One thing is clear from today's Massa press conference: Eric Massa has a job.
Massa's comment on his employment status was sparked by Monday's Hornell Tribune article, where Randy Kuhl said, "Mr. Massa, as far as I know, doesn't have a job". Massa took umbrage at that remark, noting that he was retired after 24 years in the military. Massa said that Kuhl's remark showed an "absolute lack of understanding and gross disrespect." Massa pointed out that his retirement after 24 years of service was about half of what Kuhl received after 20 years in the state legislature "raising our taxes and sending our jobs overseas".
Massa then focused on Kuhl's recent votes against appropriation bills. He began with Kuhl's vote against the Homeland Security bill. As reported here earlier, Kuhl's office had issued a press release touting his "Yes" vote on the day he voted "No". Massa said that Kuhl's explanation that the bill's appropriation was too large, didn't hold water, since Kuhl voted for a Homeland Securty bill two years ago that had a bigger appropriation. Massa also said that it "shows no integrity" on Kuhl's part to be railing against spending increases while at the same time touting earmarks in the bills he votes against.
Massa then turned to the farm bill, which is up for vote this week. He said that he'd attended a meeting in Hornby and some residents there were concerned that Kuhl would vote against the farm bill, because of his record of opposing spending legislation. Massa pointed out that Kuhl won't disclose how he's going to vote for this bill, since he never discloses that information.
The discussion then turned to last week's topic of merit pay and tenure for teachers. Massa said that he had done a lot of reading and thinking on this issue in the last week, and was ready with his final position. In general, he thinks attacking merit pay and tenure is going down the wrong road:
The biggest single challenge facing teachers is that students who fail come from dysfunctional, broken homes. Teaching is a collaborative effort between the home environment and the school environment. If there's not a good home environment, no matter what the teacher does, it's not going to be the same as if the student has positive enforcement of the educational environment.
Massa used the example of how his family enforced study habits for his kids. "For children without that mentoring, the hill is extremely steep, whether or not the teacher has tenure." Massa concluded by saying that arguing about teachers is arguing at the margins, "the 5% of the problem instead of the 75% of the problem." Massa said he had become concerned that merit pay is going down the same "slippery slope" as No Child Left Behind. He also believes that, given low teacher salaries, he doubts that there are many teachers who have failed simply because they feel secure and not answerable once they have tenure. (I believe his point was, in other words, there are easier ways to make a buck.)
I followed up with a more general question: what does Massa have to say to traditional conservatives who might disagree with some of his positions. Why should they vote for him?
Massa began by saying that there's merit in sending a Democrat to Washington who "speaks Republican". Massa believes he does so in critical areas. He's a fiscal conservative who believes that deficit spending is hurting our children. In foreign policy, he believes that we shouldn't get into debacles that have no strategic benefit for us. He also believes there's merit in the Republican party of Teddy Roosevelt, who believed in saving the environment from land profiteering.
Ultimately, Massa said, the difference between today's Democratic and Republican parties boils down to one thing:
Tom Delay Republicans -- including Randy Kuhl -- believe that government is evil and incompetent. That's why George W. Bush's administration has become incompetent and evil.
Like John F. Kennedy and Franklin D. Roosevelt, Massa said he believes that government can do good for the people of the country. Massa identified Kuhl's support of open-door free trade, specifically the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) as one counter-example of government doing good for the country.
I reach out to Republican, Independence and non-aligned voters and ask one simple question: What values do you want represented in Washington, DC? When you ask your Representative a question, don't you think it's important that he answers it?
Comments
any members of the press on this call? (besides you of course)
Julie Sherwood from the Messenger-Post was also on the call.
Unfortunately I have dealt with some very incompetent teachers. I can accept some of his points on merit raises, but his tenure stance is a bow to the teachers' union (in my mind). If the parents are such a big part of the problem (and I can agree with some of that) he makes it seem like there are no options to fix the problem. Maybe he should seek to repeal tenure for parents. Also, in my community teachers are well paid when compared to the average salary.
Dysfunctional homes are a legitimate problem, not just an excuse for poor educational results. Nobody is suggesting that we simply throw up our hands and ignore poor teaching, however.
Better child health care and Head Start have demonstrated that government can intervene successfully to help improve education by helping kids do better in school. These are programs that would support Massa's description of government as a constructive social and economic force. He's framing Kuhl as an anti-government, pro-welfare-for-the-private sector Republican.
I'd probably support a carefully constructed merit pay system, and I also have serious questions about tenure for elementary and secondary ed. teachers. But I do accept the notion that, by far, parents and the home have more to do with the success of children in schools.
If you want to talk conservative vs liberal, Massa's position is interesting in that it is probably more conservative in the sense that he is looking for more individual responsibility from parents rather than having schools (and the state) serve in loco parentis.
The government has already helped to take responsibility away from parents - if you don't want to work don't worry about it - we'll take care of you. Now that these parents have learned to ignore responsibility for themselves, how does anyone expect that they will take responsibility for their kids?
Tenure and merit pay are issues that can be dealt with, and many districts are doing that, but it's a complicated and somewhat expensive process. Communities that have money and recognize the value of education manage to provide competent school board members, hire administrators who can create excellent programs and work environments for students and staff, pay salaries sufficient to attract better teachers and pay the cost of dealing with non-productive or bad-acting employees.
Simply eliminating tenure and instituting merit pay by legal mandate wouldn't solve the problems with American education and would probably make it even harder for poor districts to do their job. Like most popular plans for reform, it would disproportionately help wealthy schools. Under-performing teachers who want to hang on long enough to collect a pension and benefits will be even more likely to land in impoverished schools than they already are. Like Anonymous says, simply paying people to be alive isn't a solution, but counting on good education to trickle down to the poor, or forcing poor districts to work harder for less money isn't one either.
One more thing: judging from what I see from the Rochester School District, top-heavy and poorly organized administration is a far bigger problem than anything teachers do or don't do. When the RSD hired the retired superintendent of the Fairport district (a well-off suburb with quality schools), he identified many problems in the way the schools were administered that somehow escaped the notice of the last few superintendents as well as the school board.