by James W. Guthrie
When it comes to education reform, Tennessee needs a booster shot. Somehow, education has fallen from its once prime place on the public policy agenda. We need a mechanism that can overcome our current statewide school policy steady state and stimulate and guide local creativity. Charter schools offer such hope.
Tennessee has had a charter school law for three years. During this time, twelve public charter schools have been started. This is too slender a number and it is too early to judge their full effectiveness. However, in the absence of other major state initiatives, charter schools offer more practical promise than virtually any other presently available strategy for improving Tennessee’s troubled education system.
Tennessee leads in little and often lags near last when it comes to learning.
Tennessee is among the nation’s lowest states in the proportion of the adult population with a college degree. Tennessee’s high school graduation rate is the third lowest in the nation, barely ahead of only South Carolina and Nevada. Worse yet, our high school graduation rate has actually declined over the past decade. Tennessee routinely falls below national averages in reading and mathematics on the Nation’s Report Card, the National Assessment of Education Progress. Tennessee eighth grade students have made no reading or mathematics gains on national examinations since 2003. Further, only 57 percent of our high school teachers have majored in the academic subjects they are asked to teach.
Finger pointing provides little relief. Public opinion polls repeatedly place education reform as a high priority. Our governor and his officers and several legislative leaders are quite dedicated to improving education.
However, other significant issues—recession imposed budget crises, rescuing Tenncare, shutting down methamphetamine labs, and legislative ethics scandals–– seem inevitably to elbow education off the state agenda. Solving our education problems through legislative action is proving unusually challenging.
Some assert the principal problem is money. Their claim is that our schools are under funded, our classes too large, and our teachers paid too little. In some instance they might be right, but to accept such explanations too quickly may risk a false diagnosis. The prime example for false financial diagnoses is the nation’s capital. Washington DC spends $14,000 per pupil; almost twice Tennessee’s spending. Virtually no informed family would place a child in a conventional DC school, if they could choose. The manner in which money is deployed appears to matter as much or more as how much is provided.
If not new state initiatives and if not significantly more money, what can begin to make a difference? How can Tennessee take advantage of public concern for education improvement and gain momentum on the issue of school reform?
Two major strategies appear in order. What Tennessee public education needs is an appropriate mix of competition and performance incentives.
Competition among providers, when appropriately regulated, can spur improvement. One need only look to automobile quality, household appliances, package delivery, or airline fares to see the evidence.
Presently Tennessee has a modicum of school competition, but it is not evenly distributed. Household consumers can select good, but pricey, private schools or use existing public schools. It would be useful to expand school choice, particularly for low-income families who cannot now afford private schooling.
Performance incentives can stimulate improvement also. However, this is a particularly complicated issue in public education where schools and teachers have little say over the “raw material,” students, for whom they have instructional responsibility.
Performance reward plans are increasingly discussed in education. There are now federal grants to encourage local districts to experiment. Entire states, such as Texas, are designing teacher pay for performance plans. A few large districts such as Houston and Denver are in the beginning stages of paying teachers bonuses for elevated student achievement.
Good ideas such as competition and performance rewards need to be carefully tailored to local circumstances. This calls for leadership. Board members, superintendents, principals, and teachers, when prompted, can render local schools better. Charter schools can be a catalyst for motivating just such local reform leadership
When the state legislature embraced charter schools in 2003, it opened the door for hope. The Tennessee charter school bill offers an opportunity for public schools to gain the value of regulated competition and performance incentives. It is a small beginning, but it is a beginning.
On January 26 and 27, Tennessee’s charter school leaders and board members will gather at Peabody College Vanderbilt University for the first annual Tennessee Charter School Leadership Conference.
One hopes that this conference will stimulate further discussion of what appears to be a good idea and others will accept the challenge of leadership that the charter schools offer. We may just have to reform Tennessee education a school at a time.
James Guthrie is a professor of public policy and education at Peabody College, Vanderbilt University.
Media contact: Melanie Moran, (615) 322-NEWS
melanie.moran@vanderbilt.edu