Progress Illinois

Is a "merit pay" pilot program working in Chicago's schools? Not according to a new report released by Mathematica Policy Research. The education policy watchdog studied results from the first two years of the city's Teacher Advancement Program (TAP), designed jointly by district officials (including Arne Duncan) and the Chicago Teacher's Union. As the Tribune reported, "selected schools are performing no differently than schools that did not implement the program"

Advocates of merit pay say two years is not nearly enough time to judge the efficacy of the approach. Meanwhile, other Chicago bloggers have raised some very valid concerns about the pilot program's design: it spread bonuses to administrators and staff as well as teachers; it paid out less than was originally promised; and it doled out bonuses on a school-wide basis because the link between student-growth data and individual teachers was difficult to obtain. These issues aren't necessarily unique to Chicago's program, however. New York City, Memphis, and other districts have all operated school-wide bonus systems. Further, it is very difficult to generate data linking individual teachers to individual students scores, given all of the factors (both in and outside the classroom) that contribute to a student's success.

That's not to say Chicago's pilot program should be abandoned. But it definitely needs to be reassessed.  For more on the skepticism surrounding "merit pay" programs, check out this January article by Elaine McArdle.

While GOP Senate candidate Mark Kirk might have hoped the controversy over his embellishment of his military record wouldn't last beyond the holiday weekend, it sure hasn't turned out that way.  As we noted earlier, Illinois editorial boards and columnists blasted him in the papers this morning.  And last night, Rachel Maddow even devoted a segment of her MSNBC show to the issue.  Watch it:

Then this afternoon, the Washington Post's Chris Cilliza published a lengthy blog post to Kirk's handling of the controversy.  His takeaway:

[H]e has taken what should be a clear positive for his campaign -- his military record -- and turned it, at least for the moment, into a net negative.

Yesterday, we criticized U.S. Senate candidate Mark Kirk's desperate attempt to pass off the deepening controversy over the embellishment of his military record as an honest mistake exploited by Alexi Giannoulias. Today, editorial boards across the region piled on the North Shore Republican, as well.

The Sun-Times suggested that voters in Illinois now "have reason to doubt" that Kirk's word is "his bond." The Tribune wrote that the display "reflects the hubris he shows from time to time." The Daily Herald warned Kirk that "he should not expect his appalling embellishment to go away because he changes the subject to Giannoulias' banking history." Perhaps the harshest words, however, came from the Sun-Times' Carol Marin. The veteran journalist compared Kirk's behavior to that of former Secretary of State Alexander Haig, whose "unbridled ego and opportunism" led him to declare, incorrectly, that he was "in control" of the White House following an assassination attempt of Ronald Reagan. Read the whole piece here.

Bloomberg News just added a tidbit to the controversy over GOP U.S. Senate candidate Mark Kirk's repeated claim that the Navy once named him "intelligence officer of the year."  A web video published in August of last year -- in conjunction with the official launch of his Senate campaign -- highlighted the false credential (in fact, Kirk accepted something called the Rufus Taylor award on behalf of his intelligence unit in 2000).  Watch it (the relevant portion starts 55 seconds in):

UPDATE (4:35 p.m.): You'll notice that the web video further states that he received the award for his "combat service in Kosovo."  As Capitol Fax noted this morning, Kirk has since retracted any mention of "combat service" from his official biography.