Andy Ford, president of the Florida teachers union, has done his darnedest to kick out many of the Republicans who continue to run both the executive and legislative branches in this state, and they don’t usually take a shine to his approach. Just the other day, Ford bought a two-page ad in Florida Trend, a leading business magazine, to proclaim: “IT’S MIDNIGHT IN FLORIDA. Do You Know Where Your Public Education Dollars Are Going?” He added: “The foundation of public education in the Sunshine State is devious, unreliable and crumbling before our very eyes.”

Given all that, you’d think Ford would be in a better mood at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte.  And you’d think he’d especially appreciate the speech from U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan, who spent much of his time criticizing Mitt Romney for gutting education spending “to cut taxes for millionaires and billionaires.” Even American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten found some reason for cheer, tweeting, “Duncan: "teachers matter" and "no teachers should have to teach to the test"-very different from Romney/Ryan/Rhee agenda.”

Was Ford moved, too? Not so much. As the secretary wrapped up, he tweeted six words: “Glad Duncan is off the stage!”

The battle for the soul of the Democratic Party, at least in the area of public education policy, was on full display yesterday at two panel discussions organized by Democrats for Education Reform. (Full disclosure:  I am DFER’s Florida coordinator.)

The first panel consisted of Democratic state legislators from Colorado, Indiana, New Jersey, North Carolina and Ohio discussing their legislative efforts to improve public education by changing teacher evaluation, tenure and compensation systems. These initiatives, generally opposed by teachers unions, are designed to make the current factory model of public education more effective and efficient by giving management more control over personnel decisions.

The second panel included the presidents of the two national teachers unions (Dennis Van Roekel of the National Education Association and Randi Weingarten of the American Federation of Teachers), two educational entrepreneurs with strong technology backgrounds (John Katzman from 2tor and Noodle.org, and Joel Rose from New Classrooms Innovation Partners), and Joe Reardon, the mayor of Kansas City, Kansas. They discussed what a post-factory model of public education might look like. There was broad agreement among these diverse panelists that customized learning is the future of public education. They all emphasized the importance of innovation and entrepreneurship, and the economic and moral imperative of more effectively overcoming the achievement gap related to family income.

The fault lines within this second panel, and in the Democratic Party as a whole, appeared when the moderator, Jonathan Schorr from the NewSchools Venture Fund, asked about the role private providers should play in public education. After acknowledging that private, for-profit companies provide buildings, desks, buses, textbooks, computers, pencils and electricity for district schools, both Weingarten and Van Roekel opposed allowing nongovernment employees to teach in public education, arguing that the essence of public education would be undermined if nongovernment personnel received public funds to teach children.

Katzman and Rose, the entrepreneurs/innovators on the panel, seemed agnostic about who employs teachers. They cared about the freedom to innovative and customize. Katzman in particular stressed that learning providers needed to be agile. Weingartner responded that teachers unions could provide this agility through collective bargaining contracts if only management would agree. She asserted that school districts were the impediment to flexibility and innovation, not teachers unions.

The teachers unions’ current business model is tied to teachers being public employees, so I understand why that’s a must-have for them. No business voluntarily gives up market share, but asserting that only public employees can further the mission of public education defies logic and common sense. (more…)

Won’t Back Down is a quintessential Hollywood drama in which a teacher and parent unite to fight against the odds and restore hope to their dysfunctional elementary school, and it comes complete with a tear-evoking final scene in which a young girl conquers a stressful passage of reading. Only in the real world of education, though, would a feel-good movie provoke a national teacher union president to release a 2,000-word critique branding it as “divisive” and claiming it “demoralizes millions of great teachers.”

Let’s just say this is American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten playing to type.

The film is fictional and, interestingly enough, presents characters that in many ways have more dimension than those in the educational documentary, Waiting for Superman, that featured Weingarten herself.  The director, Daniel Barnz, comes from a family of teachers and told a screening audience this week at the Republican National Convention that: “We wanted to create a film that suggests that people can come together.”

Though the movie is being billed as a dramatic reenactment of parent trigger laws, Barnz himself calls attention to a significant difference. In his fictional account, the “fail-safe” law does not allow charter conversion and only allows for a leadership change at a school with the support of both the parents and the teachers – and then the school board.

Yes, the school principal, school administration and the local teacher union are cast as villains. But the teachers are most certainly not. (more…)

Randi Weingarten must be watching the RNC goings-on pretty closely too. Minutes ago, the president of the American Federation of Teachers sent out a lengthy press release criticizing "Won't Back Down," the new movie about a mother and a teacher who use a parent trigger type law to turn around a struggling, inner-city school.

I mention the timing because StudentsFirst is sponsoring a special screening of the movie at the RNC this afternoon, followed by a panel discussion with Jeb Bush, Condoleezza Rice, Michelle Rhee and the movie's director, Daniel Barnz.

In her statement, Weingarten specifically mentions the parent trigger debate in Florida earlier this year. Here's an excerpt:

This movie could have been a great opportunity to bring parents and teachers together to launch a national movement focused on real teacher and parent collaboration to help all children. Instead, this fictional portrayal, which makes the unions the culprit for all of the problems facing our schools, is divisive and demoralizes millions of great teachers. America’s teachers are already being asked to do more with less—budgets have been slashed, 300,000 teachers have been laid off since the start of the recession, class sizes have spiked, and more and more children are falling into poverty. And teachers are being demonized, marginalized and shamed by politicians and elites who want to undermine and dismiss their reform efforts.

Parent engagement is essential to ensuring children thrive in the classroom. The power of partnerships between parents, teachers and the community is at the heart of school change.

But instead of focusing on real parent empowerment and how communities can come together to help all children succeed, “Won’t Back Down” offers parents a false choice—you’re either for students or for teachers, you can either live with a low-performing school or take dramatic, disruptive action to shut a school down.

Editor's note: For those new to redefinED, "blog stars" is our occasional roundup of good stuff from other education blogs.

Jay P. Greene's Blog: The Way of the Future: Coursera

Watch this video from start to finish from Coursera co-founder Daphne Koller as in right now:

I’m calling it- I think that we’ve passed Clayton Christensen’s inflection point where the disruptive technology (online learning) is better than the dominant technology (traditional universities).  The required mastery element that Koller describes in the video seals the deal by itself. I’m willing to bet that it is simply a matter of performing high quality evaluations and getting the results for documentation.

Second while most of the commentary on these developments naturally focuses on higher education, which is in for a major disruption, we need to start thinking about the implications of these developments for K-12. Coursera courses are available for free to anyone. K-12 students can take these courses, and other courses suited to various educational levels will certainly be developed. Full post here.

Jay Mathews' Class Struggle: Let charters bloom. Let teachers be creative. 

Petrazzuolo says if a charter doesn’t offer innovative programs, that is one reason not to approve it. ... Successful charters have exposed the weakness of that argument.

When the KIPP DC: KEY Academy began in a Southeast Washington church basement in 2001, it offered a standard curriculum of math, science, English and social studies, plus two hours a day of homework and strict discipline, very old school. Before long, despite the lack of innovation, its students were performing far above the level of their neighbors in regular D.C. public schools.

What is the secret for success? The best charters and regular schools are careful about whom they pick to supervise and teach. Most schools say they have the best principals and instructors. They say they give them strong support. The best schools actually do that. Full post here. (more…)

Now that a document highlighting lobbying machinations at an AFT affliate in Connecticut has stoked another conversation about teacher unionism and parent empowerment, redefinED wanted to reach into its archives and pull out a memo from the public policy director at the Florida Education Association that also reflects on a singular concern among teachers unions: lost membership.

RedefinED host Doug Tuthill reported on the memo last fall after FEA policy director Jeff Wright urged members to head to the polls and keep Rick Scott out of Florida's governor's mansion. Why? Wright said that Scott would enhance merit-pay practices and expand school choice, specifically pointing to enhanced voucher, charter and virtual school policies along with "merit pay in its worst form" that would "obliterate FEA’s and our local unions’ influence."

"If we are no longer strong due to reduction in the number of people served by public schools," Wright continued, "then they can do what they want with the education budgets of today."