level — the State House — the MTA is far more powerful. (Their role is also more evident at the Board of Education, as Sandy Stotsky will tell you, having served at both the Department of Ed and now on the Board.) The MTA has large offices right across the street from the State House, as do the NEA affiliates in most states. They have far more lobbyists than anyone else and they do it full-time. Just compare their budgets — no one else could raise $600,000 for an anti-MCAS ad campaign. No one else provides meaningful support to legislators in their re-election campaigns, whether in phone banks, sign-holders or cash. No one else would even think of threatening legislators with primary opponents. No one else can fund lawsuits.
The other organizations could be obnoxious — the guy who represented the school board association was certainly the leader in that category — but they were all one-person operations. The MTA would often form, fund, and lead coalitions — formal or informal — that included them, but the MTA was the real force.
We fought them on a daily basis. We usually lost, often crushingly so, even on matters where everyone in the state from the Boston Globe on down knew they were wrong (e.g. the $1.4 billion pension sweetener in 2000). But on a few big matters we won. Jamie Gass gives a good summary of the ed reform battles we fought on issue after issue — charters, etc.
But the MCAS was one of the biggest. It was a decision made at the highest levels of state government, at a meeting I will never forget in the Governor’s office, with all the major political figures, from both parties, sitting around the table, looking at very ominous data on failure rates in the trial runs. They courageously pledged to stand together, and so they did, as did their successors over the next four years, until the first MCAS-based diplomas were awarded — and denied. It was a rare instance of political fortitude and cooperation among political rivals, against a campaign led by the MTA.
Yes, Bob I would be glad to give you a call. However, there really was no need for you to enumerate all the details after I conceded your point about the role of the MTA. It makes you sound like a sore winner. (And the fact is that Sandy talked to me almost exclusively about the role of those other groups at the Department of Ed, where she worked, and she made them sound pretty insidious.) Also, I am not exactly a neophyte on the issue of the destructive power often excercised by teacher unions, particularly the NEA. My articles in City Journal and my book are full of examples.
But in our phone call I will elaborate with more details on the other points I made in this exchange, which I believe are even more pertinent to the politics of school reform, but which you didn’t respond to.This includes the fact that these other elements in the education complex are often even more destructive in their effect on developing clear content standards (as in Massachussetts) and improving classroom instruction than at least one of the two national teacher unions. I’m sure you will agree with my comments about AERA and the ed schools, which, after all, would continue to miseducate most of the country’s 3 million teachers even if there were no teacher unions.
I will also explain how it is that in the nation’s largest school district (New York) the local teachers union (UFT) has played a far less destructive role on content standards than the current school administration, widely touted as an exemplar of transformational education change by most elements in the nation’s school reform movement (including some of the folk at your Department of Education Reform.) This development in my city is what has partly motivated my call for greater nuance and respect for complexity in our discussion about teacher unions. I know it feels good to designate the unions as the evil empire, and stirs up a lot of righteous anger, but it can sometimes become a convenient excuse for not thinking creatively about how we can improve the schools in the here and now, not in some utopian future where the unions and other special interests have been banished from the education enterprise.
I look forward to your call, Sol. I’m sure there is much that we agree on. Of course, our views are somewhat rooted in our respective experiences in MA and NYC, where the AFT & NEA affiliates have played different roles. The MFT was typically more reasonable in MA, but also considerably less important at the state level than the MTA.
The detail I provided on the MTA in my post may not have been necessary for you, but perhaps other readers found it informative. My sole purpose in this exchange has been to make sure the MA story is told accurately, and that the lessons of MA are not distorted for other disputes.
Finally, I would like to make it clear who deserves the credit, at the staff level, for the ed reform victories in MA at the height of the MCAS battle, since it was not me (my prime education responsibilities were on school finance through most of this period, rather than MCAS per se). Sandy and Dave Driscoll were, of course, huge heroes at the Department of Education, along with others such as Jeff Nellhaus (“Mr. MCAS”).
At the State House, the big heroes were Mike Sentance and Jim Peyser. Mike was the education advisor to Governor Weld and Governor Cellucci. Jim was the chairman of the Board of Education, and also education advisor to Governor Swift.
At the time of the 1999 meeting in the Governor’s office that I described, Mike and Jim were the key people below the elected political leaders. Mike had laid the groundwork over several years, starting with his key work on the original ed reform bill of 1993.
Jim led the battle during the key period when high stakes were attached to the 10th grade exam, as well as on many other issues during his tenure on the Board and in the Governor’s office. It was for that reason that I nominated him for the Fordham Prize for Valor a few years ago — and which I still think he deserves.
I agree with you Bob that the MA story should be told accurately. And that’s a good way to end this exchange. When I call you this week I will ask you how the lessons of MA can be applied to other states and cities. My own interest, of course, is how do we convince education officials in New York City (and the state as well) that NAEP scores won’t go up until they bite the bullet and realize that structural changes and choice aren’t enough. What we need are Massachussetts style reforms in content standards and proven-to-work instructional strategies in the classroom.
More stuff you guys should talk about in that phone call.
Sol Stern and Ed Koch – separated at birth?
Bob Costrell and Bernie Kopell – separated at birth?
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