Ed Policy - Essays

Desegregation of Schools:

Desegregation has had a long history, perhaps even longer in schools than in other institutions. In 1896 with the Supreme Court case of Plessy v. Ferguson, segregation was legal, as long as the facilities were 'separate but equal'. This case was about railway cars, not schools, but its ruling was used to back up state laws, mostly in the South, requiring segregation, including in education. This separate but equal was maintained until the mid 1950's, and the segregation in schools wasn't limited only to blacks. The 1927 Lum v. Rice decision said that a Chinese-American girl could not attend an all-white public school in Mississippi. These decisions were not seen at the time as being in conflict with the 1868 Equal Protection Clause of Fourteenth Amendment, which says that states must not deny any individual equal protection under law.

The stare decisis of 'separate but equal' was finally broken in 1954 with Brown v. the Board of Education. Effectively overturning Plessy v Ferguson, the Supreme Court ruled that segregation in public schooling was unconstitutional. This decision was unanimous, partly because of Earl Warren, a new judge appointed by President Eisenhower, convincing the rest of the judges to rule in favor of desegregation. The argument was not so much around the inferiority of colored schools, but rather around the psychological damage to blacks, as evidenced by the doll study. In 1955, the Brown II decision called for desegregation 'with all deliberate speed'.

While Brown v. the Board of Education made de jure segregation illegal, unfortunately it was not immediately implemented, especially in the South. In 1963, the Governor of Alabama, George Wallace, stood blocking school doors until President Kennedy actually sent in the National Guard to allow African Americans to enter the school. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 made separate but equal illegal in all public accommodations, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 outlawed voting discrimination. Throughout these years, there were still a lot of civil rights issues, including violence such as the Watts Riots and the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.

The Alexander v. Holmes County Board of Education changed the 'with all deliberate speed' to desegregation now, and school districts started looking at ways to integrate the schools, including bussing black students to white schools and white students to black schools. Bussing was not a popular idea – and in 1974, Milliken v. Bradley ruled that desegregation didn't apply inter-district, and that 'de facto' segregation because of where families choose to live doesn't need to be 'fixed'. Thus many schools, even today, remain rather segregated, not because of any legal limitations on who can attend, but rather because families of the same race and social class tend to live closer together and thus their children attend school together.

Teacher Tenure: 

Teachers are typically given tenure after 1-5 years of teaching, meaning that they cannot be fired without due process. Teacher seniority requires that teachers who have been in the profession longer are given (or can keep) positions before less senior teachers. Teacher unions and tenure advocates argue that teachers need protection from unreasonable termination, such as discrimination or disagreeing with the administration. They also don't want older and 'more expensive' teachers to be fired just to save money. They are trying to protect teachers' jobs, which is an admirable goal, and we certainly don't want teachers being dismissed because of insignificant reasons.

However, teachers are not widgets – they are not all the same. Research shows that effective teachers have a huge positive effect on their students as compared to ineffective teachers – not just on test scores, but also on college attendance and social outcomes. However, teacher credentialing, having a masters degree, and length of teaching (at least after the first few years) do not correlate with more effective teaching. Hence teacher seniority requirements are not necessarily in the best interests of the students. Certain younger teachers might be more effective than many older teachers, and we are doing a disservice to the children by keeping ineffective teachers in positions when there are more effective teachers who could be helping the students to achieve at higher levels.

Due process as a concept is good, but unfortunately the implementation of it often makes it such a convoluted and time-consuming process that administrators would rather put up with a bad teacher than go through the litigation to get rid of them. Again, this does a huge disservice to the students by allowing ineffective teachers to stay in the profession. Even in districts where ineffective teachers are removed from their main classroom teaching responsibilities, such as with NYC's rubber room, the teachers are still getting paid and taking money away from other more effective educational measures because the due process takes so long.

To reform teacher tenure, I would decrease the time and complexity of due process, possibly having someone besides the principal being the one involved, so that the principal can stay focused on everything else happening in their school. I would also get rid of the seniority rights so that principals can hire and keep the best and most effective teachers for the jobs that they have. I would also make getting tenure and staying tenured tied more to effectiveness rather than just time in the field. Teacher effectiveness should not be determined only by test scores, but rather as a 360 degree process including some test-based value-added measures, peer review, the principal and instructional leaders' views, and even the students' thoughts (not by asking whether they like the teacher, but by asking questions about the atmosphere the teacher creates in the classroom). The goal of teacher tenure should be to best help the students, and in order to do that, we need to ensure that the most effective teachers stay and the least effective teachers leave.