Dubya. Photo Courtesy The George W. Bush Presidential Center.
Happy Friday.
It’s been a while since we’ve talked about education and teachers’ unions, so let’s do that in the context of a really bad Oregon bill and our old friend, union boss Randi Weingarten.
The soft bigotry of low expectations
Fellow political nerds of a certain, uh, vintage will remember candidate and President George W. Bush, in support of his No Child Left Behind education bill, referring to the failure to measure school and student performance as “the soft bigotry of low expectations.” The logic was that poorly performing schools disproportionately serve low-income and minority students and that the failure to improve those schools by holding them accountable for student success, we were failing those students.
Oregon is not known for an exacting or proficient approach to public education. As of 2020, the state’s high school graduation rate was tied for the fourth worst in the nation. It was one of the last states to reopen public schools to in-person instruction this past school year.
The state legislature in its recently concluded session decided that the way to improve Oregon’s education system is to lower expectations for students for the next five years or so. On an almost entirely party-line vote, the legislature passed Senate Bill 744, which would eliminate Oregon’s decade-long requirement that high school seniors demonstrate 10th-grade proficiency in writing and math. According to The Oregonian:
Oregon, unlike other states, did not require students to pass a particular standardized test or any test at all. Students could show their ability to use English and do math via about five different tests or by completing an in-depth classroom project judged by their own teachers. In reality, most schools relied primarily on standardized tests and most students easily passed them.
The proficiency requirement was put on hold during Covid, but the legislature has decided new requirements won’t be implemented until 2027 at the earliest. Why? You guessed it:
But demonstrating proficiency proved most challenging for students who learned English as a second language, students with disabilities and students of color.
Oregon, which does not require standardized tests to graduate, presumably in part because those tests also produce disparate outcomes along racial and other lines, created a different system to allow schools to avoid standardized tests if they want. The result of that system also produced disparate outcomes along racial and other lines.
One lesson Oregon could take from these facts is that students who learned English as a second language, students with disabilities and students of color have been poorly served by Oregon public schools. Resources could be re-allocated to bolster their performance and bring them up to the 10th grade level of proficiency by the time they’re in 12th grade.
Instead, the legislature has decided that the proper course of action is to eliminate even that not-exactly-lofty requirement for at least the next six senior classes. Why? Again, you guessed it, according to an editorial from The Oregonian:
[N]o one has really established that this is even a problem that needs fixing, unlike chronic absenteeism or ensuring that high schoolers are on track for earning the credits they need. The education department doesn’t collect statewide statistics showing how many students fail to earn a diploma solely due to the essential skills requirement. It does not appear to be a widespread problem among school districts, according to the Oregon School Boards Association, whose members have not pressed for changing the provision. Instead, much of the testimony submitted to the Legislature comes from teachers and others who oppose standardized testing – even though the essential skills requirement specifically allows for ways to prove proficiency outside of standardized tests.
Teachers unions, who have long opposed standardized tests putatively for any available reason but really because they lead to transparency and accountability, cynically used the fact of disparate outcomes from proficiency requirements to eliminate them entirely. Oregon’s abysmal high school graduation rate is one of the best, if tragic, arguments against the state’s union-run public education system, and the unions naturally want to make it easier for students to graduate to avoid scrutiny, and reform, of the system from which they benefit. This is, in a word, gross.
The bill is on Governor Kate Brown’s desk. Surprisingly, she has not indicated whether she would sign it into law. She has until July 22 to veto it. If she doesn’t veto it by then, or if she signs it before, it will become law. Her reticence indicates she may understand at least the awful appearance, if not the miserable policy, of the bill. She should, but probably won’t, eschew the unions’ wish for Oregon public schools to continue to circle the drain of the soft bigotry of low expectations and veto the bill.
Since we’re on the subject of teachers’ unions…
Randi Weingarten, head of the American Federation of Teachers (the second-largest teachers’ union in the country), is one of the more pernicious public figures in America today, in the opinion of your humble correspondent. She occupies herself primarily by obfuscating facts by claiming (1) both that her organization has always supported school reopening, but also that schools can’t possibly reopen safely; and (2) that schools don’t teach Critical Race Theory but CRT is accurate and the AFT will defend any teachers who are sued because they teach it.
Weingarten appeared in the Roundup back in April, when she came to Oregon to tout unionization efforts. Her trip to the Beaver State came just after she had dismissed the desire of some American Jews to reopen schools, because they are “now part of the ownership class . . . . who now want to take that ladder of opportunity away from those who do not have it.”
Guess what? Unsurprisingly, Weingarten herself is part of the “ownership class.” She made $564,236 in 2019, nine times that of an average school teacher whose union dues pay Weingarten’s salary. I look forward to Weingarten refraining from commenting on education issues, including school reopening, due to her lofty economic class.
Have a great weekend!