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AFT President Randi Weingarten's recent address at the National Press Club made big news, but much of what she said went largely unreported. Not surprisingly, newspapers and blogs went for high drama with headlines like: "Union Prez: Teacher Pay Tied to Performance Works." Weingarten's central argument--that the nation must invest in "collaboration, capacity and community" in difficult economic times--received much less attention.

Yes, Weingarten signaled the AFT's openness to innovative compensation and accountability plans that are "good for children and fair to teachers." Yet this isn't exactly news. Some of the nation's most established pay-for-performance programs were developed in collaboration with unions.

Weingarten's caution against placing all our reform eggs in the performance pay and tenure baskets went largely unnoticed: "Conventional wisdom suggests that our schools will improve simply by tackling these issues. Teachers know different."

She offered ten "smart investments in education":

• Providing universal early childhood education, starting with low-income children.
• Preparing young people for high-skill, high-demand "green jobs."
• Providing a boost to high-achieving students from low-income households.
• Offering high-quality educational choices within the public school system.
• Focusing intensely on improving low-performing schools.
• Establishing community schools that serve the neediest children by bringing together services that they and their families need.
• Ensuring that every school facility is a place where teachers can teach and students can learn.
• Expanding teacher induction so that new teachers are not left to sink or swim.
• Creating an online teacher resource network with information on curriculum, lesson plans and source documents to enhance teaching.
• Offering every student a well-rounded education that would stand in stark contrast to the "standardized test score competition" that has resulted from NCLB.

Weingarten stressed the importance of investing in educators' and communities' capacity to prepare children for the daunting challenges of the new century. She called current disinvestments from public schools "scary," noting that we cannot forfeit our future to address the present economic crisis.

Discussion of educator incentives is important, but it shouldn't dominate the national conversation on education to the extent that it does. There is far more to school improvement than that.

Let's hope more journalists and bloggers take time to tell the rest of the rest of the story.