Why Bill Sizemore Makes Sense – Part 1 (Education)

Many candidates running in the governor’s race lately seem pulled to the center. Why? Are Oregonians ready to listen to “compromise” and lengthy plans to get somewhere? I don’t think so (I am surely not patient enough for that). Instead of political pablum meant to satisfy the most number of people (or rather, offend the least number, leaving many of us numb), it is by taking strong stands that we wake up and form our own opinions. Only by opposing opposites does real policy happen.

Part 1 – Education
Bill Sizemore, in debates and in platform statements on his website, has come out in favor of education reforms. These things aren’t new, they aren’t rocket science, and they weren’t cooked up in some tea party lab either. In fact they have actually been used in Oregon! Sizemore has taken a stand in favor of education reform which includes merit pay for teachers.

Being the civil servant that I am, and moved by the concept of Pay for Performance, I have asked my management chain about this. Mumble, well its hard to do in government, they tell me. But! I’ve seen it! When I worked at Metro as a lowly intern I had amazing access to all levels of management as part of my gathering information for papers I was writing. Pay for performance was something Metro had initiated, and at that time (2004) was still in the process of implementing.

While I can’t say how well it played out there, at least an important government organization, albeit with some enterprise type operations it is responsible for (the Zoo, Expo Center) was able to look beyond government classification schedules, union contracts, and negotiate a grand new world. Why not set aside some “bonus” money so that collectively, when the group reaches certain goals, everyone is rewarded accordingly. How else do you expect to motivate government workers – on little chocolate donuts alone (this, sadly to say, does not work any more).

I worked in the private sector for many years, the “Silicon forest” out here in former farmland that now grows chips and machines to spit out chips and widgets and things. A competitive place, sometimes internally, always against competitors. A startup I was lucky to work for that later went public (yes! The 90’s were great!). Pay for performance is not the term they use in the private sector – its “incentive bonuses”. And we worked like mad to achieve those bonuses, since our payout (a bi-yearly bonus of as much as 100% of your quarterly salary) affected everyone in the company. There were company-wide goals (ship product X to customer Y by Z date!), and there were division goals (production release of product Q by N date!), that we did stress and work to make happen. And all were rewarded, top to bottom.

Why shouldn’t our education system, which currently does not really have to compete against any outside entity (more on that in a moment) have incentives to encourage excellence? Some teachers have been with local school districts for 30 years and are quite excellent; others are probably not as excellent. I have been quite fortunate to send my kids through the Hillsboro school system which beat the odds of the recently quoted “68% high school graduation rate in Oregon” at Century H.S. with a 99% graduation rate. How did this happen? They worked like mad, together, as a team, to make it happen.

It didn’t happen by closing high performing schools and bringing low achieving schools up (the current plan in Portland? Are they after mediocrity or what? Refer again to “only by opposing opposites does real policy happen”..)

I used to be opposed to charter schools – thinking they siphoned money away from our public schools. Yet without external competition what motivates schools to achieve? I have watched through news stories the transformation that is taking place in the DC school system – Chancellor Rhee, the change agent, against the public employee unions. I sense that real transformation is occurring, and the winners will be the schoolchildren of DC, their parents, the community, our nation.

Race to the Top – the federal grant with $600M available to states who embrace education reform – has been in the news lately due to Oregon’s relatively poor rating on its grant application. Interesting that anyone would expect anything different. Radical education reforms – well how exactly were they going to write anything about that – with the union organizations apparently intransigent to real change. Having not read the application, with its scoring of 7th from the bottom among all states that applied, I can only imagine it touched on “reforms lite” around the edges of the system. No surprise since I certainly don’t hear any leadership asking for change.

So ok, back to Mr. Sizemore and what he would like to do to reform education. But is he an educator – what is his standing on this issue? He provides a direction we can pursue. Not in a vacuum either. First, reform the ever-increasing part of the state budget that is the Public Employee Retirement System (PERS). Since 70% of local education dollars come from the state, taking a hard look at the pie that is the state budget is a critical first step. Along with PERS reform is a system of compensation changes which offer more flexibility to state workers (cafeteria style). I refer readers to his website since I am summarizing (www.sizemoreforgovernor.org).

Second, institute merit pay for teachers to encourage excellence. Mr. Sizemore is not an entrenched educator, administrator, or member of the education system. Yet with 5 kids and a clear vision he is able to see the system objectively. He has worked, sometimes successfully, and when not successful sowing seeds of change for later, towards some of the reforms needed to upgrade our education model in Oregon.

So lets hear a radical stance. Lets have it out, lets have a Real Policy Debate. Cause through incremental polite discussion we are never going to get there. A system at rest tends to stay at rest. No more resting.