Friday, July 11, 2008

Obama tackles merit pay after getting NEA endorsement

He actually does have some spine!

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama on Saturday thanked the National Education Association for its endorsement but also made it clear that he continues to support merit pay for teachers. His position is a controversial one with the 3.2 million member group and it has earned him criticism when he addressed the NEA in 2007.

"Now I know this wasn't necessarily the most popular part of my speech last year but I said it then and I'm saying it again now because it's what I believe and I will always be an honest partner to you in the White House," said the Illinois senator, who spoke to the group via satellite from Montana.

Obama proposes to raise teacher pay through merit based rewards for work above and beyond their positions. The issue has long been a widely opposed proposal among the NEA due to its potential for abuse through favoritism and "subjective" evaluations.

The senator pledged to fix the unpopular "No Child Left Behind Act," saying, that while the law had been passed in 2002 with good intentions, it had ultimately failed to produce the desired results. "Let me be clear NEA, opposing No Child Left Behind alone is not an education policy it's just the starting point. We've got more work to do," Obama said and then listed the votes in presumptive Republican nominee Sen. John McCain's (R-Ariz.) record that he deemed wrong on education.

"He voted against funding the hiring of 100,000 more teachers," Obama said, noting that McCain also voted against increasing funding for a laundry list of NEA backed initiatives. "He even applauded the idea of abolishing the Department of Education."

The NEA has said it is prepared to spend $50 million on the 2008 elections. McCain was also invited to address the annual convention, but declined the invitation.

Source





Taboo research in authoritarian Canada

Ask Russel Ogden why he studies suicide, and the sociologist answers by quoting Shakespeare: "To be or not to be?" The Bard's question has never been more relevant, Ogden said in an interview about his studies of people with terminal diseases who take their own lives.

Hamlet's question might also apply to the latest phase in Ogden's research. Kwantlen Polytechnic University, the British Columbia institution where Ogden works, is trying to prevent him from observing assisted suicides. An ethics review board at the university approved the research, but the university has since barred Ogden from carrying out his plans. While suicide is not illegal in Canada, assisting a suicide is illegal, and the university has equated Ogden's proposal to observe assisted suicides with assisting suicides himself.

The dispute has become public in the last week, with Canadian faculty groups charging that the university's actions are a violation of academic freedom, and that the principles cited by the university endanger not only Ogden's research, but the work of social scientists throughout the country who study illegal acts in part by observation. Sociologists in the United States say that the case is important for them as well - and illustrates how studying some of the cutting edge issues in bioethics can create challenging ethical and political issues for academics and universities.

Ogden is no stranger to controversy or to suicide, which he has been studying for 18 years. He first became interested in the subject when "as a teen, I had a couple of close friends who took their lives," he said. "Those suicides had a profound impact on me." Ogden doesn't romanticize suicide. "I regret that they died. I wish that they were still here."

But with legal and political debates growing about whether people with incurable diseases should be able to end their lives - and with some people not waiting for the law, and doing so - Ogden found the topic to be one in need of sociological inquiry.

Even before he decided that he wanted to observe assisted suicides, he has faced lengthy legal battles. He wrote his master's thesis at Simon Fraser University on the decision of some AIDS patients to take their own lives, and he interviewed some of those involved, promising full confidentiality under terms of a research protocol that had been approved by the university's ethics committee.

He spent several years in the '90s in courts over this research, successfully fighting off demands from the Vancouver coroner's office that he reveal information he considered confidential relating to one of the deaths. At the same time, he fought with Simon Fraser, which didn't back him in court and only later agreed to provide some of his legal expenses.

Since then, assisted suicide has continued to divide members of the public, in Canada and the United States. A petition drive has been filed in Washington State to permit medically assisted suicide. Ogden's research has been cited over the years both by proponents and critics of assisted suicide. He describes himself as "supportive of individual choice" for a terminal patient to decide whether to live or die.

But Ogden is quick to say that supporting choice does not mean he or his research are designed to encourage anyone to make that choice. Ogden said he is interested in the decisions people make - to consider suicide, to carry it out - and the impact this has on survivors, medicine, medical professionals, and so forth. He stressed that he does not want to actually help a person commit suicide, but to watch and, as possible, interview those doing so - typically with his having conducted numerous interviews beforehand.

Among the many protections he worked into his research protocol was one designed to prevent a would-be suicide from being influenced by his presence: Ogden would tell anyone contemplating suicide that he is as interested in those who opt to stay alive as those who take their lives - so a last-minute decision to live would in no way disappoint him or his research. He also makes clear that he will in no way help with a suicide.

The various protections Ogden outlined won the approval of his university's ethics board. But then the university administration got involved, and told him that he couldn't proceed because the university believed that his research might be illegal. The university declined to discuss the case, but released a statement outlining in its views in general terms.

"As a university, we encourage and support research which addresses important issues, including controversial issues, in a responsible manner," the statement said. University reviews "take into account the legal and ethical dimensions associated with the proposal, the means by which the researcher intends to address those legal and ethical dimensions, and the appropriate protections for research subjects." In this case, the university consulted with "one of Canada's foremost criminal lawyers about the legal implications of the proposed research. Based on our due diligence, including the lawyer's opinions, we concluded that there were real and unacceptable legal risks associated with the proposed research. In the circumstances, we could not allow the research to take place in its proposed form with Kwantlen's support."

Not only have faculty groups already obtained countering legal opinions, but they say that the opinion the university obtained wasn't based on knowledge of all the protections Ogden put in place. Faculty groups also note that the standard being applied is completely different from that used in other cases. If Kwantlen is not challenged, they argue, much other research could be hindered.

John Lowman is a criminologist at Simon Fraser who was director of graduate studies when Ogden was a graduate student there, and backed him in the dispute over the earlier research. Lowman studies prostitution and much of what he observes for his work is illegal. "I routinely witness criminal activity," he said. "I am a field criminologist. That's what we do. What good would it do if criminologists just study those who have been caught," he said.

Lowman said that the blocking of Ogden's research is "a flagrant violation of academic freedom."

The Canadian Association of University Teachers appears to agree. James Turk, executive director, said that his organization commissioned a legal opinion backing the research. He said that professors can't be in the position of going through a strict ethics review, getting the appropriate sign-off, and then having senior administrators veto their work. "He's a respected social scientist doing research on illegal behavior, but many sociologists study criminal behavior," he said. "If this is upheld, much important social science research would be blocked."

The association has started a formal inquiry into whether Kwantlen has violated Ogden's academic freedom. In addition, numerous academics in Canada are now speaking out about the case - trying to build public pressure to let Ogden go ahead with his studies.

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