Good Monday morning, where we are trying to be Forever Young (livin' life like a video).



May the best of your todays be the worst of your tomorrows.

The biggest piece of news I read yesterday was actually sent to me by a friend of mine who knows my interest in education policy. Last week, DC schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee announced that she had reached a tentative agreement with the Washington Teachers' Union, the culmination of two years of closely-watched talks in one of the most scrutinized districts in the nation.

While it still needs to be ratified by the union and approved by the D.C. City Council, represents and fundamental shift in how teachers are paid and evaluated in the district. Rhee came to this position with much hype, but this agreement would seem to validate much of that.

The agreement includes a voluntary pay-for-performance program that will allow teachers to earn annual bonuses for student growth on standardized tests and other measures of academic success. It also calls for dramatically expanded professional development opportunities for teachers -- including school-based professional development centers -- and mentoring and induction programs for new educators.

Under the program, teachers could make up to $130,000 a year, but would need to submit themselves to more rigorous evaluation, much of wish would be based on their students' success.

Teacher tenure was obviously one of the centerpieces here, as it always is when teachers' unions are involved. Rhee spoke directly to that point: ""What has evolved is our common understanding of what is important and what is not important. The thing that is important is that everyone understands that tenure doesn't mean a job for life."

The agreement does so as well:

The pay package covers five years, with base salary increases of 3, 3, 5, 4 and 5 percent. If the council ratifies the deal, the first 11 percent will be paid retroactively to the District's 3,800 teachers, who have not had a raise in nearly three years. The other major piece of the deal would allow officials more freedom in deciding whether to retain teachers who are "excessed" when schools are closed because of budget or enrollment issues. Under the proposal, teachers would be cut according to a formula that gives greatest weight to the previous year's evaluation. Seniority would receive least weight.

Obviously this is a new type of program, especially for a public school district. It will be heavily scrutinized, if not for all of the previously mentioned reasons, then because it will rely heavily on private donations (which it attracted mostly because of the structure of holding educators responsible). Some will say it amounts to privatization of public schools.

No district in the country spends more per student than the DC school district. Over decades, however, this city has languished as one of the nation's worst. In fact, more students in this district attend private or charter schools than public ones.

Will this scare some of the best teachers away? Maybe. What it also might do is bring in some of the most driven teachers who may see this as a district ready to give its teachers the necessary resources, and compensation, in exchange for results. Kind of like any other job. As always, the most important details will probably lie in the evaluation system, which is essentially impossible to perfect. That doesn't mean we shouldn't try, however.

Kudos to this district and to Rhee. In reality, Washington ought to be one of the most advanced districts in the country given its vast resources and proximity to brilliant minds. Maybe a corner has been turned.

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The other big news in Washington today is actually an event, the president's nuclear summit, to take place at the convention center beginning today. It will be the "largest assembly of world leaders hosted by an American president since 1945," when the U.N. was formed.

Started today, 47 world leaders will do nothing but focus on how nuclear weapons can be kept out of conflict and out of the hands of terrorists. It is a noble, if slightly unattainable goal, that nevertheless must be embarked upon. Keeping the weapons out of conventional war may be very possible. The second part is still a question mark, yet remains the largest threat to the security of any country, including the U.S.

Interestingly, and often forgotten, is this simple fact: only one country in the history of the world has ever used a nuclear weapon in conflict. If you don't know who it is, open up your U.S. history book to WWII, then go ask your history teachers how they got their jobs.

Not surprisingly (because this is DC), the focus for the vast majority of the people who aren't taking part in the conference is the major inconvenience. The Mount Vernon metro station is closed (the convention center sits above the station). I walked past one of the diplomat hotels yesterday and couldn't get within a block. Streets are closed and dozens of parking spots are lost. A nearby school even had to close just two weeks before it is scheduled to administer its No Child Left Behind Act mandated standardized test.

That said, this quote says all you need to know:

"The timing's unfortunate," Boyd said of the nuclear summit. "But we accept it as one of the prices that you pay for being in the nation's capital and having world governance unfolding before you."

Indeed. When something happens in this town, the world watches.

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Two bits of congratulations:
- First to Phil Mickelson, who won his third green jacket yesterday, in the same year that both his wife and mother were diagnosed with breast cancer. Tiger Woods may have been the ratings draw and the big story, but Mickelson, as he always is, was the fan favorite. This time was also sentimental for Lefty.

- Second to the Washington Husky softball team, for sweeping away the Arizona Wildcats over the weekend. The top-ranked, defending national champions won 2-1, 7-0 and 9-3 against No. 2 Arizona, the first time the program has ever recorded a sweep over the Wildcats. Arizona came in as the top scoring team in the country, yet was outscored 18-4 by the Huskies and reigning national player of the year, Danielle Lawrie, was at her best just a week after her grandmother died.

The games were all in front of sold-out crowds at Husky Softball Stadium. Washington is now 33-3 on the season and has started the Pac-10 regular season 5-1 against No. 5 UCLA and No. 2 Arizona. Would not be surprised to see them return to their perch as the unanimous top-ranked team, the way they started the season.

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In case there was any question, Mitt Romney is the leader for the 2012 Republican president nomination. It comes down to dollars. Consider that he won the straw poll at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference when he didn't even go.

That same story has more bad polling for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

- Finally, I have the MLB app on my iPhone that allows me to listen to Mariners games wherever I am (unless I'm in the metro). The cool thing is that I get to listen to the local broadcast and therefore the local commercials. Specifically I have heard the one against the so-called beverage tax about 100 times. It is an awful commercial. The tax may or may not have merits, but this country taxes a huge percentage of things that are bad for you, like carbonated drinks are. That isn't the point though - it's just a bad commercial. And as down to earth as it may seem, paying a couple of extra cents for a Diet Coke is not the biggest problems Washingtonians have right now. Not even in the same ballpark.

Oh, and with the amount of money spent running the commercial during a Major League Baseball game, I'll be the entire tax bill could've been paid. Just saying. (Alas, it's about "principle. Yet, the state with enough millionaires - many of whom are billionaires - to fill the professional sports stadiums has budget shortfalls and that isn't the problem?)

Hey, stay up and remember, stay young forever. We will get there.