Sweeping Plan on Education Reform Gets Strong Push

When a keynote speaker at the annual gathering here of the Education Commission of the States observed that most school reform plans of the past have had no more lasting effect on society than “the hula-hoop and the Edsel,” many in the audience laughed heartily. They knew that he was right.

But the crafters of the latest blueprint for national change are determined not to add theirs to the list of reports that went nowhere.

The Carnegie Forum on Education and the Economy, made up of top business, education and government leaders, released a widely hailed report in May that urged fundamental changes in the teaching profession.

But unlike most would-be reformers, the forum members did not stop there. What distinguished the Carnegie report from other efforts was that it was accompanied by two essential elements for selling the reforms to the people who count: A political strategy, and money to back it up.

Partial Union Backing

For the past two months, the forum has sought and obtained at least partial backing from the nation’s two largest teachers’ unions. And at the four-day conference that ended here Saturday, forum members sought political support for the proposals from the public education officials from across the country who would play a central role in turning any reforms into law.

Because of the reputation of the Carnegie forum and its willingness to put some of its own money behind the plan, some observers say the forum’s strategy stands a strong chance of success.

New Jersey Gov. Thomas Kean, outgoing chairman of the Education Commission of the States and one of the authors of the Carnegie report, urged the 500 state legislators and education officials attending the conference to implement Carnegie’s proposals.

“We have listened enough about what’s to be done,” he said. “It is time to act.”

Chief among the proposals Kean endorsed are: Creating a national teacher certification board; strengthening teacher preparation, and restructuring the profession to give a few highly experienced and highly paid teachers the opportunity to lead their school and guide the work of other instructors.

Political Rewards

Forty-eight states, including California, belong to and fund the nonprofit commission, which was formed in 1965 to help states develop policies to improve the quality of education.

The New Jersey governor, who has toughened teacher standards in his state, said that pushing for change can bring political rewards. He was reelected last year in a landslide, he said, partly because of his promise to make education reform his top priority.

Kean said he will press his colleagues to endorse the Carnegie plan when the National Governors Assn. meets next month in South Carolina. The governors’ meeting will focus on improving schools.

Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton, who will chair both the governors’ association and the Education Commission of the States next year, said he supports “the lion’s share” of Carnegie’s conclusions, particularly the proposal to form a national certification panel.

The Carnegie Corp., the New York philanthropic foundation that sponsored the forum, has pledged $817,000 to fund the certification board and develop standards and ways to assess competence. According to Carnegie forum spokesman Scott Widmeyer, two Stanford University education professors will devise the exam, which will be ready in three years.

Voluntary Certification

The certification board will be voluntary, but forum officials hope that states will choose to affiliate with the national panel and hire only those teachers who meet the national standards.

Arkansas, a state that historically has devoted scant attention and money to education, last year became the first state in the country to require all teachers to pass a competence test in reading, writing and math. Since then, Georgia and Texas have conducted similar examinations. Other states, including California, examine only new teachers.

Arkansas financed the testing and other improvements through a sales-tax increase. However, Clinton cautioned that many states will not be able to afford the sweeping changes proposed in the Carnegie report. The Carnegie forum estimated that implementing all of its ideas could cost $48 billion over 10 years--much of it in increased salaries aimed at making teaching a more financially attractive profession.

‘It Will Be Tough’

“I think (education reform) is good politics. But it will be tough in states like mine where the economy is depressed,” Clinton said in an interview. “The farm states, the coal states and the timber states are having severe difficulties.”

Participants in the meeting expressed a sense of urgency about uplifting the teaching profession. They said that a “window of opportunity” has opened to transform the teaching force because half of the nation’s 2.5 million teachers will retire or quit in the next six years, according to national surveys. Shortages already exist in many areas, particularly math, science, English and special education. Many districts, including Los Angeles, are responding to the crunch by issuing emergency credentials to people who lack degrees in education.

Expensive Reform

One of the more expensive Carnegie reforms involves the creation of a new category of “lead teachers,” certified as such by a national board, who would supervise teams of less-qualified instructors in much the way that a senior partner in a law firm guides the work of junior members. The superior teachers might actually hire the administrators, rather than the other way around, and would assume major responsibility for setting the goals of the school and determining how they can be met.

Under Carnegie’s plan, the salaries of all teachers would be linked to the overall performance of the school. But the lead teachers would earn the most--up to $72,000 a year, almost triple the national average now.

This proposal has stirred the wrath of groups representing school administrators, who are angry that the report ignores the role of principals. It also faces formidable opposition from the head of the largest national teachers’ union.

Although the 1.8-million-member National Education Assn. and its president, Mary Futtrell, have taken an official stand in support of the national certification board, Futtrell continues to have “deep reservations” about the lead teacher concept. The NEA historically has opposed plans that would create different classes of teachers, insisting instead that all teachers should receive more money and more autonomy.

Troubled by Idea

During a panel discussion, Futtrell said she was also troubled by the idea of tying raises to the academic achievement of students in the school.

While she said good teachers should not object to being held accountable, she added that she knows of no fair method of determining a teacher’s effectiveness. Teachers too often have no control over factors that influence the learning process, Futtrell said.

“Who is accountable when I have 35 students in my class, when not everyone has a textbook, when there is not enough paper to duplicate the things I want to pass out? Those are things over which I have no control,” she said.

The president of the rival teachers’ union, Albert Shanker of the American Federation of Teachers, chided Futtrell, suggesting that she did not understand the vision of schools put forth by the Carnegie task force.

“If we continue to talk about accountability in terms of the traditional school, nothing will change,” he said. “Carnegie changes the structure (of schools) and therefore the entire discussion. . . . You’ve got to recognize some differentiation (among teachers). We’re talking about teachers taking responsibility in training other teachers and severing them if they need severing. . . . Get out of that rut and let’s start talking about a different world. Then we can begin to solve some of these problems.”