Reading this Carl Bailik article in the Wall Street Journal about the merits of merit pay for teachers, I am struck by the notion that teachers require government-instituted merit pay evaluation programs in order to improve their performance. There is no such program for us PHP developers – nor was there any such program for press-brake and punch fabricator operators when those were my professions – but I don’t think anyone can seriously accuse me of soft-peddling my job as a result.
But granted, those professions I’ve held have all been in private industry: there’s no tax money going to pay for my salary. Fair enough. What, then, of other government professions? DMV clerks? Postal workers? Congressmen? And what are the benchmarks for those professions?
The truth is that professionalism cannot be quantified. And a lack of professionalism will certainly – as indeed the article notes – breed dishonesty. And either way, the only real test of one’s professional ability and ethics is personal observation. The fact is: you know who at your job is a fuck up and who isn’t.
So to what end are we imposing merit systems to teachers? What will it accomplish? The answer is: it makes politicians look good and taxpayers feel good to discuss the possibility. It might even make them both feel better once instituted: people might get a sense that they’ve accomplished something and made the world a better place. But really, its just a political football that is of more importance to the feelings of the players than it is of substance to the children being educated. mh.
Chuck Todd was just on MSNBC discussing the political apparatus available to the Obama Administration and how that apparatus has come down hard on Dianne Feinstein on the health care reform vote. He points out that, since Senator Feinstein announced that they did not have the votes on the reform bill, MoveOn and other groups have launched attack ads on California television to push her back to the table. Nicole Wallace adds that this illustrates how Obama’s model for this issue is really the same as George Bush’s model: that of the permanent campaign.
The truth I think is much less simple than the pundits would like to make it seem. The left is certainly on the same page in it’s desire for health care reform; indeed the majority of our country seems to be ready for something new. But to assume that the Obama Administration has MoveOn to count as a tool of it’s policy making is probably going a bit far.
But there is no question that the Obama Campaign has shifted to the Obama Administration or that many of the priorities of the campaign have shifted to the priorities of the administration. In fact, they made no apologies immediately after the campaign, telling those of us who volunteered for him that they planned on keeping that network active. Certainly, the campaign continues. On this level, one can certainly compare the Bush Administration and the Obama Administration fairly, but it’s also worth contrasting as well.
There is a substantive difference between how the Bush Administration campaigned from the White House and how the Obama Administration is currently operating. Note the admitted caveat, “currently.” Primarily, the Bush Administration was concerned with winning, not necessarily winning anything specific. If there was a problem with political angling in the Bush Administration and in the Republican Party generally throughout the last eight years, it was that they squandered what was an impressive political machine on silly things like Terry Shiavo and the credit reform bill. The list goes on.
Meanwhile, the Bush Administration awarded campaign donors with plum jobs in the administration. Here we see the real difference between Obama and Bush: George Bush’s policy and procedure were meant to support his campaign, whereas Barack Obama’s campaign supports his policy and procedure.
Call it pre-partisanship: the idea that before you get to political discourse, the first step is identifying the things that are required of a government. After you’ve identified those things – and identified the things you disagree with others about – then you get to demagogue over how best to run the government.
But in the meanwhile, potholes still need to be filled; street lights need replacing; parks need to have trash removed from them. Politicians can be “tough on crime,” or talk about “accountability,” until they’re blue in the face, these things still need to be done.
I guess I’m just thinking that, after all the time and effort I’ve spent being partisan, focusing on these small, unsexy things that make our society run might be worth the effort.
But not here, not to worry. This site is all about the firebrand.
If anyone needs any specific reason to think that the Republican Party has run plum out of ideas, check out their obstructionist tactics on the stimulus bill. Where have we heard about this one before? Oh, yes. I remember: the bank bailout bill that in obstructing they hamstrung their candidate and cost themselves the election. Looks like the House and Senate Republicans are planning on going for a double-dip because, “ooh! Wasn’t that lovely!”
It’s kinda nice watching the Republicans play Keystone Cops for a change.
I’m not sure that I agree with Josh Marshall‘s assertion that obstruction is the GOP’s best stand-out political move is, as he says, the best cynical political move. Of course, I understand that in pure political calculus, if the stimulus fails and Republicans opposed it, they create a necessary differentiation between the parties. That difference can be filled in with their own ideas which they can sell to a disaffected public.
But as I probably already said once or twice before the election, I don’t think any normal person whose job is at stake gives a rat’s ass about politics right now. Think the Republicans may be vastly underestimating the “flighty” public and it’s “fan-boy love” of Obama. Americans gravitated to Obama because of his competence at at time when we have need of real leadership. The party that chooses to stand on the sidelines and complain will be the party remembered for. . . having stood on the sidelines. Americans will remember that the Republicans chose to do nothing.
Locally, that’s why my thinking is beginning to change on the Renn Square project as well. Whatever our differences and suspicions about the project, we’d do well to find a way to improve the project in ways that benefit our ideals rather than seeking to kill the plan which at this point looks kind of necessary.
Its been my observation that a president has but a few short months – if that – of glowing appreciation from the country and what he chooses to do with that short time span as his first set of acts will forever dominate his presidency. Even if those acts seem little to him and his staff. Bill Clinton signed the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell order which I think completely alienated him from the moderate to Conservative side of the country who cannot accept gay people in any way. One of George Bush’s first acts was to raise the threshold of the EPA’s standard for lead in drinking water. I think most of us on the left knew exactly where his presidency was headed, and even after 911, Katrina and a near banking collapse, that notion of complete and total kinship with the worst of Corporate America’s excesses remains.
So, how is Barack Obama doing so far? Well, he’s signed an executive order banning torture (funny, I though that was already banned?), he’s suspended trials at Gitmo, he’s reversed an executive order signed by George Bush shortly after 911 that made it possible to forever conceal presidential documents under executive privilege.
On balance, at least so far, the only people who are going to object are the hard-Righties who insist on carrying on the Bush Legacy. The trouble comes when the first major test of these orders – particularly the detention and interrogation orders – comes along. We have to expect that it won’t be long in coming. When some terrorist attack happens in Bali and kills Americans, there will be pundits all over the airwaves insisting that these harshest of Bush Policies be restored. The question is: will Americans respond to this fear mongering, or will we stand firm?
It will probably be the answer to this question that will either make Obama a near-Lincoln quality president in the eyes of Americans, or a near-Bush.
