Education blogger/journalist Alexander Russo asked via twitter and then via his blog with Scholastic where all the smart, interesting pro-reform teacher and principal bloggers were. For now, he said the "reform critics" seemed to be dominating the conversation on-line.
Lots of people responded to this already including Nancy Flanagan, Anthony Cody (here and here), Shaun Johnson, Katie Osgood, Mike Klonsky, Teacher Ken, and Leonie Haimson. I'm not going to get into everything they said because I think at least some of the controversy generated by his post is due to clumsiness on his part, rather than any malice or an agenda (other than to chase down a prescribed narrative) and some misunderstanding on some of their parts. I also criticized him for using the pro- versus anti-reform labels, but I can see that sometimes using such dichotomous terms is just expedient and may not reflect a belief in them--it's important to get beyond semantics even if I personally am a stickler for them.
However, I did agree when many of the bloggers above pointed out that one reason Russo perceives that the "traditional" (a poor choice of words, for example) teacher voice winning on-line is because social media provide virtually the only forums where independent and grassroots voices get heard and can gain prominence. The neo-liberal reformers are dominating the mainstream media and have gobs and gobs of money with which to do so. This, of course, brings up a whole 'nother fascinating topic about power and the dynamic between social media, grassroots advocacy and organizing but that's for another post for another time. . .
So, I agree with that point. But mostly I think there aren't too many teacher bloggers out there independently (and for free) plugging for Students First, for example, because there aren't too many teachers who support the group of reforms that SF is pushing, either in principle or in their execution. But while most teachers and principals are pro-reform, just as Russo doesn't want to interact with an organization (haha--that guy is comically cranky), neither do independent and smart educators want to; and neither do they want to let organizations promoting superficial and short-sighted policies that often detrimentally affect their day-to-day work speak for them.
These organizations don't really represent educators or parents or students (no matter how they're named); they represent the education reform industry. That industry has a slate of reforms that it lobbies for. This, as education journalist Joy Resmovitz so astutely put it, is part of their "branding." Of course, since these reformers sincerely believe their agenda will improve education, it's probably of no consequence to them and presents no conflict of interest that the industry they've created would have the added bonus of benefiting them in the form of financial rewards and jobs.
But if you're an educator, you have to really buy into that brand to promote it. And then you have to go around marketing it, for free, to your co-workers who don't have much time to listen to sales pitches in the teachers lounge for Mark Kay or Pampered Chef-like products (teachers, you know what I'm talking about), let alone pitches for ed reform products. And no one wants to be a salesperson if they don't have to be. Furthermore, the ed reform products, I mean, solutions being proposed are not ones that come from ideas about education or teaching and learning, but rather from ideas about business and finance. If educators wanted to play Corporation or Free Markets, that's where they'd be working.
That all being said, there is a huge diversity of ideas, opinions, and approaches among educators. As I wrote about before, framing education reform as a debate between reformers and status quo defenders is reductive and contributes to misinformation. And if you actually pay attention to and listen to all of the edu-noise out there, you figure this out pretty quickly. There are lots and lots of educators who support some of the reforms, but not all of them. Even so, these people consider themselves professionals and still don't like being told what to do in their classroom by the likes of Joel Klein, Michelle Rhee, and Bill Gates. Lots of educators are in favor of a common curriculum (though they may have reservations about the Common Core in particular). Lots of educators are in favor of community-generated and innovative charter schools. I bet some are even in favor of vouchers. Lots of educators are in favor of a more educated and better trained teaching corps and in favor of making it harder to gain entry to the profession. Lots of educators are against strict seniority-based firings. Lots of educators want better and more useful teacher evaluations. Lots of educators think that standardized testing and data-informed instruction is useful. Lots of educators embrace technology and certain forms of virtual learning.* Lots of educators think that the teacher dismissal process should be streamlined (which is not the same thing is getting rid of due process). Lots of educators are in favor of mayoral control, or at least they were. (I would say that lots of educators support Race to the Top but it's pretty clear that only the truest of believers like Race to the Top.) And there are lots of parents and other education reform advocates and scholars who are on board with a lot of this stuff.
Journalist Natalie Hopkinson, like many, many DC parents initially backed Michelle Rhee's chancellorship, until she didn't. Teacher blogger James Boutin also initially went to DC to teach because he thought Rhee had the right idea, but after working in DCPS, he changed his mind (read here, here, here, and here). This principal did the same thing, leaving Maryland to become a principal at Hearst Elementary School in DC. He became so disillusioned he decided to sell cupcakes instead. Teacher Stephanie Black subscribes to KIPP's no excuses philosophy and teaches for DCPS. She's perfect for Russo's theory. Oh, except she quit because she didn't like how she was being forced to teach badly under the reformers (see here and here). Education writer Robert Pondiscio is no longer an NYCPS teacher, but he used to be. Guess what? He's not that into the agenda of these particular reformers even though he does support accountability and choice. Dan Brown has been very critical of Rhee-Klein-Gates reform, but he teaches at a charter school in DC, so it's probably safe to say he's pro-charter to a certain extent. Chad Sansing, a teacher at a charter school in Virginia, is very much in favor of choice, just not in the non-choice between schools that meet testing benchmarks and schools that are trying to meet testing benchmarks. Mark Anderson is very supportive of a common core curriculum (full disclosure: so I am, in theory) and probably some of the other reforms, but he's an independent thinker and a thoughtful teacher. VCU assistant professor of educational leadership Jon Becker is "bullish" on on-line education and was very critical of a recent NEPC report on K-12 on-line education, but he's skeptical of many of the current reforms.* Christina Lordeman (speaking of whom, where is Christina? I haven't seen her around lately) is often very critical of Diane Ravitch and I imagine that she supports many of the reforms in theory, but from what I can tell she is a principled and thoughtful teacher who wants to be treated like a professional and she has also expressed some real criticisms of some of the current reforms. According to her book, even Diane Ravitch was in favor of mayoral control until fairly recently. I know of other long-time education reformers who favored mayoral control, that is until they experienced it. Even those educators who are "pro-reform" (to use Russo's label) figure out they like democracy once they are denied it. And this is just a sampling of some of the people whose ideas I enjoy listening to on a regular basis--imagine how many more there are.
Finally, I'll mention my father-in-law who has guest blogged here and who was fired via IMPACT for not tailoring his lessons to please the IMPACT gods and, basically, for having principles about his craft. He has taught AP and grade-level English for over ten years in DCPS and is known for his rigorous curriculum, preparing kids for college-level English, being interesting, and providing lots of feedback on student writing (see some parent feedback here). He was teaching in DCPS when I started there and I remember saying after not getting paid on time or properly for the second or third time that I could finally understand why some of my DCPS teachers burned out and stopped doing their jobs. Look how badly they were treated, look at how poorly the system is run, I pointed out. Joe shook his head before I could finish my thought. No, he told me, sorry, but there's no excuse for that. If you burn out, it's time to go.
Yet Joe is precisely the kind of teacher--principled, intellectual, and independent-minded--who's vulnerable to getting fired from these reformy systems, for doing their jobs as their experience and knowledge dictates them to. One of the things he was fired for was for covering the clock up in his classroom. He was losing the last ten minutes of class to kids peering at the clock and its presence was rushing and stressing everyone involved. This came to mind because Russo just blogged about how he thinks there's too many clocks in classrooms and that they're stressing people out. Joe agrees and because Joe stood by his reasonable, thoughtful decision to disobey the reformy principal's clock mandate, Joe was fired.
Now, Russo, do you get why smart teachers aren't on-line proselytizing for the likes of Stand for Children, Students First, and TFA? What educator wants to advocate for an education reform organization whose ideas include distrust for educators' professional judgement? Why would educators support education reform leaders who don't respect independent, critical thinking or listen to what the communities they serve say they want for themselves? Who wants to advocate for pressing themselves into a job not of social utility and intellectual stimulation, but of busy work and obedience? The premise that there is some group of educators just waiting for the likes of Leonie, Nancy, Anthony, John, and Ken to tone it down so that they can get busy undermining their own work is a false one. Educators and education advocates, including those just listed, are of very different minds when it comes to the fine details of teaching, learning, and reforming public education. But no one likes tyranny or plutocracy, except for tyrants and plutocrats of course.
(* = Updated content)
When single-issue advocacy causes multiple-issue empowerment
Education journalist Joy Removits recently wrote this article on the education "reform" lobby. The article was not particularly remarkable, but I did discern a bit of pivoting on the part of some of the organizations, such as Students First, Stand for Children, and DFER (Democrats for Education Reform) Removits wrote about. In particular, they talked about being "single-issue" advocates and financially backing politicians only based on their advocacy of issues the reform lobby pushes. For example, Removits wrote,
Even more recently,Whitney Tilson of DFER fame wrote something (h/t Alexander Russo) that pushed back on the idea of single-issue advocacy. I blogged about the limitations of his revelations in my last post. One of his basic points was that poor people aren't going to ally themselves with powerful people on school reform when the powerful are at the same time voting against other measures meant to help poor people such as housing, healthcare, and jobs. From Tilson (as he perceives poor people and/or people of color would respond):
Rick Scott, for example, wanted to drug test the urine of those who need some help from public assistance. We want to reform your schools but let us invade your privacy and question your integrity first. Or how about by supporting politicians who want to cut off health care for women, particularly for poor women? We want you to get a better education and go to college, but first we're gonna make sure your mom has no access to family planning or cancer prevention services. Also, what about being beholden to foundations funded by corporations who treat their employees and the communities they live in so ruthlessly? The wealth of the Walton family, for example, comes in part due to their ruthlessly efficient management and employee practices. We want to help your children with better education but first let us exploit you and help to sustain the awful conditions of poverty you live in. But when we look for philanthropy, we can't trust you, we'll give the money we made exploiting you to other rich people who say they want to help you. Finally, what about gay people? How can education be improved for everyone when some education reform-minded politicians don't accept gay people? We support better education and schools for all kids, but if you're a gay or transgender kid, you're an abomination. Will school will get better for the gay kids in that elected official's district? I don't think so.
How is education improved by supporting politicians who say climate change science is a hoax? Can positive science education reform come from people who think we should "teach the controversy," i.e. teach creationism side-by-side with evolution? What kind of social studies education are we going to get from decision makers who want to make up their own facts and de-emphasize teaching the influence of founding fathers such as Thomas Jefferson because he's not Christian enough for them? Some reformers think that Rick Perry's (the man who held a Christian-centric, fundamentalist prayer rally as a way to solve political problems) anti-intellectual ideas for higher education are "visionary."
When reformers see fit to hand over the reigns of a sacred, public, democratic institution to people who hate the government, how is that supposed to work out? How can these education "reformers" imagine that anti-intellectuals can have anything of substance to offer to the intellectual pursuit of education? Is getting your questionable education reforms passed really worth empowering people who don't value knowledge-based education, public or otherwise? At some point, being anti-science and anti-intellectual means you're anti-education. If you have disdain for the creation of knowledge, or for knowledge itself even, you can't really be trusted to oversee the reform of one of our society's principal mechanisms for generating and transferring knowledge.
The problem with a single-issue approach to education reform is that students don't lead single-issue lives. Democrats and neo-liberals who support decision-makers who would use their power to crush the Democratic party (through a war on unions of all stripes), who hate gay people, who deny climate change science, who support the disastrous Wars on Drugs and Terror, who don't even have the support of the saner members of their own party, who sell their states off to the highest bidders are acting irresponsibly and short-sightedly.
Do we really want to employ a pyromaniac to fix our fireplaces if it means giving him the opportunity soon thereafter to burn down our homes? When I do the calculus, I don't see children or students, public or knowledge-rich and meaningful education winning. I see homo-phobic, poverty-criminalizing, anti-intellectual, knowledge-agnostib, right-wing ideology winning and I have yet to understand why any self-described liberal or education reformer would support that.
Melton stressed that StudentsFirst is a single-issue group. "We support candidates that have positions on other issues we don't support," he said.Now, I can see agreeing with someone on one issue even when you disagree with them on most others. I, for, example, agree with Ron Paul's position that the War on Terror and the War on Drugs have been disasters, and have resulted most detrimentally in a War on Civil Liberties and a War on Dissent. But would I go so far as to vote for Ron Paul? Would I back him financially if I worked for the ACLU? I'd really have to weigh the pros and cons overall of a potential Ron Paul presidency. For example, Paul is also opposed to most civil rights legislation, saying naively that racial discrimination is "ancient history." Would ending the War on Drugs, aka The New Jim Crow, be better for our society and specifically for blacks, Latinos, and poor people than would keeping civil rights legislation in tact? Even then, the positions taken in his name make it clear that he should not be in any sort of position of political power.
Even more recently,Whitney Tilson of DFER fame wrote something (h/t Alexander Russo) that pushed back on the idea of single-issue advocacy. I blogged about the limitations of his revelations in my last post. One of his basic points was that poor people aren't going to ally themselves with powerful people on school reform when the powerful are at the same time voting against other measures meant to help poor people such as housing, healthcare, and jobs. From Tilson (as he perceives poor people and/or people of color would respond):
Even if I put aside the jobs issue, and even if I believed that you were genuine in caring about the admittedly lousy schools in my community, I don’t like or trust you one bit because on every other issue, you are waging war against me and my people. If you really gave a tinker’s damn about my community, you’d see that the issues go far beyond the schools: job training, unemployment benefits, healthcare, social services, immigration, voting rights, etc. On EVERY one of these issues, everything you stand for is contrary to the interests of me and my people.As I said in my post, I think this is an astute observation. You're not going to get poor or working class people to go along with education reform if you're killing them on every other issue they care about. I would push Tilson's analysis a step further. I don't agree with many of the specific education reforms that he and those Removits wrote about do, but even if I did, I have no confidence that meaningful education reform can happen if those empowered to legislate those reforms are at the same time generally anti- certain groups of people, anti-science, and anti-intellectual.
Rick Scott, for example, wanted to drug test the urine of those who need some help from public assistance. We want to reform your schools but let us invade your privacy and question your integrity first. Or how about by supporting politicians who want to cut off health care for women, particularly for poor women? We want you to get a better education and go to college, but first we're gonna make sure your mom has no access to family planning or cancer prevention services. Also, what about being beholden to foundations funded by corporations who treat their employees and the communities they live in so ruthlessly? The wealth of the Walton family, for example, comes in part due to their ruthlessly efficient management and employee practices. We want to help your children with better education but first let us exploit you and help to sustain the awful conditions of poverty you live in. But when we look for philanthropy, we can't trust you, we'll give the money we made exploiting you to other rich people who say they want to help you. Finally, what about gay people? How can education be improved for everyone when some education reform-minded politicians don't accept gay people? We support better education and schools for all kids, but if you're a gay or transgender kid, you're an abomination. Will school will get better for the gay kids in that elected official's district? I don't think so.
How is education improved by supporting politicians who say climate change science is a hoax? Can positive science education reform come from people who think we should "teach the controversy," i.e. teach creationism side-by-side with evolution? What kind of social studies education are we going to get from decision makers who want to make up their own facts and de-emphasize teaching the influence of founding fathers such as Thomas Jefferson because he's not Christian enough for them? Some reformers think that Rick Perry's (the man who held a Christian-centric, fundamentalist prayer rally as a way to solve political problems) anti-intellectual ideas for higher education are "visionary."
When reformers see fit to hand over the reigns of a sacred, public, democratic institution to people who hate the government, how is that supposed to work out? How can these education "reformers" imagine that anti-intellectuals can have anything of substance to offer to the intellectual pursuit of education? Is getting your questionable education reforms passed really worth empowering people who don't value knowledge-based education, public or otherwise? At some point, being anti-science and anti-intellectual means you're anti-education. If you have disdain for the creation of knowledge, or for knowledge itself even, you can't really be trusted to oversee the reform of one of our society's principal mechanisms for generating and transferring knowledge.
The problem with a single-issue approach to education reform is that students don't lead single-issue lives. Democrats and neo-liberals who support decision-makers who would use their power to crush the Democratic party (through a war on unions of all stripes), who hate gay people, who deny climate change science, who support the disastrous Wars on Drugs and Terror, who don't even have the support of the saner members of their own party, who sell their states off to the highest bidders are acting irresponsibly and short-sightedly.
Do we really want to employ a pyromaniac to fix our fireplaces if it means giving him the opportunity soon thereafter to burn down our homes? When I do the calculus, I don't see children or students, public or knowledge-rich and meaningful education winning. I see homo-phobic, poverty-criminalizing, anti-intellectual, knowledge-agnostib, right-wing ideology winning and I have yet to understand why any self-described liberal or education reformer would support that.
Just Because They're Poor Doesn't Make Them Saps
On Alexander Russo's This Week in Education blog, I read a really interesting e-mail written by Whitney Tilson who is a founder or president or something or other of DFER. You should read it and then read the comments.
The two main points he makes can be encapsulated in the following quotes:
But nor can we be oblivious to the negative impact on our kids when they lack the minimal resources needed to prepare them to come to school.Yes! Glad to see this. And I agree with Tilson that no one should wait for poverty to be fixed before endeavoring to improve education.
Then,
You are exactly on target with the issue of poverty. We cannot have people vote against all of the things poor families need – jobs, housing for low and moderate income families, health care, food programs, etc. – but then say, "But I support vouchers or charter schools." To help the students who need the help the most we need both things: parent choice and programs aimed at getting people out of poverty.
I don't necessarily agree that choice and vouchers are the right reforms, but I think Tilson's analysis of ambivalence and distrust about certain political allegiances in light of rigth-wing platforms and politics beyond education is right on. I've thought the same thing myself.
There are, however, a few things that seem to be totally absent from Tilson's revelations:
1) What Robert Pondiscio said in the comments: education and education reform should be presented as a way to improve communities and not as a way to get away from them.*
2) The very real possibility that at least some of the reforms themselves are not palatable and not what at least some of the people in the communities Tilson talks about engaging want.
It's as if Tilson saying that poor people and people of color only reject the current reforms because they're top-down, brought by rich white people, and will cost them jobs. This reminds me some of what I took such issue with Richard Whitmire several months ago for saying about education reform in DC.
First of all, yes, people want change, but if people like Tilson come in and don't listen to what community leaders say is needed in particular to reform schools (and not just to help bring housing, jobs, and healthcare) and do something entirely different. This line of Tilson's is very telling:
Many in our movement have figured this out and are taking important steps to, for example, engage poor/minority parents, bypassing conflicted and sometimes corrupt community “leaders”, but much more needs to be done.There's an assumption that "conflicted" community leaders must automatically be by-passed, that conflictedness, in other words skepticism, is not to be heeded.
Furthermore, what about the substance of the reforms (or lack of substance)? Is Tilson assuming that poor people and people of color don't know what good education is? What if at least some of them do know or have opinions about what good education is and don't have confidence that the policies that DFER et al promote have brought or will bring it? Have Tilson et al ever considered that at least some of their ideas might be bad ones? Don't they think it's time they did? Perhaps the unpopularity of Tilson's product is not just due to how the product is being sold and to who's doing the selling. Perhaps people aren't buying what Tilson et al are selling because they're selling a junky product. Perhaps people know better.
*UPDATE: I want to push back a little against what Robert says here in his comment:
Toward that end, it might help if reformers positioned their work as a way to improve the intellectual capital and economic prospects of the neighborhoods they served.If reformers' "work" includes promoting (or as is often the case, forcing) knowledge-free content such as the likes of Balanced Literacy, Everyday Math, and little to no teaching of any other subject, I'm not confident much "intellectual capital" will be brought back to any neighborhood.
TECHNOLOGY TASK FORCE VOTES UNANIMOUSLY TO APPROVE 47 RECOMMENDATIONS
The 38-member Students Come First Technology Task Force today voted unanimously to approve recommendations that will help the state and local school districts successfully implement the technology components of the state’s education reform laws. In total, the Task Force approved 47 recommendations.
“I am impressed with the work of the Task Force. In June, 38 individuals came together with different ideas, attitudes and opinions about education reform in Idaho. After months of study and hard work, we agreed unanimously on the best ways to move the Students Come First laws forward across our state,” Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Luna said. “Through these laws and now with these recommendations, we will truly be able to provide equal education opportunities for all Idaho students and the tools and resources Idaho teachers need to raise academic achievement.”
In 2011, Superintendent Luna worked with Governor C.L. “Butch” Otter and the Idaho Legislature to pass comprehensive education reform that will make every classroom a 21st Century Classroom, ensure every student has access to a highly effective teacher every year in school, and give parents immediate access to understandable information about their child’s school and district.
Under Senate Bill 1184, Superintendent Luna was charged with chairing a task force to help in implementing the technology components of the Students Come First law. Specifically, this task force was asked to study and develop plans for the one-to-one ratio of mobile computing devices in high schools, the online credit requirement, the necessary professional development for teachers, and other topics determined by the task force chairman.
The Task Force was made up of classroom teachers, parents, principals, superintendents, school board trustees, legislators, business managers, technology directors, and representatives of the business community. Eleven positions on the task force were appointed by educational stakeholder groups as well as the Idaho Legislature and the Office of the Governor.
Here are highlights of the recommendations approved by the Task Force today:
• The state phase in the one-to-one mobile computing devices to one-third of high schools at a time, beginning in Fall 2013. High school teachers will still receive devices in Fall 2012.
• The state procure a laptop as the mobile computing device.
• If local school boards determine the device will be taken home, all schools provide parent trainings multiple times throughout the year. Attendance at one training would be required before the device is taken home.
• The state increase the amount of professional development allowed in school calendars.
• The state require Idaho’s colleges of education to ensure pre-service students learn how to integrate technology in the classroom before becoming teachers.
• The State Department of Education work with local schools and districts to develop and implement an online portal where parents and students can get more information on each online course, including the provider, instructor, quality and performance metrics and parent and student customer ratings.
For more information on the work of the Technology Task Force, including a list of Task Force members, meeting minutes, and a list of recommendations, visit http://www.studentscomefirst.org/technologytaskforce.htm.
“I am impressed with the work of the Task Force. In June, 38 individuals came together with different ideas, attitudes and opinions about education reform in Idaho. After months of study and hard work, we agreed unanimously on the best ways to move the Students Come First laws forward across our state,” Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Luna said. “Through these laws and now with these recommendations, we will truly be able to provide equal education opportunities for all Idaho students and the tools and resources Idaho teachers need to raise academic achievement.”
In 2011, Superintendent Luna worked with Governor C.L. “Butch” Otter and the Idaho Legislature to pass comprehensive education reform that will make every classroom a 21st Century Classroom, ensure every student has access to a highly effective teacher every year in school, and give parents immediate access to understandable information about their child’s school and district.
Under Senate Bill 1184, Superintendent Luna was charged with chairing a task force to help in implementing the technology components of the Students Come First law. Specifically, this task force was asked to study and develop plans for the one-to-one ratio of mobile computing devices in high schools, the online credit requirement, the necessary professional development for teachers, and other topics determined by the task force chairman.
The Task Force was made up of classroom teachers, parents, principals, superintendents, school board trustees, legislators, business managers, technology directors, and representatives of the business community. Eleven positions on the task force were appointed by educational stakeholder groups as well as the Idaho Legislature and the Office of the Governor.
Here are highlights of the recommendations approved by the Task Force today:
• The state phase in the one-to-one mobile computing devices to one-third of high schools at a time, beginning in Fall 2013. High school teachers will still receive devices in Fall 2012.
• The state procure a laptop as the mobile computing device.
• If local school boards determine the device will be taken home, all schools provide parent trainings multiple times throughout the year. Attendance at one training would be required before the device is taken home.
• The state increase the amount of professional development allowed in school calendars.
• The state require Idaho’s colleges of education to ensure pre-service students learn how to integrate technology in the classroom before becoming teachers.
• The State Department of Education work with local schools and districts to develop and implement an online portal where parents and students can get more information on each online course, including the provider, instructor, quality and performance metrics and parent and student customer ratings.
For more information on the work of the Technology Task Force, including a list of Task Force members, meeting minutes, and a list of recommendations, visit http://www.studentscomefirst.org/technologytaskforce.htm.
In which I nitpick on the subject of the opportunity/ achievement gap, charters, and Rhee's legacy in DC
With the release of the NAEP TUDA stats, there's been a lot of conversation swirling around achievement gaps and the efficacy of neo-liberal education reforms in urban districts. In particular, there's been some talk about how to judge Michelle Rhee's legacy, especially in light of the fact that that DC has the largest achievement gap between black and white students and one of the highest between poor and non-poor of all the cities featured in the report. Education journalists such as Alexander Russo weighed in here and Dana Goldstein offered some mostly solid analysis here.
Some folks are saying that Rhee's policies caused the gap. I don't agree with this. While Rhee's policies are no good, let's be honest: there were large educational opportunity and achievement gaps ways before Rhee came to town. Furthermore, DC has always had relatively large income inequality (but, yes, paralleling the national trend, it's gotten worse). The main industries in DC (government, lobbying, non-profits, etc) are such that the demographics in DC are unique. While there are service industry workers there are almost no blue collar workers. The middle and upper-middle class population in DC is not typical--its members are largely much more highly educated and well-traveled. I could go on--this is a very complex topic, an entire book could be written about it. But Rhee didn't cause this. She may symbolize it (the 1% making policy for the 99%, etc), but her policies didn't cause it.
One thing, though, that's been claimed by many, and implied by both Alexander Russo and Dana Goldstein is that Rhee deserves "credit" for the fact that charter school enrollment went up in the years she was there. Giving her "credit" for this makes no sense. Charter schools in DC are run completely separately from DCPS. She talked a lot about choice and charter schools but she didn't actually do anything for the charter schools while she was there. There's a lot more to the relationship between the two or the lack thereof, especially given the complex genesis and history of charter schools in DC, than has been covered.
Furthermore, I don't see how that makes Rhee et al look good if charter school enrollment went up. Did DCPS enrollment go up? Did it go up uniformly throughout the city and not just in the neighborhoods where test scores tend to be higher, where principals are left alone, and where the schools got renovated? If yes, give her credit for that. But saying that she deserves credit for charter school enrollment going up is like saying that the CEO of Coke deserves credit for more people purchasing Pepsi (and hence drinking more cola in general) because they're dis-satisfied with Coke. If the competition model (which I don't subscribe to, by the way) is supposed to make systems and schools compete for students than how can it be said that Rhee was successful on her and her similarly-minded reformers' own terms if she drove families away from DCPS and into charters. If that's the measure, then as head of DCPS, Rhee failed. She competed for and lost students.
Some might then counter, well, who cares if DCPS lost students under Rhee as long as options or "choice" expanded? As long as public schools overall, including traditional and charters, gained students? Well, okay, but then why should someone like Rhee, who is ambivalent about the existence of public, democratic institutions such as traditional public schools, be running them? How is getting someone who doesn't care in particular about neighborhood schools to run them going to help them improve?
Also, for the record, Rhee did not "streamline" the bureaucracy as Goldstein suggests in her post. As I discussed here and here, the bureaucracy actually got bigger and costlier under Rhee and Henderson. But I guess that's part of the Common Wisdom about Very Serious People that Very Serious Education Pundits are too busy and underpaid to shake themselves of. Or perhaps it's part of some misguided attempt to "balance" coverage. If the information is not accurate, if the coverage is based on assumptions rather than on facts and evidence, however, then that's not "balance," it's misinformation.
Yes, Michelle Rhee did lots wrong and surely she did some things right. But education reform skeptics, fans, and journalists alike should find out what those things actually are first and then examine them in light of the NAEP scores and other data and outcomes. Sheesh.
Some folks are saying that Rhee's policies caused the gap. I don't agree with this. While Rhee's policies are no good, let's be honest: there were large educational opportunity and achievement gaps ways before Rhee came to town. Furthermore, DC has always had relatively large income inequality (but, yes, paralleling the national trend, it's gotten worse). The main industries in DC (government, lobbying, non-profits, etc) are such that the demographics in DC are unique. While there are service industry workers there are almost no blue collar workers. The middle and upper-middle class population in DC is not typical--its members are largely much more highly educated and well-traveled. I could go on--this is a very complex topic, an entire book could be written about it. But Rhee didn't cause this. She may symbolize it (the 1% making policy for the 99%, etc), but her policies didn't cause it.
One thing, though, that's been claimed by many, and implied by both Alexander Russo and Dana Goldstein is that Rhee deserves "credit" for the fact that charter school enrollment went up in the years she was there. Giving her "credit" for this makes no sense. Charter schools in DC are run completely separately from DCPS. She talked a lot about choice and charter schools but she didn't actually do anything for the charter schools while she was there. There's a lot more to the relationship between the two or the lack thereof, especially given the complex genesis and history of charter schools in DC, than has been covered.
Furthermore, I don't see how that makes Rhee et al look good if charter school enrollment went up. Did DCPS enrollment go up? Did it go up uniformly throughout the city and not just in the neighborhoods where test scores tend to be higher, where principals are left alone, and where the schools got renovated? If yes, give her credit for that. But saying that she deserves credit for charter school enrollment going up is like saying that the CEO of Coke deserves credit for more people purchasing Pepsi (and hence drinking more cola in general) because they're dis-satisfied with Coke. If the competition model (which I don't subscribe to, by the way) is supposed to make systems and schools compete for students than how can it be said that Rhee was successful on her and her similarly-minded reformers' own terms if she drove families away from DCPS and into charters. If that's the measure, then as head of DCPS, Rhee failed. She competed for and lost students.
Some might then counter, well, who cares if DCPS lost students under Rhee as long as options or "choice" expanded? As long as public schools overall, including traditional and charters, gained students? Well, okay, but then why should someone like Rhee, who is ambivalent about the existence of public, democratic institutions such as traditional public schools, be running them? How is getting someone who doesn't care in particular about neighborhood schools to run them going to help them improve?
Also, for the record, Rhee did not "streamline" the bureaucracy as Goldstein suggests in her post. As I discussed here and here, the bureaucracy actually got bigger and costlier under Rhee and Henderson. But I guess that's part of the Common Wisdom about Very Serious People that Very Serious Education Pundits are too busy and underpaid to shake themselves of. Or perhaps it's part of some misguided attempt to "balance" coverage. If the information is not accurate, if the coverage is based on assumptions rather than on facts and evidence, however, then that's not "balance," it's misinformation.
Yes, Michelle Rhee did lots wrong and surely she did some things right. But education reform skeptics, fans, and journalists alike should find out what those things actually are first and then examine them in light of the NAEP scores and other data and outcomes. Sheesh.
BOISE STUDENT WINS HOLIDAY CARD CONTEST
“Congratulations to You-Jean Cho for winning the grand prize this year! Idaho’s annual Holiday Card Contest is a great way to celebrate the importance of arts in education and showcase the great talent of Idaho’s students,” Superintendent Luna said.
Cho’s artwork will be featured on the State Department of Education’s holiday greeting cards this year, which are sent to schools, districts and others across the state. She will also receive a certificate and copies of the greeting card to share with her friends and family members.
“We are so proud of You-Jean for being selected for this statewide honor,” said Boise Superintendent Don Coberly. “Though she arrived in the United States just last year, she has impressed her Jefferson Elementary School teachers with her talent and dedication to her studies. Her use of artistic perspective and attention to detail are unusual for a student of her age.”
Superintendent Luna also awarded the following grade-level winners across the state:
• Kindergarten: Lydia Frederick, Pioneer Elementary School, Weiser School District
• 1st Grade: Emmitt Brown, Idaho Virtual Academy, Post Falls
• 2nd Grade: Tucker Rhodes, Orchards Elementary School, Lewiston School District
• 3rd Grade: Breanna Nine, McSorley Elementary School, Lewiston School District
• 4th Grade: Sophia Boson, McSorley Elementary School, Lewiston School District
• 5th Grade: Rebecca Hammond, Idaho Virtual Academy, Deary
• 6th Grade: Taytum Allen, New Plymouth Middle School, New Plymouth School District
Congratulations to all the winners! Each student will receive a certificate of recognition. The grand prize winner’s drawing is posted online at http://www.sde.idaho.gov/site/media_center/.
For electronic copies of other artwork, please e-mail Melissa McGrath at mrmcgrath@sde.idaho.gov.
The Importance of Being Honest (in ed reform conversations)
I have a few follow-ups to offer and a few loose ends to tie up. Fortunately, for the sake of coherent (well, maybe) blogging, they all tie together.
1) As a follow-up to my recent post on parent engagement, parent accountability, and charter schools, I wanted to add that I think one way to solve the problem of charter schools keeping students out because their parents won't fulfill requirements of the school would be if charter schools worked under the umbrella of the district where they were located. What if we took the concept of "competition" between schools out and replaced it with "collaboration" among schools? If the charters and the traditional schools worked together to find the place school placement for kids? Either working with families or in the case of parents-in-absentia, teachers, counselors, and principals could recommend certain students to certain charter schools or there could be "education placement" counselors assigned to students who don't have parent advocates.
Of course, this would pose a bit of a funding problem but not if there was more sharing of resources (though not co-locations--as has been demonstrated in New York City, those are a bad idea). We would also have to minimize top-down mandates and bureaucratic red tape for ALL schools. Accountability schemes that are degrading to traditional/neighborhood schools are going to be just as degrading to charter schools that are evaluated by the same standards.
Another potential problem is that (initially, at least) the very reason for charter schools in DC, for example, is that DCPS was so terribly run--educators, social service providers, and parents wanted to free themselves of the DCPS administration. I was a bit put off recently when I read one tweeter arguing to another that, "Schools and teachers don't make kids drop out." While I believe we have much more a problem of systems rather than of individuals, and it's not always the case, poor schools and teachers do in some cases drive kids and families out. Some kids do have bad experiences in some schools and with some certain teachers and in certain systems. There was a real need for change and reform in some of those systems, let's not kid ourselves. Now, DCPS continues to be terribly run (only now its employees have Ivy League degrees and wear J.Crew, so people assume otherwise) but it's also more top-down than ever and ideological, to boot. I can't see those charter school people who are dedicated to rich and appropriate education wanting anything to do with that, either.
2) Which leads me to this. The DC Public Charter School Board recently employed a new ratings system to rate their schools, the idea being that the lowest-performing schools would be closed based on those ratings. Okay, so accountability for charter schools via a sort-of jury of their peers is a good thing. The problem as I see it is what they're being rated on. From The Examiner article:
3) Which leads me to this. The city-by-city report of NAEP scores is out and guess what: DC has the largest achievement gap between black and white students than any other urban center in the report. Michael Casserly said this to explain the gap:
I have great sympathy for that and he's right on about the demographic differences between say Cleveland and DC. I appreciate this nuanced and informed explanation. How refreshing! But isn't this what some ed reform skeptics have been saying all along and haven't they oft been shouted down by cries of, "Poverty is not destiny!" "Poverty is not an excuse!" Casserly represents many school reformer superintendents (such as Chancellor Henderson of DCPS). Is this an admittance that income inequality and poverty can make not an insignificant impact on standardized test scores and academic achievement?
4) Which leads me to this. In response to DC parent Natalie Hopkinson's School Choice op-ed, Fordham Institute's Michael Petrilli chalks up the dearth of choice in DC to gentrification; there used to be a lot more spots for out-of-boundary students in high-performing schools west of the park but now those are being occupied by more affluent (and often white) kids who live in boundary. He is not wrong about this. But he leaves two important things out:
A) There was and is preferential treatment for Ward 3 schools. The facilities funding has been greater for Ward 3 schools as has been the responsiveness to Ward 3 communities. One of my sources tells me it's hard to get folks from DCPS central administration to even attend meetings in schools east of the Park.
B) It's very hard to replicate for all kids in DC what charter schools in DC do when: i) By law, charter schools must be city-wide and can not give preference to neighborhood kids and ii) Some charter schools don't serve kids, for example, with special needs or don't serve kids, for example, whose parents don't sign contracts or agreements of commitment. And private schools that accept vouchers can't be forced to accept (and retain) students for the same reasons. It's not reasonable to expect that expanding charters and vouchers will help neighborhood kids when those schools don't necessarily have to (or mean to) serve neighborhood kids.
Of course, many systems were in need of reform. Of course not every school can serve the needs of all kids. A conversation about the values of charter schools and choice is one worth having. What are the pros and cons of different policies? Of different systemic models? How have they worked in in the past? In other districts? In other countries? What will do the most kids the greatest good? What are the implications of such policies on our democracy?
But there can be no conversation about these things if the participants aren't being honest about all of the factors, including mistakes and shortcomings. I'm all for not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. But dishonesty, inaccuracy, and hypocrisy are the enemies of them both.
*UPDATE I: Reading tweets from @teacherken and @samchaltain of Pasi Sahlberg's talk at the Finnish Embassy in DC last night, I was reminded that "responsibility" is a much better term than "accountability" in this context as in, we should "Prioritize collective responsibility not individual accountability."
1) As a follow-up to my recent post on parent engagement, parent accountability, and charter schools, I wanted to add that I think one way to solve the problem of charter schools keeping students out because their parents won't fulfill requirements of the school would be if charter schools worked under the umbrella of the district where they were located. What if we took the concept of "competition" between schools out and replaced it with "collaboration" among schools? If the charters and the traditional schools worked together to find the place school placement for kids? Either working with families or in the case of parents-in-absentia, teachers, counselors, and principals could recommend certain students to certain charter schools or there could be "education placement" counselors assigned to students who don't have parent advocates.
Of course, this would pose a bit of a funding problem but not if there was more sharing of resources (though not co-locations--as has been demonstrated in New York City, those are a bad idea). We would also have to minimize top-down mandates and bureaucratic red tape for ALL schools. Accountability schemes that are degrading to traditional/neighborhood schools are going to be just as degrading to charter schools that are evaluated by the same standards.
Another potential problem is that (initially, at least) the very reason for charter schools in DC, for example, is that DCPS was so terribly run--educators, social service providers, and parents wanted to free themselves of the DCPS administration. I was a bit put off recently when I read one tweeter arguing to another that, "Schools and teachers don't make kids drop out." While I believe we have much more a problem of systems rather than of individuals, and it's not always the case, poor schools and teachers do in some cases drive kids and families out. Some kids do have bad experiences in some schools and with some certain teachers and in certain systems. There was a real need for change and reform in some of those systems, let's not kid ourselves. Now, DCPS continues to be terribly run (only now its employees have Ivy League degrees and wear J.Crew, so people assume otherwise) but it's also more top-down than ever and ideological, to boot. I can't see those charter school people who are dedicated to rich and appropriate education wanting anything to do with that, either.
2) Which leads me to this. The DC Public Charter School Board recently employed a new ratings system to rate their schools, the idea being that the lowest-performing schools would be closed based on those ratings. Okay, so accountability for charter schools via a sort-of jury of their peers is a good thing. The problem as I see it is what they're being rated on. From The Examiner article:
Schools are ranked based on factors such as performance on state exams, attendance, re-enrollment rates, and attention to critical grades. In the elementary and middle schools, a school's year-to-year improvement accounts for the lion's share of the rating at 40 percent.There is no consideration of curriculum, pedagogy, or instruction, or of what is actually being taught or what is actually happening in classrooms. People tell me this rating system is better and more comprehensive than what DCPS uses, but if it doesn't evaluate schools on the quality of education being offered, I don't see how it's valuable. Our schools will be what we hold them accountable for.*
3) Which leads me to this. The city-by-city report of NAEP scores is out and guess what: DC has the largest achievement gap between black and white students than any other urban center in the report. Michael Casserly said this to explain the gap:
The District’s racial gap is really an income divide, said Michael Casserly, executive director of the Council of the Great City Schools, which represents the largest urban school systems.“You’ve got relatively more well-to-do whites in Upper Northwest quadrants, particularly Ward 3, which score higher than white students nationally and you’re comparing it with poor, African American students largely in Wards 7 and 8,” Casserly said. “There are extreme income disparities.”
I have great sympathy for that and he's right on about the demographic differences between say Cleveland and DC. I appreciate this nuanced and informed explanation. How refreshing! But isn't this what some ed reform skeptics have been saying all along and haven't they oft been shouted down by cries of, "Poverty is not destiny!" "Poverty is not an excuse!" Casserly represents many school reformer superintendents (such as Chancellor Henderson of DCPS). Is this an admittance that income inequality and poverty can make not an insignificant impact on standardized test scores and academic achievement?
4) Which leads me to this. In response to DC parent Natalie Hopkinson's School Choice op-ed, Fordham Institute's Michael Petrilli chalks up the dearth of choice in DC to gentrification; there used to be a lot more spots for out-of-boundary students in high-performing schools west of the park but now those are being occupied by more affluent (and often white) kids who live in boundary. He is not wrong about this. But he leaves two important things out:
A) There was and is preferential treatment for Ward 3 schools. The facilities funding has been greater for Ward 3 schools as has been the responsiveness to Ward 3 communities. One of my sources tells me it's hard to get folks from DCPS central administration to even attend meetings in schools east of the Park.
B) It's very hard to replicate for all kids in DC what charter schools in DC do when: i) By law, charter schools must be city-wide and can not give preference to neighborhood kids and ii) Some charter schools don't serve kids, for example, with special needs or don't serve kids, for example, whose parents don't sign contracts or agreements of commitment. And private schools that accept vouchers can't be forced to accept (and retain) students for the same reasons. It's not reasonable to expect that expanding charters and vouchers will help neighborhood kids when those schools don't necessarily have to (or mean to) serve neighborhood kids.
Of course, many systems were in need of reform. Of course not every school can serve the needs of all kids. A conversation about the values of charter schools and choice is one worth having. What are the pros and cons of different policies? Of different systemic models? How have they worked in in the past? In other districts? In other countries? What will do the most kids the greatest good? What are the implications of such policies on our democracy?
But there can be no conversation about these things if the participants aren't being honest about all of the factors, including mistakes and shortcomings. I'm all for not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. But dishonesty, inaccuracy, and hypocrisy are the enemies of them both.
*UPDATE I: Reading tweets from @teacherken and @samchaltain of Pasi Sahlberg's talk at the Finnish Embassy in DC last night, I was reminded that "responsibility" is a much better term than "accountability" in this context as in, we should "Prioritize collective responsibility not individual accountability."
Sun Valley to host December "Capital for a Day"
Governor C.L. “Butch” Otter announced today that the Blaine County community of Sun Valley will be Idaho’s “Capital for a Day” on Wednesday, December 21st. The event will coincide with the celebration of Sun Valley’s 75th anniversary.
Governor Otter brings State government to Idahoans living outside Boise each month by making a different town in Idaho the state’s “Capital for a Day.” The events provide local residents an all-day opportunity to have open discussions about government issues with Governor Otter, members of his Cabinet and other senior State officials.
The open meeting is scheduled from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Sun Valley Inn, Continental Room. Governor Otter will join Mayor Wayne Willich and other local leaders for a lunch at noon at the same location. The public is encouraged to attend the lunch, which will cost $10 per person.
Officials joining Governor Otter and First Lady Lori Otter at Capital for a Day will include Lieutenant Governor Brad Little; Secretary of State Ben Ysursa; Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Luna; Brigadier General Bill Shawver, commanding officer of the Idaho Air National Guard and director of the Idaho Bureau of Homeland Security; Roger Madsen, director of the Idaho Department of Labor; Dick Armstrong, director of the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare; Bill Deal, director of the Idaho Department of Insurance; Brian Ness, director of the Idaho Transportation Department; Jeff Sayer, director of the Idaho Department of Commerce; Brent Reinke, director of the Idaho Department of Correction; Gary Spackman, interim director of the Idaho Department of Water Resources; Jeff Anderson, director of the Idaho Lottery and the Idaho State Liquor Division; College of Southern Idaho President Jerry Beck; Michael Faison, director of the Idaho Commission on the Arts; and Jim Unsworth, deputy director of the Idaho Department of Fish and Game.
Also on hand to help answer questions from residents will be a representative from the State Board of Education and regional representatives from the Idaho Department of Parks and Recreation, Idaho State Historical Society, Idaho State Police, Idaho Department of Lands, and the Idaho Division of Building Safety.
“Sun Valley has been synonymous with resort and recreational excellence for 75 years now. We all are proud to be associated not only with the name, but more importantly with the people who make it great,” Governor Otter said. “There is a unique set of challenges associated with a community like Sun Valley. I look forward to hearing the perspective of those who live, work and raise their families here.”
Governor Otter brings State government to Idahoans living outside Boise each month by making a different town in Idaho the state’s “Capital for a Day.” The events provide local residents an all-day opportunity to have open discussions about government issues with Governor Otter, members of his Cabinet and other senior State officials.
The open meeting is scheduled from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Sun Valley Inn, Continental Room. Governor Otter will join Mayor Wayne Willich and other local leaders for a lunch at noon at the same location. The public is encouraged to attend the lunch, which will cost $10 per person.
Officials joining Governor Otter and First Lady Lori Otter at Capital for a Day will include Lieutenant Governor Brad Little; Secretary of State Ben Ysursa; Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Luna; Brigadier General Bill Shawver, commanding officer of the Idaho Air National Guard and director of the Idaho Bureau of Homeland Security; Roger Madsen, director of the Idaho Department of Labor; Dick Armstrong, director of the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare; Bill Deal, director of the Idaho Department of Insurance; Brian Ness, director of the Idaho Transportation Department; Jeff Sayer, director of the Idaho Department of Commerce; Brent Reinke, director of the Idaho Department of Correction; Gary Spackman, interim director of the Idaho Department of Water Resources; Jeff Anderson, director of the Idaho Lottery and the Idaho State Liquor Division; College of Southern Idaho President Jerry Beck; Michael Faison, director of the Idaho Commission on the Arts; and Jim Unsworth, deputy director of the Idaho Department of Fish and Game.
Also on hand to help answer questions from residents will be a representative from the State Board of Education and regional representatives from the Idaho Department of Parks and Recreation, Idaho State Historical Society, Idaho State Police, Idaho Department of Lands, and the Idaho Division of Building Safety.
“Sun Valley has been synonymous with resort and recreational excellence for 75 years now. We all are proud to be associated not only with the name, but more importantly with the people who make it great,” Governor Otter said. “There is a unique set of challenges associated with a community like Sun Valley. I look forward to hearing the perspective of those who live, work and raise their families here.”
School "Reform" in DC: Is the Problem Choice or What Compels Families to Choose?
After reading the New York times op-ed on school choice in DC, I asked some folks close to what's happening in education there for their thoughts. Mary Levy sent me what is written below and (with her permission), I decided to use it as a guest post. Mary Levy has analyzed DC Public Schoolstaffing, budget and expenditures, and monitored the progress of educationreform for thirty years. She is a majorsource for fiscal, statistical and general information on DCPS for the media,government officials and non-profit, business and civic groups. She directedthe Public Education Reform Project at the Washington Lawyers' Committee forCivil Rights & Urban Affairs for 19 years, during which she played a majorrole in developing the District of Columbia’s school funding systems, wrotenumerous reports on DCPS, and participated in every major reform planninginitiative. Previously, in private practice with Rauh,Lichtman, Levy & Turner, she did civil litigation in civil rights, laborlaw, and school finance, including major litigations in New York and Maryland.
I share Natalie Hopkinson’s frustration, as expressed in an op-ed in today's New York Times and have for a long time. Unfortunately, some of her facts are wrong (Has the New York Times now dispensed with fact checkers?) Furthermore, the larger problem in the District isn't choice per se, but why families feel compelled to exercise choice.
To address some of the inaccuracies, what Congress has done is little compared to the work of DC's own elected officials. In 1995 Congress produced only the charter law and there was nothing about an option to transfer. The DC Council at the same time separately enacted a parallel law. Congress never did a choice policy for DC. Vouchers, which came later, were in fact, much to the chagrin of some of us, endorsed by our elected officials, including the Mayor, the Council Chair, and the President of the Board of Education. As for performance on tests, charter schools in DC on average have test scores somewhat higher than DCPS schools, though not by a lot. As to the closure of schools whose students struggle the most, the schools that then Chancellor Rhee closed on the whole actually had higher test scores than the schools to which their students were later sent; they were also more likely to have made Adequate Yearly Progress. And a reminder: Rhee was not appointed by Congress but by the popularly elected Mayor Fenty.
The argument about choice has been going on at least since I become involved in DCPS in the mid-1970s and probably before that. Many school activists from east of Rock Creek Park argued passionately against out-of-boundary placements, even when they were (allegedly) based on need. The assumption is that if the government forces people to stay in neighborhood schools, the parents will stay and make the schools be good. The result here has not been so felicitous--those with the means, or the moxie to get outside help, move to the suburbs or pay for low-cost independent or parochial schools. In fact, part of charter growth is from those schools, rather than from DCPS. I have watched over thirty years while determined parents tried to make their neighborhood schools better--and were mostly rebuffed or ignored. Even west of the Park, where my children attended DC Public Schools, we spent the majority of our efforts trying to neutralize the damage done by the DCPS administration. Still, we were more successful than those east of the Park.
With the appointment of Michelle Rhee and the end of any avenue for meaningful parent involvement or influence, the situation is even worse. The schools west of the Park and some in gentrified Capitol Hill are favored, and DCPS administration is more authoritarian and unresponsive than ever to the rest. It is also elitist, and more uninformed, more unstable, more arbitrary, and less competent than before the mayoral takeover--a distinctly dubious achievement, since the situation was pretty bad before. That’s why so many people--both families and good staff--leave.
Now our elected officials and their appointees are threatening to close more neighborhood schools and bring in outside charter operators. Currently, charter schools in DC are city-wide by law and may not give preference to neighborhood children. Many current DC charter schools are local products, started by DCPS parents, teachers, principals, and social service providers who couldn’t take any more of DCPS. They’re going to be under threat too--because of the latest “reform” panacea, closing schools in order to bring in new operators and their programs with no little or no evidence of effectiveness, and new teachers and principals, many poorly prepared and foreign to communities here. I see the advent of charter school chains as trading a remote DCPS bureaucracy for a remote private bureaucracy located elsewhere in the country.
In the old days there was a lot more out-of-boundary space in the schools west of the Park; in addition, though few people realized it, there was a lot of out-of-boundary placement within neighborhoods and wards. Now, due to demographic change and favorable treatment, there is not much out-of-boundary space in schools west of the Park, so we could get a test of the parents-can-make-their-neighborhood-schools-good proposition east of the Park. But only if the schools stay open and only if the parents stay.
Joyful Reading
It is often difficult to help a struggling child keep a positive attitude about reading. For many children it becomes a daunting and impossible task. It is up to the adult working with the child to do everything possible to instill in the child a desire to be successfull and a feeling that she can become a reader. That is a challenge for us all. How do we help the child become excited about something that she feels unsuccessful doing? I think that tracking (grouping children by ability) is one of the mistakes teachers often make. Reading researchers indicate that tracking is one of the worst things that can be done for a child on or below reading level. She has no models for success and she may mentally label herself as "dumb." Those are hard issues to overcome. Mixed level groups and activities seem to be the most successful for struggling readers. I had a lot of success in my own classroom with mixed groups. It was a beginning step to instilling that desire to read in a child who originally had that excitement when she started school.
Teaching Quality Series Part V: Parental Engagement
It's generally true that the more that parents are involved in their children's education, the more academically successful their children will be and the more effective the teachers will (at least appear to) be. I largely agree with Thomas Friedman's take on this.
That being said, the seemingly growing "parent accountability" movement troubles me. Moreover, the strategies (which are in many cases de facto requirements) some charter schools are using to engage parents are in some cases are worth emulating but in others amount to punishing kids for the failures of their parents.
Before I continue, I must acknowledge that I have almost exclusively taught students with parents who weren't very involved in their education, despite my varied efforts, and so some of my thinking on this may be colored by a certain fatalism. The parents could have been less involved because I taught secondary school and parents often think of this as a time to step back. It could have been because the parents worked very long hours and simply didn't have the time be involved. It could have been because I taught mostly the children of immigrants, whose parents sometimes cede almost all education authority to schools and teachers, or whose parents want to be more involved but don't feel included in the school community. Also, in some cases, these parents expect their older children, especially the males, to be at least partial bread-winners, treating them more like adults. Alas, frankly, a handful of parents simply didn't seem to care.
Now, in my mind, a lack of involvement doesn't necessarily translate to a lack of support. If nothing else, being supportive means doing an adequate job at home, as a parent and as such: sending your kids to school prepared to learn, adequately feeding and housing your children, making sure they have a quiet place to study, and encouraging them to read and study. For me, as a teacher, such support would be more than enough.
That all being said, just because parents aren't much involved or supportive, doesn't mean in any way that teachers and schools shouldn't work actively work to engage, involve, and get input from parents; they absolutely should. However, if such outreach fails, teachers must still keep in mind that their job is to educate their students, regardless of parent involvement. Students should not be punished because of their parents' lack on involvement. At the bare minimum, the parents should parent and the teacher and school should educate. And when the parent fails to parent adequately, well, schools are still responsible to educate those children students as best they can.
Which leads me to parent accountability. I've noticed among some of the blogs I follow, some support of the concept of parent accountability. Now, these links are pretty old (yes, it takes me a loooong time to get around to finishing many of my posts), which I hope means the idea is losing traction, but in case it doesn't. . .
Though he recently agreed with Friedman's softer take, this past summer, Ed Week blogger and former teacher Walt Gardner expressed a bit of a harder line on parent accountability, saying:
Many states are considering fining parents for their children's truancy. In West Virginia, legislators proposed a bill that would revoke parents' driving licenses due to truancy and tardiness of their children. It's unclear to me how fining parents who are likely already struggling financially or taking away a means to get their children to school is supposed to help their children go to and succeed in school.
To me, these example of parent accountability via legislation is just spreading bad policy pain. I don't want to be held accountable for things that are beyond my control, but I also don't want parents and students to be held accountable for things beyond their control. The solution is not to transfer draconian and unreasonable demands from teachers onto parents (or even unto principals), to find new teams to play the blame game; the right thing to do is to do away with the concept altogether. As my father always told me growing up (and as I'm fond of declaring in these education reform conversations): Two wrongs don't make a right. We don't need a war on bad parents; we need a society and government that supports families, especially ones that are struggling. Also, do we really need to criminalize more things in our society? I really don't think so.
Some reformers, for example, Peter Meyer of Fordham, makes the case that good schools will make good parents. He posited in an earlier post that charters are superior to neighborhood schools because they better educate kids and they get better results. He said that KIPP, for example, creates motivated parents rather than merely attracting them because the type of education KIPP offers is a motivator. I tried to discuss the finer points of this with him (for one it's very hard to measure motivation) but didn't get very far.
Though people like Meyer do have a point that KIPP may well "motivate" parents simply by offering a solid education, this logic is ultimately faulty. I, as a neighborhood school classroom teacher, can promise and offer a rigorous and engaging curriculum, but I can't say that students can only remain in my class if their parents do their homework with them each night. That would be punishing my students for the behavior or actions of their parents. That's not fair to the students. Also, I just really couldn't do that.
I am responsible for communicating and being available to all parents, but if the parents don't do their part, I still have to treat that student the same as the one whose parent does meet me halfway. I need to promise my students best and most appropriate pedagogical practices and a rich and meaningful curriculum. If the parents get more on board because of that, so be it, but my duty is primarily to their children, not to them. Likewise, as a teacher I learned to assume nothing about my students' home life, to give only homework that they could do on their own. Any bigger projects that required supplies or computers or extra help we worked on in class. Otherwise, I would be rewarding students who had more resources and more available and educated parents and punishing those who didn't.
KIPP, HSA, and other charters can exclude kids because of their parent won't get involved. They can counsel them out if the kid hava behavior issues or special needs. I don't think KIPP denies this and this post isn't meant to explore any ethical dilemma inherent in that, only to say that it's not fair to compare performance of the two or claim that charters like KIPP are doing a better job with the same population. Such schools can openly exclude or expel or punish kids for their parents' lack of involvement, while traditional public schools can't. This is a form of parent accountability that ultimately holds students responsible.
We should work harder to engage and inform parents at our traditional public schools and to offer better education, and we shouldn't get rid of all charters--they're not without value. But if we really want to put the most vulnerable students first, we should focus our education reform efforts on strengthening the neighborhood schools that are responsible for educating them regardless of their parents' commitment to their education. We should strengthen our outreach to parents, or at least, not diminish it. And when parents can't for whatever reason be adequate parents, making their lives even more difficult via parent accountability schemes is not going to help and will ultimately, I fear, punish the children we're trying to help in the first place.
That being said, the seemingly growing "parent accountability" movement troubles me. Moreover, the strategies (which are in many cases de facto requirements) some charter schools are using to engage parents are in some cases are worth emulating but in others amount to punishing kids for the failures of their parents.
Before I continue, I must acknowledge that I have almost exclusively taught students with parents who weren't very involved in their education, despite my varied efforts, and so some of my thinking on this may be colored by a certain fatalism. The parents could have been less involved because I taught secondary school and parents often think of this as a time to step back. It could have been because the parents worked very long hours and simply didn't have the time be involved. It could have been because I taught mostly the children of immigrants, whose parents sometimes cede almost all education authority to schools and teachers, or whose parents want to be more involved but don't feel included in the school community. Also, in some cases, these parents expect their older children, especially the males, to be at least partial bread-winners, treating them more like adults. Alas, frankly, a handful of parents simply didn't seem to care.
Now, in my mind, a lack of involvement doesn't necessarily translate to a lack of support. If nothing else, being supportive means doing an adequate job at home, as a parent and as such: sending your kids to school prepared to learn, adequately feeding and housing your children, making sure they have a quiet place to study, and encouraging them to read and study. For me, as a teacher, such support would be more than enough.
That all being said, just because parents aren't much involved or supportive, doesn't mean in any way that teachers and schools shouldn't work actively work to engage, involve, and get input from parents; they absolutely should. However, if such outreach fails, teachers must still keep in mind that their job is to educate their students, regardless of parent involvement. Students should not be punished because of their parents' lack on involvement. At the bare minimum, the parents should parent and the teacher and school should educate. And when the parent fails to parent adequately, well, schools are still responsible to educate those children students as best they can.
Though he recently agreed with Friedman's softer take, this past summer, Ed Week blogger and former teacher Walt Gardner expressed a bit of a harder line on parent accountability, saying:
Yet there is a faint glimmer of hope on the horizon. According to The New York Times, legislators in some states have introduced bills holding parents responsible for their children's performance and behavior ("Whose Failing Grade Is It?", May 21). Whether these bills ever become law is another matter, but at least they signal a possible shift in the accountability movement.An American Propsect blogger also threw her hands up, saying (albeit at the end of an otherwise very good post about evaluating teachers),
On a final note, I wonder if the day will ever come when we legislate or evaluate parenting as part of the performance of children. It may be an unfair intrusion of the state into the home, but it's rare to see improvement and advancement in children if it doesn't come from encouraging or demanding parents. This is the "x" in the education equation, and until we find a way to solve for it, no answer will ever truly be accurate.This post on The Answer Sheet by is by Catherine Durkin Robinson who is the founder and president of a group called National Coalition for Accountable Parenting, which promotes parent accountability measures, including fines, jail time, mandated parenting classes, school-issued parent report cards, and financially rewarding "good" parents. Yikes. I'm not able to chose even one block from this piece as the whole thing is so chock full of terrible recommendations. I strongly suggest you read it for yourself. I'm telling you, the Tea Party couldn't make this stuff up.
Many states are considering fining parents for their children's truancy. In West Virginia, legislators proposed a bill that would revoke parents' driving licenses due to truancy and tardiness of their children. It's unclear to me how fining parents who are likely already struggling financially or taking away a means to get their children to school is supposed to help their children go to and succeed in school.
To me, these example of parent accountability via legislation is just spreading bad policy pain. I don't want to be held accountable for things that are beyond my control, but I also don't want parents and students to be held accountable for things beyond their control. The solution is not to transfer draconian and unreasonable demands from teachers onto parents (or even unto principals), to find new teams to play the blame game; the right thing to do is to do away with the concept altogether. As my father always told me growing up (and as I'm fond of declaring in these education reform conversations): Two wrongs don't make a right. We don't need a war on bad parents; we need a society and government that supports families, especially ones that are struggling. Also, do we really need to criminalize more things in our society? I really don't think so.
Some reformers, for example, Peter Meyer of Fordham, makes the case that good schools will make good parents. He posited in an earlier post that charters are superior to neighborhood schools because they better educate kids and they get better results. He said that KIPP, for example, creates motivated parents rather than merely attracting them because the type of education KIPP offers is a motivator. I tried to discuss the finer points of this with him (for one it's very hard to measure motivation) but didn't get very far.
Though people like Meyer do have a point that KIPP may well "motivate" parents simply by offering a solid education, this logic is ultimately faulty. I, as a neighborhood school classroom teacher, can promise and offer a rigorous and engaging curriculum, but I can't say that students can only remain in my class if their parents do their homework with them each night. That would be punishing my students for the behavior or actions of their parents. That's not fair to the students. Also, I just really couldn't do that.
I am responsible for communicating and being available to all parents, but if the parents don't do their part, I still have to treat that student the same as the one whose parent does meet me halfway. I need to promise my students best and most appropriate pedagogical practices and a rich and meaningful curriculum. If the parents get more on board because of that, so be it, but my duty is primarily to their children, not to them. Likewise, as a teacher I learned to assume nothing about my students' home life, to give only homework that they could do on their own. Any bigger projects that required supplies or computers or extra help we worked on in class. Otherwise, I would be rewarding students who had more resources and more available and educated parents and punishing those who didn't.
KIPP, HSA, and other charters can exclude kids because of their parent won't get involved. They can counsel them out if the kid hava behavior issues or special needs. I don't think KIPP denies this and this post isn't meant to explore any ethical dilemma inherent in that, only to say that it's not fair to compare performance of the two or claim that charters like KIPP are doing a better job with the same population. Such schools can openly exclude or expel or punish kids for their parents' lack of involvement, while traditional public schools can't. This is a form of parent accountability that ultimately holds students responsible.
We should work harder to engage and inform parents at our traditional public schools and to offer better education, and we shouldn't get rid of all charters--they're not without value. But if we really want to put the most vulnerable students first, we should focus our education reform efforts on strengthening the neighborhood schools that are responsible for educating them regardless of their parents' commitment to their education. We should strengthen our outreach to parents, or at least, not diminish it. And when parents can't for whatever reason be adequate parents, making their lives even more difficult via parent accountability schemes is not going to help and will ultimately, I fear, punish the children we're trying to help in the first place.
It's the substance & the stress (not the salary), stupid.
As some of you know, I am starting to look for, ahem, a job, including positions that would put me back in the classroom. The position of "unpaid writer" isn't exactly putting food on the table and I'm starting to feel antsy writing so much about education without actually doing much about education. Reading over and updating my teaching resume, I am reminded of former students, colleagues, schools, and yes, curriculum. I am reminded of how much I enjoy teaching, for teaching itself but also for the content I got to ponder. I graduated at the top of my class in high school and went to an elite college. I'm "the type" many education reformers talk of attracting to teaching and, initially, attracted I was, but given what teaching has become in many cases, I am somewhat reluctant to go back.
The first reason is the working conditions. While I agree teachers are underpaid and I appreciate Secretary Duncan's strident acknowledgement of this, I would do the work at the current salaries if the working conditions made the job more manageable: if I knew classes would be reasonably and appropriately sized; if I were given adequate time for planning, development, collaboration, and frankly, bathroom breaks; and if I knew the school where I might work would be fully staffed with content teachers, a librarian, a nurse, a social worker, enough administrators, etc. If I knew I could do an adequate job in a 40-hour week (obviously, it would be more some weeks and a bit less during others and yes, the work would always be on my mind), I might never have taken the break I did in the first place. I can't work the punishing hours because I have my own children to raise. And I'm in favor to the idea of changing compensation systems to reflect the different roles and demands of different teaching jobs. If there are teachers out there who have the space in their life and desire to take on more work and responsibilities than I can, I think they should be paid more. I would be happy to take on a lesser teaching position for less money than a harder working colleague if it meant I could be in the classroom again and still be the parent I want to be. Unfortunately, it became clear to me that I had to choose.
Second of all, I was attracted to teaching because it's intellectual, interesting, stimulating, creative, and socially useful. Well, at least it should be. As Diana Senechal put it in this comment:
As Nancy Flanagan put it in her typically thoughtful way,
As teacher James Boutin describes here (and again here), at some point in my teaching career, I began to feel like a bureaucrat:
So thanks, Arne Duncan, for saying teachers should be paid more and thanks for your attempts at debunking flawed research that states otherwise. For a next step, consider advocating against acceptance of the "new normal" that translates to terrible working conditions for teachers and principals and terrible learning conditions for students. And then consider how you're going to attract more serious college and graduate school students to the profession if the work you're asking them to do lacks substance and insults their intelligence and, eventually, expertise. Finally, consider that if the most educated among us don't want to do to the work because it's bankrupt of creativity, intellectual exercise, meaning, and substance, then the education our students are going to be getting will hardly be rich, meaningful, and relevant. Think about how many of our best and brightest would rather get paid poverty wages working as adjunct professors and journalists than teach in the classrooms your and your predecessors' policies are molding.
Perhaps this isn't the best post to put out there as I apply for teaching jobs, but then again, I'm not going to lie or pretend. I'm going to do my best to be a team player and to be open to the advantages of a more quantitatively- or data-based approach to teaching. But I'm not going to give up my principles or knowingly engage in educational malpractice. Frankly, I'd rather scrub floors.
The first reason is the working conditions. While I agree teachers are underpaid and I appreciate Secretary Duncan's strident acknowledgement of this, I would do the work at the current salaries if the working conditions made the job more manageable: if I knew classes would be reasonably and appropriately sized; if I were given adequate time for planning, development, collaboration, and frankly, bathroom breaks; and if I knew the school where I might work would be fully staffed with content teachers, a librarian, a nurse, a social worker, enough administrators, etc. If I knew I could do an adequate job in a 40-hour week (obviously, it would be more some weeks and a bit less during others and yes, the work would always be on my mind), I might never have taken the break I did in the first place. I can't work the punishing hours because I have my own children to raise. And I'm in favor to the idea of changing compensation systems to reflect the different roles and demands of different teaching jobs. If there are teachers out there who have the space in their life and desire to take on more work and responsibilities than I can, I think they should be paid more. I would be happy to take on a lesser teaching position for less money than a harder working colleague if it meant I could be in the classroom again and still be the parent I want to be. Unfortunately, it became clear to me that I had to choose.
Second of all, I was attracted to teaching because it's intellectual, interesting, stimulating, creative, and socially useful. Well, at least it should be. As Diana Senechal put it in this comment:
The McKinsey researchers examined teacher recruitment and retention in Singapore, Finland, and South Korea. They found many factors that make teaching an attractive profession in those countries: salary, job security, autonomy and trust, cultural respect, and more. Given their own findings, it’s odd that they or anyone would conclude that financial incentives should reign supreme. And there were things they should have investigated but didn’t–for instance, the intellectual and spiritual appeal of the profession.
Look at the talented people in professions where the pay is decent but not stellar–the arts, humanities, teaching, scholarship, nonprofits, journalism, and more. What brings people to these professions? Not incompetence, but interest. The work has substance.
Yes, the work has substance. Or it did. Or it should. Of course teaching is going to have some busy work--all jobs do. Sometimes I even look forward to the busy work as it gives me a break from the harder tasks of thinking, evaluating, planning. Of course, there are going to be some tasks I enjoy more than others. Reading up on the Bubonic Plague, planning how my students will learn about it for a world history class, and then assessing what the students have learned counts as enjoyable. Figuring out how to teach the standardized reading test to my world history students and doing a technocratic version of reading tea leaves, i.e., charting who got the "main idea" and "context clues" questions wrong on said standardized tests is not. And when the job starts to become mostly useless, fruitless busy work and mostly teaching vapid curriculum, that's when I'd rather work as a self-employed, unpaid writer and blogger or work at something less demanding that would still save time and energy for writing.But when the substance is driven out, when the work turns into busywork, people turn to professions that offer the combination of qualities that they seek.
As Nancy Flanagan put it in her typically thoughtful way,
Good teaching is not about classroom rules, cute videos, raising test scores, cool field experiences or unions. It's about relationships, mastery, analysis, persistence, diagnosis and continuous reflection. It's complex, layered intellectual work. And it happens in hundreds of thousands of "regular" classrooms, every day.Yes, it's complex, layered, challenging, and intellectual work with so many decisions to make at almost every turn. This is primarily why I want to do it. Okay, so the pay isn't great, but when you take away the substance of it, I no longer even enjoy the work and I don't want to do it. I'd rather do something mindless (wait tables, bar tend, or be someone's personal assistant) where I won't have to go against my principles.
As teacher James Boutin describes here (and again here), at some point in my teaching career, I began to feel like a bureaucrat:
During a visit I made to a private school in Denver last November, one of the teachers there confided in me that he moved out of public education because he didn't want to be a bureaucrat. The comment struck me. I'd never thought of myself as a bureaucrat before, but he's right - I am.Yes, there's certainly more room for me to be more data-informed and consider the values of a technocratic approach. But if that's what I wanted to do, I'd go be a bureaucrat or a technocrat. If I wanted to teach test prep, I'd go work for Kaplan. That's not what I see as the primary role of a classroom teacher. As James further demonstrates in this must-read series, the data-driven dimension of teaching has gotten out of hand and has become a huge waste of time and resnurces for educators and students alike. Moreover, as I was engaged in it and was forced to make ill-advised curricular choices, I realized that such tasks weren't helping my students learn or improving my teaching, but were fueling political point-scoring and sustaining the education reform industry.
So thanks, Arne Duncan, for saying teachers should be paid more and thanks for your attempts at debunking flawed research that states otherwise. For a next step, consider advocating against acceptance of the "new normal" that translates to terrible working conditions for teachers and principals and terrible learning conditions for students. And then consider how you're going to attract more serious college and graduate school students to the profession if the work you're asking them to do lacks substance and insults their intelligence and, eventually, expertise. Finally, consider that if the most educated among us don't want to do to the work because it's bankrupt of creativity, intellectual exercise, meaning, and substance, then the education our students are going to be getting will hardly be rich, meaningful, and relevant. Think about how many of our best and brightest would rather get paid poverty wages working as adjunct professors and journalists than teach in the classrooms your and your predecessors' policies are molding.
Perhaps this isn't the best post to put out there as I apply for teaching jobs, but then again, I'm not going to lie or pretend. I'm going to do my best to be a team player and to be open to the advantages of a more quantitatively- or data-based approach to teaching. But I'm not going to give up my principles or knowingly engage in educational malpractice. Frankly, I'd rather scrub floors.
Superintendent Luna’s Opening Remarks as President of CCSSO
The following are remarks Idaho Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Luna gave after he took over as President of the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) at the CCSSO Annual Policy Forum on November 19, 2011 in Phoenix, Arizona.
Thank you so much for being here today. It is an honor to serve as the President of the Council of Chief State School Officers.
First, I want to thank Chris Koch for his leadership as President. Whether it’s the advancements we made in the adoption of the Common Core State Standards, the amazing influence we have had in the waiver process and the reauthorization bill that is working its way through congress as we speak, or the fact that we are working on the next generation of assessments and accountability, we owe a great debt of gratitude to Chris for his leadership during this time.
At the same time, we were all back in our states dealing with what is arguably the most difficult economic situation our country has faced in our lifetimes, Chris was back dealing with the same things but also all these other successes we have had at CCSSO. Chris, thank you so much again for your work.
As state chiefs, we have led the way. That is the way it should be. As states, we should identify the problems we face, find the solutions to these problems, and define the federal government’s role – if any – in helping us solve these problems.
We have shown we can do this. We have addressed problems with higher standards through Common Core, with new assessments through our consortia, and increased accountability systems. All of these are critical and absolutely necessary if we are going to improve our education system, but there is one piece that is missing that I think we need to respond to now and act upon now.
That is, do we have the capacity to meet the demands of the Common Core, to respond to the information we will receive from the new assessments? Do we have the capacity with the workforce that we have, especially when we are facing a teacher shortage in the future, and so we know that this is one important part that is critical and it’s missing. It’s the most important part.
We know that the most important part of a child’s academic success is the quality of the teacher in the classroom. World-class standards, quality assessments, high accountability are important and necessary but all of these things are secondary to having a highly effective teacher in every classroom.
Together, we must tackle the challenge of teacher quality and teacher preparation programs. We know that teachers are not the problem, they are the solution. The challenge we face today in teacher quality is a problem with preparing our teachers for the 21st Century Classroom.
Each year, we discuss the challenge of our students graduating from high school and going to postsecondary education and needing remediation once they get there. We are all working to solve this problem.
An equally large problem is the fact that far too many teachers are graduating from our Colleges of Education and going into the classroom and needing additional training once they get there. I have heard – and have often repeated – that our graduates of the Colleges of Education are the most knowledgeable but the least prepared. The fact is we are spending too much money every year training teachers on the skills they should have learned while in college.
This is not the fault of the pre-service student or the teacher in the classroom. This is the result of antiquated teacher preparation programs and outdated certification processes. We must address teacher quality before our teachers get into the classroom and begin teaching our students.
We know that the teacher is the MOST important factor in a student’s academic success. This is not debatable. Just look at the impact a teacher can have on a student’s academic success. I turn to the research of Dr. Robert Marzano. He is an expert in education research and teacher quality.
His study looked at millions of students, thousands of schools, and numerous years.
This shows what happens to the average student – a student in the 50th percentile – depending on his/her learning experience. If a student arrives at school with average academic achievement, has an average teacher and an average principal in the school, that student will leave school just as they came in – in the 50th percentile.
What if that same student arrived at school and had an effective principal and effective teacher? The student would excel significantly and leave in the 96th percentile. Now, consider if that same student arrives at a school with an ineffective teacher and an ineffective principal. That student will drop from the 50th percentile to around the 3rd percentile. This statistic is shocking and disturbing – but it’s real.
It’s clear: the effectiveness of a principal and a teacher has a huge impact on student achievement. We know that once a student falls behind academically, it is difficult and sometimes almost impossible for him to catch up in the current system. We cannot even risk one year in a student’s academic career.
Knowing this, why would we ever leave this to chance? As a father, grandfather, and as State Superintendent, I am not going to leave this to chance. I believe we must do everything we can to ensure a highly effective teacher is at the helm of every classroom.
It begins with our teacher preparation programs.
Secretary Duncan has called for the reform of Colleges of Education. He said: “The current system that prepares our nation's teachers offers no guarantees of quality for anyone – from the college students themselves who borrow thousands of dollars to attend teacher preparation programs, to the districts, schools, parents, and, mostly importantly, the children that depend on good teachers to provide a world-class education.
“It is stunning to me that, for decades, teacher preparation programs have had no feedback loop to identify where their programs prepare students well for the classroom and where they need to improve. Our teacher prep programs have operated largely in the dark, without access to meaningful data that tells them how effective their graduates are in the classroom.”
But Secretary Duncan has called for reform to these programs for more than two years now. That’s two years. To me, it’s clear then if change is going to occur and be sustained then states must take the lead. We would not have the world class standards we have today or the work on the next generation of assessments without the states taking the lead. We must lead in this most important area.
We do have places to look as we begin this conversation and embark on this process. CCSSO’s Interstate Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium (InTASC) has developed Model Core Teaching Standards. The Administration recently published its Teacher Education Reform and Improvement plan. The National Council on Teacher Quality has conducted extensive research on what makes an effective teacher. I have heard positive examples of reforms to Colleges of Education in Louisiana, Michigan, Indiana, and other states.
If we want this reform and this change to be widespread and meaningful in every state across the country, we as state chiefs have to step up and make a concerted effort together just as we did with the Common Core. We have to move from conversation on teacher quality to make the change we know needs to happen. Through CCSSO, we can provide that focus, support and motivation necessary to move forward.
.
As state leaders, we have to find the answers to 3 major questions.
First, what do our students need in a 21st Century teacher? We know we want every teacher to be highly effective. In order for our students to succeed in the 21st Century, what does the highly effective need to know and be able to do? I believe a highly effective teacher in the 21st Century Classroom must be able to gather and analyze data and adapt to the results. The 21st Century Teacher must be able to utilize distance learning and digital content to give students access to the opportunities they need and make lessons come alive. In the 21st Century Classroom, a teacher must be able to manage a roomful of learners versus a room full of students. In other words, if we want our students to be problem solvers and critical thinkers, we have to create an environment that allows them to explore, solve problems, and think critically. The 21st Century Teachers must be able to facilitate this.
Second, what standards should be in place for our teacher preparation programs? These standards should not be limited to our Colleges of Education. We need to set high standards for any entity that wants to train teachers – whether it is a College of Education, Teacher for America, or ABCTE. We will hold them accountable through a transparent evaluation process.
We must ask ourselves every year: How well is a teacher performing and where did that teacher attend pre-service? If an organization can meet the high standards and the high level of accountability we put in place, then they can teach our students.
Third, what should the certification process look like? We must move away from talking about traditional certification vs. alternate certification. Instead, let’s talk about certification. We should create the framework for a single certification process that all teachers can use – no matter where they were trained. It will ensure they have met the high standards we have set for them in content and in pedagogy. And it will hold the teacher preparation organization accountable for results.
As we work to answer each of these questions, here are some of the things we know must be part of our conversation going forward. First, selectivity. We all agree that teaching is a difficult profession and worthy profession. Therefore, we must raise the bar for those who want to go into teaching.
Second, a focus on elementary reading and mathematics. We know our students will need a strong foundation in reading and a strong foundation in math to be successful in the 21st Century. That foundation begins in elementary school. Once pre-service students are in our teacher preparation programs, we must ensure they are not only learning the academics of reading and mathematics, but the science behind teaching these subject areas.
Finally, student teaching. Student teaching programs must be rigorous and relevant.
They must prepare our future teachers for the classroom they will manage as soon as they graduate. We have to ensure every student teacher is placed in the classroom of a highly effective teacher. Just as we did with the Common Core, we must develop set of common performance standards and then measure the effectiveness of the student teaching program against the standards.
These are all challenges we face and challenges we must address if we expect to improve our public education systems across the country. We have to look at pockets of excellence and find answers to our questions:
If we do this, then our Colleges of Education and teacher preparation organizations will be able to truly prepare our teachers to be successful in the 21st Century Classroom – without needing remediation once they get there. In the coming weeks, we will be engaging you in talks to move from discussion to action, and I am confident that like the Common Core success we as states can develop common standards for certification and licensure. This is how we can truly ensure a highly effective teacher in every classroom for every student.
In closing, I attended a meeting awhile back where the keynote speaker said if you want to get access to somebody’s mind, you start with the heart. So let me share with you a piece of my heart, and what motivates me to do this. When I ran for the local school board in Nampa, I had a successful business. We were a happy young family with six children in school. I didn’t run for the school board to reform education. I ran for the school board because they told me it would only be one night a month, and I believed them.
But as I got more and more involved in education, I began to realize that access to the American Dream was tied more today to a quality education than ever before. You see, I was one of those kids who came to school a little hungry and a little tired. I lived in a tent for awhile. There were some teachers that were wonderful individuals with big hearts and a lot of compassion, but they knew my family situation and made excuses for me. They didn’t expect as much from me. Then, there were other teachers who knew my family circumstances yet they expected just as much from me as they did any child. They convinced me that regardless of where I came from, regardless of the spelling of my last name, I was just as smart, just as capable, and I had just as much hope or opportunity in America as anyone. You know what? I believed them.
Because of them, because of these great teachers, my brothers and sisters and I now live a version of the American Dream that my parents could not have even imagined. I honor teachers. I respect them and the work that they do, and I realize on a personal level the important role they will play in giving hope to those who feel like there is no hope and providing opportunity to those who feel like opportunity may have passed them by.
I am honored to serve as your President this coming year. I think the work that we can do and accomplish on teacher preparation is the capstone to the work that we have been focused on these past few years as CCSSO has become a leader in setting policy and direction and priority for education across the country.
Thank you.
Thank you so much for being here today. It is an honor to serve as the President of the Council of Chief State School Officers.
First, I want to thank Chris Koch for his leadership as President. Whether it’s the advancements we made in the adoption of the Common Core State Standards, the amazing influence we have had in the waiver process and the reauthorization bill that is working its way through congress as we speak, or the fact that we are working on the next generation of assessments and accountability, we owe a great debt of gratitude to Chris for his leadership during this time.
At the same time, we were all back in our states dealing with what is arguably the most difficult economic situation our country has faced in our lifetimes, Chris was back dealing with the same things but also all these other successes we have had at CCSSO. Chris, thank you so much again for your work.
As state chiefs, we have led the way. That is the way it should be. As states, we should identify the problems we face, find the solutions to these problems, and define the federal government’s role – if any – in helping us solve these problems.
We have shown we can do this. We have addressed problems with higher standards through Common Core, with new assessments through our consortia, and increased accountability systems. All of these are critical and absolutely necessary if we are going to improve our education system, but there is one piece that is missing that I think we need to respond to now and act upon now.
That is, do we have the capacity to meet the demands of the Common Core, to respond to the information we will receive from the new assessments? Do we have the capacity with the workforce that we have, especially when we are facing a teacher shortage in the future, and so we know that this is one important part that is critical and it’s missing. It’s the most important part.
We know that the most important part of a child’s academic success is the quality of the teacher in the classroom. World-class standards, quality assessments, high accountability are important and necessary but all of these things are secondary to having a highly effective teacher in every classroom.
Together, we must tackle the challenge of teacher quality and teacher preparation programs. We know that teachers are not the problem, they are the solution. The challenge we face today in teacher quality is a problem with preparing our teachers for the 21st Century Classroom.
Each year, we discuss the challenge of our students graduating from high school and going to postsecondary education and needing remediation once they get there. We are all working to solve this problem.
An equally large problem is the fact that far too many teachers are graduating from our Colleges of Education and going into the classroom and needing additional training once they get there. I have heard – and have often repeated – that our graduates of the Colleges of Education are the most knowledgeable but the least prepared. The fact is we are spending too much money every year training teachers on the skills they should have learned while in college.
This is not the fault of the pre-service student or the teacher in the classroom. This is the result of antiquated teacher preparation programs and outdated certification processes. We must address teacher quality before our teachers get into the classroom and begin teaching our students.
We know that the teacher is the MOST important factor in a student’s academic success. This is not debatable. Just look at the impact a teacher can have on a student’s academic success. I turn to the research of Dr. Robert Marzano. He is an expert in education research and teacher quality.
His study looked at millions of students, thousands of schools, and numerous years.
This shows what happens to the average student – a student in the 50th percentile – depending on his/her learning experience. If a student arrives at school with average academic achievement, has an average teacher and an average principal in the school, that student will leave school just as they came in – in the 50th percentile.
What if that same student arrived at school and had an effective principal and effective teacher? The student would excel significantly and leave in the 96th percentile. Now, consider if that same student arrives at a school with an ineffective teacher and an ineffective principal. That student will drop from the 50th percentile to around the 3rd percentile. This statistic is shocking and disturbing – but it’s real.
It’s clear: the effectiveness of a principal and a teacher has a huge impact on student achievement. We know that once a student falls behind academically, it is difficult and sometimes almost impossible for him to catch up in the current system. We cannot even risk one year in a student’s academic career.
Knowing this, why would we ever leave this to chance? As a father, grandfather, and as State Superintendent, I am not going to leave this to chance. I believe we must do everything we can to ensure a highly effective teacher is at the helm of every classroom.
It begins with our teacher preparation programs.
Secretary Duncan has called for the reform of Colleges of Education. He said: “The current system that prepares our nation's teachers offers no guarantees of quality for anyone – from the college students themselves who borrow thousands of dollars to attend teacher preparation programs, to the districts, schools, parents, and, mostly importantly, the children that depend on good teachers to provide a world-class education.
“It is stunning to me that, for decades, teacher preparation programs have had no feedback loop to identify where their programs prepare students well for the classroom and where they need to improve. Our teacher prep programs have operated largely in the dark, without access to meaningful data that tells them how effective their graduates are in the classroom.”
But Secretary Duncan has called for reform to these programs for more than two years now. That’s two years. To me, it’s clear then if change is going to occur and be sustained then states must take the lead. We would not have the world class standards we have today or the work on the next generation of assessments without the states taking the lead. We must lead in this most important area.
We do have places to look as we begin this conversation and embark on this process. CCSSO’s Interstate Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium (InTASC) has developed Model Core Teaching Standards. The Administration recently published its Teacher Education Reform and Improvement plan. The National Council on Teacher Quality has conducted extensive research on what makes an effective teacher. I have heard positive examples of reforms to Colleges of Education in Louisiana, Michigan, Indiana, and other states.
If we want this reform and this change to be widespread and meaningful in every state across the country, we as state chiefs have to step up and make a concerted effort together just as we did with the Common Core. We have to move from conversation on teacher quality to make the change we know needs to happen. Through CCSSO, we can provide that focus, support and motivation necessary to move forward.
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As state leaders, we have to find the answers to 3 major questions.
First, what do our students need in a 21st Century teacher? We know we want every teacher to be highly effective. In order for our students to succeed in the 21st Century, what does the highly effective need to know and be able to do? I believe a highly effective teacher in the 21st Century Classroom must be able to gather and analyze data and adapt to the results. The 21st Century Teacher must be able to utilize distance learning and digital content to give students access to the opportunities they need and make lessons come alive. In the 21st Century Classroom, a teacher must be able to manage a roomful of learners versus a room full of students. In other words, if we want our students to be problem solvers and critical thinkers, we have to create an environment that allows them to explore, solve problems, and think critically. The 21st Century Teachers must be able to facilitate this.
Second, what standards should be in place for our teacher preparation programs? These standards should not be limited to our Colleges of Education. We need to set high standards for any entity that wants to train teachers – whether it is a College of Education, Teacher for America, or ABCTE. We will hold them accountable through a transparent evaluation process.
We must ask ourselves every year: How well is a teacher performing and where did that teacher attend pre-service? If an organization can meet the high standards and the high level of accountability we put in place, then they can teach our students.
Third, what should the certification process look like? We must move away from talking about traditional certification vs. alternate certification. Instead, let’s talk about certification. We should create the framework for a single certification process that all teachers can use – no matter where they were trained. It will ensure they have met the high standards we have set for them in content and in pedagogy. And it will hold the teacher preparation organization accountable for results.
As we work to answer each of these questions, here are some of the things we know must be part of our conversation going forward. First, selectivity. We all agree that teaching is a difficult profession and worthy profession. Therefore, we must raise the bar for those who want to go into teaching.
Second, a focus on elementary reading and mathematics. We know our students will need a strong foundation in reading and a strong foundation in math to be successful in the 21st Century. That foundation begins in elementary school. Once pre-service students are in our teacher preparation programs, we must ensure they are not only learning the academics of reading and mathematics, but the science behind teaching these subject areas.
Finally, student teaching. Student teaching programs must be rigorous and relevant.
They must prepare our future teachers for the classroom they will manage as soon as they graduate. We have to ensure every student teacher is placed in the classroom of a highly effective teacher. Just as we did with the Common Core, we must develop set of common performance standards and then measure the effectiveness of the student teaching program against the standards.
These are all challenges we face and challenges we must address if we expect to improve our public education systems across the country. We have to look at pockets of excellence and find answers to our questions:
- What do our students need in a 21st Century teacher?
- What standards should be in place for our teacher preparation programs?
- What should the certification process look like?
If we do this, then our Colleges of Education and teacher preparation organizations will be able to truly prepare our teachers to be successful in the 21st Century Classroom – without needing remediation once they get there. In the coming weeks, we will be engaging you in talks to move from discussion to action, and I am confident that like the Common Core success we as states can develop common standards for certification and licensure. This is how we can truly ensure a highly effective teacher in every classroom for every student.
In closing, I attended a meeting awhile back where the keynote speaker said if you want to get access to somebody’s mind, you start with the heart. So let me share with you a piece of my heart, and what motivates me to do this. When I ran for the local school board in Nampa, I had a successful business. We were a happy young family with six children in school. I didn’t run for the school board to reform education. I ran for the school board because they told me it would only be one night a month, and I believed them.
But as I got more and more involved in education, I began to realize that access to the American Dream was tied more today to a quality education than ever before. You see, I was one of those kids who came to school a little hungry and a little tired. I lived in a tent for awhile. There were some teachers that were wonderful individuals with big hearts and a lot of compassion, but they knew my family situation and made excuses for me. They didn’t expect as much from me. Then, there were other teachers who knew my family circumstances yet they expected just as much from me as they did any child. They convinced me that regardless of where I came from, regardless of the spelling of my last name, I was just as smart, just as capable, and I had just as much hope or opportunity in America as anyone. You know what? I believed them.
Because of them, because of these great teachers, my brothers and sisters and I now live a version of the American Dream that my parents could not have even imagined. I honor teachers. I respect them and the work that they do, and I realize on a personal level the important role they will play in giving hope to those who feel like there is no hope and providing opportunity to those who feel like opportunity may have passed them by.
I am honored to serve as your President this coming year. I think the work that we can do and accomplish on teacher preparation is the capstone to the work that we have been focused on these past few years as CCSSO has become a leader in setting policy and direction and priority for education across the country.
Thank you.
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