Klein's Last Stand

Joel Klein hasn’t given up. Although the New York state budget released last week made clear that teachers being considered for tenure would not be held responsible for the standardized test results of their students, Klein, the Chancellor of the New York City Department of Education, refuses to let the issue be dropped. Klein insists that “making tenure decisions both more fair and more rigorous will ensure that people who can’t do the job effectively won’t be in our schools teaching our students for decades to come.”

Standardized testing is an undying issue in American education. Whether it’s a question of the Federal government’s right to test nationally, problems with accuracy of particular tests, or a more pedagogical question of whether tests are necessary or useful at all, it seems to be one problem that refuses to go away (along with the economy... and Iraq... and health care... and the Democratic primary). This case in New York City is no different. As the State Legislature approved the budget for New York, they also signed away the vague responsibility teachers have held in the past for the test results of their students. This practice may be, as Randi Weingarten, President of the United Federation of Teachers (UFT) insinuated, similar to holding doctors responsible for the results of blood tests. But if a doctor’s patients were all receiving bad test results, wouldn’t we question that doctor’s ability to treat? And what better way to judge the efficiency of treatment than running tests?

I will bet that Klein (or at least his staff) is currently nitpicking at the language of the legislature’s approved budget, hoping to find a loophole in the likely event that his plea for an overturn is ignored. I certainly don’t blame him. Setting aside for a moment what some consider to be inherent problems in standardized testing, where else might we expect to find consistent reports on how well a teacher teaches? The fact that New York has dismissed one of the few checks in the tenure hiring process is simply astounding. As a state reporting 81 high schools and 27 districts “In need of improvement” by NCLB standards (based, of course, on testing!), perhaps New York should reconsider the subjectivity in hiring it is currently promoting.


-- On a lighter note... For those of you with what I would call a more “social” interest in education -- have no fear. Rumor has it that Margaret Spellings’ Facebook page will be up and running soon!