Frederica Freyberg:
For more on the governor's plan for race to the top funding, Mary Bell, the president of the state teachers union,  or WEAC, is on board with some of the reform ideas and is opposed to others, like mayoral takeover of Milwaukee schools and so-called performance pay for teachers. Thanks very much for being here.

Mary Bell:
Thank you.

Frederica Freyberg:
Let's talk about this performance pay or merit pay for teachers. Why not reward those whose students show improvement as measured either by test scores or attendance rates or improving achievement gaps?

Mary Bell:
I think there are multiple measures that can be used and even can be used in a bargain compensation system to reward teachers who show improvement. Our concern and objection is that often it is based as one measure of what would be an excellent teacher and what would be rewarded, and the rewards that are set are not based on anything other than dollars available. So what we want to see is a more comprehensive evaluation system for all teachers that looks at student learning, what their skills and knowledge base would be and look at what their student scores might be, what efforts they have participated in in their schools.

Frederica Freyberg:
So you would give them more money for performing better?

Mary Bell:
I think there are models where that would work.

Frederica Freyberg:
So you're not opposed to merit pay.

Mary Bell:
I am opposed to merit pay as it is currently devised. The places that I've seen, it really isn't designed to be effective in improving student scores. It is designed to sort and sift teachers, which I don't think is an effective way to approach that.

Frederica Freyberg:
In fact, one of the things that the legislation that's on the table right now would propose is taking $1 million out of the Department of Public Instruction and putting that towards performance pay or merit pay and then that would have to come out of DPI's current budget. Could you think of better ways to spend a million dollars?

Mary Bell:
Well, given that the Department of Public Instruction has its resources stretched about as for as they can, I think that would be a very dangerous proposal, especially since I haven't seen any definition of exactly how they would make those decisions or determinations.

Frederica Freyberg:
Now, on the issue of tying teacher evaluation to test scores, the proposed law change would allow that. Why not do that?

Mary Bell:
There are some ways that we are looking at changing that bar against using student data for teacher evaluations. But it needs to be done in a comprehensive fashion, as I said earlier. Teacher evaluation as a whole needs to be looked at. Just as we believe students are tested by more than one single test in a year and we've always had that objection to the No Child Left Behind testing, we believe that teacher evaluation is more than just the test scores of the students that are in front of them in any given year.

Frederica Freyberg:
All right. Well, speaking of tests, here's a clip from Gov. Jim Doyle on the matter this week as it pertains to school reform.

Jim Doyle:
We also will move towards an assessment system that gives continued value added to the teachers. Instead of getting one test result at the end of the year when the school year is coming to an end, we not only are going to work to make sure you have a test result at the beginning of the year, but that there are methods to continually assess the students in a way that provides the teachers with the information they need to know what a student's strengths are, what his or her weaknesses are, where they need to improve.

Frederica Freyberg:
Do you like this idea of continually assessing students?

Mary Bell:
Oh, yes. The recommendation that the Department of Public Instruction is moving forward with we think has great promise, both to give us national benchmarks against which we can use those regular, ongoing assessments that teachers and schools use all the time and that really benefit teachers in instructing and in designing assessment to meet the needs of each student.

Frederica Freyberg:
Now, there is one prong of these reforms that you are opposed to and that is the mayoral takeover of the Milwaukee school district. Why?

Mary Bell:
Absolutely. We believe — and we have launched the Milwaukee Opportunity Plan to really talk about the things that we believe make a difference for children in the classroom. We believe that mayoral governance as they're talking about it is not in the best interest both of engaging the community in their schools and on focusing on those classroom and school needs in order to be more effective.

Frederica Freyberg:
This Milwaukee Opportunity Plan that you say you have launched, it comes it seems in response to this threat of the mayoral takeover of the schools. Why now? Why not earlier?

Mary Bell:
These are ideas that we have talked about in many areas for many years. The putting together of the Milwaukee Opportunity Plan is really a result of looking at the same Race to the Top funding that you're discussing on this program, because we have an opportunity, both with the attention paid to the Milwaukee schools in this particular grant, but also because people are paying attention to student achievement and how we get there and the needs of those kids.

Frederica Freyberg:
Now, very briefly, there's something in these reforms that I think school kids probably don't like and that's talking about making the school days longer and going to school more months of the year. But WEAC is onboard with this.

Mary Bell:
I think we need to talk about when and how we extend the school day and year, not to do more of what we already do, but to do things differently. To enrich the kind of curriculum that makes learning applicable for students, that really helps them achieve in ways that we can't in a very limited, what is a traditional, agrarian-based calendar. It just doesn't work anymore.

Frederica Freyberg:
All right. Mary Bell, thanks very much.

Mary Bell:
Thank you.