Throughout this year's presidential campaign, it's become clear that there is very little Governor Mitt Romney and President Barack Obama agree upon. However, the Wednesday, October 3rd debate did find one area of common ground: Race to the Top, the President's program to help improve public schools by improving accountability among teachers, is a good program.
I, too, believe that accountability in our schools is a good thing. That is why, in June of this year, I supported HB 1980, a bipartisan reform bill that provides greater accountability of teacher performance in Pennsylvania's schools. This legislation was supported by Republicans and Democrats, as well as the Pennsylvania Education Association.
It was supported by these varied groups because it is a common sense idea to help reach a common goal: providing a quality education to our children.
Unfortunately, not everyone agrees – including Kevin Deely, the fiscally liberal union boss who opposed Race to the Top in his own school district, costing his local school district millions of dollars in important funding.
Deely opposed Race to the Top for a simple reason: money. Deely said that accepting Race to the Top would require "making changes to our contract."
That's the same contract Deely led the fight for that contained massive raises which caused a 16% property tax increase and a $12.9 million budget deficit in his school district.
Deely also opposed Race to the Top's accountability measures saying "To base a teacher's evaluation and their worth as an educator on how – how much their students grow, it – it just doesn't work that way."
I disagree with Mr. Deely. I think we should be doing everything we can to help ensure our children are learning. For Mr. Deely to say whether a child does or does not grow in the skills they are supposed to learn in the classroom is unimportant is, well, just patently ridiculous.
At a time when we as a country and a community need to come together to solve serious challenges, I am proud to have worked in a bipartisan manner for common sense initiatives like increasing accountability in our schools. It's clear from last night's debate that the President and Governor Romney feel the same. Sadly, Mr. Deely wants to continue down a radical path that will only perpetuate what's wrong with politics today.
I can't believe that Mr. Deely and almost every other teacher union in the country would put themselves ahead of their students! Mr. Deely I thought you were the one who cared about our schools, and students!?! But when you are given the chance to get millions of dollars for your school (money to the classroom no less) you turn it down because you don't want to take the chance of you and your cronies missing out on raises! If you really think there are so many great teachers, why shouldn't they get to reap the rewards through merit, instead of time in?
Also, are if you really are interested in reducing local property taxes and being fiscally conservative, when are you going to come out in favor of fixing the funding formula that is enriching for pofit charters and cyber charters? The auditor general is begging the legislature to act: http://www.paessp.org/publications/press-releases/41-news-and-announcements/380-auditor-general-wagner-calls-for-charter-school-reform.html Auditor General Wagner highlighted the following from the report: •Pennsylvania spends about $3,000 more per student to educate a child in a brick-and-mortar charter school and about $3,500 more per student to educate a child in a cyber charter school compared to the national average, which adds up to $315 million in annual savings; •Pennsylvania could save $50 million a year by eliminating a loophole which allows a “double dipping” of retirement benefit payments; •The Department of Education should take a leadership role and set charter and cyber charter school funding rates like those in Arizona and Michigan.