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School reformers should be cheering at the plan incoming New York governor Eliot Spitzer announced recently to reform the state’s mediocre public schools.  It was shockingly bold – I use the word “shockingly” not only because of what he proposed, but also because I didn’t have high expectations: he’s a Democrat who was endorsed by the powerful state teachers union, there’s little support for genuine school reform in either party in the state legislature, and he already has his hands full with a number of major battles, including reforming New York’s massive, wasteful healthcare system.

Despite this, Spitzer announced a plan that, if passed, will propel New York into the forefront of education reform efforts nationwide.  Spitzer really seems to understand this issue (and no doubt has his eye on national public office), telling Jonathan Alter of Newsweek,"The national Democratic Party has got to understand that real education reform is a central issue both politically and for our economic future.  We have to get our arms around the idea that if there’s no performance, you must remove those responsible for the failure."

The single boldest part of Spitzer’s plan is a proposal that he did not detail in his speech: in his budget released a few days later, Spitzer included a tax deduction to allow families with an annual income of $116,000 or less to deduct $1,000 from their state income taxes for tuition paid to public, private, or parochial schools. This is big, in that it gives parents more options when it comes to picking the best school for their children.

While this is not a perfect plan – the deduction is not a refund, which would allow families from the lowest income brackets to receive cash back from the state for tuition payments – it’s a major step forward from the state child tax credit, passed last year, that gives $330 to all families with school-age children for unspecified use.

Not surprisingly, the teachers union hates this plan.  The president of the state teachers union, Richard Iannuzzi, said he was surprised and dismayed by the private school tuition tax deduction (and Spitzer’s plan to lift the charter cap): "The language on tax credits and charter schools doesn’t seem to fit the rest of his reform agenda," he said. "There’s no connection."  This is nonsense of course – fortunately, Spitzer understands that increasing choice and competition is a critical part of any genuine reform plan.

The plan Spitzer outlined in his speech (which you can read in its entirety here) closely mirrors the bold, revolutionary one Mayor Bloomberg and Chancellor Klein laid out only a few weeks earlier for NYC schools (see here).  Like Bloomberg and Klein, Spitzer clearly understands that more money without fundamental change to the broken system is unlikely to improve matters: "New York spends more on education per capita than all but one state in America, yet offers our children an education that is nowhere near the top…To be effective, new funding must be tied to a comprehensive agenda of reform and accountability."  To bring about this change, Spitzer called for "performance accountability, because unless we have meaningful consequences for good and bad performance, we will never be able to change the status quo that is failing too many of our children," and then outlined real consequences for failure (including closing "as many as five percent of all the schools in the state if we have to")!

Spitzer’s speech contained some reform measures that are not controversial (other than their additional cost) like an extended school day and year, reducing class size and introducing universal pre-K – all good ideas if done correctly.  Most Democrats stop here, but Spitzer, to his credit, did not, calling for the following truly bold reforms:

• Lifting the cap from 100 to 250 charter schools because “charter schools help demonstrate educational innovations that work, many of which can be adapted to other parts of the public school system.  Charter schools make other public schools compete…”  Importantly, Spitzer also plans to give NYC’s schools chancellor, for the first time, sole authorizing powers over 50 new charter school slots.
• A new, simplified funding formula that “will replace this flawed system with a straightforward and transparent mechanism [that] will distribute educational funding based on the needs of our children, not the needs of our politicians."
• Greater accountability for how the new money is spent: "Those districts receiving significant increases in funding under our Investment Plan must be able to show how that money is allocated, school by school, and show how they are using their money to produce the outcomes we expect.  It will be up to each district to establish real measures of improved performance…Without these goals, it will be impossible to measure success.  These reform plans should sunset every three or four years, requiring zero-based re-assessment to see if districts are making the progress they promised."
• Concurrent with greater accountability will be systems to track the performance of individual students and schools.
• Improving teacher quality, in particular two areas that the teachers union is fiercely opposed to:
• Meaningful tenure decisions for teachers, driven in part by student test scores: "We must ensure that tenure comes to be recognized as something we as a society honor and respect, and that means it should be granted the way other professional decisions are made – based on the review of the supervisor, an evaluation by professional colleagues, and an examination of data as well as qualitative information about how a teacher’s students perform over multiple years."
• Introducing differential pay: "Increasing compensation for qualified teachers moving to hard-to-staff schools or hard-to-staff subjects such as math and science or special education.  It could also include supporting other teachers in a new “Master Teacher” role, and rewarding the whole faculty in schools that show real performance improvements."
• Rewarding success: "Schools and school districts that are meeting their targets should see positive consequences, the kind that matter to professionals, including school-based performance incentives and statewide recognition."
• Punishing failure: "If after this intervention and substantial new State investment, some districts are still failing their students, will demand an overhaul in their leadership.  That means new management.  We will seek to have every district in the state sign contracts with their superintendents that will require dismissal after substantial failure over multiple years.  And for school boards that fail their communities year after year, we will seek their removal by the Commissioner of Education…And we should be ready to close more schools that fail – perhaps as many as five percent of all the schools in the state if we have to…"

Overall, Spitzer’s plan is extraordinary.  It’s hard to think of a Democratic politician with his degree of prominence embracing such bold reforms – ones that are sure to infuriate some of the Democratic Party’s most powerful backers.  Here’s hoping that that more Democrats follow Spitzer’s lead!

Whitney Tilson was one of the founders of Teach for America and is Vice Chairman of the KIPP Academy charter schools in New York City.  A lifelong Democrat, he is also one of the founders of a nascent organization, Democrats for Education Reform, that aims to move the Democratic Party to embrace genuine school reform.  He sends out daily emails with articles and commentary on school reform, many of which are posted at his blog.  To be added to his email list, email him at WTilson@tilsonfunds.com.