Up and Coming Weekly is a weekly publication in Fayetteville, NC and Fort Bragg, NC area offering local news, views, arts, entertainment and community event and business information.
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An Unwelcome Gift on William Friday’s Birthday by D.G. MARTIN In a poignant moment at William Friday’s 90th birth- day party last week, current UNC President Erskine Bowles stopped by to express regards to his predecessor. Later, in a video, Bowles praised Friday for his leadership and wisdom. Ironically, only a few hours before the birthday party, Bowles took action that may have hammered the final nails in the coffin that will bury one of the University’s policies that Friday fought hardest and, until recently, most suc- cessfully to preserve. For Friday, maintaining the lowest cost to students for a university education is a critical part in insuring that all quali- fied potential college students get the kind of higher education that will make them better citizens and taxpayers. Friday’s commitment to low-cost higher education went beyond the state’s constitutional requirement that “The General Assembly shall provide that the benefits of The University of North Carolina and other public institutions of higher education, as far as practicable, be extended to the people of the State free of expense.” (Article XI, Section 9) Today, university and legislative leaders largely ignore that constitutional mandate. It was different in earlier times, when some members of the University’s Board of Governors, such as the late Chuck Flack from Forest City, would greet any proposal to raise tuition by getting into your face and saying something like, “Can’t do it. Look at the Constitution and let me hear you say, ‘Article Nine, Section Nine.’” Dick Spangler, who followed Friday as university president, took the Constitution’s and Friday’s low tuition policy to heart. In fact, the official paint- ing of Spangler that is displayed in the university headquarters building shows him with a computer. The computer’s screen reads, “Article 9, Section 9.” As one who served under Spangler, I was not surprised. It helped Friday and Spangler that the university-wide Board of Governors and the legislature, rather than the leaders or the boards of each campus, set tuition for the entire university system. Also, the proceeds from tuition increases did not go directly to the coffers of the campuses of the students who paid the tuition. Thus, there was no direct benefit to each campus from tu- ition increases to its students. Friday and Spangler knew that if the campuses could raise tuition and apply the proceeds for faculty salaries and other compelling needs, any resistance to shifting more of the costs to students would melt away. Friday and Spangler wanted the legislature to continue to Former Head of the University of North Carolina System from 1956-1986, William Friday. be responsible for funding the university’s excellence as it shared responsibility with the university’s Board of Governors for keep- ing the costs to students low. Notwithstanding their continued advocacy, those arrange- ments began to evaporate when Friday and Spangler were no longer in office. And just before Friday’s birthday party, Bowles told the Board of Governors of his intention to approve additional tuition increases of up to $750 a year as set by each campus for its own use. All of this was authorized by the legislature. The state’s dire financial situation explains, in part, the actions of the legisla- ture, Bowles, and the campuses. But it does not justify what may be that final nail in the coffin of a policy that served North Carolina so well for so long. Reacting to these tuition increases, Friday told the News & Observer, with his usual grace and diplomacy, “The strength of this place has been that every child in North Carolina could dream of going to one of these institutions, if they did their work. Now, the cost is eroding that dramatically.” If he were not so gracious and careful with his words, he might have told President Bowles, “I thank you for coming, but I wish you had brought a different birthday present.” Why the Union Blocks Reform by JOHN HOOD Almost everyone agrees that improving the quality of the edu- cational workforce is an indispensable element of any program to improve school performance. I use the term “almost” because there is a significant player in North Carolina’s school-reform debate that doesn’t agree: the North Carolina Association of Educators, the state’s largest teacher union. Oh, I know that the NCAE and its allies say they favor mea- sures to attract and retain good teachers. But as a practical matter, they oppose virtually all policies that would accomplish the goal — from ending tenure and paying for performance to parental- choice measures that would give parents more freedom to choose schools based on the quality of teachers and academic programs. As a theoretical matter, this shouldn’t be surprising. As a labor organization seeking to advance the interests of the majority of its members, a teacher union can’t be expected to conclude that mediocre education is caused by mediocre educators. It can’t embrace policies based on the assumption that schools would improve if they had the tools they need to replace current teachers with better ones. Teacher unions like the NCAE simply want the existing public-school workforce to receive higher salaries, richer benefits, and better working conditions. But as serious education analysts across the political spectrum would agree, raising overall teacher pay — or raising pay based on union-backed criteria such as longevity and advanced degrees — will not improve the average quality of teachers. It pays bad and mediocre teachers at least as much as the good ones. If you’ve ever been tempted to believe the union spin that it’s impossible to design a fair and accurate process for distinguishing the good teachers from the bad ones, check out a forum on teacher quality in the Summer 2010 edition of EducationNext (available online at EducationNext.org). Hoover Institution econo- mist Eric Hanushek and Education Trust CEO Kati Haycock approach education policy from different points of view, but they both agree that teacher quality is mea- surable and important. Based on research Hanushek and his colleagues have conducted, he argues WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM that while objective measures such as value-added assessments of teaching performance have value, the result doesn’t different much from a more subjective process based on principals watch- ing and evaluating the teachers they manage. His conclusion is worth quoting in full: The long-run hope would be that we develop both bet- ter quantitative measures of a teacher’s value added and better subjective evaluations by principals, supervisors, and peers. This approach is unlikely to satisfy a regulatory view of allocation of quality teachers, but if we are truly interested in improving stu- dent achievement, we cannot shy away from incorporating per- formance information of all sorts into our management decisions. Unfortunately, state education officials defer to the teacher union on such mat- ters, and the union will never go along with any proposal to allow for large differ- ences in tenure status or pay based on teacher quality — measured either through value-added tests or principal evaluation. That puts the union squarely opposed to policies embraced by the vast major- ity of North Carolina voters. In a January Civitas Institute poll, for example, only 26 percent favored the current practice of basing teacher pay on longevity and equality while 61 percent favored a merit system with differentiated pay and principal discre- tion. The NCAE’s position also puts it squarely opposed to any policy offering a real prospect of improving education for the poorest-served students in our state. Keep in mind, however, that in few other industries or professions would it be assumed that the interests of producers and consumers are always aligned. If our goal is helping North Carolina youngsters learn, we should adopt policies likely to result in a significant turnover in the teaching profession — as bad teachers are fired, mediocre teachers improve or depart, good teachers are reward- ed and retained, and new teachers are brought into the profession by the creation of new schools. The teacher union will never JOHN HOOD, Columnist. stand for that. It cannot be per- suaded. It must be bypassed. COMMENTS? 484-6200 ext. 222 or editor@upandcomingweekly.com JULY 28-AUGUST 3, 2010 UCW 17 D.G. MARTIN, Columnist COMMENTS? 484-6200 ext. 222 or editor@upandcomingweekly.com