Slippery Glass

Imagine my surprise to learn I'd been drafted into a blog war, by the state Department of Education chief, no less.

Jason Glass took offense at Saturday's column citing his education dissertation on the subject of performance pay for teachers. I learned about it on Twitter: “@jhemmingsen I am disappointed u did not consult me before citing parts of an unpublished draft of my dissertation. #notcool” he posted to his Tweeps.

“Please explain what's ‘not cool' about discussing a public official's work directly related to reform. That's accountability,” I replied.

It's just the latest example in a disturbing trend. I write a column raising serious questions about reform and instead of answering those questions, Glass chooses to defame my character, question my intelligence and gloss over the facts.

Take this weekend, when he followed the above exchange with a flurry of tweets offering to debate me “anywhere, anytime” (Huh? Instead of answering my questions?), criticizing my analysis of his research and then, finally, suggesting we talk by phone on Monday. “I will set it up,” he tweeted.

But Monday came and went with no call. Instead, Glass blogged about how disappointed he was in me, implying I had violated some kind of gentleman's agreement:

“I provided a draft version to the media with the caveat that it was still in the final proofing phase before being sent for binding and inclusion with the Seton Hall library. It is disappointing that Hemmingsen violated the trust I had when making the document available for media review. Sadly, I guess I've learned a lesson.”

The clear implication here being that Glass kindly offered me an off-the-record copy of his work -- this same dissertation he's been citing for months in Twitter exchanges (yes, again with the Twitter) -- and I broke our little deal. Not even close to true.

In fact, even though Glass stood me up on Monday, his communications director did reach out to my boss -- wanting to know where I had gotten a hold of a copy.

Not from Glass, I'll confirm that much. Beyond that, I'll just say I had a solid source and even then had it analyzed to verify its authenticity – a March 31 document created by jglass on an Iowa Department of Education computer (did Glass' boss know he was doing homework on company time?).

I published it not as a "gotcha", but because Iowans deserve to know more about the comprehensive education reform of which Glass is the architect. He's been consistently vague about the details. So I went digging. That's my job.

Glass says I “butchered” his conclusions. I don't think I did. I'd let you judge for yourself, but Glass still hasn't submitted the bound and digital copies to the Seton Hall Library, even though many of his fellow April grads have managed to complete that task.

Which in itself raised my journalist's suspicions: If all that's left to do is a little proofing and polishing, why is Glass sitting on the dissertation? Because it complicates the simple story he's been telling us about teacher compensation?

But Glass did come clean with a few more details on his blog, when he wasn't trying to publicly shame me for doing my job:

“I'm not talking about using compensation as a motivator for teachers, I'm talking about changing compensation structures to align with things that would actually be good for schools, educators, and kids. Things like creating and paying for teacher leader roles, creating time for teachers to work together collaboratively, incenting the pursuit advanced degrees or other PD options that are aligned with what their kids need, paying more to get and keep our best teachers in front of our neediest kids, front loading pay structures to get better candidates into teaching and keep them, extending the school day/year for kids that need it, and addressing teacher labor market shortage areas. And yes, performance based elements – so long as they are coupled with support systems to help teachers improve.”

Eureka! There's the outline, but we still need the details -- which is what I've been asking for all along. We also need to hear how Glass plans to mind his own cautions against trying to scale up the performance pay program at his former school district, and how much he thinks the compensation piece will cost (Eagle County's system got a $6 million boost in the form of U.S. Department of Education grants – one of the many things I would have asked Glass about if he'd bothered to call).

And, still after all this asking, we need hard numbers that show a transition to performance pay won't be millions of dollars down the drain for nothing but a nod to the flavor of the month. We need definitive proof that it can be designed fairly, implemented efficiently and – most important, will guarantee measurable improvement in student achievement. These are important questions and Iowans need and deserve answers -- not attempts to start a slapfest.

And file the dissertation, already.