Kipp founders Mike Feinberg and Dave Levin have an op-ed in the Washington Post today “how to channel Obama’s ‘yes, we can’ spirit into substantive education reform.” Some of the pair’s five suggestions are pure bully pulpit stuff – inspiring Americans “to set a goal for our educational system akin to putting a man on the moon,” for example, and helping build enthusiasm and respect for teachers. But the KIPPsters also issue a ringing call for national standards and assessments:
Perhaps the single greatest lever for raising expectations and achievement for all children in America would be the creation of national learning standards and assessments. With KIPP schools operating in 19 states, we have seen how the maze of state standards and tests keeps great teachers from sharing ideas, inhibits innovation, and prevents meaningful comparison of student, teacher and school performance. Rather than there being 50 different standards, Obama could unify the country around a common vision for the kind of teaching and learning we need to prepare our children for the future.
The pair also want Obama and Ed Secretary-designate Arne Duncan to back assessing teachers “on their demonstrated impact on student learning, not whether they hold a traditional teacher certifications,” and giving all public “the ability to hire, fire and reward principals and teachers based on their students’ progress and achievement.”
Interesting article by Feinberg and Levin, but I have my reservations. They put a lot of faith in rhetoric by Obama. Rhetoric can do wonders at times, and Obama is pretty good at it, but many times rhetoric is also simply forgotten. Remember Goals 2000? That was rhetoric. Had it succeeded then we would not be having the discussions about education that we are having today.
The man-on-the-moon example is often used as an example of the power of rhetoric, and I think it’s a pretty good example. But there are zillions of counterexamples of where rhetoric was ineffective. Goals 2000 is one example. “Win buttons” is another. We’ll have a zillion more examples of soon-to-be-forgotten rhetoric when graduation season rolls around.
I don’t know too much history, but my best guess is that Kennedy’s rhetoric had great effect in putting a man on the moon because the way and the means to do that were pretty clear in the early sixties. All that was lacking was the decision to do it, the decision to pay the costs that would be required. That decision had to be a societal decision, made by acts of Congress. Kennedy’s rhetoric promoted that decision, and indeed we put a man on the moon.
But does a similar situation exist in education reform? Are the ways and means reasonably clear, leaving only the decision to make the trade offs and pay the costs? I don’t think so. I think the common use of the word “reform” attests to that. What reform are we talking about? Is there agreement on what reforms need to be made? I can only speak from experience in the teaching of math. Some people who favor “reform” in math want everyone to adopt the perspective and practices promoted by the NCTM (National Council of Teachers of Mathematics). Others, including myself, believe the best reform in math is to do the opposite. That’s what the math wars are all about. I don’t know much about “English wars” and “social study wars”, but I know they exist. Reform is not a simple thing. It is certainly not a simply matter of making a yes-or-no decision to pay the required costs.
Feinberg and Levin obviously favor a national curriculum and national standards as part of the reform they advocate. I do not. I think that would simply be a replay, in a slightly different form, of NCLB and all its frustrations. The game and the rules would be somewhat different, but I think the unintended consequences and frustrations would be just as troubling, and the goals would be just as elusive. Feinberg and Levin say the “maze of state standards and tests keeps great teachers from sharing ideas, inhibits innovation, and prevents meaningful comparison of student, teacher and school performance.” I can agree somewhat with the third part of that. Meaningful comparisons are always very difficult in the social sciences. But there are many, many factors other than differing state standards and curricula that make this true. The first two parts of this statement don’t make any sense to me at all. Teachers can’t share ideas? Well, I do agree to some extent that teachers are not very good at sharing ideas, but I can’t see that national standards would have anything to do with that. And “inhibits innovation”? That needs some explaining. Wouldn’t national curricula and standards do a lot more to inhibit innovation?
NCLB has prompted a lot of action on state standards and curriculum. All I know about these things is what I read in the blogs, but in the blogs I read about a lot of frustration. So it has always seemed to me that trying to do on a national level what has proved so frustrating on the state level ought to be the last thing we want to do.
Comment by Brian Rude — January 9, 2009 @ 2:50 pm
I am in agreement with Feinberg and Levin, especially with regard to number two.
There are too many states pulling the wool over the collective eyes of their citizens, their students, and their taxpayers with their transparent dumbed-down state tests and their corresponding anemic definitions of proficient. Their ulterior motive in both canards is for the obvious purpose of ensuring their eligibility for NCLB federal funds.
President Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan need to make national standards, assessments, and a common definition for proficiency the centerpiece for reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind legislation. When states are finally able to satisfy these national parameters, then, and only then, will NCLB be able to realize the hopes for poor/minority children the original legislation had seven years ago.
Comment by Paul Hoss — January 9, 2009 @ 7:32 pm
I like the idea of national standards for reasons of transparency. I can certainly see lots of room for mischief — empty process standards, for example, instead of sensible content stsndards. That said simply having national assessments would end the race to the bottom that you site, Paul. Paradoxically, national assessments would probably do more to more to motivate state-level change that anything else. If every state’s achievement levels were compared, apples-to-apples, the sunshine effect would be powerful.
Comment by Robert Pondiscio — January 9, 2009 @ 7:40 pm
All I’ve ever hoped for were standards as rigorous as those in Massachusetts and common to all Core Knowledge schools.
Comment by Paul Hoss — January 9, 2009 @ 7:50 pm
I think national standards make more sense than state standards — the sense that states can game the current system by lowering standards makes it hard to take the Federal governments commitment to high standards seriously.
The challenge with standards is to keep them high but realistic, and to prevent them from becoming a kitchen sink of “kids really should know this, and this, and this…”
On the accountability side I think the challenge is to figure out what forms of local governance are best at holding schools accountable. I don’t think the answer is a completely decentralized network of charter schools, but I also don’t think the answer is huge school districts and a large state bureaucracy looking over their shoulder. But I don’t think there’s really been much effort at exploring this question.
Comment by Rachel — January 10, 2009 @ 3:57 pm