American Enterprise Institute

March 29, 2006

[Edited transcript from audio tapes]

2:00 p.m.	Registration
2:15	Introduction:	Christopher DeMuth, AEI
2:25	Presentation:	Governor Mitt Romney
	Question & Answer
3:15	Adjournment

Proceedings:

Christopher DeMuth:  Ladies and gentleman, welcome and good afternoon.  We are releasing this afternoon our newest study of education policy and education school reform issues.  It is entitled “A Better Bargain:  Overhauling Teacher Collective Bargaining for the 21st Century,” by Rick Hess of the American Enterprise Institute and Marty West of the Brookings Institution.  This study was commissioned by and published by the Program on Education Policy and Governance at Harvard. 

We are thrilled that the Governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney, who has made education reform a specialty of his tenure, would join us for this event.  The Governor will speak and take questions.  He has to leave at 2:50, and at that time Rick and Marty will take over and summarize their study and take questions.  They have carefully arranged to embargo this until release at this very moment; therefore, nobody will have had a chance to read the report and be prepared with really tough questions for them.  But they will summarize it and try to put a good light on it before the questions come.  The Governor, however, has read the report and we’re delighted that he is with us. 

Governor Romney is the son of a legendary American business leader turned political leader, and he has been following in his father’s footsteps.  He had a spectacular career as CEO of Baine Company in Boston.  He famously took over, resurrected and made a huge success out of the planning and execution of the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, overcoming a huge deficit, giving it good management and overcoming several tough hurdles as the date approached.

Later that year he was elected Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and his years there have been characterized by, on the one hand, tight fistedness.  He’s posted a three billion dollar deficit without resorting to borrowing or to taxes.  On the other hand, a great deal of policy imagination and progress, particularly in the area of education where he has pioneered competitive scholarships and has paid particular attention to improving teaching and performance in mathematics and engineering.

We’re delighted that he would be able to stop by AEI on the occasion of this release of our own report on education policy and give us his thoughts, his vision for education reform based on his experiences in Massachusetts.  Please give a warm welcome to Governor Mitt Romney. 

[Applause]

Governor Romney:  Thank you, Chris and thank you also Marty and Rick for the superb work that you’ve done.  I have enjoyed the review that I’ve given to the material and have learned a great deal through that process.

I’m going to use slides today, which you’re going to see on the screen.  The reason for that is that I’d like to take this topic from the rhetoric that’s normally associated with education and actually look at some data.  I’m going to show you some data from our own experience in Massachusetts and, hopefully, you’ll find that instructive.

My background, as Chris indicated, is in the private sector.  I worked for some years in the consulting industry and then in the venture capital and buy-out industry.  Our process of making decisions in those industries was to begin by gathering data, by analyzing it, by calling people who had different perspectives and going back and forth with them to get their ideas about a topic, and then reaching a decision based upon those inputs, then generally testing the data, testing the ideas and then seeing what the results were, then, if they worked well, rolling it on a broader basis.  And that’s been done in education time and time again. 

What has been done by this study is to bring many of those elements together to analyze them and to reach conclusions and I’m going to show you what we’ve learned from our own state.  I’m going to begin by some things I think we can all agree with.  That’s going back – one – there it is – what children become a nation becomes.  A wonderful book written by a professor at Harvard called David Landis, called the Wealth and Poverty of Nations.  He points out that if you look at the history of economic development of the world that those nations and those civilizations that succeed do so in large measure because of their culture, what their people become.  Therefore his point is that the differences between nations is not so much a matter of geography and geology as it is a matter of culture and people and the capabilities of people, their education culture and so forth.  And therefore, a nation’s primary task has to be the development of its children because it determines what the nation will be in the future.  On that basis you can recognize that we have need for improvement in our country. 

The reason I say that is we don’t rank as well as you might imagine given our super status in the world, super power status, that is.  Our 15-year olds, as you know, ranked 24th out of 29 OECD countries in math.  Our high school seniors rank in the bottom ten percent of math; the bottom 25 percent in science.  It’s very hard for us to be the economic super power of the world forever if our students, who are defining the nature of our society in the future, are ranking in the bottom ten or 25 percent in such critical areas as math and science. 

Of course, in math and science, high-tech is key.  As you look at high tech, one of the elements that is perhaps a leading indicator about what our position will be in places like high tech will include engineering degrees being awarded.  This just shows on the far left the number of engineering degrees awarded in China, for instance.  In 2003--I’m sure it’s much higher today--but the number is about seven times the number of that being awarded in the United States.  If you look at the Ph.Ds., specifically that are being awarded to U.S. citizens and Asian citizens, this is a graphics that demonstrates that.  You’ll see U.S. citizens since 1987 have gotten about the same number of Ph.Ds. in math and physical science per year.  It’s roughly 4,700 a year, actually trailing off a bit.  But Asian citizens have gone from roughly the same number to 24,900 Ph.D.s in math and physical science a year at the current level.

Those as leading indicators are somewhat troubling and present what I would call an excellence gap.  We always compare ourselves with other states to see how we’re doing, but far more important is to compare ourselves with other nations to see whether we’re in a trajectory that would lead us to be the world’s super power economically in the future.

There’s another troubling set of data, and that is with regards to what is known as the achievement gap,  Not just the excellence gap, but the achievement gap.  This happens to show in my state the results of an examination we call the MCAS, which is a comprehensive exam.  In this case, we’re looking just at the results in math between three different racial groups.  Black and Hispanic are shown in the blue.  Then the Asian is shown in the red.  Then the yellow bar is White population.  You’ll see that there is a huge gap in terms of the proficiency rate among Black and Hispanics relative to the other groups.  If we turn from math to the next topic, which I believe will be English, you’ll see the same pattern.

Then if I can go to the next slide, I think it’s pretty obvious to say that our excellence gap, which is relative to other countries, effectively dulls our edge for invention and innovation relative to other countries of the world. 

Our achievement gap, at least in my view, represents the civil rights issue of our time.  It is a recognition that as long as our schools are failing a large portion of our population, then those kids are pretty much going to be unable to succeed in the level they could have succeeded in this country.  It’s unfair.  It means a disparity in incomes, a disparity in being able to reach people’s dreams and hopes.  They’re, of course, very troubling leading indicators.

Now, the question becomes how do you close that.  How do you close both of those gaps?  I would note that we’re going to talk today about schools, but I just want to remind ourselves that there’s more to education than schools.  So, I’m saying don’t start with the government or village or even schools.  Start with parents because, of course, the home is the center of education and the ideal is a home where parents are able to provide educational values, discipline, guidance and remain

actively involved in a child’s education.  That’s the ideal. 

How close are we to being able to do that?  Well, one of the elements that affects our ability to help provide the kind of support for a child is whether there are two parents at home.  You know that the number of home settings where there’s only one parent to provide that support has been growing.  The number of single parent families has grown pretty dramatically in our society.  That’s more difficult in that setting to be able to devote the energy and resources to the child’s education than is available when two parents are together - not impossible, of course, and there are many notable success stories of heroic and inspiring single moms and single dads who are able to raise a child and give them the kind of educational support they need. 

But this is a trend, which is very challenging with regards to being able to support a child in the education process.  Therefore, I think it’s important for us to remember that to help close America’s education gaps, we should also encourage marriage before people have kids.  That means such things as removing unintended incentives for single parenthood.  I don’t think we have intended incentives of that nature, but there are many that are unintended.  I think it’s also important for us to teach in our sex education programs to make sure that we’re also teaching the idea of abstinence--or waiting until marriage until people have kids.  Finally, I think we also should enhance the incentives for marriage and parental responsibility.

But with that being said, let’s turn to the topic of today’s subject, which is schools and how to make our schools better.  This is a bit of a simplification here, but I just wanted to show this for illustration purposes.  As Governor, I began my process of looking at education by saying let’s go out and read what the experts are saying and hear what they have to tell us.  I listed across the top here the first three that were done in the past--and then the one I’m referring to is AEI Harvard is you guys here--and just checked off some of the things that are frequently discussed as important reforms. 

I did note as well in conversations with teachers’ unions in my state, that the things that they typically raise are not the same ones as these other think tank groups.  They typically raise the idea of spend more money in education.  We just need to be spending more money--also that we need to have smaller classroom size. 

I saw that big disparity and said let’s get some data because we’re in a state that has a lot of data.  We have a couple of sources to look at.  We have a testing system for our kids.  We began the effective No Child Left Behind effort about 1993 in our state with education reform.  Bill Weld was governor and he and the legislature passed this.  We now test our kids and there’s a graduation exam required as well.  But we’re able, by virtue of doing our testing, to get a pretty good sense of how our kids are doing district-by-district, school-by-school. 

So, I said, look, let’s look at how our students are doing.  That’s on the vertical axis there.  Let’s compare our school districts based on how well these kids are doing on the MCAS exam.  Then let’s go on per pupil spending and compare our districts between those who don’t spend much per student relative to those who spend a lot. 

Now, we have in our state a foundation level.  We make sure that if a particular school district doesn’t have enough money to provide for an adequate education for their children that the state kicks in the money.  So, everybody gets a certain level, but some districts spend well above that.  The range is from $7,000 a student at the lowest to $17,000 a student at the highest. 

Now, if there’s a relationship between how much we spend and how well the students are doing, you’d expect to see something along that line--that the more you spend, the better the students do.  Let’s look at the data.  The data doesn’t show any relationship at all between how much you spend and how well the students are doing.  This shows their MCAS proficiency exam.  It shows all the grades that we test for, the average for each one of our 351 school districts – some are combined, but 351 cities and towns, all those districts, then how much is being spent. 

On the far right, the most expensive per student spender in our state is the very large city of Cambridge.  You’ll note that despite the fact that it spends more than any other district in Massachusetts, that its kids score in the bottom ten percent of our exam.  So, there’s not a strong relationship.  There’s not any relationship that’s apparent between how much you’re spending and how well the kids are doing.

Now, clearly, there is a relationship between spending.  You have to spend to have education.  This wouldn’t suggest that you go down to zero.  But it also wouldn’t suggest that if we were to say hey, let’s take an extra billion dollars and just send it out to the school and tell them to raise everybody’s salaries, that that’s going to do anything for the kids.  Paying the same people more money to do the same thing isn’t going to make any difference based on that information.

Now let’s look at classroom size.  We’re going to use the same performance on the Y axis, which is how well the students are doing on our MCAS exam.  Then we’re going to look at student/teacher ratio as our best source of information on classroom size.  There’s a pretty wide range in our state.  It’s better than two to one--some classrooms very small, others very, very large.  You’d expect a downward sloping line, meaning that where we have very large classrooms--the far right hand side--we’d have lower performance on the exam.  Instead what we see is this.  And again - the pattern of no pattern.  No relationship between classroom size and how well our kids are doing.  Some of the very largest classrooms are doing every bit as well as some of the very smallest.  And actually, some of the very, very small classrooms are doing particularly poorly. 

Now, I’m not suggesting that this data is dispositive in all ways and clearly this is within a band.  But if we were just to say let’s turn around in Massachusetts and spend an extra billion dollars to make our classroom size go from an average of 20 to an average of 19, that’s not going to do much for us.  This suggests that that kind of a change isn’t going to produce the result that we hope to achieve.

So, what action do we want to take?  Well, I begin with what’s already been done and show you the results of what’s happened there.  These are things that we’ve done in our state beginning about a decade ago.  One, put in place rigorous academic standards with core curriculum being developed in math and English.  We have, as I indicated, a graduation exam and we’re adding science in 2010 to that exam.  Right now it’s only math and English.  We have 50 charter schools that have now been opened in our state.  We have foundation funding levels for each of our districts.  We have merit scholarships.  This I’m pretty proud of. 

We passed, a couple of years ago, a program or enacted a program called the Adams Scholarship Program.  If you graduate in the top quarter of your high school in Massachusetts – the top quarter, you’re entitled to go to any one of our state colleges or university tuition free for four years.  It’s a big statement about merit.  We’ve always supported needs based students, but now we’re also investing on a merit basis.  We think that’s an important incentive to draw more kids to do better and better in school.  Now I wish we could help our kids even more than providing free tuition because fees are even higher in Massachusetts than tuition.  We’re going to find ways, I think, to continue to support merit in schools. 

Finally, English Emersion--we began a couple of years ago, three almost four years ago, an English Emersion Program where if kids come to our schools in kindergarten through the fourth grade they are taught in English, as opposed to being taught in the language that their parents may have chosen for them to be taught in. 

What kind of results are we seeing?  First of all, with regards to our charter schools, very encouraging statistics in our charter schools.  I’m now comparing above and below two different school settings.  One is the Lawrence District schools; this is the public schools.  You’ll see that they’re about 84 percent low income and limited English proficiency about 22 percent of the student body. 

The Community Day Charter School in Lawrence has, as you see, about the same income level and a very similar limited English proficiency as well.  So - very similar characteristics of the student body, yet the scoring on the MCAS exam - and this happens to show seventh grade math and English exams - at the Lawrence District schools, 16 percent in math and 37 percent in English are getting proficient.  But at the charter school, 96 percent in math and 81 percent in English are scoring at proficient.  So, clearly something that’s going on in that charter school, and in others like it in our state, suggest that taking the same demographic profile, socio-economic and racial and language profile, that the charter school is able to achieve a much higher degree of success. 

So, I look at that and say I’ve got data, I’ve got experts and I’ve got test cases, my charter schools.  From that I ought to be able to draw some conclusions that we could apply more broadly to our education system.  That’s why I went to my legislature and said here is the program to take the next step in education reform.  Because our first step with testing and with charter schools and with foundation funding--that gave us the basis that we needed to begin gathering better data and take the next steps. 

And the next step, as I propose it--I’ll describe here in depth--but is very much akin to what these two gentlemen concluded in the work that you’re going to see in the material that they’ve put forward.  Let me describe some of those recommendations. 

I’m sorry.  I got ahead of myself.  Just to show you, by the way, how our schools have done by virtue of the implementation of some of those reforms over the last decade.  This shows our score on the SAT relative to the U.S. average.  You can see that we were behind in 1995 when education reform in our state was just getting going.  Now we’re well above.  So, those measures already taken.  The testing, the foundation, the charter schools are having an impact on our SAT. 

I’m also very proud of the fact that on this year’s NAEP exams that came back (where they test kids from all 50 states) Massachusetts (they test fourth graders and eighth graders in English and math)--my fourth graders scored first in English and first in math, and my eighth graders scored first in English and first in math.  First time in history one state has had first score in all four measures.  So, we’re doing better by virtue of what’s already been done.  But again, the achievement gap and the excellence gap still remain.  Being number one in America doesn’t mean you’re number one in the world.  So, we’ve got a lot of work to do.

The road ahead:  Here’s the proposal and here are the recommendations for taking the next step by virtue of the tremendous work already done in education reform.  First, make teaching a profession.  We still labor under the old industrial model that somehow teaching is like making a widget or making a car.  I grew up in Detroit, and I have a sense of how that works.  The old idea that all workers are the same and you pay them based on how long you’ve been working for you and whether they came from the top of their class at George Washington or the bottom of their class at an institution which is not as selective, they’re all paid the same.  They all move in lock- step because everybody’s the same.  Of course, they’re in diametric opposition to management who they disagree with time and again.  That model, in my view, is a dead end for education in America.  Therefore the kinds of things that I recommend are better pay for better teachers. 

In my proposal I proposed specifically a $5,000 bonus for those faculty members who are able to teach AP courses.  A $5,000 bonus for those that are qualified in math and science, also a $5,000 bonus on top of that for the top third of teachers in each school.  I’m always asked, “Well, how are you going to determine who the top third are?”  I said, “Well, let the district determine that, but I want them to use data on how well the kids are doing for each of the kids in each of the classrooms. 

I’d also like them to have the input of the other teachers.  Not just by the principal.  But let’s have the teachers as part of that and the principals, but you guys work it out as districts and we the state – I put in my budget – we’ll pay for all of that.  We’ll put in our state budget $5,000 bonuses for all your AP teachers, your math and science teachers and the top third of your teachers, as evaluated through a process that you all come up with. 

We’re not going to mandate an evaluation process.  You carry it out and work together with your union and with leadership to come up with ideas that work in your district.”  I also wanted to see each teacher have his/her own advancement opportunities, and that could be through mentoring.  The better teachers being asked by their fellow teachers to be mentors and getting an extra compensation bump by being a mentor teacher and helping one another.

Finally, recognizing the teacher development opportunities and assignments should be based on the needs for those opportunities as opposed to just saying, well, each teacher gets four hours per week, or whatever that might be.  A secondary--and that’s the authority and responsibility of the principal and the superintendent.  I believe it’s important for them to have the authority to hire the teachers they want to hire and to assign them to the places where they think they can have the biggest impact.  In some cases that’s going to be associated with a compensation bump--if you’re going into a real tough setting that there ought to be additional compensation associated with that assignment. 

My principals have talked to me about something known as the lemon pool.  I said, “What’s the lemon pool?”  Well, the lemon pool, they explained, “Is when teachers have been so unsuccessful that when there’s been a school that’s shrunk and the principal is able to let teachers go, they let the weakest teachers go.  But that becomes the lemon pool, and when you have to hire a new teacher, you must hire from that pool.  So, as you bring in new teachers into other schools that are growing you have to hire from the lemon pool.”  That doesn’t make sense to me.  These are our kids and we have to recognize if somebody is not able to be successful in teaching, we ought to give them that support they need to become successful in teaching or we ought to help them find another position. 

We also ought to be able to remove teachers that are unsuccessful, particularly in our failing schools.  I suggested these kinds of authorities to the principal and the superintendent only in the bottom ten percent of our school districts.  Those are kids that are really being left behind.  I also believe that superintendents and principals should be involved in the evaluation and compensation process of teachers, and that we should remove work rule impediments from collective bargaining, particularly in our troubled districts.  Again, I just put that in the bottom ten percent. 

The next area:  measuring progress.  I wanted to see annual testing of our students as a program throughout our state.  We do that on a fourth grade, eighth grade, sophomore, senior year.  I’d like to see it every single year.  Our kids get tested so we know how they’re doing at the beginning of the year, how they’re doing at the end and, therefore, we can determine whether a teacher is able to move most of the kids in his or her class a full grade level.  If they’re not, then we can help that teacher develop the skills to be able to do so.  Of course, I’d like to link that testing on how well the student is doing to the teacher’s training, to the evaluation process and to compensation.

Continuing with regards to math and science.  Because we’re falling behind there internationally, I made a real effort to focus our resources here.  I proposed the exam schools.  These are top schools where kids pass an exam to be able to get into a school that’s a specialty school in math and science.  We have one of those in Massachusetts.  It does very well and our kids go on to top colleges.  Follow in that experience, I want to have at least seven more of those.  I’d like advanced placement in every single high school, college dual enrollment for our seniors in math and science through all of our state colleges and university. 

I wanted to add, and do want to add, 1,000 more math and science teachers with relevant academic credentials meaning in their specialty.  We’ll give them the teacher training they also need, but let’s get people who really have expertise in math and science.  Teacher training and testing in math and science, particularly in our elementary schools, where we have a number of teachers that just don’t have the skills to be providing that support.  And in some cases, laptop computers for all my sixth to 12th graders.  This is something we worked on with the Massachusetts Teaching Lab and believe that we have potential with developments in computer technology to give all of our kids laptops--and that would be funded by the state.

Finally, we have a computer system that shows people if you want to become an engineer, here are the education choices you have to make all the way along the line.  You can’t decide in your senior year that you want to become an engineer when you didn’t take Algebra II.  You’ve got to know that in each year, if you want to become an engineer--where we have extraordinary demand in my state--then these are the decisions you’ll need to make.  One of my large engineering employers, Raytheon, tells me they can’t hire enough engineers in our state.  That’s why they look not only to other states, but look internationally to get enough people.  Well, we need to let our kids know how they get that job.

Finally one more thing--and this is targeted in our troubled school districts--that is to help parents in our troubled school districts support their child more in the education process.  What I proposed is to have a couple of weekends where parents come in to a training program to support their child in school, probably before kindergarten, where they learn about our education culture as a society and how important education is to opportunity in America; where they understand something about school discipline and what parental support means with regards to that discipline; they understand how homework is carried out in this culture; TV dos and don’ts - what’s good to watch on TV for your five year old or six year old and what’s bad to watch on TV; English emersion – how important it is to let your child learn the language of America if they’re going to be successful in America; what after-school resources are available in their community; then how the parent needs to be involved in school.  Well, these are all parts of the education reform program that we’ve put forward in my state and my legislature’s looking at them. 

I would conclude by saying that I think the answers are pretty well agreed among parents and teachers.  The strongest opposition I receive to those recommendations comes from some teachers unions.  Not all and not with regards to all the recommendations.  But the teachers’ unions who are tasked primarily with caring for their members’ interests, meaning the teachers, in many cases really oppose, in each one of those five areas, the recommendations that I’ve made. 

How do you overcome that political opposition?  It’s challenging.  We could spend a lot of time talking about that because the problem is that typically in a normal industrial setting, you have management and you have union and they work things out.  They battle now and then, but ultimately they can get the job done.  But the union doesn’t choose management.  As a matter of fact, the idea that the union would choose the chief executive officer of a corporation – that just doesn’t happen very often unless major concessions are being asked for and then that may occur. 

In normal settings, management is chosen in an entirely unrelated process to the interest of the unions.  But in our schools, the teachers’ union has an enormous impact on selecting who management’s going to be.  If that’s the case, then the interests of protecting the kids are going to get pulled more heavily to the side of the interests of the members of the unions.  That’s something which is a real challenge in our society today. 

I think what you’re going to find is that as these results from the tests are being seen around the country, as our kids are falling further and further behind both on an achievement basis and on an excellence basis, that the minority community is going to increasingly rise up and say, “Wait a second.  These are our kids being left behind.  The old answers aren’t working.  We’re spending more money in the cities, but it’s not helping my kid.  I want to see change.”  I think that’s where some of the impetus is going to come to actually overthrow some of the old modus operandi.

Media coverage is going to increasingly focus on which schools are succeeding and which are not.  People are going to be asked to explain why schools that are getting a lot of money and have small classroom sizes aren’t performing.

Finally, I think you’re going to see school choice.  In our state it’s charter schools; in some states it’s vouchers.  But school choice is going to point out that the kids that are going to those charter schools, in my case, are going to be able to outperform those that aren’t and why is that - and energy’s going to build around that.

Well, I just note in conclusion that this is obviously a national priority with profound human consequences, as well as competitiveness implications for a nation as a whole.  In my state we have thousands of kids getting out of our school system at the end of each year that are unprepared for the kind of opportunities America offers, where their future is clouded.  As a nation, we probably have hundreds of thousands of kids, hundreds of thousands of kids coming out of high school every year with clouded futures by virtue of the failure of our schools to do what they could be doing.  It is unacceptable and it’s unnecessary and it’s time for us to speak out and do something about it.  Thank you so much. 

[Applause]

Rick Hess:  Thank you, Governor.  We have time for a few questions.  You’ll see Rosemary and Hillary have the microphones.  Please catch their eye.  I’m Rick Hess, Director of Education Policy Studies at the American Enterprise Institute.  Please catch their eye.  Please be kind enough to identify yourself and let folks know your affiliation.  Please make every effort to keep questions concise.  Jim.

Jim Kohlmoos:  My name is Jim Kohlmoos from the National Education Knowledge Industry Association.  Governor, thank you for being here and making such a great presentation.

You--coming from a business background--know how important R&D is to innovation and invention, as you called it.  It certainly is in education, but I didn’t notice you mentioning research and development in your presentation.  Was that an oversight or do you have some thoughts about that?

Governor Romney:  Well, actually we have a great source of research and development in our state.  I didn’t mention it here, but it is our institutions of higher learning.  Not only our state institutions, but our private institutions.  The initiative, for instance, on the laptop came from MIT’s media lab.  They’ve developed a $100 laptop, which is an extraordinary device.  It can be plugged in; it can be battery operated or it has a little crank on the side that you can turn to power it.  Ten minutes of cranking gives you I think an hour’s worth of computer time.  So, we’re doing research and development in our state in our institutions of higher learning, particularly centered in University of Massachusetts.  But I think it’s helping us in terms of developing the kinds of technologies and approaches that – some of which I describe there.

The challenge we have is that the technology we already have isn’t being implemented.  We’re not doing the simplest things that we know how to do today.  We’re going to have to find a way to make the kinds of changes I propose here, at least that’s my own view, in order for us to take a major step forward.  There may be other advances in technology that will come forward from our superb research institutions that we can apply.  I have to believe that that’s going to be the case.  I certainly hope so. 

Rick Hess:  Next question.

Mike Petrilli:  Hello Governor Romney.  Mike Petrilli from the Thomas B. Fordham  Foundation.  You mentioned in your comments that Massachusetts has been at this for a long time, over a decade.  Of course, No Child Left Behind came along about 4 years ago.  Do you feel like that law has kind of helped or hindered your efforts?  How have the two worked together in Massachusetts?

Governor Romney:  Well, we have a bit of an unfair advantage with regards to No Child Left Behind because the legislation and program introduced in our state in 1993, the Education Reform Act of 1993, really is just hand and glove with No Child Left Behind.  And actually we were told by Secretary Paige that our program so comported with No Child Left Behind, that we didn’t need to change anything. 

So, our program is consistent with No Child Left Behind.  We had to add some grades.  Of course, we provide test results to the federal government and the kinds of action steps are consistent with the federal legislation.  I like No Child Left Behind.  One primary reason jumps out for me.  I like measuring what’s happening.  I like gathering the information, seeing which schools are succeeding and failing.  Now, I recognize that in the No Child Left Behind measures, we’re sometimes labeling a school as underperforming when it’s a tiny subset of the statistical pool. 

So, there are all sorts of data gathering problems and comparison problems, but the idea of testing our kids and being able to say, “hey, you know what, the kids in this state or this school district are not keeping up with—” that allows us to build the pressure to do something.  See, in our state, prior to 1993, every school superintendent said, “Oh, our schools are great.  We’ve got the best schools in the state.”  Well, then we got the data and we found out that that just wasn’t the way people were selling it.  As a matter of fact in some of my most troubled school districts, they happened to be in suburban neighborhoods.  Let’s see, what’s the western suburb – I’m trying to recall that we had – Winchendon.  We had one of our first two school districts to be labeled as chronically underperforming.  It was a largely suburban community and they were surprised that they hadn’t been performing as well as they thought.  So, data gathering and analysis and measurement allows us to finally control and find ways to make things better.  So, I’m a supporter.  Testing is not as expensive as some would suggest.

Rick Hess:  Thank you.  Yes, ma’am. 

Shannon Toronto:  Hi, I’m Shannon Toronto of the Philanthropy Roundtable, formerly of the Marriner Eccles Foundation in Salt Lake City.  I wanted to ask you how you are getting foundations involved in supporting public schools and particularly the charter school movement.

Governor Romney:  Well, one is by coming to AEI and speaking to you today.  I think it’s important to have foundation support.  Clearly in our state, the think tanks and foundations and the volunteer sector and the not for profit sector have rallied around charter schools.  That’s why we have some 50 of them.  One of the things I like about charter schools, by the way, is that when they fail – and we’ve had several that don’t do very well – we close them.  We revoke their charter and say you’re out of business.  Then others succeed and grow.  That’s the wonderful thing about how our free enterprise system works generally in our economy. 

So, foundations have been an enormous source of support for charter schools and they’re making a real difference in our state.  They’re pointing out the kind of disparities that allow people to say, “Hey, we can learn a lesson from this charter school.  Let’s go look at it--find out why it’s so successful with the same kids from the same neighborhoods.”  It’s from those lessons – I mean, I talked to teachers and I said, “What’s the best predictor of student performance?”  And they said “Parental involvement.  If a kid’s parents are coming to school and meeting with the teacher on a regular basis, that’s the best indicator of how that kid’s going to do.”  That’s what led, in part, to my recommendation five there, which is let’s pull these parents in--particularly that come from a, let’s say, a culture of poverty, where they’ve never been involved really in their family history and school--and teach these parents about the importance of education for their child’s future. 

So, I’m a big believer in the process of involving our community at large, the not for profit community.  And the work they’re doing in charter schools is a great work for all of our kids.  But recognize, of course, only two percent of my kids are in charter schools.  So, charter schools have to be a source of lessons that can help our public school kids as well.

Rick Hess:  Yes, ma’am.

Female Voice:  [indiscernible].  I’m the president of Global Institute for Quality Education, and I would like to ask you if you’re familiar with the Malcolm Baldridge National Quality Award …

Governor Romney:  Yes.

Female Voice:  … and the education version that they have right now.  Particularly because there is a substitution effect with the unions in schools when you apply the quality modem [phonetic].

Governor Romney:  Well, I can’t speak to that specific question.  I can tell you that I think the unions and progressive unions will do this and I presume we have some progressive unions in this very room who are going to recognize that they need to become increasingly partners with the parents and with the community in improving our schools.  I was very pleased that in the city of Boston, I understand one of the unions is saying, “Hey, we’d like to take responsibility for one of these turnaround school settings.”  That’s a great thing. 

If the union has better ideas than mine, be my guest.  Come on in.  Propose them.  We’re open to lots of ideas.  If a union wants to open a charter school, great, come on in.  Let’s see how it works.  Because we’re at a point of gathering ideas and input, but let’s move on the basis of what we’ve learned already. 

I love the idea of Malcolm Baldridge awards for schools and for districts that are performing well.  We’ve also had the Milken Foundation come to our state and award public school teachers on superb performance.  Look, the reason my kids are doing so well is because we have superb teachers in my state.  We have great teachers and great schools and that’s why Massachusetts ranks number one.  That’s why those NAEP exams come back.  Our teachers are superb.  We need to give them the kind of support in terms of professional support with compensation and incentives and training and mentoring opportunities that will allow them to share that with all of their colleagues.

Rick Hess:  Yes, ma’am.

Margaret Panidge [phonetic}:  Hi, my name is Margaret Panidge.  I am an undergraduate student at Trinity University here in Washington, D.C.  I was just wondering: your data seems to represent that the money that is going into the schools is not helping with performance.  Aside from the mentions you’ve made of the bonuses for teachers and teacher pay, what else can we do to make sure that money that goes into schools is used appropriately in a way that is going to be used to be helpful (because it obviously may not be)?

Governor Romney:  Well, you know that there’s a movement nationwide to direct a certain percentage of education funding to go into the classroom.  That’s something I frankly haven’t studied to such a level to make a recommendation as to what percentage that ought to be.  Some school districts say that ought to be at least 50 percent; some are saying 65; some are saying 75 percent.  But the idea of saying let’s focus more money in the classroom I think is a good idea. 

In my case what I’m saying is, let’s not have the state take over the responsibility and authority of all of our school districts--351 of them.  But let’s instead say to them that we want to support them with additional state funding for things that we know will work, such as compensation for parental preparation, computers for all their kids sixth grade through 12th grade – that’s something the state will fund, all those computer purchases, as well as training for teachers.  Bonuses for our very, very best teachers.  The compensation necessary for exam schools.  We’re basically taking the best lessons from our charter schools and seeing if we can’t apply them into our local school districts with the state picking up the additional money. 

You raise another question though, which is gosh, given that big disparity you saw there, Governor, between your highest spending and your lowest, isn’t there a way to come up with something more efficient in terms of spending money?  Yeah, there probably is.  But at this stage in our education reform, I’m not looking to change the way our districts are spending their funds, but instead saying we’ll put something on top of that spending that the state will provide because of the urgent nature of the crisis that the achievement gap and the excellence gap represents for our state.

Rick Hess:  Chris?

Chris DeMuth:  Governor, most of the data you gave me on the record of Massachusetts is concerned with the performance gap, as opposed to the achievement gap.  I wonder what you can say about what’s happened so far on the achievement gap.

Governor Romney:  Well, what we have seen in our state--and you have to look pretty carefully at those bar charts that I had there that showed the difference between different racial groups in terms of their performance on our exams--is that the African-American and Hispanic students are increasing their scores as we go along and the gap is shrinking.  And that’s good news. 

We’re seeing, by virtue of the reforms we’ve already taken that the gap between White and non-White is getting smaller and smaller.  We’re seeing that not only in the proficiency figures that I had there, but also we’re seeing it in the final graduation statistics.  So, we’re encouraged with that trend, but still recognize that the gap persists and at the rate we’re going it’s going to take decades and thousands and thousands and thousands of kids being left behind. 

So, we’re going to have to jump start this process.  The proposal that I’ve made to my legislature takes the lessons from our charter schools, as well as from experts like yourselves and data from all sources and interviews with our teachers and our principals and said, “let’s apply those lessons to see if we can’t make this happen even faster.”  Because the place where the achievement gap has been completely closed in my state is in charter schools.  My average scores are getting better.  The African-American and Hispanic are getting closer to the White students, so the gap’s getting smaller.

But in my charter schools, such as the Lawrence Community Charter School that you saw there, there’s no gap at all.  So, we said, well, gosh, how did that get done?  Then we look at that school and say, what’s happening there?  Well, the principal has the ability to hire and fire.  They can make teacher assignments.  They can pay better money to the better teachers.  They can test their kids and reward teachers based on how well their kids are doing.  All the lessons that we put in our program flow from the success in closing the achievement gap that we’ve seen in some of our best charter schools.  Not all of them, as I said.  Not all charter schools succeed, but enough of them do that we’ve learned lessons that we want to make sure that we can apply before we lose thousands of more kids.  Thanks, Chris.

Rick Hess:  Yes, sir.

Ethan Gray:  I’m Ethan Gray from Education Sector.  Governor, as part of your plan in Massachusetts, you’re going to be giving $5,000 to teacher who teaches AP courses.

Governor Romney:  Yes.

Ethan Gray:  There’s a body of evidence that suggests that our best teachers don’t teach in the lower level classes in high school where we might need them the most.  How do you reconcile that?

Governor Romney:  Well, I would like to give the principals and the superintendents the ability to compensate teachers based on where they feel the need is greatest.  So, for instance, in my state we have a real need in the city of Springfield to attract great teachers there.  We went out and said, “Look, we’re not sure we’re going to have enough teachers to teach in the fall.”  This was last year.  We said, “We’ve got a problem there.  We want to put a bonus on coming to the city of Springfield to teach.”  Now, our teachers union there didn’t like that idea there.  They don’t want to pay more money to bring more teachers into that district because, again, that suggests that there’s a difference between teachers.  We’re not all just stamping out widgets. 

We believe very deeply that a principal or a superintendent ought to be able to say, “Gosh, if we need to get better teachers in the elementary school grades--that they can provide extra incentives for people to take those assignments.  If they think we need better teachers in this particular school because it’s really having trouble, and I want to ask this teacher to move from here to there, that we ought to let them put in place a financial incentive for making that kind of a sacrifice and doing the kind of extra work that may be required.”  It’s tougher teaching a group of kids that have real serious discipline problems and it’s going to require more after school time.  That ought to be compensated and rewarded and recognized, as it is in every other profession in this country.  Thank you.

Rick Hess:  Yes, sir.

Stephen Sawchuk [phonetic]:  Hi, I’m Stephen Sawchuk with Education Daily.  My question is it seems like some of these proposals about where you assign teachers and so forth would contravene existing collective bargaining contracts in your state.  So, my question is how would you reconcile that?  Would you have to wait for existing contracts to expire to have some of these issues come up in bargaining in future contracts?

Governor Romney:  Yes.  My view would be that we would have to wait for existing bargaining contracts to expire and that the state legislature should determine which elements are going to be the scope of bargaining and which are not.  Compensation levels and so forth and grievance processes and so forth are appropriate to be part of a collective bargaining program.  But a prohibition on pay for excellent performance should not be able to be entered into a collective bargaining agreement. 

Collective bargaining should, if you will, embrace the opportunity for students to be tested and for the results of those students tests to be part of a performance evaluation system and a recognition that teachers who are qualified in math and science or advanced placement, or perhaps in needs in elementary schools--that these kinds of needs of different schools should be recognized and rewarded.  So, we would look for legislation, if you will, limiting the scope of collective bargaining to keep it from prohibiting a performance pay type of provisions, as an example.

Rick Hess:  Okay.  We’re going to have to make this the last question for the Governor.  He’s been kind enough to extend his stay a little bit and we greatly appreciate that.  [Indiscernible]  Who do we have?  Mike?

Vance Randall [Phonetic]:  Vance Randall with Senator Hatch’s office.  You’ve made a good point about the importance of data guiding your decisions.  What’s been the reaction of the unions to the data and how do you propose to move them along the path of your analysis and the conclusions you want to come to?

Governor Romney:  It’s fair to say that if you look at every study and the evaluation of the data that’s been carried out by disinterested parties--people who don’t have a financial stake in one side or the other--they all come to the same conclusions.  Lou Gerstner’s Teaching Commission, the work that’s been done right here and studies in my own state, by the Grogan Commission, by a group called Mass Insight, they’ve come to the same conclusions.  The data points to that direction. 

Now, there are some union members and some of my legislators who dismiss this data and come to different conclusions.  But I’m concerned that in that case there is not the disinterest or lack of bias that you’d hope to find.  I recognize that.  That’s fine for people of different perspectives to look at data in different ways, but I think you have to say we’re going to place more weight on parties that have no financial stake in the outcome, who are just trying to figure out how to put the kids first. 

How to make that happen and how to get a legislature to move requires public support.  That’s why I believe that the response of the minority community to say, “You know what, for a long time we worked together” – and I don’t want to be partisan in this regard because it’s really not a partisan issue.  For a long time, the Democratic Party has said, “education is our issue.”  When I came out with education reform people said, “That’s not a Republican issue.”  Well, of course it’s a Republican issue.  The real truth is that the Democratic Party has been so tied to the teachers’ union that they have a hard time making the kind of changes that we proposed here. 

In my state, for instance, my state legislature a couple years ago said, “No more charter schools.  We’re putting a moratorium on charter schools even though they’re so successful.”  I vetoed that.  I typically have a hard time having vetoes upheld.  I only have 15 percent Republicans in each house [laughter].  But the group that came to the support of upholding my veto included the minority community, the Black caucus in my state.  A number of them said that in their school district the only choice that was available was in charter schools. 

Yeah, in the suburbs you can go to the private school if you don’t like your public school.  But in the inner city that wasn’t an option.  That’s where I believe that we’re going to see the kind of motivating factor behind school reform and the kinds of changes I’ve recommended coming, in part, from the leadership of the minority communities that are most affected.  Our kids throughout this country are being affected by both gaps, but the achievement gap is having a bigger impact on the minority community.  From that community I think you’re going to see a strong statement. 

Perhaps the Democratic Party has counted on that vote for a long time, and they’re going to have to begin to listen to that vote and recognize that that vote, and the union vote may be separate when it comes to education.  I hope so.  I hope we can put aside – this is not partisan.  I don’t know which of those ideas is Republican and which is Democrat.  These are just ideas that are coming forward by people of different parties. 

The Grogan Commission – that was a commission they put together in my state.  I think it had 13 or 14 members.  My guess is two are Republican and the rest were Democrat or Independent in my state.  One of the members of the Grogan Commission had run for Governor as a Democrat.  They were the ones that came up with the idea about putting aside collective bargaining provisions that interfered with education in my troubled school districts.  They were the ones that talked about rewarding our better teachers.  So, this is across party lines, and we have to rise above the interests of some unions and look to the more progressive unions and to families and parents if we’re going to see the kind of change, which our society desperately needs. 

It’s an honor to be with you.  I think I just want to say its been great to be here.  I’ve enjoyed your questions.  I’d love to get more of them.  I appreciate the work that’s been done here - more data, more data coming to many of the same conclusions and new insights and new support for some new conclusions as well.  I appreciate the work that you’re all doing as a group of folks who care very deeply about education.  It is what America is about.  It is about what our country looks like a generation or two or three from now and that matters very deeply to all of us. 

Thanks so much.

Rick Hess:  I would ask that folks go ahead and hold their horses.  We’re going to take about ten minutes now.  We’re going to quickly scan the contents.  Thank you, Governor.

Governor Romney:  Thank you.

Rick Hess:  We’re going to quickly scan the contents.  We’re going to take a couple clarifying questions.  We’ll be wrapped by about 3:15.  So, if folks will be kind enough to just hold their horses for ten minutes so we can get this stuff covered.

What we’re going to do is Marty West is my co-author on this piece, is going to take about four or five minutes, just walk you relatively briefly through kind of the key points that we’ve hit.  We’ll take about five minutes worth of clarifying questions.  You will find copies of the report available in the anti-chamber on your way out.  Marty.

Martin West:  Thank you all for being here.  In this report, Rick and I make the case that teacher collective bargaining is not the only thing and maybe not even necessarily the most important thing but certainly the critical thing that we need to overhaul in our education system if we’re going to close the achievement gaps that the Governor spoke about and really respond to the educational demands of the 21st Century.  These contracts continue to reflect the industrial economic model that prevailed in the 1960s at the advent of collective bargaining in education.  They are increasingly out of step with today’s education system, which as a matter of policy is focused not on process and inputs, but rather on results. 

So, we focus in the report on three areas in collective bargaining that we think are especially problematic.  Those are the structure of teacher compensation, transfer and dismissal policies, and work rules--all three of which the Governor talked about this afternoon.  Although union leaders typically claim that what’s good for teachers is what’s good for students, we try to demonstrate in the report that the dominant practices in each of those three areas tend to benefit the majority of union members at the expense of students and that reform will require putting the interests of students first. 

That said, we’re not out to attack the teacher’s unions and to load the nation’s educational problems at their feet.  Actually teachers’ unions are obligated to defend their members’ interests and the blame for the current state of collective bargaining in education lies certainly as much, if not more, on the school boards and superintendents who have been charged with defending the public interest in that area.  So, we argue that school boards and superintendents need to.  If they have the benefit of a governor who’s trying to provide them with legislative support at the state level, that’s great.  But in a lot of places that’s not going to be the case. 

They need to make up for lost time and to push for modifications on five key fronts.  We recommend that teacher pay should reflect the scarcity of teachers skills, the difficulty of their assignments and to the extent that it’s measurable, their effectiveness in the classroom.  Secondly, we say the benefits should resemble those offered in other industries competing for college-educated professionals.  We can talk a little bit about what that means in the Q&A if you’re interested.  Third, management should be able to dismiss ineffective teachers much more readily.  Fourth, personnel should be assigned to schools and classrooms based on educational need rather than on seniority.  Fifth, contracts should contain fewer work rules and explicitly define managerial prerogatives. 

Now, none of these proposals are very new.  In fact, quite a few new unionist activists of collaborative bargaining have been pushing them for quite some time.  But, as of yet there hasn’t been much in the way of results to report on that front in terms of real changes in the dominant practices of collective bargaining.  So, we think that reformers need to focus actually on the environment in which bargaining takes place and in which contracts are ultimately implemented. 

So, a crucial first step, we think, is the continued introduction--as the Governor referred to--of competition and accountability that really creates pressure on management to get tough and then gives union leaders additional cover to make concessions that are, in fact, inevitable.  It’s no surprise that the most aggressive proposals for dealing with these issues are coming out of states like Massachusetts and like Florida that have been path breakers in the accountability area.

But we also need to focus on the collective bargaining process itself.  Specifically we need more transparency throughout it, and also a big change of heart by the key actors.  We think that district officials need to call attention to outmoded contract provisions and fully exploit permissive language where it already exists. 

The media has a role to play. They need to expand their coverage of collective bargaining.  This is key both during and in between negotiations when actually is the best time to draw attention to these issues.  Civic leaders and citizens need to support management tactics that may entail at least initially, some labor unrest.  As it stands superintendents routinely report being pressured by civic leaders and other elected officials to avoid conflict and to get along with their unions. 

We contend that we need to rethink that, and start thinking about conflict as more like the cold sweats.  Most of the time they’re a bad sign, but in sickness, they’re a by-product of a body trying to get healthy.  So, some tough medicine may be exactly what we need in the area of collective bargaining right now.

Rick Hess:  Thank you, Marty.  Like I said, you’ll find the report available outside.  We can certainly take a clarifying question or two.  I appreciate you being with us.  Does anyone have a question or two that you would like to address?  Alright, Jim.  Give the question.

Male Voice:  Can you site scientific evidence to support your recommendation?

Rick Hess:  No.  It’s certainly nothing that would meet the IES standard.  I don’t think there’s anything, quite frankly, anywhere in the world of labor relations that would meet the IES standard in any sector at any point in time when we’re talking about these kinds of policy deliberations.  We’re inevitably talking about best judgments based on available evidence and based on experience.  That’s what this report rests upon.

With that, I’d like to thank all of you for joining us today.  Like I said, you’ll find the report out there and look forward to seeing you all soon.  Thank you very much.

(End of Transcript)