In this column, I’m going to lay out the reasoning behind my decision to vote against the Recall election – that is, why I’m voting to keep John Newkirk, Julie Williams, and Ken Witt on the Jeffco Board of Education.
First, to help you weigh my arguments, let me tell you where I stand politically. I like to joke that I’m the product of a mixed marriage, between a John Kennedy Democrat and a John Chafee Republican. As both parties moved away from where I stand, I dropped my Democratic registration and became an Independent. According to Gallup, I am not alone – a record high 43% of American voters are now registered as Independents. And as Gallup just noted on September 25th, “a majority of Americans, 60%, now say a third major political party is needed because the Republican and Democratic parties do such a poor job of representing the American people.”
I have spent my career in the private sector, working on organizational performance improvement challenges. As I like to say, in the private sector simple answers based on ideology are luxuries we cannot afford; given the intensity of competition we face every day, we have no choice but to be evidence-based pragmatists.
In sum, when it comes to politics, I’m a pragmatic centrist, probably just like a lot of the people who are reading this.
Over the past decade, in New England, Canada, and now Colorado, I have invested virtually all my volunteer time in the cause of improving K-12 achievement results. The obvious question is why. There are two main reasons.
At the national level, I fear the consequences for our country if a large number of our fellow citizens cease to believe that thirteen years of public schooling (K-12) can provide every student, whatever their background, with a nearly equal launching point in their pursuit of the American Dream. I spent a decade living and working in Latin America, and have seen first-hand what happens when a political system loses its legitimacy, in part after enough people conclude that the deck is stacked against their children. The ending to these stories is always painful and ugly, and it is not something I would wish on any country.
At the personal level, my wife and I have four children, and like many parents we fear for their future.
I’ll start with an essential point on which I hope we can all agree: the forces of globalization and the advancing capability of technology are dramatically changing the world in which our children will have to make their living.
Goldin and Katz highlight the implications of these disruptive trends for our schools in their book, “The Race Between Education and Technology” (similar points are made in “Racing Against the Machine” by Brynjolfsson and McAfee, and “Beyond Automation” by Davenport and Kirby). People who master the knowledge and skills needed to complement advancing technology will earn high compensation; people who do not will increasingly find themselves in jobs with lower compensation, where personal service (which cannot be outsourced to another country or performed by technology) is critical.
Unfortunately, results from a wide range of international studies, from the OECD’s PISA assessments of 15 year olds’ academic knowledge to its PIAAC assessments of adult knowledge and skills, consistently find that too many people in the United States lack the knowledge and skills they will need to thrive in the future. And in their new book “The Knowledge Capital of Nations”, Hanushek and Woessmann show how these capabilities are strongly related a nation’s rate of economic growth.
In sum, if we want an expanding economic pie in the future (which would surely help to solve many of our national problems), we cannot escape the present need to do a much better job of educating our children.
The implications for student achievement are clear. Jeffco’s primary goal is graduating students who are “college and career ready.” Given the rapid changes underway in the global economy and labor market, college and career readiness will continue to be a moving target, with the bar rising ever higher as improving technology and advancing globalization change the mix of knowledge and skills that our children will need to thrive in the years ahead.
The crux of the different arguments you hear about student achievement is this: Given the future our children will face, are Jeffco’s current student achievement results acceptable? I have repeatedly argued they are not, and have not been for over a decade (see my columns, “Thinking Critically About Student Achievement in Jeffco”, and “The Colorado Growth Model Explained”).
Colorado is one of eighteen states that use the national ACT test to measure the college and career readiness of every 11th grade student. This serves two purposes: It expands access to college for students who might otherwise not take the test, and it provides policymakers, parents, and taxpayers with a measure of the cumulative results produced by the billions of dollars we spend each year on our public schools. The results on the ACT are not only very important for college admissions, but are also highly correlated with scores on the ASVAB test that students who want to serve in the military must take, as well as pre-employment screening tests (e.g., Work Keys) that are taken by many students going straight to work after high school. This is logical, as given the increasingly sophisticated mix of knowledge and skills required for well-paying jobs, college readiness and career readiness have become increasingly similar (see, “Ready for College and Ready for Work: Same or Different?” by the ACT organization).
In 2015, only 44% of Jeffco students met the ACT’s “college and career ready” (C&C) standard in reading, only 44% in math, and only 40% in science. Between 2008 and 2015, over 27,000 Jeffco 11th graders have failed to meet the C&C standard in reading, over 28,000 have failed to meet the math standard, and over 34,000 have failed to meet the science standard. These kids are going to struggle for years – and we all know it.
Among Jeffco students eligible for free and reduced lunch (FRL), just 24% met the C&C reading standard, 20% met the math standard, and 18% met the science standard.
However, affluence has not protected non-FRL students from poor ACT results. In 2015, only 50% of NON-FRL eligible students met the C&C reading standard, 54% met the math standard, and 47% met the science standard. That’s right – if you are the parents of a non-FRL Jeffco student, his or her chance of meeting the college and career ready standard in reading, math, or science is essentially a coin-flip. These results are both unacceptable and quite scary for our children when you think about what lies ahead.
So with that brief introduction, let me tell you about why I’m voting against the Recall.
The first reason is that I believe that the overuse of recall elections is deeply unhealthy for American democracy. In the mid-1970s, I worked on Capitol Hill in Washington, at a time when Democratic and Republican centrists still controlled the Senate and the House of Representatives. Back then you would have been hard pressed to find anyone who did not agree that the impeachment of President Nixon was a necessary but deeply painful national ordeal that they hoped would never be repeated in their lifetime.
Unfortunately, that was not to be. Since the mid-70s, we have seen impeachment threatened against Presidents Reagan, Bush(41), Bush(43), and Obama, and actually carried against President Clinton. In my view, this continuation of elections by means of impeachment (a process that should be used only in the rarest and most serious of circumstances) has substantially worsened political polarization in this country, made it more difficult to pass legislation, and heightened people’s cynicism about American democracy.
If you believe recent polls, the people who advocate this scorched earth approach to politics may indeed be playing with fire. In June 2015, Gallup noted that confidence in American political institutions had fallen to record low levels. Only 33% of U.S. adults had a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in the presidency, 32% in the Supreme Court, and 8% in the Congress. In marked contrast, 72% still had a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in the military.
More recently, I was stunned to read a new YouGov poll which found that only 22% of Americans believed that local politicians want what is best for the country, and 43% of Americans would support the military stepping in to take control of the federal government if elected leaders began to violate the constitution (which struck me as a highly subjective and therefore very dangerous standard).
In this context, recall elections are simply impeachment writ small, with the same cancerous consequences for American democracy.
Even before Newkirk, Williams and Witt were sworn into office after their election in November 2013, their opponents started spewing a steady stream of poisonous invective, baseless assertions, and personal insults that has continued unabated right up to today. In their view, people who seek to improve student achievement results are either DFER traitors (e.g., in Denver), or Tea Party wingnuts (e.g., in Dougco). For Recall supporters, there is no middle ground.
In the midst of this venom, I have heard not a single constructive idea from Recall advocates about how to improve student achievement, beyond the all-too-predictable demand that we pay teachers more money on the basis of their seniority (as if a bigger paycheck will magically turn a long-serving ineffective teacher into a highly effective one). They conveniently ignore that five years of Jeffco Uniform Improvement Plans have found that the major root causes of Jeffco’s achievement problems are not financial.
Over the past two years of what amounts to an extended temper tantrum by middle aged adults, we have been treated to the deeply embarrassing spectacle of PTA heads joking about guns and shooting, and giving the middle finger to the Board, along with regular heckling and near riots in the boardroom by teachers union members. And now this process has culminated in a recall election. What good end has this served? As far as I can see, all this has done is severely worsen polarization in Jeffco, and dramatically reduce the chances that any future school mill levy or bond proposal will ever be passed.
Beyond my objection to recall elections in general, I have also found no shortage of reasons to oppose this one in Jeffco. Human beings naturally look for information that confirms our existing views; however, the scientific method teaches us that we should do just the opposite, and seek information that challenges our beliefs. With that in mind, I have found plenty of evidence that contradicts the Recall supporters’ four main claims against Newkirk, Williams, and Witt.
Let’s start with their claims about an alleged lack of accountability. The Recall campaign’s claim that Dan McMinimee is paid more than Cindy Stevenson was rejected as false by the Denver Post (which also opposed calling the Recall election). The claim that the Board is hiding legal expenses is rejected by the fact all of Jeffco’s expenses are publicly available on the district’s financial transparency database. The claim that hiring a separate attorney for the board represents an additional expense is rejected on the basis that previously the district’s counsel played both roles, and now no longer does (with no more billings for board work).
The claim that the board was wasteful in budgeting $850,000 for programming for Jeffco’s 12,000 gifted students is undermined by the fact that the district’s own survey of GT students’ parents found widespread dissatisfaction with the previous programming (or absence thereof), while Jeffco’s achievement growth results for GT students have also been poor. The claim that the board was wrong to equalize funding for all public school students – whether they attend neighborhood, option, innovation, or charter schools is contradicted by these students’ right to equal protection under the law.
Finally, as Sherlock Holmes famously noted, sometimes the most important evidence is the dog that does not bark. When it comes to accountability, the Recall campaign is silent about this board’s setting explicit, measurable, achievement improvement targets that Jeffco has not used since Jane Hammond was superintendent more than a decade ago, and its taking a much more rigorous approach to evaluating the effectiveness of spending on different programs.
Recall supporters also cynically but understandably neglect the biggest accountability elephant in the room: How for the past decade previous boards accepted without complaint the spending of a billion dollars per year in taxpayer funds for such poor student achievement results.
The Recall campaign has also claimed that Newkirk, Williams, and Witt have reduced transparency. This is contradicted by a host of actions they have taken to actually increase transparency, including starting online sign up to speak at board meetings, live video streaming of all board meetings and teacher contract negotiating sessions, and making these videos available for subsequent online viewing – none of which was the case under the previous board.
The Recall campaign also makes a range of claims about an alleged “lack of respect” and “bullying”, charges which in today’s society have sadly become nearly automatic reactions to anything an individual or group hears and doesn’t like. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard my peers complain about younger employees who confuse constructive criticism and performance feedback with “microaggression” and a “lack of respect.” But I digress.
One “lack of respect” claim is that the board tried to “censor” the AP U.S. history curriculum. This is contradicted by three salient points: (1) By law, school boards are responsible for curriculum (e.g., the board also approved a new math curriculum that is already producing much better achievement results); (2) the alleged “censorship” motion was never passed; and (3) as it turned out, the College Board ended up making significant changes to the AP US History curriculum guide in response to widespread complaints from across the country.
Another “lack of respect” claim is that the board majority did not respect the “will of the community” when establishing the district’s budget. This is contradicted by the fact that the alleged “will of the community” was expressed via an online survey that was only open for a week, that presented no background information about the pros and cons of different spending options or their linkage to district goals, and that received only 13,000 replies (about 10% of the total number of Jeffco voters in the November 2013 election), many of which represented multiple replies from the same people. It came as no surprise when this survey found that “the community” named as its top spending priority higher pay for teachers.
A final “lack of respect” claim is that Newkirk, Williams, and Witt somehow “disrespected the community” by voting not to expand the district’s free full day kindergarten (FDK) program. Nothing could be further from the truth. After reviewing research that questioned the cost effectiveness of full day kindergarten programs, the board directed the district to conduct a study of Jeffco’s program (which was the first study ever done, even though the district had already spent $30 million on its FDK program). This study found that Jeffco’s FDK program had not met its stated goals. So what did Newkirk, Williams, and Witt do? Did they cancel the program? No. They took steps to make it work.
First, they changed the program structure so that all Jeffco students eligible for free and reduced lunch (FRL) are now also eligible for free FDK, regardless of the school they attend. Second, they mandated that all non-FRL students have to pay for FDK, just as is the case in Denver and Cherry Creek. Previously, Jeffco offered free FDK to all students who attended schools with an FRL percentage above a minimum threshold. This perversely resulted in free FDK to some non-FRL families, while some FRL families had to pay for FDK. This was clearly inequitable. The net result is that this year more FRL students are attending free FDK programs than ever before. And the cost effectiveness of these programs will be reviewed again in the future. In addition, the board supported an increase in the amount of extra money schools get for each of their FRL students from $150 to $850 per year.
If Newkirk, Williams, and Witt were progressives, the Recall supporters would be cheering them for these actions, rather than calling for their heads (which raises an interesting question: why is it that in the case of civil rights, the environment, healthcare, and many other areas, progressives gladly claim the “reformer” label, but use it as an insult in the case of education?)
And again, there is the dog that isn’t barking. The board has also significantly raised starting pay for new teachers (finally meeting a long-standing demand by the teachers union), and changed the district’s compensation system so that teachers are rewarded on the basis of their performance, rather than their seniority. Frankly, I have always thought that it is extremely disrespectful and demoralizing to tell any high performing employee in any organization that they will be paid less than a lower performing colleague who has more seniority. In my view, with its new compensation system Jeffco is finally giving to our best teachers the respect they have long deserved. Unfortunately, the Recall supporters don’t see it that way, and if elected will no doubt restore the old seniority-based compensation system.
The Recall campaign’s fourth major claim is that the number of teachers leaving Jeffco is somehow unusual and will have a negative impact on achievement results. To begin with, very few senior teachers are leaving because of the substantial reduction in pay they would have to accept if they moved to another district (most of which only give credit for five years of seniority to experienced incoming teachers). But again, it is the points the Recall supporters fail to note that strongly contradict their claim. To begin with, teacher turnover always rises when the economy improves, and Jeffco is not exception to that rule. More importantly, increased staff turnover is also an inevitable part of every successful performance improvement program.
First, some employees always decide they are not a good fit with the new culture. For example, we can see in the TELL survey data that schools where teachers spend more time collaborating — planning a coordinated approach to a child’s education — deliver much better achievement results. Yet some teachers resist this, and believe that what they do in their classroom should be up to them. Some of these teachers will leave as Jeffco’s professional culture becomes more collaborative. We should not be sad to see them go.
Here’s another example. In 2009, 67% if Jeffco teachers were absent from their classroom for more than 10 days during the school year. We know that hurts student achievement, and reducing this number is a key issue for the board (the most recent data shows that it is now down to 30%, which is still far too high). Some teachers may not like this, and will move to districts that are more tolerant of a high level of absences. Again, we should not be sad to see them go.
The second driver of staff turnover is a growing mismatch between individual skills and the direction in which an organization is headed. For example, we’ve seen in other districts how innovations like more rigorous elementary school content, competency based education (i.e., changing our focus to what students actually learn, rather than how much “seat time” they spend in school) and various forms of blended learning are having a substantial positive impact on student achievement results. However, getting the most from these new approaches requires a different mix of teacher skills. As in every organization, there will be teachers in Jeffco that either can’t or won’t develop the new skills that are needed, and they will leave too. Again, we should not be sad to see them go, particularly when, thanks to the new “mutual consent” provisions of SB-191, principals now must agree to the assignment of any new teacher to their school. The “dance of the lemons” is over; if a teacher applying for a job isn’t a good fit with a school’s needs, they won’t be hired.
In sum, when an organization is making a lot of changes to substantially improve its performance, higher staff turnover is the norm, not the exception, and it almost always produces positive benefits. But the Recall supporters ignore all these points.
Besides the overwhelming evidence that contradicts the Recall supporters’ claims, and the destructive nature of the Recall election itself, there is one final reason why I’m voting against the Recall.
Consider the slate of five candidates supported by the Recall campaign: Amanda Stevens and Ali Lasell were or are public school teachers; Ron Mitchell is a former teacher and principal; and Brad Rupert and Susan Harmon are both lawyers. The slate is also strongly backed by the teachers union, and all the candidates have admitted to having relationships with former Jeffco superintendent Cindy Stevenson, who is a major donor to the Recall campaign.
Objectively, people who have worked in any industry or company for a long time are always the last to realize that fundamental changes are needed, and inevitably pursue them too slowly. That is why the failure of famous organizations and their replacement by upstart new entrants is a plot line that keeps repeating across time and industries. Education is no different – yet the Recall campaign is supporting a slate that is dominated by K-12 insiders with a deep commitment to the status quo.
Similarly, a board’s willingness and ability to constructively challenge and push a management team is crucial to the realization of substantial improvement in an organization’s performance. Somehow, I can’t picture Stevens, Lasell, Mitchell, Rupert, and Harmon playing that role.
In my view, the most logical explanation for the slate of candidates the Recall campaign has put forth is that, despite Jeffco’s ACT results, Recall leaders and their supporters fundamentally do not believe that Jeffco’s performance needs to substantially improve – a point made clear by Ms. Stevens’ references to Jeffco’s “track record of excellence”, and Mr. Mitchell’s claim that Jeffco “was on the brink of greatness” when Newkirk, Williams, and Witt were elected.
Given the evidence, it is also not unreasonable to expect that, if they are elected, Stevens, Lasell, Mitchell, Rupert, and Harmon will waste no time in bringing Cindy Stevenson back as Jeffco’s superintendent. The wisdom of such a move depends on whether you see Stevenson as a martyr or just another failed CEO who spent billions of taxpayer dollars over more than a decade while failing to produce any significant improvement in student achievement results (and that was before the InBloom debacle).
Perhaps most importantly, I have long thought that there is something fundamentally wrong with a public education system in which, as New York labor leader Victor Gotbaum famously said, teachers unions “have the ability to elect our own boss.” In the case of Jeffco, when the new board said the district had to make substantial changes to improve student achievement results, the teachers union said it was time to recall the board. That is both breathtakingly arrogant and deeply wrong in a way that goes to the heart of Americans’ growing disenchantment with our democracy.
Substantial performance improvement always requires substantial change that inevitably generates conflict. If you are leading such a change program, whether as an executive or board member, you will never win any popularity contests along the way. At best, you can hope that in the future, with the benefit of hindsight, people will appreciate what you did. Yet when the need for substantial performance improvement becomes painfully clear, we are lucky to have leaders in our midst who will take on that challenge for the benefit of our children.
In sum, with our children’s future clearly in mind, this pragmatic Independent is going vote against the recall, and in favor of continuing on the difficult but supremely important achievement improvement path that Jeffco is (finally) now on.
Tom Coyne is a political Independent. He chairs the Wheat Ridge High School Accountability Committee, is a member of Jeffco’s District Accountability Committee, founded www.k12accountability.org, and has worked on corporate performance improvement issues for more than 30 years.