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I always cringe when I hear so-called reformers say poverty is "no excuse" for lack of student achievement. It is not because I don't subscribe to that belief, but because I know politicians will use that message as an excuse for not "leveling the playing field" for poor children. To believe that you can treat and fund all schools in the same way meets what many call the definition of insanity--doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. From collective bargaining contracts to federal law, poverty has to be a factor in every decision that affects the education of poor children and those who educate them.

The list of initiatives reads like a grand plan to dismantle public education as we know it: Slash education spending. Outsource public teachers. Curb collective bargaining rights. Kneecap teachers' unions. Open the floodgates to charter and "cyber" schools. Welcome to education reform in the state of Michigan, where a Republican-dominated legislature and a GOP governor are pushing one of the broadest anti-union, pro-privatization agendas in the country.

This article takes advantage of a unique policy change to examine how principals make decisions regarding teacher dismissal. In 2004, the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) and Chicago Teachers Union signed a new collective bargaining agreement that gave principals the flexibility to dismiss probationary teachers for any reason and without the documentation and hearing process that is typically required for such dismissals. With the cooperation of the CPS, I matched information on all teachers who were eligible for dismissal with records indicating which teachers were dismissed. With these data, I estimate the relative weight that school administrators place on a variety of teacher characteristics. I find evidence that principals do consider teacher absences and value-added measures, along with several demographic characteristics, in determining which teachers to dismiss.

In Wisconsin, there has been a bigger push to adopt merit pay ever since Scott Walker limited the collective bargaining rights for teacher unions.  Merit pay sounds like a good idea in concept, especially to those in the business world, but most teachers know that it is a crock.  In theory, merit pay, would work in a way that you determine the quality of the teacher and reward them based on that quality.  This brings about many problems.  The biggest of which is how do you determine the quality of teachers? This has been a widely debated topic in many of the recent educational reform debates.  Should we measure based solely on standardized tests? This would result in more teaching to the tests, a narrowing of curriculum, and most likely cheating to ensure the bonuses as we have seen in Atlanta and DC.

This paper takes advantage of a unique policy change to examine how principals make decisions regarding teacher dismissal. In 2004, the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) and Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) signed a new collective bargaining agreement that gave principals the flexibility to dismiss probationary teachers for any reason and without the documentation and hearing process that is typically required for such dismissals. With the cooperation of the CPS, I matched information on all teachers that were eligible for dismissal with records indicating which teachers were dismissed. With this data, I estimate the relative weight that school administrators place on a variety of teacher characteristics. I find evidence that principals do consider teacher absences and value-added measures, along with several demographic characteristics, in determining which teachers to dismiss.

This year, the gloves came off, as teachers faced unprecedented attacks on our right to collective bargaining, as well as continued attempts to tie our pay and job security to test scores. Some of these attacks were blatant, as in Wisconsin, but most were veiled behind a cloak of rhetoric about education reform. Today I want to review some of the posts that attempted to bell the corporate education reform cat.

As the Indiana Department of Education implements an ambitious and far-reaching agenda, its leader is spending much of his time on the road extolling voucher programs, charter schools and collective bargaining limits to special-interest groups in other states. News coverage suggests the first-term Republican is the go-to state official for school reform tactics pushed by right-leaning organizations.

"Recent days has seen a nasty tweet fight break out, as Mayor Bloomberg's proxies - Deputy Mayor Howard Wolfson, StudentsFirst honcho and former Bloomberg Albany lobbyist Micah Lasher, and former television anchor Campbell Brown - have used the 140 character forum to launch a vicious slander that the UFT protects sexual predators, defending their return to the classroom.  Their argument is that since arbitrators who decide dismissal hearings against tenured teachers are jointly selected by the Department of Education and the UFT, they split the difference in decisions and do not fire teachers who have engaged in sexual misconduct or sexually inappropriate behavior. The only solution, they argue, is to overturn tenure and give the DoE the power of judge, jury and executioner. The UFT has a position of zero tolerance on sexual misconduct, and we have negotiated in our contract the strongest penalties for sexual misconduct in any collective bargaining agreement in the state of New York. If an adult violates the trust that is at the heart of the educator-student relationship with an act of sexual misconduct or with sexually inappropriate behavior, dismissal is the only appropriate response."

"I received the following description of the appearance of Michelle Rhee and her husband at the University of Hawaii, where they lectured on "Ethics and Education." Rhee paused briefly from her national campaign to raise $1 billion to remove teachers' collective bargaining rights, to strip them of tenure and seniority, and to promote vouchers and charters, to share her wisdom about American education."

The 2010 law that established a new framework for the evaluation of New York educators was a complex piece of legislation, and last week's agreement to clarify and refine that law with additional legislation added another layer to that complexity. The complexity is unavoidable. It is important to have evaluations based on multiple measures of teacher effectiveness, just as it is important to evaluate students based on multiple measures of their learning: more measures and more forms of evidence produce more robust, more accurate and fairer evaluations. Further, multiple measures allowed New York to avoid placing inordinate weight on standardized exams and value-added algorithms, as other states have done to very negative consequences. And it was essential that the bulk of the evaluations be established locally through collective bargaining, with the law only providing a general framework. These objectives necessarily led to a high level of complexity.

Okay! Okay! I know teachers do not have tenure in the pure definition of guaranteed lifetime employment that was available in some higher education institutions long ago. Instead, teachers have fair employment and dismissal procedures that protect them from dismissal for arbitrary, capricious, and discriminatory reasons after completing a probationary period. I have been following with interest the legislative battle in Virginia over the "tenure" issue. It has been a very partisan battle with only a few Republican senators--those with firsthand information from relatives who are teachers--refusing to go down a road that appears punitive and unnecessary in this non-collective bargaining state. These senators' instincts are right, and let me provide some points to support them. First, the reason that the original laws were passed was to protect good teachers.

"There has recently been a lot of talk about teachers' views on education policy. Many teachers have been quite vocal in their opposition to certain policies (also here) and many more have expressed their views democratically - through their unions - especially in states where teachers have collective bargaining rights."

"During the recent debates over public employees' collective bargaining rights, especially around the Wisconsin protests, I heard a few people argue that Republican governors are intent on destroying public sector unions, at least in part, because union members are more likely to vote - and to vote Democratic."

"You don' t need to be a policy analyst to know that huge changes in education are happening at the state- and local-levels right now - teacher performance pay, the restriction of teachers' collective bargaining rights, the incorporation of heavily-weighted growth model estimates in teacher evaluations, the elimination of tenure, etc. Like many, I am concerned about the possible consequences of some of these new policies (particularly about their details), as well as about the apparent lack of serious efforts to monitor them."

"There is nothing new about opposition to public-sector unionism. It has been a feature of American life for over one hundred years. But in some ways, the current wave of anti-unionism is a departure. Three different eras of opposition to public-sector unionism, including the current one, have been distinguished by distinct core arguments against collective bargaining for public employees."

State and local pensions have been headline news since the 2008 financial collapse reduced the value of their assets, leaving a substantial unfunded liability. The deterioration in the funded status of these plans raised pension costs at the same time that the ensuing recession wreaked havoc with state and local budgets. Legislatures across the country have responded by reducing pension benefits - primarily for new employees - and increasing employer and employee contributions. As part of that process, governors in several states have launched initiatives to curb collective bargaining in the public sector. One possible implication is that governors view unions as responsible for pushing up state and local pension benefits. This brief identifies the impact of public sector unions and other factors on benefit levels, wages, and employment.

A group of executives who represent around 300 of America's largest corporations has labored in the shadows since the early 1970s to promote free market policies to state legislators. The cabal met this week in New Orleans' Mariott hotel and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal was the luncheon speaker at the mid-week gathering. The influence which the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) has demonstrated includes virtual destruction of public employee collective bargaining rights, voter identification requirements that appear to be aimed at restrictive voting, and most importantly a frontal attack on public education.

Teachers unions have the right to collectively bargain over almost every component of teacher evaluations, an Albany County (N.Y.) Supreme Court judge ruled Wednesday afternoon, dealing a blow to those who think teacher reviews should be based heavily on objective data.

The state teacher's union declared a major court victory on Wednesday after a judge ruled that a school district cannot impose a teacher evaluation system where 40 percent is based on student test scores. Student test scores will count for at least 20 percent of an educator's evaluation, and could count for an additional 20 percent only if it is collectively bargained, NYSUT spokesman Carl Korn said.

Governors and teachers' unions are going head-to-head in several states across the country, and the public feels caught in the middle, a new survey on the public's perception of U.S. schools finds. When those polled were asked how teachers' unions have affected the quality of U.S. public education, 47 percent said unions hurt it. But even so, 52 percent said they side with unions in disputes with governors over collective bargaining.