Math and science education in Washington is $13.2 million poorer, and it’s worth asking why.
The National Math and Science Initiative announced recently that it was pulling a grant intended to help seven low-income high schools in Washington promote Advanced Placement courses in math and science.
The reason, according to a state lawmaker who resigned his seat to help administer the grant: Washington’s collective bargaining laws prevented the nonprofit organization from paying teachers directly for how well their students scored on AP exams.
Or, as a principal whose school stood to benefit from the grant told the Seattle Times, the opponents “said no because they felt it was too much like merit pay... They felt this grant would favor some teachers over others.”
At least the critics got it right. Favoring teachers whose students demonstrate they are learning is exactly what the NMSI grant program does. Is it merit pay? Absolutely, and that’s why the NMSI grant is a no-go in Washington, where teacher unions won’t countenance anything that smacks of paying teachers for performance.
You might guess that the teachers union views the loss of the grant differently. NMSI was too inflexible, too bent on spending the money its way and wouldn’t allow districts to direct the bonus money instead to professional development. The grant would have interfered with local decision-making.
“I don’t know any other profession or industry where an outside, private group is allowed to pay another employer’s employees based on their behavior,” Washington Education Association spokesman Rich Wood says.
But the NMSI has good reason not to stray from its blueprint, which is modeled after a successful Texas program. A 2007 analysis by a Cornell economist linked the approach – including teacher bonuses tied to student performance – with a 30 percent rise in the number of students with high SAT and ACT scores.
Six other states, some that also have strong teacher unions, have made the grant work. It’s a shame that Washington will not be among them. When more than 40 percent of Washington students can’t pass even the 10th grade state math test, clearly they all the help they can get.
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