you all think is doable at the federal level right now? if you hadn t said federal level i could have answered that. $71 billion, you ought to be doing something with that. federal spending on elementary education is about 10%. action is in the classroom and community. the holy grail of elementary and secondary education is teach evaluation and principal evaluation. how do you how do you evaluate a good teacher and especially how do you relate student achievement to teacher performance? we re in the model t phase of that. we don t know how to do it very well. michael did it in denver. not very well but getting better. we tried it in tennessee pap lot of people are trying it. the gates foundation is funding that. tennessee is moving ahead of it even today as it was 20 years ago. but that s what we need to do to attract and keep the best teachers in the classroom. i m not talking about kicking
federal level right now? if you hadn t said federal level i could have answered that. $71 billion, you ought to be doing something with that. federal spending on elementary education is about 10% of the whole package. action is in the classroom and community. the holy grail of elementary and secondary education is teacher evaluation and principal evaluation. how do you how do you evaluate a good teacher and especially how do you relate student achievement to teacher performance? we re in the model t phase of that. we don t know how to do it very well. michael did it in denver. not very well but getting better. we tried it in tennessee pap lot of people are trying it. the gates foundation is funding that. tennessee is moving ahead on it even today as it was 20 years ago. but that s what we need to do to attract and keep the best teachers in the classroom.
paid more money, not less. you go to parents night, you ask the teacher, can you please tell me why 28-year-old harold ford teaching social studies to my son or daughter is going out the door because of budget cut to be replaced by 26-year-old mr. deutsch. what s the deal there? first in, last out. so, mike, this is this whole issue about how to do layoffs is unfortunately a distraction from the fact that there are huge budget cuts in schools. as you and i both know and i ve been on your show a lot and talked about it, the real key here is we have to change the evaluation system for teachers, to focus in a different way and a better way on teacher performance. and ultimately, last year, that s what all of us were focused on. now what s happened is, in the absence of that evaluation system, let me say it this way. if you had an evaluation system,
quite honestly, i don t think is enough for the committed professionals that are in that school district. reporter: but they re not successful. you have a 93% fail rate. i don t think the teachers are responsible. i think the failure of the district to have a math curriculum that gives kids what they need, the failure of the district to get kids to attend school on a regular basis. reporter: you have one high school in town. what do you hope is going to happen? we re offering p.m. school for students who choose to come at a different time in a smaller setting. we re trying pull in students who have dropped out. we have outside evaluators evaluating teacher performance and we re working to help those who are basic in their skills or on satisfactory to say, this is your opportunity and you must improve. and if not, we re back to where we were. [ female announcer ] sometimes you need tomorrow
and you think that s caused by teachers? absolutely. i don t think the teachers are responsible. i think there s a lot of things. i think the failure of the district to have a math curriculum that gives kids what they need. the failure of the district to get kids to attend school on a regular basis. you re one high school in town. what do you hope is going to happen? we ve done a number of things. we re offering p.m. schools for those students that prefer to come at a different time in a smaller setting. we ve reached out to students who had previously dropped out and are trying to pull them back in. we have outside evaluators evaluating teacher performance and are working very hard to help those who are either basic in their skills or unsatisfactory to say this is your year, this is your opportunity, and you must improve. and if not, we re back to where we were. so central fall high schools is one of the lowest performing