You have to chuckle just a bit when you read about the fact that the Obama Administration and California are at odds over the issue of the ability to use student achievement as a measure for rating the effectiveness of teachers. Apparently at stake are some federal dollars for California’s education system because California is one of a few states that actually has a law (no doubt passed with the considerable helf of one of the state’s largest public employee unions – the California Teachers Association) that actually prohibits using student achievement to rate teacher performance. Read about it in the Los Angeles Times here.
First and foremost, how lame for us here in California. It makes NO SENSE to not have as a factor (and perhaps as the largest factor) in assessing a teacher their ability to sucessful get their students to learn. Do we have a law that says you cannot judge an auto-mechanic based on their ability to fix cars? Or how about determining if an attorney is doing a good job based on whether they win their cases? Oh well, that California law is par for the course here in the "Golden State" where the unions, through their tools — liberal Democrat legislators — have turned our state into a grotesque "sciene project" for the left. That law should be repealed quickly.
The reason I pen this commentary though, is because I find it delicious that there is a battle between President Obama and the liberals here in California over this issue. And perhaps I find it ironic that, in this case, the left is a victim of their own vision of an expansive and overreaching size and scope for our federal government.
The reality is that education policy should be an issue exclusively reserved to the states, and to the people. There should be no U.S. Department of Education or Education Secretary. There should be no laws of Congress putting mandates on state or local government about how to, or not to teach students, or rate teachers. It should be up to the states.
Now I know that for those of us here trapped in the "science lab of liberalism" of California, at some level that may seem counter-intuative. This current dust-up between the Obama Administration and California is a prime example. Of course the goal of the federal program is laudable — because the intent behind the law, which is to see teachers being evaluated based on their ability to get their job done, is right on target. Unfortunately, national policies like this fly in the face of a federalism, and the idea that America was founded as one country, but with strong state governments. A system that was designed by our Founding Fathers to prevent an engorged, massive national government — like the one against which we found in the Revolutionary War. Unfortunately, over a couple of centuries, the goals of the nation’s pioneers have been largely junked, and now we have a federal government large enough to — well, among other things, boss the states around on education policy.
Bottom line — of course California should repeal this very stupid law — and allow teachers to be judged, at least in part, on their success at teaching. But perhaps more importantly, the federal government should get out of the business of lording over the states and the people on education policy — which is not the role of the United States government (even if the intent is good).
By the way, one cannot blame the Democrats exclusively for this "federalizing" of education policies. While it was in the waning days of the adminstration of Democrat President Jimmy Carter that he, along with the Democrat Congess, created the Department of Education, you can look at policies of Republican Presidents — most notably George W. Bush’s misguided "No Child Left Behind" policy as examples of GOP use of federal education policy to inappropriately regulate state and local government.
It’s unclear how this specific showdown between the President and California will end, but it serves to highlight yet another example of an out-of-control federal government. Each of California’s 50 states should have the right, under our United States Constitution, to govern those areas of policy that are not specifically delegated to the federal government — which education policy is not. In a state is using its authorities poorly, that is for the people to resolve with their state government officials.
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