Ugh. The Seattle Times

Today's Seattle Times features this guest column: Education reforms for state students blocked by WEA by Liv Finne of the Washington Policy Center.

In this one, brief guest column she manages to squeeze in nearly every single lie about public schools. It is a remarkable achievement.

• "lawmakers passed a budget that will direct an additional $1 billion to the public schools"

Hmm. Depends on what you call "additional". Since a significant part of the money was taken from the amount that was already supposed to be part of education funding (the teachers' COLA), I don't think you can legitimately call it all "additional".

• "reforms to improve how the money is spent were blocked by the state’s powerful public-sector union, the Washington Education Association (WEA),"

All of the new "additional" dollars are dedicated to specific purposes, so it wasn't the WEA but the Senate that dictated how the money would be spent.

• "But only about 59 cents of every education dollar reaches the classroom, "

I've never understood this statistic. For an education dollar to reach the classroom it would have to be spent how? On teacher salary. So the only way to increase the portion of the education dollar that reaches the classroom would be to either increase teacher salaries or reduce class sizes. Is that what she's advocating? I don't think so. 

• "The most important factor in whether students are learning is the quality of the teacher in the classroom."

This is simply false. All of the dominant factors in academic achievement are home-based, not school-based. All studies show this. Ms Finne's statement is just a flat-out lie.

• "Studies show that high-performing schools provide an effective and knowledgeable teacher in every classroom, supported by a strong principal who insists on high academic standards for students."

Unfortunately these studies define "an effective and knowledgeable teacher" as one that improves test scores and then measures their impact by how much they improve test scores. It is the worst sort of circular logic. All they find is that the teachers with students who score well on tests tend to have students who score well on tests. Seriously. As for "a strong principal", there is, again, no measure of principal strength out there and therefore no way to measure the impact of a strong principal. Where, by the way, is the accountability for principals comparable to the accountability that folks like Ms Finne wants to slap on teachers?

• "allowed school principals to hire the best teachers and end the practice of endlessly transferring bad teachers from one school to another"

Even the principals didn't want this. This is just a bad idea from top to bottom. Here's a better idea: how about the principals do their jobs and fire ineffective teachers instead of transferring them?

• "They wanted to give schools A–F letter grades"

A pointless exercise. The letter grades would tell families nothing that they didn't already know. The letter grade would actually be based entirely on the accountability index, which is a single number grade. So all this would do is replace a number score with a letter grade. This is the big reform idea?

• "The recommended reforms would have ended the social promotion of students who cannot read at grade level by third grade"

Who should decide if a student is promoted to the fourth grade - the teacher, family, and principal who know the child or the state legislature with all of their educational expertise and knowledge of the student?

• "Changes would also have directed that future compensation adjustments for teachers, beyond an adjustment for inflation, be provided in the form of professional training in methods that actually work at teaching underachieving students how to read, write, add, subtract, multiply and divide."

First of all, the teachers didn't even get the adjustment for inflation that Ms Finne seems to assume. Second, in what world is professional training regarded as compensation? "You did a great job this year, Smithers, so in lieu of a raise we're going to pay for you to take a class. This won't replace the continuing education classes that you have to pay for and it won't qualify you for a hiring paying job, but we've decided to consider it your raise.

• "these lawmakers are strong defenders of the educational status quo, fearing policy changes that may threaten the position of adults in the system."

I can't believe that I have to say it again. No responsible person supports the status quo in public education. The discussion is whether to adopt one set of reforms or another.

• "The WEA is also working to cut education services for children. Many school districts, at the request of WEA representatives, are seeking to close school doors at noon Wednesdays or Fridays. While the cuts would certainly reduce classroom work hours for adults, they would deprive students of important instructional hours."

The early closures are to implement the reforms that people like Liv Finne keep calling for: more student data review. She would prefer that the teachers get the additional work but not be allowed the time in which to accomplish it. If she and her fellows were not pressing with their instructional strategy reform, the teachers wouldn't need this time to do all of the data management that it requires.

• "last week the WEA union filed a frivolous lawsuit in an attempt to deny students access to charter schools."

Frivolous? We'll see. Their case appears to have a lot of merit. When you get pulled over by the cops for speeding it isn't the cop's fault. The I-1240 people should have edited their boilerplate initiative from ALEC to meet the requirements of the Washington State constitution.

• "lawmakers are improving public education by giving parents more choice in selecting the school that works best for their children."

Really? Too bad they didn't decide to improve public education by fully funding it. Do families need more choices or do they need better choices? They already have a lot of choice.

• "Washington voters enacted the new charter-school law to provide school choice for parents"

Is THAT why they did it? I hadn't heard it expressed that definitively. It that's the case then they wasted their money and their votes because it is terribly ineffective in that regard.

• " reforms that give most Washington parents a greater voice in their children’s education "

Review the reforms that were rejected by the House. None of them gave parents a greater voice in their children's education. Not one of them. Not the one that would allow principals to hire only the teachers they want, not the required retention for students who fail the third grade reading MSP, not the proposed change in teacher compensation, and not the letter grade for schools. None of them were about giving more voice to families.

Almost every statement in this guest column was false. What a shame that this is what passes for discourse. What a shame that the Seattle Times lends their credibility to these lies.