Archive for the 'Educational Policy' Category

Why Send Kids To School?

Published by Robert Pondiscio on September 27, 2009 in Educational Policy and accountability. 5 Comments

“The single biggest problem in American education is that no one agrees on why we educate,” observes Diane Ravitch. ”Faced with this lack of consensus, policy makers define good education as higher test scores.”  Ravitch’s comments come in a forum published by the New York Times Magazine, which also features input from Tom Vander Ark, Geoffrey Canada, Charles Murray and others.  Ravitch writes:

Why do we educate? We educate because we want citizens who are capable of taking responsibility for their lives and for our democracy. We want citizens who understand how their government works, who are knowledgeable about the history of their nation and other nations. We need citizens who are thoroughly educated in science. We need people who can communicate in other languages. We must ensure that every young person has the chance to engage in the arts.

Reflecting on the theme of “How to Remake Education,” Vander Ark stumps for more attention to technology.  “By 2020, I believe most high-school students will do most of their learning online,” he writes.  “It shouldn’t take that long, but it will.”  Charles Murray argues we should “discredit the bachelor’s degree as a job credential”; while Canada believes we should lengthen the U.S. school year, which is “one of the shortest school years in the industrialized world.”

I’m with Diane. There is a clear failure of vision in American education at present, especially in poor, urban schools.  We have narrowed the definition of what it means to be educated in America.  When affluent parents choose a school for their children—when they enroll in a private school or buy a home near specific schools–reading scores are simply not part of their calculus.  It is assumed that in a good school every child will learn to read, and then read to learn.  That’s simply what schools do. When policy makers, education reformers and even teachers and administrators evaluate what makes schools in poor, urban neighborhoods good or bad, however, a single litmus test applies: performance on standardized reading tests.  For the children of the poor, a good grade on a state reading test has become what it means to be educated.  The contrast could not be clearer:  we set the finish line for other people’s children where we set the starting line for our own.

Outta Here!

Published by Robert Pondiscio on September 15, 2009 in Educational Policy. 0 Comments

Andy Rotherham is leaving Ed Sector, reports Michele McNeil on her Politics K-12 blog.  Everyone seemed to expect Rotherham to head for the turnstiles and take up a post in the Obama administration earlier this year.  That didn’t happen, but now he’s leaving “to work on broader issues.”   And what of Eduwonk,the 800-pound gorilla of ed blogs?  “The blog will live on, Rotherham says, although it will likely be re-branded once his future becomes more clear,” McNeil writes.   Does that mean Rotherham will continue to write it?

Update:  Andy emails to say: “Yes, I will continue to pen Eduwonk.com although in a different venue than where it lives now.  I’m also not planning major changes in board service or the writing I do, for instance at U.S. News and various venues.  So, depending where you sit in this debate I guess that’s welcome or unwelcome news.”

“Replace the Children!”

Published by Robert Pondiscio on September 1, 2009 in Educational Policy and Teaching. 12 Comments

Oh no he didn’t!

Raging against Arne Duncan’s call to turnaround the nation’s lowest-performing schools, the chairman of the Atlanta Metro Association of Classroom Educators, John Trotter, fumed “He wants to replace everyone … except the ones who matter, the children.”   The Atlanta Journal Constitution’s ed columnist Maureen Downey quotes Trotter saying the children in failing schools are the main problem.

“They are unmotivated and lazy. Yes, there are many incompetent and idiotic and mean administrators who need to go. There are even some bad teachers, but these are really rare. The problem starts with the students. What is Duncan going to do with some so-called students who act like miscreants each day?”

This is the kind thing you hear in the teacher’s lounge when someone’s having a bad day, but seldom outside, and almost never in public.  Teachers have all the reason in the world to be upset by simplistic “no excuses” posturing, and complaints about ”putting the interests of adults first.”  But if accurate, this is the kind of intemperate diatribe that makes it all too easy for those who would paint teachers as sandbaggers and excuse makers to point and say, “See! I told you so.” 

Not smart.  Not helpful.

Update:  Eduwonk says, “See! I told you so.”   Joanne Jacobs uses Trotter’s vitriol as a way into an Edweek essay by Richard Kahlenberg, who argues “it’s impossible to change a bad school without changing the mix of students.”

Success Has a Thousand Parents

Published by Robert Pondiscio on August 30, 2009 in Educational Policy and Teaching. 1 Comment

Where much of the debate on merit pay tacitly focuses on where to lay blame for poor performance, a letter to the Boston Globe, points out the difficulty of giving credit–and cash–where it’s due.  Describing a  class discussion of Wallace Stevens’s “Anecdote of a Jar,” Pittsfield, Massachusetts literature teacher William Irvin writes, “I mentally thank Dr. Weaver and Ms. Getzen for the sound preparation each has given these students in literature, writing, and expression over the last two years.”

Then I remember that Mrs. Romeo-Leger and Mrs. LaRoche taught them perspective and composition in their photography and art classes. Mr. Cade helped them develop facility with rhythm and accent in his music classes. And I can’t forget Mr. Toland, who sharpened their analytic skills in chemistry. The French teacher, Ms. Dupuis, explained the partitive genitive, an example of which occurs in line 11 of the poem. Nor can I omit the two docents at the Museum of Modern Art who provided my students with a lively discussion of multiple perspectives.

Irvn notes his students have performed exceptionally on the MCAS and SAT measures, ”high enough to warrant merit pay. But who should receive the check?”

 

Observations on Observations

Published by Robert Pondiscio on August 27, 2009 in Assessment and Testing, Educational Policy, Teaching and accountability. 32 Comments

If you’re a teacher, would you rather be judged by a 200-page list of indicators of highly skilled teaching, or by a principal who shares your philosophy of teaching and learning, supports your approach and pretty much leaves you alone–but has the power to fire you at will? 

This question occurred to me after reading a long and excellent post by John Merrow over at Learning Matters on teacher observations. He concludes that the observation process is “changing for the better in some places, but that, unfortunately, it’s still mostly useless.”

In the old days, teachers closed their doors and did their thing, for better or for worse. As long as things were quiet, administrators [rarely] bothered to open the door to see what was going on, and teachers never watched each other at work. That’s changing, sometimes for better, sometimes for worse. In some schools today, teachers are actually expected to watch their peers teach, after which they share their analysis. In other schools, however, principals armed with lists sit in the back of the class checking off ‘behaviors’ and later give the teacher a ‘scorecard’ with her ‘batting average.’

“Whether these observations are diagnostic in nature and therefore designed to help teachers improve or a ‘gotcha’ game is the essential question,” Merrow perceptively observes.  Teacher observations, like test scores, will undoubtedly loom ever larger as the issue of teacher quality bubbles to the top of the nation’s education agenda.  Like test scores, there’s a lot to learn from observations.  And like test scores, we’re equally likely to learn the wrong lessons.

Of all the “best practices” that have migrated to education from the business world, the one that didn’t make the trip is the idea that good managers hire excellent people, empower them with real decision-making authority, then get out of their way.  The closest thing to that in education is “close your door and do your thing,” as Merrow puts it.  That goes against the grain in the Age of Accountability, but it is undeniable that for many excellent and experienced teachers and their students, it works perfectly.   And while that approach is endangered, it has not disappeared.  Nor should it.  The point of any accountability system should be to help bad schools and teachers look and act like good schools and teachers, not the opposite.  Our schools still have plenty of brilliant iconoclasts who do things their own way to great effect. 

For such  teachers nothing could be worse than “observation by checklist,” where the adminstration wants to see what it wants to see: aim and standard on the board?  Check.  Students sitting in groups?  Check.  Updated work on the bulletin board?  Check. A “print rich” environment in “kid-friendly language?” Check.   Ask why these items are important and you’ll invariably hear that it’s what the principal’s supervisor expects to see.  What they are indicative of is lost.  The consummate irony is this kind of evaluation seems rigorous, but it is more likely — much more likely — to create a civil service mentality than to foster excellence.  It’s another variation of the Cargo Cult Education phenomenon.   Teachers and administrators spend all their energy manufacturing the visible markers of learning, often not knowing (and after a while no longer caring) what the “indicators” indicate. 

Indeed, this is the thing the every teacher knows, that every armchair expert does not: it is simple (but time-consuming) to create an environment that gives all the appearances of being a high-functioning classroom and still be a lousy teacher.  Among the very first survival skills a new teacher learns, either through the advice of a kindly colleague or through a series of administrative reprimands, is the art of the dog and pony show.   In some schools, it’s the quid pro quo that earns you the right to close your door and practice your craft.  In more punitive environments, it’s the tail that wags the dog.   But the aim of observation-by-checklist is not great teaching, it’s plausible deniability–and it’s the enemy of accountability, for both teachers and administrators.  Miss Jones’ classroom demonstrates a high degree of student engagement and all of the indicators of high quality teaching, but her students are still not making progress.  Why? Miss Jones’ energy is misdirected.  She’s learning to play the game, not become a great teacher.  After a few years, she gets tired of it and quits.  Mediocrity wins again. 

The bottom line is that great teaching is like Potter Stewart’s definition of hard-core pornography.  It’s hard to define but you know it when you see it.  Unfortunately, that’s never going to cut it in our data-mad, accountability-obsessed age. 

So which would you rather?  Find a school and work with a principal who shares your philosophy and approach, trusts you and supports you, but has the power to fire you at will?  Or a school where your duties are codified to the letter, where you know what’s on the checklist and spend all of your time ‘working to rule‘ and playing “gotcha.”  Where are you going to be happiest and most productive?

Am I the only one who thinks this is what the teacher quality debate is really all about?

Ready, Fire, Aim

Published by Robert Pondiscio on August 21, 2009 in Assessment and Testing and Educational Policy. 7 Comments

At The Quick and the Ed, Kevin Carey attempts to take on Diane Ravitch’s criticism of Race to the Top, accusing her of…well, I’m not sure exactly. But his criticism of Ravitch’s take on tying teacher evaluations to test scores is noteworthy. 

No state has ever really tied teacher evaluations to test scores in a methodologically valid way and made those evaluations meaningful in terms of compensation, hiring, tenure, and other things people care about. So Ravitch is just engaging in garden variety chicken-and-egg obstructionism: you can’t prove X works because nobody’s ever tried it; you can’t try X because nobody’s ever proved it works.

Well, no.  It’s not that it’s never been tried.  It’s that there is not a way to evaluate teachers fairly by using test scores.  I guess I’m obstructionist too, since like Ravitch I don’t see the benefit of coming to vast conclusions based on half-vast data.  Commenter Ceolaf nails the problem precisely: 

“It is not merely a case of banning a practice or allowing it. Rather, it is a case of mandating it. Require — or pressuring very strongly — states to adopt policies that are unproven is the issue. We knew that seat belts save lives, so requiring states to adopt seatbelt laws made sense. We knew that lowering speed limits saved gas, so requiring states to lower theirs to 55mph made sense. But that is not the case here.”

Just so.  But argue that this well-intentioned idea has too many problems to be taken seriously and you’re immediately a status quo loving, running dog lackey of the teachers unions, or as Carey describes Ravitch, the ”go-to name-brand anti-Obama quote on K–12 issues.”

Oy.

Maybe we can make this simple and unambiguous:  Accountability?  Good.  Figuring out if a teacher is competent or incompetent? Very good. Using tests to determine the difference?  Not very good.  In fact, not possible.  Forcing states to do it anyway? Not very smart.  Being incurious about the impact such a move will have on education?  Unforgivable. 

When did “not very good but it’s the best we can do” become a way of making policy?  When did suggesting we can do better become heresy?

Reality Check

Published by Robert Pondiscio on August 20, 2009 in Education News and Educational Policy. 0 Comments

Just-released test scores in California show 10 schools overseen by L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa posted decidely lackluster results–including Green Dot’s closely watched makeover of Locke High in South Los Angeles.  “Last year, 12.7% of students tested proficient in English; this year the number was 12.4%,” the L.A. Times reports.  ” Last year, 2% of students were proficient in math; same for this year.”  The paper calls the test scores a reality check:

The scores at Villaraigosa’s schools fall well short of what his original rhetoric suggested. He implied that he could deliver rapid academic gains if given control of schools in the nation’s second-largest district. At the time, L.A. Unified officials and some education experts said Villaraigosa was unfairly discounting the school system’s incremental progress.  On Tuesday, it was the mayor’s turn to celebrate increments.

Flypaper gives Green Dot props for trying, but writes “the PR surrounding their attempt at a turnaround at Locke High School has gotten far ahead of the results”  Andy Smarick, who favors starting new schools instead of attempting turnarounds asks ”if this is the best example of a successful turnaround, should we be spending billions of dollars on this?”

Over at Public School Insights, Claus Von Zastrow looks at what’s happening in L.A. as well as mixed results at “turnaround schools” championed by former Chicago superintendent Arne Duncan, and notes notes how quickly education reformers and the “establishment” can find themselves in the same boat.

In LA and Chicago–as in schools nationwide–the reformers and the “establishment” can both tout successes. And they must both own up to big ongoing challenges. Even after reforms to governance and incentive structures, we have to do the very hard work of improving teaching and learning.   “Welcome to our world,” said the old establishment to the new.”

 

Walk A Mile In Their Shoes

Published by Robert Pondiscio on August 19, 2009 in Education Leadership, Educational Policy and Teaching. 4 Comments

Love this idea.

Administrators in Florida’s Broward school district will be required to work as substitute teachers this year. “A similar project is in the works in Miami-Dade, where Superintendent Alberto Carvalho has proposed creating an “Everybody Teaches” Academy to bring district administrators into classrooms of struggling schools at least six times a year,” the Miami Herald reports. 

The Broward plan was the brainchild of Kathie Herrera, a 2nd grade teacher. “It’s very good for the teachers,” she said. “It does make them feel like the higher-ups — the ones promoting the curriculum, deciding on the standards that we should be teaching — actually get a feel for what goes on in the classroom.”

Any chance of launching a similar initiative for ed policy folks?

(H/T: Gotham Schools)

Social Promotion? Easy as A, B, C!

Published by Robert Pondiscio on August 18, 2009 in Assessment and Testing, Core Knowledge and Educational Policy. 1 Comment

Can you earn a promotion to the next grade in New York by simply guessing the answers on state tests?   It’s easy as A, B, C according to a provocative experiment by former Core Knowledge teacher Diana Senechal.   

In a call for tougher tests in the New York Post last week, Diane Ravitch revealed that the points needed to earn a “Level 2″ — the lowest “passing” score on the state’s tests–have dropped dramatically.  On the 6th grade English language-arts test, for example, the cutoff to earn a Level 2 in sixth grade dropped from 41 percent of the points in 2006 to just 17.9 percent in 2009.  “Ending social promotion, as the [New York City] rightly wants to do, is thus meaningless, because students can reach Level 2 by just guessing,” Ravitch concluded.

Struck by Ravitch’s observation, Senechal tried an experiment to see if it’s possible to pass the test by simply guessing.  She posts the results over at Gotham Schools. 

I first tried my experiment with the sixth grade ELA test. I “guessed” all the answers on the multiple-choice portion and left the written portions blank. Or, rather, I didn’t “guess,” but filled in the answers as follows: A, B, C, D, A, B, C, D, and so on, all the way through the 26 questions. I didn’t read one of them.

Naturally, Senechal got a zero on the written portion of the test.  But her multiple choice guesswork earned 12 out of 39 “raw points” and a scale score of 622–a rock-solid “2″ on the state’s four-point system.  A “2″ is described as “approaching grade level” and good enough to earn promotion to the next grade.  “I got a 2 without looking at a single test question or writing a single word,” she writes.   Repeating the experiment with the 7th grade math test, Senechal also scored a 2 “without solving a single math problem, or even looking at one.”

While this approach does not result in a 2 for all the tests, it comes a bit too close for comfort, and another guessing system might work. A fifth grader told me that his father had told him, “Just mark ‘C’ for all of the answers, and you will pass.” On the fifth grade ELA test, this would indeed have resulted in a 2.  Yes, it is possible to guess your way to promotion. You may not even have to look at the questions or write a word on the written sections.

“It may not be called social promotion, but it amounts to the same thing,” concludes Senechal, a frequent contributor to the Core Knowledge Blog.  “You do not need to know or understand much to move along.”

Test Data Plan Personally Approved by Obama

Published by Robert Pondiscio on July 25, 2009 in Assessment and Testing, Educational Policy and accountability. 19 Comments

Insisting that states allow the use of standardized test data to evaluate teachers, the signature feature of the Race to the Top fund initiative, was personally approved by President Obama, according to EdWeek’s Michele McNeil.

When Education Department staff members finally settled on the data firewall rule, which would effectively knock out two states with giant student populations and powerful Congressional delegations, I’m told that education staffers took it up to those above their pay grades.  To Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, and eventually, to the president himself. And Obama, apparently, didn’t need much convincing.

Meanwhile, in a detailed analysis of the guidelines, Stephen Sawchuck says the data firewall issue is not just about performance pay. 

States receiving Race to the Top funds must commit to using their teacher-effectiveness data for everything from evaluating teachers to determining the type of professional development they get to making decisions about granting tenure and pursuing dismissals. And, they will also be expected to track graduates of their education schools into classrooms to help institutions figure out which pathways and courses produce the best teachers.

The issue is not the use of the data, but the value of the data.  Is it possible to make good decisions with bad data?  Perhaps it doesn’t matter. One possibility raised by Fordham’s Mike Petrilli is that states will “superficially swear allegiance to these reform ideas but implement them half-heartedly down the road.”