By Kenneth J. Cooper

Writing about education over the last three decades, I have watched faddish reforms come and go, usually leaving behind little or no enduring change in schools. The country is once again caught up in a wave of supposed reforms whose effectiveness their supporters take as article of faith—and nothing more—because research or equity is not on their side.

Advocates of these mythical reforms are well-meaning. Some are frustrated with the fitful performance of public schools. Others assume they are experts on education since they (like just about everyone else) went to school.

They are all setting up the country for deeper cynicism about the value of free, universal public education, a defining feature of our democracy. The sooner the misguided get over their assumptions that are not-in-evidence, the sooner true education reform can focus on what’s most important—the recruitment and retention of top-shelf teachers—and sustained improvement can occur in public schools.

Here is my list of the most dismaying myths about reforming schools currently popular, despite being dubious at best.

Charter schools are the solution. Perhaps the best, broadest study of academic performance of these quasi-public schools that operate outside of public school systems found that 80 percent do no better or substantially worse than traditional schools. The 2009 review of nearly half the country’s charter schools was financed, not by their critics, but by two philanthropies that have supported charters: the Walton Family and the Michael and Susan Dell foundations.

That definitive research hasn’t put an end to this diversionary fad. Even President Obama has gone for the okey-doke on this one. The reason may be that charters, even though the eight out of ten only raise false hopes, are popular with parents. A conservative newspaper columnist recently made that argument during a joint radio appearance. My response was there may be demand for charter schools, but there is no educational justification for them. He seemed baffled, assuming as he must that the consumer marketplace is infallible.

Teachers unions are the problem. This assumption is actually behind the mistaken support for charter schools, nearly all of which are not unionized. If teachers unions are the problem, how come Massachusetts, whose teaching force has one of the highest rates of unionization, consistently ranks first in the nation on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, the only reliable way to compare academic achievement in the states? And why are many of the schools that perform the worst on those same tests located in right-to-work states in the South and West where teachers don’t have collective bargaining rights?

Incompetent teachers are the problem. This idea is related to the criticism of unions, whose contracts make it difficult to fire teachers under due process provisions designed to protect them from arbitrary decisions. Teachers are hardly the only class of government workers hard to terminate. That is a matter of equity.

The evidence indicates the proportion of teachers who just don’t belong in a classroom is too small to cause or, by their removal, solve education problems such as achievement gaps, high dropout rates and lagging test scores by international standards.

The “rubber rooms” in New York City where teachers removed from the classroom idle for pay while awaiting judgment on their employment were occupied in 2009 by about 600 out of the city’s 89,000 teachers, or less than one percent. New Haven, Conn. has persuaded the teachers union there to relinquish the job protection of tenure. In the first year, 2 percent of the city’s teachers were dismissed. That telling fact didn’t stop a liberal newspaper columnist from extolling the new arrangement as a monumental advance.

Teach for America is part of the solution. This one is full of hype. The nonprofit sends elite college graduates into struggling schools for two years. Most of the young idealists stay in the classroom only for that long.

A stable, experienced faculty is a key to lifting achievement in underperforming schools. Teacher turnover actually harms these schools. The average classroom career of all teachers has been dropping, but institutionalizing and glamorizing teacher turnover the way Teach for America does contributes next to nothing to improving the schools.

A study last year found that Teach for America recruits perform better than other uncredentialed teachers in similar schools, but worse than certified, experienced teachers in teaching English and math, the basics. One education policy that the Obama administration has got right is pressing districts to equitably distribute quality teachers to schools where low-income students are concentrated. Accomplishing that would do way more to close achievement gaps than Teach for America, which could make a difference if it focused on recruiting career teachers from elite colleges, not extended temps.

Merit pay is part of the solution. Studies conducted in New York, Nashville and Chicago have shown performance-based pay did little or nothing to improve the test scores of students in those cities. This idea also fails the equity test.

As with the due process protections for dismissal, I ask: What other municipal employees are paid based on merit? If it’s good for teachers, why not pay police based on crime rates in their districts or the number of arrests a cop makes? Or firefighters according to the number of fires or the amount of damage they cause in a firehouse’s service area? Crime and firefighting, as with education, are affected by socioeconomic conditions beyond the control of rank-and-file city employees.

Merit pay proposals would get nowhere at the bargaining table with police or firefighters unions, and are entertained when it comes to teachers only because so many are women.

At least the focus on the unions, competency, recruitment and pay of teachers in these wrong-headed notions has the right goal—lifting and deepening the quality of teaching. Charter schools, which are about alternative management, are distractions that miss the point. The management in education that counts the most occurs in the classroom, at the point of delivery of an inestimable service of a public and individual good.

Teachers are not paid enough for what is demanded of them. Many find additional compensation in the psychic rewards from working with children, seeing “the light” go on in their heads or watching them grow and mature into successful adults. The problem is none of that pays the bills. Many teachers have second jobs, and not just during the summer when school is out.