Washington Monthly: Kerry is "Hot for Teachers"

Hot for teachers: This Washington Monthly piece from Jonathan Schorr contrasts nicely with the article from The City Journal, by providing a balanced look at John Kerry's education proposals. Kerry has not abandoned NCLB, as many education lobbyists had hoped, but has actually proposed ways to improve teaching through methods that reward the teachers who meet and exceed NCLB's goals, but also gives greater latitude to school deistricts to remove under-performing teachers.

The article correctly points to two of the biggest problems facing the "tough" schools out there--the oens that have the greatest problems meeting the requirements of NCLB. First, those schools need the best and brightest teachers to work with the students who start out the furthest behind. But the best and brightest, for the most part, don't go to those schools, but seek out the easier, less-stressful schools in the suburbs. Kerry's plan, which would tie pay to performance (now there's a concept for you) would address these issues by attracting high-performing teachers to the difficult schools by actually paying them more.

As it stands, Kerry has woefully underfunded his proposal, a problem that plagues many of these kinds of reforms, but it appears to be a step in the right direction.