Big news in the education world yesterday: Secretary of Education Arne Duncan addressed the National Education Association (NEA) at their annual Representative Assembly. And yes, he did get booed. Several times.

Here’s an excerpt:

The greatest points of contention were over Duncan’s mention of merit pay for teachers, and his unwavering support for charter schools.

Duncan said that teachers’ unions need to be willing to reconsider tenure provisions and seniority, as well as join districts in designing fair ways to incorporate student achievement into teacher evaluation and compensation. Thankfully, Duncan acknowledged that linking teacher pay to test scores alone is unfair, but he was not willing to take student performance off the table when it comes to evaluating teachers. In his words:

I understand that tests are far from perfect and that it is unfair to reduce the complex, nuanced work of teaching to a simple multiple choice exam. Test scores alone should never drive evaluation, compensation or tenure decisions. But to remove student achievement entirely from evaluation is illogical and indefensible.

I agree. Teachers cannot continue to be treated like interchangeable widgets with no regard for differences in performance, and it’s hard to imagine evaluating a teacher with no regard to student outcomes. What does a fair, comprehensive, and accurate performance evaluation system for teachers looks like? That’s a whole other question, but in principal, I think it has to happen. And the federal government will definitely reward districts that make it happen using the Teacher Incentive Fund, which has been recently beefed up by an extra $200 million. (So far, 34 districts, states, and nonprofit organizations have received TIF grants.)

Here’s Duncan’s message about charter schools:

Charter schools are public schools, and they should be held to the same standards as everyone else.

As you might imagine, that didn’t go over big with everyone in the union crowd. One delegate, when given a chance to speak, even called for the federal government to “close the chapter on charter schools.” Seriously? How does one even respond to such a comment? Poor Arne. He said that while charter schools have to be held accountable, he wouldn’t support closing any school that was successfully educating students.

Overall, I think that Duncan came across as being sincere, fair, and reasonable. I like his emphasis on collaborating with (rather than dictating to) teachers, and on working together with unions to improve practice. Yesterday’s message can be summed up in this clear and simple directive to the audience:

You must become full partners and leaders in education reform. You must be willing to change.

And he’s right. It’s time for the booing members in the audience to see the writing on the wall, and to realize that if AFT president Randi Weingarten can happily sign “tenure-free” union contracts with charter schools, then like it or not, the time for change has come.