David Brooks, in today's NYT, applauds Obama for his education plan - in particular for his willingness to break with teachers' unions on merit pay.131. For the school systems that have begun to use merit pay, how are assessments of "merit" made? Purely on test scores? Student and parent interviews? Assessments by other teachers?
132. How strongly are the unions coming out against Obama on this point? Are they bending to his will at all?
Brooks's analysis of education reform that works is misguided in this way: he recognizes the extreme importance of the teacher/student bond ("We’ve spent years working on ways to restructure schools, but what matters most is the relationship between one student and one teacher. You ask a kid who has graduated from high school to list the teachers who mattered in his life, and he will reel off names. You ask a kid who dropped out, and he will not even understand the question."), but he spends the entire second half of the article arguing that "standards" are the critical piece in improving public schools.
Brooks does not seem to appreciate what "standards" mean in practice: standardized tests, which almost always means multiple-choice tests, which means less inspired teaching -- not more. I am oversimplifying, but Brooks does not address the inherent tension between standardization and nurturing/rewarding the kind of teaching -- not focused on drilling answers to multiple-choice tests -- that can actually captures students' interest and imagination.
133. Ross Douthat was announced this week as the replacement for Bill Kristol as a NYT columnist - what a coup for this guy (he's 29). How much do NYT columnists get paid? Will he continue to blog, either on the Atlantic website or the Times website?
