Obama's Kerry Moment on Education To Come

During teh summer of 2004, John Kerry, like just about every Democratic presidential candidate since time immorial, appeared before the National Education Association convention and expressed some tepid support for the concept of merit pay for teachers. Within weeks, Kerry backtracked off that support, caving to the political pressure of one of the most powerful political machines in America.

Recently, Barack Obama appeared before the NEA convention and tip-toed around the issue:

Barack Obama has the teachers cheering. The National Education Association is meeting here, and Obama-- like the Democratic candidates who have spoken before him -- is telling the crowd everything it wants to hear.

He's "committed to fixing and improving our public schools instead of abandoning them and passing out vouchers." Washington "left common sense behind when they passed No Child Left Behind." Teacher pay must be raised "across the board."

But then Obama tiptoes into the minefield of merit pay for teachers, so delicately that he does not actually utter the words "merit pay" until the question and answer session.

"If you excel at helping your students achieve success, your success will be valued and rewarded as well," he says -- but he hastens to add that this must be done "with teachers, not imposed on them, and not based on some arbitrary test score."

Routinely we hear the lament from union leadership that teachers are not paid enough--which arguably they may not be paid enough. However, whenever someone talks about competition in schools, or other market based reforms, we hear the rebuttal that education is not manufacturing and you can't treat teachers like factory workers.

Note to the NEA--you can't have your cake and eat it too. You can't argue for professional grade pay and then insisten upon blue collar style pay scales. If teachers are to be treated as the professionals they are, they should be rewarded like professionals, where those who do better than others get rewarded. Nearly eveyone in America understands that rewarding the best teachers with the best pay incentivizes the best teachers to stay in teh schools rather than taking their quality skills and moving on for better pay in other fields. Even I, no friend of the national teachers unions, would support the idea of significant pay raises for teachers, say 20-25 percent over the next three years if, and only if a merit pay plan is put in place. I am not talking about $1,000 or $2,000 bonuses, I am talking about top end bonuses in the 25-35 percent of base pay range.

So Barack Obama has joined the 21st Century and supports the idea of merit pay, although we are unsure of what his ideas would look like. But the NEA is having none of it:

This is whispering truth to power. But for the teachers, Obama's words are fingernails on a chalkboard. They fall silent, except for scattered boos, as he mentions a modest new program in Minnesota.

"If you look between the lines on the answer, it wouldn't be the answer we were looking for," says Rhonda Wesolowski, president of New Hampshire's NEA affiliate. "He's going to have to come a long way off of that position with us," says California Teachers Association Vice President Dean Vogel.

And those were the polite ones, who were otherwise impressed with Obama. "I can't imagine if he were informed he would come before 10,000 people and say what he said," says New Jersey Education Association President Joyce Powell.

But Obama, of course, knew exactly what he was doing, which is why he was so muted. Last year, in "The Audacity of Hope," Obama endorsed higher pay for teachers, with "just one catch" -- they "need to become more accountable for their performance -- and school districts need to have greater ability to get rid of ineffective teachers." Today, the talk is all pay, little catch, though the Obama campaign promises more details later.

I find it highly unlikely that the NEA will endorse either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama before the primaries next year (I could be wrong--but they can't afford to be). So the question will be, how much pressure will the NEA put on Obama were he to win the nomination to roll back his stance on merit pay. Of course, the pressure will be enormous, but the bigger, and more important question is, will Obama cave to the pressure.

The only way to move past the issue of whether to have merit pay and on to the question of how to structure it will be if the Democratic leaders in this nation tell the NEA and the AFT that they are out of synch with how the nation views the problems and abandons the NEA position against merit pay. In short, Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton has to public endorse merit pay and tell the teachers' union to take a hike until they can come back and act like the professionals they claim to be.

I understand Obama's relucatance, but I will have a great deal more respect for the man if he just came out and said, "You teachers want to be paid like professionals, fine. You will be held accountabble like professionals and your competence will be rewarded with MERIT PAY. If you don't like my posistion--bite me and find a candidate you can control while I try to win the White House."