If Stern can say it, why not Obama?

By Jim Stergios
July 18th, 2008

Have said it before and will say it again: If Obama comes out for school choice, he has my vote. If he does not have the courage to do that, he is not a new kind of leader. Full stop. Given a bit too much pandering criticism of basic elements of NCLB’s accountability provisions, one wonders if there is any hope of even a half-substantive approach on education. One hopes… which is what we are supposed to do with the Obama campaign.

Other leaders, like Joel Klein of NYC and Michelle Rhee of DC are more constructive on NCLB. For example, in testimony before the House Committee on Education and Labor, Rhee, who runs probably the most difficult urban district in the nation, called for bolder action to tie accountability standards in NCLB to merit pay. The US News summarized her testimony as

offer[ing]ed another idea to improve NCLB that has also been highly contentious: tying teacher pay to student outcomes. As the head of the only school district in the nation that has fallen into “high-risk” status with the federal government for its dismal performance, Rhee is trying to narrow the achievement gap by getting rid of ineffective teachers and using bonuses to encourage the best ones to work in challenging schools. Ultimately, she wants to evaluate teachers based on test scores and other measures of student performance.

Jonathan Alter in the latest Newsweek asks why Obama isn’t stronger on the question of “higher pay for teachers in exchange for much more accountability for performance in the classroom.”

Teachers unions bristle at the business comparison. But they should listen to Andy Stern, head of the nation’s largest union, the SEIU: “Education is like any business. You need a return on investment. Outcomes do matter. Paying people according to outcomes does matter. I don’t care if a teacher has a high-school degree, college or a Ph.D. if he or she can produce results.” Stern is worried that if his brethren in the teachers unions don’t embrace accountability now, “parents will vote with their choices” and the unions will begin dying, as they already are in reform-minded cities like Washington, D.C., and New Orleans.

If Stern can say that, why not Obama?

Yeah.