TEXAS AFT LEGISLATIVE HOTLINE--FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 2009

  • Key Health-Care Vote, Coming Soon, Could be Close: Call Congress
  • Verdict Pronounced on Texas Merit-Pay Plan: Ineffective

Key Health-Care Vote, Coming Soon--Call Congress! The Affordable Health Care for America Act, H.R. 3962, is up for a vote on the U.S. House floor within the next few days.

This is the best chance of our lifetime to pass a bill that would hold down your health-care costs, improve the quality of care, and make sure you and your family have coverage you can count on.

The fate of this bill could well be in your hands. The margin could be as close as one vote. Big insurance companies with their legions of lobbyists are out in force to kill the bill. Your own representative in the U.S. House could be the deciding vote.

Please call your U.S. representative today on this toll-free line to the U.S. Capitol switchboard: 1-877-323-5246. Urge your U.S. House member to vote "yes" on H.R. 3962! (Not sure who represents you? Find out by plugging in your address at this site: www.fyi.legis.state.tx.us.)

What does H.R. 3962 do?

  • Covers nearly everyone (96 percent of all Americans).
  • Requires employers to pay a fair share.
  • Includes a strong public option to lower health-care costs and make insurance companies compete.
  • Doesn't tax the health benefits of middle-class working families.
  • Ends co-pays for preventive services, meaning fewer costly ER visits and hospitalizations.
  • Ends denial of coverage for people with pre-existing conditions.
  • Stops lifetime limits on coverage.
  • Caps administrative costs and streamlines bill processing.
  • Requires coverage of children on a family's plan until age 27 if requested.
  • Prohibits price-fixing and collusion by insurance companies.
  • Helps employers and unions reduce costs of coverage for early retirees (55- to 64-year-olds).
  • Reduces drug costs by shrinking the Medicare Part D "donut hole" and (finally!) allowing Medicare to negotiate prices with the drug companies.
  • Increases the number of primary-care doctors and primary-care community health centers.
Official Verdict on Texas Merit-Pay Scheme--No Impact: A few years ago Gov. Rick Perry launched an "educator excellence" grant program of bonuses for teachers, linked to students' scores on standardized tests. The legislature in 2006 then hugely expanded the program before any evaluation of its initial impact on student performance could be done. Now, $300 million later, an independent evaluation commissioned by the state has been completed, and it shows the bonus scheme had zero discernible impact on student achievement or teacher retention.

The legislature meanwhile decided this year to phase out this "educator excellence" grant program but will spend even larger sums on another unproven scheme of "district awards for teacher excellence." The infatuation with so-called "performance pay" extends to the nation's capital, where the U.S. Department of Education is pushing the practice as well, in spite of the lack of evidence of effectiveness.

By happenstance, the deflating report on the Texas merit-pay experiment coincides with publication of a Century Foundation issue brief cataloging "Eight Reasons Not to Tie Teacher Pay to Standardized Test Results"(available online at http://www.tcf.org/list.asp?type=PB&pubid=698). Here's a quick summary of the issue brief's argument, courtesy of education historian and former U.S. Department of Education official Diane Ravitch:

'Even reliable standardized tests are valid only when they are used for their intended purposes'; students are not randomly assigned to schools or to classes; state data systems are in their infancy, and it is far too soon to produce reliable and accurate longitudinal data; the assumption behind such plans is that teachers are holding back on their efforts because they are not paid enough (when it is far likelier that teachers, schools, and legislators 'simply don't know how to improve educational prospects for poor children'); such an approach will inhibit collaboration among teachers; and most teachers don't teach a subject or grade that is subject to regular testing.