Reposted from my dean's blog, originally published 2/18/11
A.G. Rud
A New York Times article about the shortage of people prepared to lead our schools reminded me of the value of the College of Education�s principal certification program and Ed.D. degree in educational leadership. Our colleagues in WSU�s Department of Human Development also offer a graduate certificate in early childhood leadership and administration.
But solid university programs are only part of the solution to inadequate school leadership. For a faculty perspective, I turned to Assistant Professor Chad Lochmiller of our Tri-Cities faculty, whose research interests include support for school leadership. The comments that follow are Chad�s.
The Obama administration�s emphasis on removing principals from failing schools rests on the assumption that principals alone drive student learning improvement. Yet we know from extensive research that there are many other factors, including ineffective instructional practices, lack of accountability, and absence of meaningful student supports.
In some cases, changing a principal can disrupt reforms already under way and cause the school�s best teachers to leave. As research in Washington state has shown, classroom teachers cite support from their school principals as one of the most important factors influencing their decision to stay in their buildings. If the goal is to stabilize the school and refocus its efforts on instruction, then removing a principal may not only prolong that effort but derail it altogether.
The administration�s approach also assumes that the problem is inadequate principals, not inadequate support for those educators. Principals will tell you that they are in desperate need of support given the plethora of new initiatives and reforms being thrust upon them. They need supervisors who understand and advocate for the specific needs of their buildings. They need access to data, instructional strategies, and other professional development to help them acquire the skills needed to support classroom teachers. They need opportunities to reflect on their practice, identify areas of growth, and target ways in which their leadership can best help students.
The administration�s focus on school leadership challenges universities to make a stronger investment in preparing principal certification candidates. We must provide principals with the knowledge and skills to effectively improve classroom instruction starting in their first year on the job. This may require prep programs such as WSU�s to develop a much tighter relationship with K-12 educators. We must take shared responsibility with school district efforts to improve failing or under-performing schools.
While I have several concerns about the administration�s approach, I do credit federal officials for their willingness to be creative. I�m hopeful that they will see the professional development of all educators�teachers, principals, and superintendents�as part of the solution to improving the nation�s schools.
Monday, February 28, 2011
A Super Start to Our Film Series
reposted from my dean's blog, originally published 1/31/11
A.G. Rud
Sponsoring a film series is a bit of an experiment for our college. Based on the first presentation, I predict it will be a success. Our goal is to address educational issues affecting children, families, schools and communities.
�Waiting for Superman� was screened Sunday at the Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre in Moscow, launching the three-part series, Rethinking Education, that we�re co-sponsoring with our colleagues at the University of Idaho College of Education. We had a large crowd, filling the first floor of the theater and part of the balcony. A special thanks to Amy Cox of our development staff and UI faculty member Melissa Saul for organizing the Sunday program.
�Waiting for Superman� revolves around five children whose futures depend upon winning a lottery to attend a charter school. The discussion that followed Sunday�s showing was led by Cori Mantle-Bromley, dean of the University of Idaho�s College of Education. The eight panelists included WSU faculty members Kristin Huggins, who came over from Vancouver, Paula Groves Price, and Xyanthe Neider. Cori asked them to consider some of the ironies of the film as well as their reactions to the portrayals.
Our film series opened in Moscow
Kristin, who has conducted research on professional learning communities, noted shortcomings in the film, such as a focus upon elementary and middle schools but not high schools, no mention of special needs students, and a concentration on only the good news about charter schools. For example, there was no mention of the corporate funding that helps support many of these schools, money that isn�t available to other public schools. Xyan spoke about her son and his struggles with schooling and how some parts of the film resonated with her experiences. Paula said that her reaction to the film was powerful and unexpected. While calling it overly simplistic, she noted that she is the parent of a young child and wants the best for her daughter as do the parents in �Superman.� (You can see Paula�s response in this YouTube clip.)
My own reaction
I found the film powerful, disturbing, and frankly a mishmash of many narratives and explanations. The recounting of recent school reforms, such as No Child Left Behind and the embattled tenure of Washington, D.C., school chief Michelle Rhee, was fascinating. The tale of the triumphs of charter schools ignored studies that point to less stellar achievement and to some of the colossal failures of charters over the past decade. We cannot say unequivocally that public schools are doing a weak job of educating students or charters are one of the best solutions, as was implied by this film.
I was also struck by the sheer insensitivity of the charter selection process, the famous �lottery� held in a public setting as if it were a game show, with triumphant �winners� and many more disconsolate �losers.� This is perhaps the most poignant part of the film � you see the children whose stories you have followed for the past 90 minutes wait expectantly for the roll of the dice. It is profoundly saddening to think that education is reduced to such a spectacle.
Finally, I was dismayed by the drumbeat of emphasis put upon a college education by many in the film. It was not even any post secondary path they trumpeted, it was a �four-year college.�
Certainly many of our children are ill equipped for college, and for those who seek such an education we must do better. But to assert that a bachelor�s degree is necessary for a good life is foolish and biased. I did well in school, and hence became college educated, and now work in a university. But I don�t know much at all about how to take apart a motor, or build a house, or service a broken furnace. I admire those who have these skills, and I know I value them when my car won�t start. Why engage in idolatry about a college education? It is not for everyone, and it is particularly galling to see this emphasized in the film when President Obama is supporting community college degrees and post-secondary training.
More to come
The films and panel discussions in our series are free and open to the public. The other two documentaries will be shown on the WSU campus. �The Lottery� will be screened at 7 p.m. March 9 in Todd Hall 116. In the words of its creators, the film �uncovers the failures of the traditional public school system and reveals that hundreds of thousands of parents attempt to flee the system every year.� Kelly Ward, the interim chair of our Department of Educational Leadership and Counseling Psychology, will moderate that panel.
I will lead the discussion after �The Race to Nowhere,� set for 6 p.m. April 14 in the CUB auditorium. The film features �the heartbreaking stories of young people across the country who have been pushed to the brink, educators who are burned out and worried that students aren�t developing the skills they need, and parents who are trying to do what�s best for their kids.�
We look forward to seeing you there!
A.G. Rud
Sponsoring a film series is a bit of an experiment for our college. Based on the first presentation, I predict it will be a success. Our goal is to address educational issues affecting children, families, schools and communities.
�Waiting for Superman� was screened Sunday at the Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre in Moscow, launching the three-part series, Rethinking Education, that we�re co-sponsoring with our colleagues at the University of Idaho College of Education. We had a large crowd, filling the first floor of the theater and part of the balcony. A special thanks to Amy Cox of our development staff and UI faculty member Melissa Saul for organizing the Sunday program.
�Waiting for Superman� revolves around five children whose futures depend upon winning a lottery to attend a charter school. The discussion that followed Sunday�s showing was led by Cori Mantle-Bromley, dean of the University of Idaho�s College of Education. The eight panelists included WSU faculty members Kristin Huggins, who came over from Vancouver, Paula Groves Price, and Xyanthe Neider. Cori asked them to consider some of the ironies of the film as well as their reactions to the portrayals.
Our film series opened in Moscow
Kristin, who has conducted research on professional learning communities, noted shortcomings in the film, such as a focus upon elementary and middle schools but not high schools, no mention of special needs students, and a concentration on only the good news about charter schools. For example, there was no mention of the corporate funding that helps support many of these schools, money that isn�t available to other public schools. Xyan spoke about her son and his struggles with schooling and how some parts of the film resonated with her experiences. Paula said that her reaction to the film was powerful and unexpected. While calling it overly simplistic, she noted that she is the parent of a young child and wants the best for her daughter as do the parents in �Superman.� (You can see Paula�s response in this YouTube clip.)
My own reaction
I found the film powerful, disturbing, and frankly a mishmash of many narratives and explanations. The recounting of recent school reforms, such as No Child Left Behind and the embattled tenure of Washington, D.C., school chief Michelle Rhee, was fascinating. The tale of the triumphs of charter schools ignored studies that point to less stellar achievement and to some of the colossal failures of charters over the past decade. We cannot say unequivocally that public schools are doing a weak job of educating students or charters are one of the best solutions, as was implied by this film.
I was also struck by the sheer insensitivity of the charter selection process, the famous �lottery� held in a public setting as if it were a game show, with triumphant �winners� and many more disconsolate �losers.� This is perhaps the most poignant part of the film � you see the children whose stories you have followed for the past 90 minutes wait expectantly for the roll of the dice. It is profoundly saddening to think that education is reduced to such a spectacle.
Finally, I was dismayed by the drumbeat of emphasis put upon a college education by many in the film. It was not even any post secondary path they trumpeted, it was a �four-year college.�
Certainly many of our children are ill equipped for college, and for those who seek such an education we must do better. But to assert that a bachelor�s degree is necessary for a good life is foolish and biased. I did well in school, and hence became college educated, and now work in a university. But I don�t know much at all about how to take apart a motor, or build a house, or service a broken furnace. I admire those who have these skills, and I know I value them when my car won�t start. Why engage in idolatry about a college education? It is not for everyone, and it is particularly galling to see this emphasized in the film when President Obama is supporting community college degrees and post-secondary training.
More to come
The films and panel discussions in our series are free and open to the public. The other two documentaries will be shown on the WSU campus. �The Lottery� will be screened at 7 p.m. March 9 in Todd Hall 116. In the words of its creators, the film �uncovers the failures of the traditional public school system and reveals that hundreds of thousands of parents attempt to flee the system every year.� Kelly Ward, the interim chair of our Department of Educational Leadership and Counseling Psychology, will moderate that panel.
I will lead the discussion after �The Race to Nowhere,� set for 6 p.m. April 14 in the CUB auditorium. The film features �the heartbreaking stories of young people across the country who have been pushed to the brink, educators who are burned out and worried that students aren�t developing the skills they need, and parents who are trying to do what�s best for their kids.�
We look forward to seeing you there!
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Teacher Accountability and Rating
I know I've beaten this horse before, but more and new data (isn't that what we're always wanting) have made the idea of rating and accountability even more vexing. Let me explain using some testing outcomes from my school, 8th grade reading. Bear in mind, the outcomes I'm summarizing are all from the same tests, 8th grade reading WASL/MSP, 2006-2009. Also bear in mind that I'm assuming that test score outcomes are going to be used as a proxy for teacher performance.
The OSPI Report Card shows that the following percentage of our 8th graders passed the test (that means they got a score of 400 or higher). The number in parentheses following is the 7th grade (previous year) pass rate for the same group. (I joined this school in the fall of 2006, so include the 2006 score only to match up with the next set of scores.)
OSPI Report Card
2006--70.1
2007--74.2 (65.9)
2008--72.1 (74.6)
2009--79.6 (73.2)
The Evergreen Freedom Foundation reports a Fraser Institute score on their web site.
Their score is determined by simply averaging all the test scores for our group. Scores of 1 or 2 are 'not meeting standard,' while 3 or 4 signify 'meeting standard.'
1--MSP score of 375 or less
2--score of 376-399
3--score of 400-418
4--419 and above
2006--3.1
2007--3.05
2008--3.01
2009--3.25
This means that the average score for all the 8th graders on the reading test was 3.1 out of 4 in 2006, and so on.
Note that the percentage passing rate (top) only measures the proportion of 3s and 4s out of all tests taken.
The average score adds up all scores and divides by the number of tests taken.
A couple of things are interesting here. One is that in the OSPI scoring system, there is no change in the outcome measured when a student moves from 1 to 2, or 3 to 4, or if a student moves the other direction. Moving above or below 400 is all that affects the 'score' (percentage). In the Fraser Institute scoring system, movements from 1 to 2 and 3 to 4 (or reverse) do affect the overall average.
Another is that while the percentage of 8th graders passing in 2007 was greater than 2006, their average went down. This must mean that the 2007 students achieved more 3s and fewer 4s than the 2006 8th graders, who had a lower pass rate, by a higher average score.
So, which metric should we use? The average score instrument is blunt. Since a student earning a 400 and another earning a 418 both get 3s, we cast into the same category what are really quite different outcomes. But the percentage passing calculation is even more blunt. For example, 375 is the cutoff between a 1 and 2. For the percentage passing calculation, this difference means nothing. For the average score calculation, it means a lot.
If we were to be rated based on the whole class average score, I will take it as a success to get a student from 374 to 376. That's a 1 moving to a 2. If we use the OSPI scoring system, I will be less motivated (incentivized, as they say in economics) to focus on any such movement. Of course, neither scoring system takes account of a student's movement from 376 to 399 (which is a substantial increase), or 400 to 418.
And we haven't even mentioned whether an 'improvement over prior grade' metric is worth considering as a measure of teacher performance. Of course, one effect of that would be to increase a feeling of competitiveness among teachers...probably not great for school climate.
I'm not trying to make any moral, emotional, financial or spiritual judgments with this. I would like to have a more clear-minded conversation about just what we think we can measure when we talk about rating teachers and students.
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Reading is Complicated; Literacy is really Complicated
I 'bumped into' a former colleague from my university teaching days. She's an English professor with a background in literacy programs, so we fell to talking about reading, schools, etc. She sent me an article about the role the bedtime story plays in various kinds of family environments. The article summarized the findings of an ethnographic analysis of three different groups and how they enculturate their children into the reading and learning process.
Group 1 begins reading with their children very early, provides a wide variety of reading material, and teaches (consciously or not) that there is much to "take away" from reading material. These parents show, demonstrate, teach their children to, I as I put it to my 8th graders, "interact with the text." Make inferences, draw conclusions, evaluate context, make comparisons, etc.
This 'order' of things, by the way, is how school is organized. Or, more to the point, school is designed by people who are good at this, and who think this reading/learning process is good and right. Kids from this kind of background will be much more likely to succeed at school than will kids from Group 2.
Group 2 parents read less to their children and tend to be more ambivalent about the material. Their interactions tend to involve more of the recall/recapitulation process, and the so-called higher level reading skills are engaged less deeply. Children in this group are less likely to grow up thinking there is a breadth and depth of worthwhile material in a piece of reading, and less likely to have the skills to find that breadth and depth. In other words, they're less likely to be effective at reading, though these prospects are worse for Group 3 children.
Group 3 parents don't read much at all to their children and tend to see much less value in the process of reading or in the reading material than do Group 1 parents, or even group 2 parents. These children are the least likely to be successful in the reading-driven elements of school.
Parents in all three groups want and hope for their children to be well-educated. The study makes clear that the latter two groups may be less clear about the best things for enhancing their children's learning prospects.
The study was concerned to show a number of things, but I am interested in a variety of implications for the process of schooling.
First, to the degree that one class room has a mix of these kind of students, a teacher essentially has 3 different kinds of teaching tasks. And when we're talking about higher grades, this problem becomes the more complicated. The group 1 students who've been keeping up with grade level learning expectations will be in a very different place for the whole of their academic experience than will Group 3 students who have likely fallen further behind with each passing year.
Second, the teaching of reading mechanics (decoding, fluency, etc.) is far from the most important aspect of literacy. The article points this out, but it can't be reiterated enough. At school we're fond of saying "Every child can learn," but the differences between these kinds of students compels us to think seriously about this trope and the degree to which we really can commit to the idea implicit therein.
Can a Group 3 child learn in the same way that a Group 1 child does? Is school constructed to reach one group more than the others, and to what effect on those other groups? Should school be constructed in some other way? Should and can we transform Group 3 kids into Group 1 kids? If so, how? Or should we try to create more work and learning opportunities engaging Group 2 and 3 kids on their own terms? If so, at what opportunity costs? Is the current model, structure, organization, etc., of schooling adequate to this diversification?
Third, the big question...is the standardized testing process inclined in favor of one or two of the groups and against the others? Would it be reasonable to figure out a different metric and learning goal for the different groups of kids?
Fourth, and I think most importantly, is there some way to engage Group 2 and 3 parents earlier, and get them to help their kids see the value of the reading and learning process? There is only so much a teacher can do to reconstruct a child's enculturation toward reading and learning. Getting more done earlier will be better for a child.
Fifth, does this mean that programs like Head Start are indeed important?
Sixth, I'm sure there are more implications to consider...let me know what they are.
...from that same colleague....Who's to say that group 1 literacy is the only way to go? There are certainly benefits to the second and third situations that get denied or ground out of students in schools.
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Templeton Press: New Threats to Freedom Contests, Long Form; $1,000 - $5,000 Scholarships.
Prizes:
First place $5,000 scholarship
Second place $3,000 scholarship
Third place $1,000 scholarship
Exceptional essays will also be considered for inclusion in the paperback edition of New Threats to Freedom (May 2011).
Deadline:
Entries must be received by 11:59 pm on March 31, 2011.
Objective:
Write a compelling counter argument to one of these three essays that appear in New Threats to Freedom edited by Adam Bellow (Templeton Press, 2010):
The New Behaviorists, Christine Rosen
Participatory Culture and the Assault on Democracy, Lee Siegel
The Illusion of Innocence, Shelby Steele
Judging:
Judges will look for clarity, accuracy, accessibility, and overall quality of the argument. Sources should be referenced and cited appropriately, using footnotes or in-text citations. Entries will be judged blindly.
Eligibility:
Entrants must be enrolled part- or full-time in an undergraduate or graduate degree program at an accredited college or university in the United States or its territories. Entrants who intend to be enrolled by Fall 2011 (e.g. high school seniors or prospective graduate students) will also be considered.
Rules:
Written entries should be between 2,000 and 3,000 words. All entries should be submitted by e-mail to tpinfo@templetonpress.org. Be sure to include your contact information, including name, e-mail address, college or university affiliation, and graduation year. All entries become the property of Templeton Press and select essays will be published on the New Threats to Freedom website.
For more information: http://newthreatstofreedom.com/contests/
First place $5,000 scholarship
Second place $3,000 scholarship
Third place $1,000 scholarship
Exceptional essays will also be considered for inclusion in the paperback edition of New Threats to Freedom (May 2011).
Deadline:
Entries must be received by 11:59 pm on March 31, 2011.
Objective:
Write a compelling counter argument to one of these three essays that appear in New Threats to Freedom edited by Adam Bellow (Templeton Press, 2010):
The New Behaviorists, Christine Rosen
Participatory Culture and the Assault on Democracy, Lee Siegel
The Illusion of Innocence, Shelby Steele
Judging:
Judges will look for clarity, accuracy, accessibility, and overall quality of the argument. Sources should be referenced and cited appropriately, using footnotes or in-text citations. Entries will be judged blindly.
Eligibility:
Entrants must be enrolled part- or full-time in an undergraduate or graduate degree program at an accredited college or university in the United States or its territories. Entrants who intend to be enrolled by Fall 2011 (e.g. high school seniors or prospective graduate students) will also be considered.
Rules:
Written entries should be between 2,000 and 3,000 words. All entries should be submitted by e-mail to tpinfo@templetonpress.org. Be sure to include your contact information, including name, e-mail address, college or university affiliation, and graduation year. All entries become the property of Templeton Press and select essays will be published on the New Threats to Freedom website.
For more information: http://newthreatstofreedom.com/contests/
Templeton Press: New Threats to Freedom Contest, Student Short Form; $5,000 Scholarship.
Student Short Form Contest
Prizes: $5,000 scholarship
Deadline: Entries must be received by 11:59 pm on March 31, 2011.
Objective:
Create a written or video response to one of these three videos that discuss topics in the book, New Threats to Freedom edited by Adam Bellow (Templeton Press, 2010):
Greg Lukianoff on campus censorship
Max Borders on our compulsive urge to regulate
Michael Goodwin on the loss of the freedom to fail
If you have fresh insights into these issues, we want you to make your voice heard.
Judging:
It doesn�t matter whether you agree with the original video or not, entries will be judged on the creativity and the quality of the ideas presented. Make us think about these issues in a new way.
Eligibility:
Entrants must be enrolled part- or full-time in an undergraduate or graduate degree program at an accredited college or university in the United States or its territories. Entrants who intend to be enrolled by Fall 2011 (e.g. high school seniors or prospective graduate students) will also be considered.
Rules:
Written entries should be between 300 and 500 words. Entrants must identify the video that they are referencing. Entries must be published somewhere in the public eye: this can be a blog, a school newspaper, or any other print or online publication.
Video entries should be between three to five minutes in length. All entries must identify which video they are referencing. Entries must be published to one of the major video hosting sites such as Youtube, Dailymotion, or Vimeo.
To submit entries, contestants must either send:
A link (if the entry appears online) to tpinfo@templetonpress.org.
A clipping (if it appears in print) to
New Threats to Freedom Contests
Templeton Press
300 Conshohocken State Road
Suite550
West Conshohocken, PA 19428
Be sure to include your contact information, including name, e-mail address, college or university affiliation, and graduation year.
For more information: http://newthreatstofreedom.com/contests/
Prizes: $5,000 scholarship
Deadline: Entries must be received by 11:59 pm on March 31, 2011.
Objective:
Create a written or video response to one of these three videos that discuss topics in the book, New Threats to Freedom edited by Adam Bellow (Templeton Press, 2010):
Greg Lukianoff on campus censorship
Max Borders on our compulsive urge to regulate
Michael Goodwin on the loss of the freedom to fail
If you have fresh insights into these issues, we want you to make your voice heard.
Judging:
It doesn�t matter whether you agree with the original video or not, entries will be judged on the creativity and the quality of the ideas presented. Make us think about these issues in a new way.
Eligibility:
Entrants must be enrolled part- or full-time in an undergraduate or graduate degree program at an accredited college or university in the United States or its territories. Entrants who intend to be enrolled by Fall 2011 (e.g. high school seniors or prospective graduate students) will also be considered.
Rules:
Written entries should be between 300 and 500 words. Entrants must identify the video that they are referencing. Entries must be published somewhere in the public eye: this can be a blog, a school newspaper, or any other print or online publication.
Video entries should be between three to five minutes in length. All entries must identify which video they are referencing. Entries must be published to one of the major video hosting sites such as Youtube, Dailymotion, or Vimeo.
To submit entries, contestants must either send:
A link (if the entry appears online) to tpinfo@templetonpress.org.
A clipping (if it appears in print) to
New Threats to Freedom Contests
Templeton Press
300 Conshohocken State Road
Suite550
West Conshohocken, PA 19428
Be sure to include your contact information, including name, e-mail address, college or university affiliation, and graduation year.
For more information: http://newthreatstofreedom.com/contests/
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Awful
Out of Virginia, the tragic news that a teenager committed suicide, in part, apparently, over his despair about the discipline his school meted out to him over his purchase of a legal drug substitute. The Washington Post's Education blogger (I guess you'd call her) wrote of how the zero tolerance policy is counterproductive, even, so it seems in this case, destructive.
Fair enough. This very sad case seems to have some elements of the absurd.
So does much of school life, unfortunately. To wit, zero tolerance.
I agree that zero tolerance rules tend, on average, to be onerous and inflexible. The bind schools often find themselves in, though, is that flexibility in discipline, which any parent knows is required in child-rearing, will be challenged the moment a parent gets the idea that disciplinary decisions have generated different outcomes and therefore are unfair.
There are certainly kids in my school whom I discipline differently because I can discern regret, remorse, repentance, etc., and I know they've 'learned' just by our conversation. Other students, though, seem undaunted by even the prospect of 3-hour Friday detention after school.
For the sake of fairness (and not wanting to have to deal with the parents who'd cry foul), the easiest route is to implement completely even discipline--zero tolerance.
Also, though, what do you think the coverage would be like if the school had given a 'light' punishment to a student who then goes out and makes real trouble after being 'let off' by the school? This is why risk-management (i.e., lawsuit avoidance) is so powerful an idea (and dept.) in school and society
I don't like zero tolerance, but the schools (indeed, public agencies generally) are in a tough spot either way. Imagine trying to implement a 'some tolerance' policy, especially in an environment of low trust, as people now generally have for the schools.
Saturday, February 19, 2011
Markets don't solve everything
Or, at least philosophical claims about what the market can accomplish don't solve everything.
The appeal of market logic is compelling. I enjoy the wider availability of good things at low prices because of markets. The logic of free trade is ineluctable. Just read The Choice. But then read Politics and Markets, too, so you can think about the balances we as people strike when we organize our political economic systems.
Yes, I'm a free marketer, but at the same time I'm glad we have labor laws protecting children, and industrial laws protecting adults, for instance. These are choices we make in political society. The market would't 'care' (I use the quotes because the market doesn't have agency, so I don't really like to personify it) whether a child were put into dangerous working conditions, but people can and do care about just such things.
My point is that the claims of market supporters are well-founded--efficiency gains, maximization of production at lower prices, etc. But the moral choices we make as a society are a feature of social or political choices. Markets don't choose because they don't act. People act and choose.
So, all that to say, I find both the left and the right tiresomely ideological about so much of what they say in politics. But I'm most perplexed by the right, because that's the direction I incline. I'm toughest on those who sound and think like I do, or maybe it's that I think like they do, but I don't want to sound like they do at all.
Anyway, the Evergreen Freedom Foundation's market logic applied to schools--My comments in regular font.
Summary of findings
Many school districts could boost student achievement without increasing spending if they used their money more productively. An Arizona school district, for example, could see as much as a 36 percent boost in achievement if it increased its efficiency from the lowest level to the highest, all else being equal.
What is more productive spending? How do we know it when we see it, other than seeing that success measures (scores, presumably) go up. How is efficiency defined in connection to test scores without the whole thing becoming a tautology? We need to have an a priori definition of efficiency and productive spending, and this summary does not provide that.
Low productivity costs the nation�s school system as much as $175 billion a year. This figure is an estimate; our study does not capture everything that goes into creating an efficient district. But the approximate loss in capacity equals about 1 percent of the nation�s gross domestic product.
Again, what is efficient? I suspect they define efficiency (as some have bandied about in blogs and comments) as things like cutting the excess principals in a building. My school is operating with one instead of two principals right now. It makes a lot of things much less productive. Discipline management, for instance, is less clear and cohesive, and that intrudes into every aspect of the school day. Talk about productivity disruptions, but I don't know how to quantify them. Of course, if you want the best test scores for the least spending, you need to figure out how to get rid of the low performing students. They're a horrible drag on efficiency. The struggling learners take up a lot more time and attention than the students who are on grade level.
Without controls on how additional school dollars are spent, more education spending will not automatically improve student outcomes. In more than half of the states included in our study, there was no clear relationship between spending and achievement after adjusting for other variables, such as cost of living and students in poverty. These findings are consistent with existing research: How a school system spends its dollars can be just as important as how much it spends, at least above some threshold level.
Again, seems easy to say, but it remains unclear how a school system should spend its money. And a little understanding of Kenneth Arrow's impossibility theorem would help here. Arrow showed that the collective choice among 3 options might not actually reflect a rationally preference ordered choice of the largest number of deciders in the group. Individual preference orderings don't always coherently transfer to collective choice. Arrow showed this for choices among 3 candidates in an election. Imagine how much harder the collective choosing process is when you're talking about much larger option sets with much more complicated tradeoffs among them. We had this problem just the other day when talking about our master schedule. I don't know what the efficient outcome would be in the case of scheduling. And, frankly, what works effectively for some students won't work as well for others. That second group may need something that turns out to be detrimental to a third group, whose dominant need actually undermines group one...Arrow's impossibility....!
Efficiency varies widely within states. Some districts spent thousands more per student to obtain the same broad level of academic achievement. After adjusting for factors outside of a district�s control, the range of spending among the districts scoring in the top third of achievement in California was nearly $8,000 per student.
What, I wonder, were the factors "outside the district's control." One factor that has a lot to do with success is level of parent involvement and general family stability. My district probably looks pretty efficient--we spend about $6000 per student, and our test scores are pretty good. But I tell all who ask that we've got pretty involved parents and pretty stable families. If parents and families matter, then to maximize efficiency, make sure your district is doing well in this area.
More than a million students are enrolled in highly inefficient districts. Over 400 school districts around the country were rated highly inefficient on all three of our productivity metrics. These districts serve about 3 percent of the almost 43 million students covered by our study.
And, at the same time, The Alliance for Excellent Education reports the following:
Approximately two thousand high schools (about 12 percent of American high schools) produce more than half of the nation�s dropouts. In these ?dropout factories, the number of seniors enrolled is routinely 60 percent or less than the number of freshmen three years earlier.
Eighty percent of the high schools that produce the most dropouts can be found in a subset of just fifteen states. The majority of dropout factories are located in northern and western cities and throughout the southern states.
Unless those 2000 high schools are all from those 400 districts, efficiency and retention may not be highly correlated. So, which do we, as a society, focus on? Or, to say it differently, how do we get efficient and retain students at the same time?
High-spending school systems are often inefficient. Our analysis showed that after accounting for factors outside of a district�s control, many high spending districts posted middling productivity results. For example, only 17 percent of Florida�s districts in the top third in spending were also in the top third in achievement.
Again, which factors? If those districts were paying for mandated programs to some target population, they may not be able to get out from underneath that spending requirement. A district with a high volume of special needs is going to be much less efficient, whatever way you define it.
Students from disadvantaged backgrounds are more likely to be enrolled in highly inefficient districts. Students who participated in subsidized lunch programs were 12 percentage points more likely to be enrolled in the nation�s least-productive districts, even after making allowances for the higher cost of educating lower-income students.
If low socio-economic status correlates with lower parent involvement, lower reading success at early grades, etc., then those districts will have more special program requirements to meet and will be less efficient. Further, kids who fall behind early will require remediation, and while those programs achieve their curricular goals, without reinforcement and persistence outside of school, the gains are diminished and the student remains somewhat behind, thus requiring more remediation, and so on.
Highly productive districts are focused on improving student outcomes. We surveyed a sample of highly productive districts to learn more about their principles and practices. The districts that performed well on our metrics shared a number of values and practices, including strong community support and a willingness to make tough choices.
This bit is non-sensical. A good district focuses on student outcomes, and they "performed" well on strong community support. An implicit acknowledgment that community/parent involvement is a boon to a school. Of course, in great degree, community support is up to the members of the community, not the school.
States and districts fail to evaluate the productivity of schools and districts. While the nation spends billions of dollars on education, only two states, Florida and Texas, currently provide annual school-level productivity evaluations, which report to the public how well funds are being spent at the local level.
The quality of state and local education data is often poor. In many instances, key information on school spending and outcomes is not available or insufficiently rigorous, and this severely impedes the study of educational productivity. For instance, we did not have good enough data to control for certain cost factors, such as transportation. So a rural district with high busing costs might suffer in some of our metrics compared with a more densely populated district.
The nation�s least-productive districts spend more on administration. The most inefficient districts in the country devote an extra 3 percentage points of their budgets on average to administration, operations, and other noninstructional expenditures.
Some urban districts are far more productive than others. While our main results are limited to within-state comparisons, we were able to conduct a special cross-state analysis of urban districts that recently participated in a national achievement test. After adjusting for certain factors outside a district�s control, we found that some big-city school systems spend millions of dollars more than others�but get far lower results on math and reading tests.
Friday, February 18, 2011
Tiresome to the left and right
The Evergreen Freedom Foundation (or whatever it's now called) is an organization that follows WA state politics, including education.
They rank schools. Here's my school's ranking.
|
| School Information | |
| Grades | 6-8 |
| Enrollment | 646 |
| Low Income (%) | 15.7 |
| Ethnicity (%) | Wh: 58.2 As: 12.1 |
| Tests not written not exempt (%) | 0.3 |
| Academic Performance | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | Trend |
| Avg level: Reading | 3.1 | 2.9 | 3.0 | 3.1 | 3.1 |  |
| Avg level: Writing | 2.6 | 2.7 | 2.8 | 3.0 | 3.2 | |
| Avg level: Math | 2.6 | 2.5 | 2.6 | 2.7 | 2.8 | |
| Avg level: Science | 2.2 | 2.5 | 2.5 | 2.6 | 2.9 | |
| Tests below standard (%) | 39.8 | 39.7 | 34.4 | 30.3 | 26.6 | |
| Low income gap: Reading | n/a | n/a | n/a | N 0.5 | N 0.6 | n/a |
| Low income gap: Math | n/a | n/a | n/a | N 0.7 | N 0.7 | n/a |
| Overall rating out of 10 | 6.5 | 6.5 | 6.9 | 7.3 | 7.5 | |
Those 2 and 3 scores are on a 4-point scale. 3 and 4 are at and above standard.
The score they list is the average for that whole grade level.
Nice, too, that they tell how many tests were failed in the year.
Most of my colleagues don't like EFF. They're a conservative group that thinks school teachers get paid too much and accomplish too little, so the thinking goes.
I'm more bothered that they simply offer up the same kind of material (data, I guess it is) as anybody else.
Won't anybody with any policy weight discuss this any differently?
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Math made easy
These gags--which I assume are fakes--go around the teacher e-mail circuit about once a year. Real or fake, they're fun.
A most poetic response to math and science. I can't understand how this earned a zero.
More importantly, read question (b) again closely.
"Does the object continue to move after it comes to rest?" This needs to be asked?
Meaningless Language
From Politico--Obama�s education secretary Arne Duncan sounded surprisingly like the Republican governors when he told teachers unions and administrators at a conference Tuesday in Denver, �Clearly, the status quo isn�t working for children.�
Really? Seems likes the status quo isn't working for adults...taxpayers, budget writers, lawmakers, etc.
Really? Seems likes the status quo isn't working for adults...taxpayers, budget writers, lawmakers, etc.
And just what is the status quo? It's a lot different at my school than it is at my children's schools, which is different from what it is at schools in other parts of our city.
I find it almost fortunate that something as sprawlingly amorphous as 'the schools' probably really isn't fixable on the grand scale...anything we think is a fix is probably as destructive as it is helpful, so I'm glad such fixes are hard to implement.
3rd Quarter of the Year
Our third quarter just started. We have officially entered 'Testing Season.' Be on the lookout for any free-roaming 'bubble' students.
Let me explain.
With about 2 1/2 months until we take the test, we all begin to think more specifically about it. As I've said before, I spend some time on test strategy, reading skills specific to the test, and extra work for the so-called bubble students--those who were very close to passing or just barely passed last year.
After having read the very interesting Nudge, I can't help but think about the testing season as a 'choice environment.' We make (or have made, or have had made for us) choices about how we undertake teaching, and what we think of as 'learning,' and the incentive structures that the testing season creates shape teaching and learning in a particular way.
We are, for instance, planning a little test-boosting 'extended learning opportunity' (i.e., after school help) in the next few weeks. This will be offered to these bubble students, and most won't take it. Last time we offered this, 2 of the 20 or so invitees came. We'd love to get some to do the extra preparation. Just think if we got 10 'almost passed last year' students to 'passing this year.' That would make our overall test numbers go up nicely.
Think of what's not being done, at the same time. The students who are safely in the passing zone, who could probably forego even the test prep we do in our regular language arts day, are left doing less than they probably could do. During test season, we don't really mind, though. We're not really held accountable for changes in student scores, only whether they pass or not.
The more I can get to pass, the better. It doesn't really matter if I get students to enjoy reading more, or do more of it. If I teach test strategies and those numbers go up, I'll be a hero. And believe you me, at this point, test strategies probably get as much value-added (for test scores) as anything else.
So, the question still remains, what does passing the 8th grade reading MSP prove other than the fact that you passed the 8th grade reading MSP? I'm not sure. If I can get marginal readers up over the magic bar, does that mean they're now better students, will be more successful in their pursuits, are smarter than before they passed?
It's unclear that we can say YES to any of those. But mine is not to question why, and all that good stuff.
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Time and Place
So, blogging about students can be tricky....
My colleagues and I often tell students who are being a bit too cute or funny or silly, "time and place." There's a time and place for that...it's not now and here, but there is a time and place for that.
Have I ever complained to colleagues about students? Yes. It's commiseration that helps you stay sane.
But there's another sort of odd thing going on, for me. I sometimes 'complain' to my colleagues in order to check or monitor my own conduct. Sometimes it's like a strange confessional process.
"Can you believe Billy did....?"
"So I told him...."
And there's a little bit of trying to commiserate with a colleague in order to gauge how close I am to being out of bounds.
There is some guilt mitigation going on, because sometimes my frustrations take hold of me, like when....Oh forget it. I couldn't describe it. You should just come to my room for a day.
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
IES Summer Abroad Need Based Financial Aid � up to $1,000
IES Abroad Summer Need-Based Scholarships
Amount: Up to $1,000
Application Deadline: April 1st
Eligibility requirements:
Level of financial need shown on home campus financial aid office forms.
IES Abroad program location.
IES Abroad membership status of home campus.
How to Apply:
Apply to an IES Abroad Summer Program
Apply online or download an application (if you have not done so already).
Submit a completed IES Abroad Summer Need-based Application
Download and mail or fax the IES Abroad Summer Need-Based Aid Application.
For more information:
https://www.iesabroad.org/IES/About_IES/contactUs.html
Amount: Up to $1,000
Application Deadline: April 1st
Eligibility requirements:
- Attend a college or university that is a Member or Associate Member of the IES Abroad consortium that transfers at least 75% of home school aid to IES Abroad.
- Apply to and attend an IES Abroad Summer program.
- Provide proof of financial need through your home campus financial aid office.
Level of financial need shown on home campus financial aid office forms.
IES Abroad program location.
IES Abroad membership status of home campus.
How to Apply:
Apply to an IES Abroad Summer Program
Apply online or download an application (if you have not done so already).
Submit a completed IES Abroad Summer Need-based Application
Download and mail or fax the IES Abroad Summer Need-Based Aid Application.
For more information:
https://www.iesabroad.org/IES/About_IES/contactUs.html
Friday, February 11, 2011
Democratic Centralism?
I'm giving away my old Soviet politics/Cold War academic background to call our staff meetings at school 'democratic centralism without the Leninism.'
Communist parties often run along democratic centralist lines. Elections are supposed to select the leadership of a rigid hierarchy that really makes policy...without too terribly much input from the electorate. It's more centralism than democratic.
So, why are our staff meetings like this?
Today, we met to give our wish lists for school schedule parameters. The discussion is complicated by at least two important realities. First, preferences diverge. More than once someone suggested one thing (common grade level planning time, for instance) only to have someone else say their group didn't want that. One group finally just said we want 'this' and 'not this,' both.
Second, the sets of issues that we're considering are not of the same order. Whether we have a common planning time may not have anything to do with avoiding multi-grade teaching responsibilities. In such a situation, the preferences are particularly difficult to rank, as we (or at least, I) have difficulty comparing them.
Such is the nature of 'democratic' discussion.
So, ultimately, the district leadership will take a significant role in the whole thing. Thus, the centralism part.
As long as it's evidence-driven research-based best practices of what's good for kids we'll be fine.
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Hear hear!
Saw a short piece on Why I Dislike Education Reform. Sums it pretty well, I think. I don't know about the 'cheating' observation...not sure I really understand what he means.
But I--and my colleagues--have thought about the other 6 quite a bit.
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
"Status increases aggression"
The higher your social status, the more aggressive you become. The movies got it right...at least for girls. The study reviewed at that link used survey results over the course of a year (I think) to determine that as a teenager moves up the social hierarchy s/he picks on people more.
Correlations and causations are notoriously difficult to evaluate, especially in a study based on self-report survey data. Asking students to name those they've picked on and that have picked on them in the last year (or whatever time period) might just as likely elicit a peculiar kind of status-establishing response.
Such reasoning would be unconscious, but would go like this, "I've picked on people that I would have used to have thought a bit cooler than I was, so since I've picked on them, I must be cooler than I was before. And that really cool person picked on me....Not bad, I'm movin' up."
Is it possible, in other words, that coolness self-talk includes an inventory of how a respondent has used the idea of bullying for social mobility, in his/her own mind?
Harassment, Intimidation, Bullying (HIB, it's now called) are widespread and corrosive at school, no doubt. They're also nuanced, subtle and often hard for adults to detect. The part I find most difficult is that a lot of kids don't want to imagine that their behavior might be destructive to someone else. The rationalization, justification, deflection impulse and machinery are amazing.
I see this problem most clearly with the pervasive "How many of you have ever been bullied?"
I hear a lot fewer adults asking students whether they have ever bullied. Clearly, almost of all of us have said destructive or hurtful things to others. We're both perpetrators and victims. Maybe it would be helpful for more of us to seriously examine our role as even low-level perpetrators.
More on Reading
Just got an e-mail for more continuing education opportunities, this time about reading, so I should pay attention. Doubly so, since they promise to tell us about the Matthew Effect. Never heard of this, so a little Googling is in order. Simple concept, really. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer�in this case, as readers.
Those who learn to read well by 3rd grade tend to just get better and better at their reading. Those who don't, don't. It must be true�studies show it.
Obviously, reading teaching and intervention for strugglers really need to be thorough and intensive through age 8 or 9. Again, reading patterns and modeling at home seem all the more important. If the schools and parents together don't get a youngster to effective reading in those first few years, there will be persistent difficulty in reading for that student.
I am perfectly willing to say the schools need to be sharp about this. But at the end of 3rd grade a child will have been in school for the equivalent of about 600 full school days. Even if 1/4 of the school day is given over to reading instruction, that's about 900 hours in 4 years. 1 hour of reading instruction in school, though, is probably worth about 10 minutes of what some one-on-one out loud reading at home would do.
So those signs on the school readerboard that say "Read 20 minutes a day with your child" should add, "it's a day's worth of school."
Saturday, February 5, 2011
A Brag and an Observation
My 15-year-old son took some reading test or another at school yesterday. A computer-driven test, they got the results immediately. He got a 1700+. Since I have no idea what the test is or what the scoring scale is, I don't really have much of an idea what that score means. Except his teacher did say he'd never seen a score that high. My son has typically gotten very good scores on the various reading tests the school has given him. The test they took in middle school gave a percentile score, and his was typically in the high-90s, often 99th.
So, yesterday's test was to read a passage and then choose the best word (I think he said) to complete the sentence to make the best summary of the passage. I've not seen this particular (and quite specific) assessment tool, though I'm sure there's plenty of research-based evidence that using it is the best practice.
But what am I to make of all the data about my son? He had all these great scores, and for a few years of his school career he didn't do all that well on the one test that mattered--the WASL. Oh, he passed, but one year it was a little closer than I was comfortable with. And his score certainly was not in the 99th percentile.
How can I be sure that what the WASL (now Measurement of Student Progress) measures is really the important stuff to measure? How can I be sure that what all those other tests measured was the really important stuff?
I will elaborate in a forthcoming post.
Teaching 2030: an important book on teaching by teachers
this is slightly modified from the original which appeared at Education Review
Berry, Barnett, and the Teacher Solutions Team (2011). Teaching 2030: What We Must Do for Our Students and Our Public Schools � Now and in the Future.
In all of the public discourse of what we need to do to fix public schools and educate our young people for the future, one set of voices has until now been conspicuously absent. It is the voices of teachers.
This new book, put together under the auspices of the Center for Teaching Quality established by lead author Barnett Berry, and with generous funding from the MetLife Foundation, is an important attempt to include the voices of teachers in helping frame the discussion of how we address our educational needs.
Those of us in classrooms, unless we choose to be oblivious, recognize that our profession needs to be redefined. We lose too many good teachers from classrooms because too often the only path for professional and financial advancement is through administration. In the meantime, we see the students arriving in our classrooms changing as society changes. Often we are prevented from changing what we do in order to meet them where they are. We know this has to change.
This book is the product of an extensive discussion among professional educators. Much of it was conducted online. The final product list 12 authors besides Berry, all themselves notable classroom teachers. They are the ones who sat down with him to put together the book as we have it. But that final product also included material offered by others in online discussions through the various arms of the Center for Teaching Quality, especially its Teacher Leaders Network, of which I am member. Thus while I was not part of the actual author group, I appear 3 times in the work. I do not think that disqualifies me from examining the work and encouraging others to read it.
The teachers participating in this endeavor collective bring a diverse set of experiences to it. Renee Moore taught English high school students in the Mississippi Delta, where she now teaches at a community college. Ariel Sacks and Jose Vilson teach in New York City middle schools. Laurie Wasserman has almost 30 years as a teacher of special education. After a distinguished career in a classroom, Shannon C�de Baca has spent a number of years doing online education. Jennifer Barnett now functions as school-based technology integration specialist in rural Alabama. Kilian Betlach is a Teach for America alumnus who was well-known as a blogger and is now an elementary school assistant principal. Carrie Kamm is a mentor-resident coach for an urban teacher residency program in Chicago. Among these and others in authoring group are winners of State Teacher of the Year (including one finalist for National Teacher of the Year), Milken award winners, Lilly Award winners, and so on. All have experience in trying to improve the teaching profession beyond the reach of their own classrooms. One finds a similar range of diversity and an equal amount of accomplishment in the 33 teachers who are also thanked for their contributions in the online discussions in which we took part.
In addition, those functioning as authors were able to participate in webinars with a number of outstanding experts from across the nation, including on expert from Australia.
The result is a book rich in insight, analysis, and suggestions for the future, one that has already received praise from many notables associated with education and teaching. Of greater importance, it is a book that will speak to a wide range of audiences: those who prepare our new teachers, those who administer our schools, those who make policy, and most of all, to those of us who teach now or may teach in the future.
In his Prologue, Barnett Berry makes a couple of key points that help a reader understand the thrust of the book. The authors
They get to this point by examining what works now in order to describe what will likely work and be needed in the schooling of the future. The vision �emerges from a student centered vision� that takes advantage of new tools, organizations and ideas. It is based on four �emergent realities�:
1. a transformed learning ecology for students and teacher
2. seamless connections in and out of cyberspace
3. differentiated paths and careers
4. �teacherpreneurs� who will foster innovation locally and globally
These rely on six levers for changes: 1. engaging the public in provocative ways
2. overhauling school finance systems
3. creating transformative systems of preparation and licensure
4. ensuring school working conditions that they know promote effective teaching
5. reframing accountability for transformative results
6. continuing to evolve teacher unions into professional guilds
Each of these levers and each of the realities could be a separate volume. Thus the authors cannot fully explore the dimensions of each, yet they provide more than enough to lay out a vision that is clearly possible. In part that is because of the experience they collectively bring to the task, and what they have absorb from the webinars and from the exchanges with each other and with those who participated in online discussion.
The aforementioned Prologue is titled �We Cannot Create What We Cannot Imagine.� It is followed by two chapters that can be considered introductory:
1. The Teachers of 2030 and a Hopeful Vision
2. A Very Brief History of Teaching in America.
The next four chapters explore the four Emergent Realities, each in some specificity. For example, Chapter 5 explores the 3rd of these Emergent Realities, Differentiated Pathways and Careers for a 21st-Century Profession. In just over 30 pages the authors explore four subthemes:
1. Outgrowing a One-Size-Fits-All Professions
2. Redefining the Professions for Results-Oriented
Teaching
3. Teacher Education for a Differentiated, Results-Oriented Profession
4. Professional Compensation for Differentiated Profession
After these four chapters the book spends almost 40 pages exploring the six policy levers of change before concluding with Taking Action for a Hopeful Future, with a subsection on �What You Can Do to Build a 21st- Century Teaching Profession.�
Perhaps the power of the book can best be understood through the notion of �Teacherprenuerism� as it is explored in Chapter 6. The term first appears near the beginning, with the idea of teacher entrepreneurs serving in hybrid positions that don�t easily fit the normal way we classify teachers. Allow me to offer the paragraph from p. 7 which first presents the idea in some detail, after setting the stage by reminding us how already teachers, many National Board Certified and comfortable with using the tools of the web, are de-isolating teaching and offering cost-effective ways of propagating exemplary teaching practices:
Lest one think that a pie in the sky belief about the future, several members of the team that wrote this book - and several of those who like me served as additional resources - already partially function in this fashion. The book posits a day where such teachers would not only be known to wider audiences of parents, community and business leaders and policy makers, but would be respected and listened to. Some of those participating in this process already have that kind of respect, for example, Renee Moore, who has served on the boards of both the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards and as the first educator still in the classroom on the board of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching (California). John Holland has served as a classroom teacher, a blogger for the Pew Charitable Trust blog Inside Pre-K and moderates an online community of accomplished teachers. Others have similar experiences of attempting to create hybrid roles where they can leverage their expertise and knowledge while remaining at least partially classroom based. They use their experience to project to the future they envision. The process has begun already, but the authors are talking about something more than selling one�s good lesson plans on E-bay. As John Holland notes in Chapter 6,
As more teacherpreneurs appear they will serve as a primary agents in developing connected learning. As we get more teachers who have greater facility in using the power of the web, not only will teachers be less isolated, but the nature of teaching will begin to change, and radically, as Emily Vickers notes
In part this will be because students will be accustomed to different ways of obtaining information. We are already seeing this among our current students. They know how to quickly obtain information, although we may still have to guide them in how to evaluate the information they obtain. They are comfortable building websites and increasingly also putting together wikis. It is incumbent upon the educational professionals to adapt what we do not only to meet our students where they are now, but also to anticipate how much this will change the nature of what we do. Teacherpreneurs will be key to a successful transition to a new approach to education.
We still have a way to travel to even come close to such a radical rethinking of the teaching profession. The book points out how much we already know, and how we can begin to move in such a direction, even if the path may change over the next several decades from what even the most imaginative of our current teachers can foresee. A key to this is that others with whom teachers interact will need to rethink how they do their jobs. Administrators will need to spend more time in classrooms, even teaching, and most certainly embrace the idea of teacher leadership. Unions will need to rethink how they serve the teachers who are their members, being more open to diverse roles and with those diverse roles different models of compensation. Policy makers will have to be willing to support and invest in the development of the kinds of hybrid roles necessary to implement the kind of teaching we will need. University-based teacher education will have to change, being more connected with what is happening in classrooms, and working together with community-based organizations, as education moves to be more firmly integrated in the communities in which are schools are located.
There are the first five points listed in the concluding chapter. By themselves they represent a major rethinking of how we have been approaching education and teaching. There are examples of these kinds of changes. I teach in a school that serves as a professional development school for a local state university, and we have had an increasingly close relationship between those who serve as mentor teachers and the university faculty. The next step is for more of those who are skilled mentors moving into a hybrid role where they not only mentor within their own classroom, but perhaps serve as adjunct instructors in the university environment, overcoming the artificial divide between learning about teaching and learning how to teach.
For this to work requires three additional points, also covered in the final chapter. The communities must become more involved, helping encourage the new roles of teacher-leaders even as administrations and unions have to redefine their relationship with one another. Parents and students must be willing to advocate on behalf of the effective teachers, providing the support that will enable teacher leaders to help redefine the conversation about teaching.
Most of all, teachers will have to step out of the isolation of their individual classrooms. They will
The book is intended as a starting point for ongoing conversations. The authors do not presume that they have imagined every possibility. They want to encourage further discussion. They encourage people to visit them at either of two websites, that of the Teaching 2030 social networking site and by connecting with other teachers from the Center for Teaching Quality�s New Millennium Institute.
I am as I write this in my 16th year of teaching. I have been a participant in the discussions of the Teacher Leaders Network for the past few years. I have gotten to know electronically a number of the authors of this book, and have been fortunate enough to meet both Barnett Berry and John Holland. I know how seriously all of the authors take the profession of teaching, and how much they already give of themselves to try to make the teaching profession a more effective way of serving our students, which is ultimately the goal.
For too long the voices of teachers have been systematically excluded from the public discourse about education. In part this book serves as an important corrective, or at least the start of one.
I am not only a teacher, but also one who engages in policy. Like the authors, I wear several hats besides that of classroom teacher. Here you encounter me as one who regularly writes about books on education in order to encourage others to read them. Like many of those who authored the book, I regular write online about education. We are bloggers; it is part of how we connect with one another.
Our expert teachers are a resource that we should value beyond what they accomplish in the classroom, as important as that is. We need to tap their expertise and insight, we need to hear their voices.
If you read this book, you should get a sense of not only how important the teacher voice is, but also how much we all gain from including it in the discussions.
What the authors have proposed is in some ways radical. It has the promise of moving us in a far more productive direction in how we approach the future of teaching. Since I am in my mid 60s, it is unlikely I will still be teaching in 2030. Several of the authors will be. They are helping reshape the profession to which they are dedicating their lives.
I feel as if I should end with the voice of one of the authors. Each offers some closing words at the end of the final chapter. The last are offered by Renee Moore, whose work I greatly respect. It seems appropriate to end this review as the book ends, with the words she offers on p. 214:
I too am dedicated to improving the teaching profession for the benefit of the students entrusted to our care. It is because I am that I fervently hope Renee Moore is right. Read this book.
Berry, Barnett, and the Teacher Solutions Team (2011). Teaching 2030: What We Must Do for Our Students and Our Public Schools � Now and in the Future.
In all of the public discourse of what we need to do to fix public schools and educate our young people for the future, one set of voices has until now been conspicuously absent. It is the voices of teachers.
This new book, put together under the auspices of the Center for Teaching Quality established by lead author Barnett Berry, and with generous funding from the MetLife Foundation, is an important attempt to include the voices of teachers in helping frame the discussion of how we address our educational needs.
Those of us in classrooms, unless we choose to be oblivious, recognize that our profession needs to be redefined. We lose too many good teachers from classrooms because too often the only path for professional and financial advancement is through administration. In the meantime, we see the students arriving in our classrooms changing as society changes. Often we are prevented from changing what we do in order to meet them where they are. We know this has to change.
This book is the product of an extensive discussion among professional educators. Much of it was conducted online. The final product list 12 authors besides Berry, all themselves notable classroom teachers. They are the ones who sat down with him to put together the book as we have it. But that final product also included material offered by others in online discussions through the various arms of the Center for Teaching Quality, especially its Teacher Leaders Network, of which I am member. Thus while I was not part of the actual author group, I appear 3 times in the work. I do not think that disqualifies me from examining the work and encouraging others to read it.
The teachers participating in this endeavor collective bring a diverse set of experiences to it. Renee Moore taught English high school students in the Mississippi Delta, where she now teaches at a community college. Ariel Sacks and Jose Vilson teach in New York City middle schools. Laurie Wasserman has almost 30 years as a teacher of special education. After a distinguished career in a classroom, Shannon C�de Baca has spent a number of years doing online education. Jennifer Barnett now functions as school-based technology integration specialist in rural Alabama. Kilian Betlach is a Teach for America alumnus who was well-known as a blogger and is now an elementary school assistant principal. Carrie Kamm is a mentor-resident coach for an urban teacher residency program in Chicago. Among these and others in authoring group are winners of State Teacher of the Year (including one finalist for National Teacher of the Year), Milken award winners, Lilly Award winners, and so on. All have experience in trying to improve the teaching profession beyond the reach of their own classrooms. One finds a similar range of diversity and an equal amount of accomplishment in the 33 teachers who are also thanked for their contributions in the online discussions in which we took part.
In addition, those functioning as authors were able to participate in webinars with a number of outstanding experts from across the nation, including on expert from Australia.
The result is a book rich in insight, analysis, and suggestions for the future, one that has already received praise from many notables associated with education and teaching. Of greater importance, it is a book that will speak to a wide range of audiences: those who prepare our new teachers, those who administer our schools, those who make policy, and most of all, to those of us who teach now or may teach in the future.
In his Prologue, Barnett Berry makes a couple of key points that help a reader understand the thrust of the book. The authors
...have come together, in harmony if not always in lock-step, about an expanded vision for student learning in the 21st century and for the teaching profession that will, in myriad ways, continue to accelerate that learning. (p. xiii)
They get to this point by examining what works now in order to describe what will likely work and be needed in the schooling of the future. The vision �emerges from a student centered vision� that takes advantage of new tools, organizations and ideas. It is based on four �emergent realities�:
1. a transformed learning ecology for students and teacher
2. seamless connections in and out of cyberspace
3. differentiated paths and careers
4. �teacherpreneurs� who will foster innovation locally and globally
These rely on six levers for changes: 1. engaging the public in provocative ways
2. overhauling school finance systems
3. creating transformative systems of preparation and licensure
4. ensuring school working conditions that they know promote effective teaching
5. reframing accountability for transformative results
6. continuing to evolve teacher unions into professional guilds
Each of these levers and each of the realities could be a separate volume. Thus the authors cannot fully explore the dimensions of each, yet they provide more than enough to lay out a vision that is clearly possible. In part that is because of the experience they collectively bring to the task, and what they have absorb from the webinars and from the exchanges with each other and with those who participated in online discussion.
The aforementioned Prologue is titled �We Cannot Create What We Cannot Imagine.� It is followed by two chapters that can be considered introductory:
1. The Teachers of 2030 and a Hopeful Vision
2. A Very Brief History of Teaching in America.
The next four chapters explore the four Emergent Realities, each in some specificity. For example, Chapter 5 explores the 3rd of these Emergent Realities, Differentiated Pathways and Careers for a 21st-Century Profession. In just over 30 pages the authors explore four subthemes:
1. Outgrowing a One-Size-Fits-All Professions
2. Redefining the Professions for Results-Oriented
Teaching
3. Teacher Education for a Differentiated, Results-Oriented Profession
4. Professional Compensation for Differentiated Profession
After these four chapters the book spends almost 40 pages exploring the six policy levers of change before concluding with Taking Action for a Hopeful Future, with a subsection on �What You Can Do to Build a 21st- Century Teaching Profession.�
Perhaps the power of the book can best be understood through the notion of �Teacherprenuerism� as it is explored in Chapter 6. The term first appears near the beginning, with the idea of teacher entrepreneurs serving in hybrid positions that don�t easily fit the normal way we classify teachers. Allow me to offer the paragraph from p. 7 which first presents the idea in some detail, after setting the stage by reminding us how already teachers, many National Board Certified and comfortable with using the tools of the web, are de-isolating teaching and offering cost-effective ways of propagating exemplary teaching practices:
The fruits of those labors have been realized in 2030. About 15% of the nation�s teachers - more than 600,000 - have been prepared in customized residency programs designed to fully train them in the cognitive science of teaching and to also equip them for new leadership roles. Most now serve in hybrid positions as teacherpreneuers, teaching students part of the day or week, and also have dedicated time lead as student support specialists, teacher educators, community organizers, and virtual mentors in teacher networks. Some spend some of their nonteaching time working closely university- and think tank-based researchers on studies of teaching and learning - or conducting policy analyses that are grounded in their everyday pedagogical experiences. In some school district, teachers in these hybrid roles earn salaries comparable to, if not higher than, the highest paid administrators.
Lest one think that a pie in the sky belief about the future, several members of the team that wrote this book - and several of those who like me served as additional resources - already partially function in this fashion. The book posits a day where such teachers would not only be known to wider audiences of parents, community and business leaders and policy makers, but would be respected and listened to. Some of those participating in this process already have that kind of respect, for example, Renee Moore, who has served on the boards of both the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards and as the first educator still in the classroom on the board of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching (California). John Holland has served as a classroom teacher, a blogger for the Pew Charitable Trust blog Inside Pre-K and moderates an online community of accomplished teachers. Others have similar experiences of attempting to create hybrid roles where they can leverage their expertise and knowledge while remaining at least partially classroom based. They use their experience to project to the future they envision. The process has begun already, but the authors are talking about something more than selling one�s good lesson plans on E-bay. As John Holland notes in Chapter 6,
The combination of self-publishing and the use of the internet as a platform for communication has already given rise to the �communities of practice� around topics ranging from lessons in how to teach fractions to using brain research to perform the teaching act as the highest levels. Teacherpreneurs will increasingly be leaders in these communities, which will stretch far beyond the confines of their school or district - a virtual domain where they are able to impact the profession on a large scale. (p. 143)
As more teacherpreneurs appear they will serve as a primary agents in developing connected learning. As we get more teachers who have greater facility in using the power of the web, not only will teachers be less isolated, but the nature of teaching will begin to change, and radically, as Emily Vickers notes
Teachers will, in fact, be orchestrators of learning - a concept we talk about today, but one that will force itself upon most everyone who expects to be a teacher in 2030. (p. 145)
In part this will be because students will be accustomed to different ways of obtaining information. We are already seeing this among our current students. They know how to quickly obtain information, although we may still have to guide them in how to evaluate the information they obtain. They are comfortable building websites and increasingly also putting together wikis. It is incumbent upon the educational professionals to adapt what we do not only to meet our students where they are now, but also to anticipate how much this will change the nature of what we do. Teacherpreneurs will be key to a successful transition to a new approach to education.
We still have a way to travel to even come close to such a radical rethinking of the teaching profession. The book points out how much we already know, and how we can begin to move in such a direction, even if the path may change over the next several decades from what even the most imaginative of our current teachers can foresee. A key to this is that others with whom teachers interact will need to rethink how they do their jobs. Administrators will need to spend more time in classrooms, even teaching, and most certainly embrace the idea of teacher leadership. Unions will need to rethink how they serve the teachers who are their members, being more open to diverse roles and with those diverse roles different models of compensation. Policy makers will have to be willing to support and invest in the development of the kinds of hybrid roles necessary to implement the kind of teaching we will need. University-based teacher education will have to change, being more connected with what is happening in classrooms, and working together with community-based organizations, as education moves to be more firmly integrated in the communities in which are schools are located.
There are the first five points listed in the concluding chapter. By themselves they represent a major rethinking of how we have been approaching education and teaching. There are examples of these kinds of changes. I teach in a school that serves as a professional development school for a local state university, and we have had an increasingly close relationship between those who serve as mentor teachers and the university faculty. The next step is for more of those who are skilled mentors moving into a hybrid role where they not only mentor within their own classroom, but perhaps serve as adjunct instructors in the university environment, overcoming the artificial divide between learning about teaching and learning how to teach.
For this to work requires three additional points, also covered in the final chapter. The communities must become more involved, helping encourage the new roles of teacher-leaders even as administrations and unions have to redefine their relationship with one another. Parents and students must be willing to advocate on behalf of the effective teachers, providing the support that will enable teacher leaders to help redefine the conversation about teaching.
Most of all, teachers will have to step out of the isolation of their individual classrooms. They will
... need to band together to document their professional practice and assemble both empirical evidence and compelling stories about what works in their classrooms and their communities - and, therefore what matters most for public policy. (p. 210)
The book is intended as a starting point for ongoing conversations. The authors do not presume that they have imagined every possibility. They want to encourage further discussion. They encourage people to visit them at either of two websites, that of the Teaching 2030 social networking site and by connecting with other teachers from the Center for Teaching Quality�s New Millennium Institute.
I am as I write this in my 16th year of teaching. I have been a participant in the discussions of the Teacher Leaders Network for the past few years. I have gotten to know electronically a number of the authors of this book, and have been fortunate enough to meet both Barnett Berry and John Holland. I know how seriously all of the authors take the profession of teaching, and how much they already give of themselves to try to make the teaching profession a more effective way of serving our students, which is ultimately the goal.
For too long the voices of teachers have been systematically excluded from the public discourse about education. In part this book serves as an important corrective, or at least the start of one.
I am not only a teacher, but also one who engages in policy. Like the authors, I wear several hats besides that of classroom teacher. Here you encounter me as one who regularly writes about books on education in order to encourage others to read them. Like many of those who authored the book, I regular write online about education. We are bloggers; it is part of how we connect with one another.
Our expert teachers are a resource that we should value beyond what they accomplish in the classroom, as important as that is. We need to tap their expertise and insight, we need to hear their voices.
If you read this book, you should get a sense of not only how important the teacher voice is, but also how much we all gain from including it in the discussions.
What the authors have proposed is in some ways radical. It has the promise of moving us in a far more productive direction in how we approach the future of teaching. Since I am in my mid 60s, it is unlikely I will still be teaching in 2030. Several of the authors will be. They are helping reshape the profession to which they are dedicating their lives.
I feel as if I should end with the voice of one of the authors. Each offers some closing words at the end of the final chapter. The last are offered by Renee Moore, whose work I greatly respect. It seems appropriate to end this review as the book ends, with the words she offers on p. 214:
We stand on the cusp of a great opportunity to end generations of educational discrimination and inequity, finally to fulfill the promises of our democratic republic. I believe the noblest teachers, students, and leaders of 2030 will be remembered by future generations as those who surged over the barriers to true public education and a fully realized teaching profession - while myopic former gatekeepers staggered to the sidelines of history.
I too am dedicated to improving the teaching profession for the benefit of the students entrusted to our care. It is because I am that I fervently hope Renee Moore is right. Read this book.
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