What if teachers could choose their schools?

Opening Up the Educational Job Market

(IP-13-1988)

May 15, 1988

Issue Paper

By Arnold Burron

Executive Summary

• Education Secretary William Bennett has charged teachers unions with obstructing school reform, though a
RAND study, co-sponsored by his own department, says it isnt so.
• In Colorado this year alone, one union spokesman has called public school choice a "hoax" while another has
labeled the voucher initiative a "guinea pig" idea pointing toward "chaos."
• But teacher suspicion of reform is natural, according to Arnold Burron, who has taught teachers for many
years, since most proposals offer them no real carrot.
• Full mobility for teachers among all public schools in Colorado is the missing incentive.
• Rules should permit job transfers at no loss of seniority, tenure, or benefits.
• Principals could assemble more effective teams; classroom morale and learning results would rise.
• Teacher colleges would also be revitalized as demand from K-12 employers became more market-oriented.

Introduction: Our Forgotten Teachers

The carrot and the stick. Everybody knows the analogy of trying to move the donkey with a carrot, or
with a stick. The reason why reform in education has been virtually impossible in the United States is
that carrots have been offered to the trainers of the donkey, to those riding the donkey, the keepers
of the stable, and to everyone else in sight but rarely to the noble creature who is saddled with the
burden of carrying the load of educational reform.

Even when it was claimed that carrots were being offered, they have had the effect of a stick being
wielded to beat the donkey into submission. The result? The faithful donkey, who historically trudged
along in docile patience, laden with every conceivable type of heavy burden, has, not surprisingly,
assumed the characteristic and behavior of a mule, and has dug in hooves in defiance of all efforts to
budge it from its entrenched position.

The "donkey," of course, is the teaching profession. The "burden" is educational reform. The "carrot"
has assumed many forms-- merit pay, recertification, salary increases for additional courses taken,
and other seeming perks -- all of which the donkey would never voluntarily even nibble at, since
teachers know that each of these supposed incentives can be used as a powerful stick in the hand of a
hardened taskmaster. The "stick," on the other hand, is every form of mandatory change foisted upon
teachers. This may include forcing administrators to make numerous observations of teachers,
mandating the filing of written teacher evaluation reports, requiring the use of materials that lock
teachers into a predetermined lesson plan, mandatory completion of extragraduate courses, proposed
voucher systems, attempts to abolish teacher tenure, ad infinitum. And each attempt to shape a new
stick has been accurately viewed by teachers as an attempt to whittle away their job security.

Only Incentives Produce Healthy Change

If we have learned anything about educational reform --or about any kind of reform, for that matter--
it should be this:

Reform will always be resisted by those most affected by change when they perceive that the new
benefits promised are less significant than the new liabilities incurred as a result of change, or as a
result of failure to change.

Stated another way, the principle reads like this: Are the good things I will gain by changing greater
than the bad thins that will result if I change, or greater than the bad things that wil happen if I refuse
to change?
The answer of Americas public school teachers to the above question, whenever it has been raised
relative to educational reform, has always been a resounding "no." It will continue so unless genuinely
new proposals are asserted to provide positive reasons for change. In order to be achievable, then,
reform proposals must recognize six realities:

1. Any reform effort in education will affect teachers.

2. Teacher resistance in any form -organized or individual, overt or covert, active or passive -will
effectively sabotage any reform effort.

3. Teachers will resist any reform measure which they perceive as posing for them more negative
results to be incurred than positive results to be gained.

4. Reform in education that poses concomitant liabilities to teachers will fail.

5. Reform in education that provides concomitant benefits to teachers will succeed.

6. Therefore, education reform measures can result in real change if and only if they offer real
benefits to the real change agents -- teachers.

Mrs. Smith teaches at North Elementary School in Greeley, Colorado. Mr. Jones teaches at South
Elementary School, 60 miles away, in suburban Denver. Both teachers are at the "twenty years of
service" level on the salary scale of their respective districts.

Mrs. Smiths husband is transferred from his job in Greeley to a job in south Denver. Mr. Jones wife is
transferred to a job in Greeley. The Smiths move to Denver. The Jones family moves to Greeley. The
"perfect" teaching position is available to Mr. Jones in Greeley -Mrs. Smiths job. And just as
fortunately, the perfect teaching position is available for Mrs. Smith -Joness job.

Whats best about this fortuitous chain of events is that Mrs. Smith is a tough disciplinarian, which is
exactly what Jones was not, which is exactly what the school in Denver needs and which is exactly
what the parents and children of Jones south Denver school want.

Jones, on the other hand, is nondirective, a quality about which his principal in Denver was in constant
conflict with him, but which the parents in the Greeley school almost craved in a teacher.

Smith and Jones knew each other through the Education Association. They talked to their respective
school administrators. Transfers were explored, but fell through. And they lived unhappily ever after.

Why? Well, when Smith and Jones considered trading jobs, they discovered that the stick was more
ominous than the carrot was appealing. Had the change been made, which would have been of benefit
to each of the teachers, to the schools, to the administrators, to the parents -and what is most
important, to the children -the negative results would have been the following:

a) A loss of tenure for both teachers. Translation: a threat to job security.

b) A new probationary period for each teacher. Translation: a threat to job security.

c) A substantial loss of salary and benefits, since years of service are not transferable from district to
district beyond a very minimal level. Translation: a threat to personal security.

End result: Loss outweighs gain. Liabilities incurred outweigh benefits accrued.

Smith and Jones did move to their new homes with their respective spouses. They commuted to their
longheld jobs. They became commuterworn, and found excuses to be absent from meetings before
and after school. They were frequently tired in class. Their level of dissatisfaction, and that of their
administrators with them, increased.

The opportunity for real betterment at both schools, at no cost to the taxpayer, with positive results
for teachers and children, was lost.

What can be done immediately to effect real change in education is obvious:

Put the educational job market on a statewide Open Opportunity basis. Make it possible throughout the
state of Colorado for teachers to move from school to school, and from district to district, without their
incurring the loss of years on a salary ladder, loss of tenure, or loss of other benefits. The following
positive results would occur:

First, teachers with proven track records could compete for positions that suit their needs, their
talents, and their interests. Teachers would then be appointed to meet needs, rather than to fill
vacancies.

Second, administrators could recruit the talent, the personality type, and/or the expertise they
perceive to be most needed in the units for which they are responsible.

Third, inexperienced teachers would not automatically be assigned to "undesirable" or "tough"

situations, which call for the skills of experienced teachers. Many experienced teachers who are
hungry for the challenge of socalled tough students or tough districts are currently wasting away in
professionally un challenging positions because they cannot take their "years of experience" benefits
with them. Their positions would be opened to neophytes for whom even compliant students would
pose a challenge.

Fourth, the infusion of new ideas and seasoned experience would create, in the public schools, a
climate conducive to change. Enthusiasm and openness to new concepts and methods would be
"caught," as well as "taught." Teachers who did not wish to transfer from school to school or from
district to district would not, under Open Opportunity, be forced to transfer. Their rights to tenure, due
process, job security, and compensation level would be protected. But desirable change in their
professional activities would nevertheless be likely in a climate of Open Opportunity.

Human beings have an innate desire to adapt their attitudes and behaviors to fit the attitudes and
behaviors of people and institutions with which they are comfortable, and to remove themselves from
situations and institutions with which they are uncomfortable. Reform would be the inevitable result of
Open Opportunity. It would flow as the unavoidable product of enlightened self-interest.

Finally, school districts could meet real needs. For example, if a specific district with historically low
scores in reading needed teachers with expertise in reading instruction, the district could recruit
teachers who had acquired advanced formal training in Reading Education. Teachers would voluntarily
-and diligently -pursue study upon which a free market placed a tangible value. Reform in teacher
education would follow. Courses in higher education which did not respond to market forces would
disappear.

Quality reform, rather than artificial change, would emerge in response to genuine demand. It would
be in the best interests of professors in colleges of education to offer what teachers eagerly elected to
take in response to Open Opportunity, in contrast to offering "pleasing" courses to reluctant and often
hostile teachers who have been forced -by a "stick" -to take "additional hours approved by school
districts into which teachers are locked for their professional lifetimes.

In an Open Opportunity climate for teachers, the question of a "bidding war" among districts
immediately arises. It could be asserted that the more affluent school districts would be able to attract
the more experienced teachers; hence, it is further asserted, the less affluent school districts would
suffer. But although gross salary losses representing literal years of experience prevent teachers from
moving, minor differences in annual salary levels among districts would provide only a minimal
incentive to move.

The authors experience predicts that other, non-financial benefits - such as the personality of a school
principal, school climate, the opportunity for new challenges, professional fellowship, and the general
allure of change -would provide strong incentives, more important than minor salary differences, for
teachers to refine or to improve their skills to be able to change schools or to change districts.
Equalization of educational opportunity for children, in the final analysis, is possible through means
other than equalization of funding.

Benefits at Teacher Colleges, Too

The desire for reform in education has also had an impact in Colorado's colleges and universities.
Unfortunately, the impact has been largely negative. Although the public wants effective teachers in
K-12 education, those whose job it is to prepare such teachers in college are being increasingly
deterred from doing so.

Good intentions in higher education are paving the proverbial road to hell. Instead of rewarding
professors for doing a good job of teaching, institutions in Colorado that have historically interpreted
the results of research, that have transmitted research findings to teachers, and that have carried and
applied research findings in the public school systems of Colorado, have abandoned their traditional
role. Professors in Colorado institutions have been forced into a "publish or perish" system.

In other words, our Colorado universities are telling those who teach our teachers that they will be
rewarded, not for doing a good job of teaching teachers how to teach, but by conducting research, by
scrambling to publish their research in specialized journals, and by winning grant monies from public
and private agencies. The result could prove disastrous for the children of Colorado. Professional
organizations and professional cronyism which often control socalled "juried" publications do not select
what they will publish on the basis of what the public schools in Colorado need or want. Public and
private agencies that offer grant monies have their own agendas and their own interests in mind, not
the needs of the public schools of Colorado.

Hungry professors, like the Biblical Esau, are being forced to sell their birthright for a mess of pottage
- in this case, their instinct for selfpreservation -dictating that the bulk of their energies be directed
toward publishing and grantwriting to satisfy the esoteric tastes of an academic elite, rather than to
provide for the basic needs of Colorados teachers and children.

Heres how Open Opportunity at the K-12 level would result in a reordering of priorities at the college
and university level:

1. School districts would advertise their needs, including formal educational requirements they desire
on the part of their teachers;

2. Teachers, in pursuing Open Opportunity, would create a demand for specific courses, for specific
content, and for quality instruction at the university level.

3. Institutions of higher education would respond, in enlightened self interest, to this demand, by:

a) Striving to meet district and teacher needs.

b) Working with districts to identify needs.

c) Failing to do either, teacher colleges would lose enrollment and lose professional positions. They
would ignore the demands of the marketplace and the needs of the people of Colorado only at their
own economic peril.

4. The application of research in teaching and learning would reassume prominence. Teacher-
education units would focus on practical application, rather than neglecting teaching in favor of the
production of research and the endless generating of journal articles. In short, teachers of teachers
would teach. They would spend their time improving their teaching, and they would not be forced to
de-emphasize teaching and overemphasize grantsmanship and publishing. Only quality research
would survive -research which meets the needs of the public schools.

Conclusion and Recommendations

Which will it be: the stick or the carrot?

Reform in education is possible now. It will be the inevitable result of a free market that will benefit
the chief agents of reform - teachers. Only as teachers perceive the results of reform in terms of
benefits accrued rather than liabilities incurred, will significant and desirable change take place. Open
Opportunity for teachers can bring about this result.

Policies permitting full mobility of elementary and secondary teachers among all public schools in
Colorado should be the subject of urgent exploration and negotiations over the next year and a half.
Why shouldnt we aim to have this reform in place by January 1, 1990?

It is recommended that the State Board of Education and its Commissioner give priority to this goal.
Legislative hearings could also be held, perhaps resulting in appropriate bills.

But in keeping with Colorados preference for decentralized control of the public schools, the main area
of action should be the local school boards. Personnel rules, portability of benefits, and transfer
policies could be harmonized through direct interaction district by district.

Teacher unions too could seize the issue and make it a bargaining point --helping their membership to
better careers, while helping the states school children to a better education. Professional
organizations like the association of school boards and the association of school executives could also
do their part.

Hasnt the time come to offer this overdue carrot?

ARNOLD BURRON is a professor of education at the University of Northern Colorado and a Senior
Fellow of the Independence Institute. He is the author of seven books and host of a weekly radio
program on current issues.

EDITOR of the Independence Issue Paper Series at the time of publication was John K. Andrews, Jr.,
then President of the Institute.

Nothing written here is to be construed as necessarily representing the views of the Independence
Institute or as an attempt to influence any election or legislative action.
Please send comments to Independence Institute, 14142 Denver West Pkwy., suite 185, Golden, CO
80401 Phone 303-279-6536 (fax) 303-279-4176 (email)webmngr@i2i.org

Copyright 1999