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My experience with the subject of emergency planning grew out of my work on nuclear strategy, and encompassed the whole range of civilian activities to deal with the aftermath of a nuclear exchange with the Soviet Union, and the federal and state agencies with those responsibilities.

Ironically, nuclear detonations have to be on the list of threats confronting emergency planners responsible for LAUSD. The city and its port are surely attractive to the most capable of international terrorists. But the more compelling problem is that threats to the security of students – or at least the perception of threats – have far outpaced the thinking, processes, organizations, and systems to deal them. It is not sufficient to graft onto schools the technologies, procedures, expertise, and plans developed for malls, universities, hospitals, government buildings, airports, prisons, military bases, police headquarters, etc - that's what we've been doing. We need a distinct strategic concept for public education.

The place to start this discussion is the unique legal responsibility of public schools to assure student safety and the increasing complexity of the task.

When it comes to the safety of minor-age students, public schools serve in loco parentis – literally "in the place of parents" – and so assume both the duties and responsibilities of a parent in this sphere. A “child's physical safety is entrusted to the school and to the teacher, who thus become legally liable for the child's safety, insofar as negligence can be proved against them.” (see here)

For the overwhelming bulk of America’s 150 year history with public education, student safety has been the least of our worries. I suspect that most Americans in the vicinity of 50 years old had an with experience with school safety not terribly different from my own.

When I attended suburban Our Lady Star of the Sea Elementary and Swampscott High Schools, I would have divided the people working in public education into three categories: my teachers in the classroom, my coaches in after-school sports, and the folks who made school possible – the bus drivers, the janitors and groundskeepers, the ladies in the principal’s office, and the cafeteria crew. I can’t imagine thinking to add "the people who make school safe." Such people existed but safety, security, disasters and emergency planning were not a distinct category of needs, requiring a special set of school employees.

I remember touring the firehouse and the police station in grade school, but as civics lessons and field trips – like going to the town library to get my first card. I remember fire drills, but more as unscheduled recess. The North Shore of Massachusetts has some fierce Nor-Easters, but I don’t remember them as natural disasters separating me from my parents. I didn't expect to see cops outside my school building to deal with an armed classmate. Detention for talking back to a teacher was rare, because talking back to teachers was rare. The Italian, Irish and Jewish kids hung with their own and had vague rivalries. (All the Yankees were sent to prep school.) Still, I saw just two “fights” in school throughout this period; mostly pushing, wrestling, and torn clothing. Admittedly off-campus hockey games at the arena in industrial Lynn were an different matter. Many boys carried Boy Scout or Swiss Army knives, but no one brought guns on campus. Drinking was a well-understood issue when I reached high school in 1970, but marijuana was just coming onto the scene. I can’t remember a rape, a case of sexual harassment, or even a young woman who left “to visit an aunt” for a few months.

Through first-hand experience, I was somewhat aware that things were worse in the “inner city.”. My mom thought it would be a character-building experience to stay with the family of the boy we sponsored in our elementary school – who lived in "the projects” in Boston's Roxbury neighborhood. Without Tony I’m sure I would have at least lost my new track shoes. But even this could not have been that dangerous. My mom lived in some tough industrial neighborhoods herself; her mom grew up a Protestant Scot in Catholic Irish Southie. I don’t think she was overly naïve, although we were the only family that did this and I would have preferred any amount of yard work to the opportunity.

I was also somewhat aware of the difference between the town government of New England and the county government that predominates farther west. When my folks moved to California after I went to college, I learned that the fact that my kid brother lived in highly affluent La Jolla didn't have much influence on the police when he shot bottle rockets off the top of some hill. In Swampscott, it wouldn't have either, because the officer would have known the kid regardless of his parents' income, and would have focused on the needs relating to that kid. In San Diego County, my brother was just another subject of standard operating procedure and taken down to the station.

In my little towns, most problems at school could be dealt with long before they became crises. Most fathers commuted to work in Boston, but there were not too many kids whose mothers could not have made it to the principal's office in 30 minutes or less. There weren't too many issues that could not be resolved informally by some combination of a teacher, principal, guidance counselor, parent, policemen, doctor and psychologist and, really, by classmates.

Even in rural America, "my little town" has long since passed into mythology. Sexual abuse is a real fear in public and parochial school systems. Every town now faces the prospect of Columbine. Drugs are ubiquitous and reach into elementary school. I doubt serious youth gang violence has touched Swampscott, but it has has spread into the far suburbs of affluent Arlington, Fairfax, Montgomery and Prince Georges Counties outside of the District of Columbia where I now live. And where they exist, gangs are far more organized and lethal than ever before - and their tentacles reach into grade school.

Economic growth has placed schools near industrial facilities, rail tracks, canals, power lines, and major highways, increasing the risk of hazardous industrial accidents. Katrina has underlined that many areas where mammoth natural disasters occur "once in a hundred years" are due, or overdue - and civil authorities are woefully unprepared. At least in major urban areas, international terrorism, including nuclear terrorism, became equally likely after September 11, 2001. And the school hostage crisis in the Russian city of Besian, North Ossetia, demonstrated that students might be the intended targets of terrorism.

Most of these challenges to student safety at school can be addressed in some way beforehand, but many will become crises. Informal systems of emergency management that worked fairly well in small districts cannot handle the new environment. Even where the problem is one student, school administrators can no longer count on a parent getting to campus in a half hour - most everyone works. In the event of a massive disaster, many parents will be trapped at their place of employment perhaps 30 miles away from school. There are no longer many issues that can be resolved informally by some combination of a teacher, principal, guidance counselor, parent, policemen, doctor and psychologist or classmates. For a variety of demographic, cultural and economic reasons, informal ties have broken down and replaced with formal bureaucratic systems.

In urban areas and county governments, where these ties were never an (unstated) planning assumption, assuring student safety could become impossible. The combination an increasing number of threats and expanding threat spectrum, the growing risk of deaths and of more deaths, the higher probability of events encompassing multiple schools, and the prospect that school officials will not be able to count on other emergency response assets in a regional disaster are overwhelming.

Add to this a shortage of resources, information on which to base planning assumptions, and reliable indications and warning of each category of threat "Planning" is always possible, but this mix leads me to suspect that credible planning for schools is secretly considered one of those "can't get there from here" problems.

Next: Addressing the Challenge

Marc Dean Millot is the editor of School Improvement Industry Week and K-12 Leads and Youth Service Markets Report. His firm provides independent information and advisory services to business, government and research organizations in public education.

Posted by Dean Millot at 7:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Yesterday’s "Lead of the Week" was a Request For Information (RFI) issued by the Los Angeles Unified School District for a District-Wide Strategic Security and Safety Plan. With a million students, dispersed in 1200 sites, over 7100 square miles, in a major international city, drugs, gang violence, industrial accidents, armed homicidal/suicidal students, earthquakes and international terrorism are real possibilities. Los Angeles students face multiple threats to life and limb; the district's reaction has been ad hoc and episodic, resulting in a tangle of policies, systems and activities; and resources are almost certainly being wasted at a time when funds are tight and getting tighter.

This is a subject I’ve wanted to write about for a long time, and this project supplies the perfect opportunity. LAUSD is hardly alone, and in this post-911, post-Katrina, post-Columbine Century, emergency planning for public schools will be a growing business.

More resources will be put into a function that is bound to involve large hardware and software contracts - and a good deal of outsourcing, introducing yet another source of competition for public education funding. Each dollar that goes to emergencies won't go to the classroom. While the security function in essential, it is equally important that it be done efficiently, and conceptualized so as to be integrated with teaching and learning rather than as add-on "support."

We can see the beginnings of integration in other areas: The cafeteria is becoming part of schools' strategy for education nutrition. While sometimes controversial, AIDS and sexual harassment education and in-school clinics are becoming part of health education strategies. Student information systems are being employed to identify student and teacher cheating - to say nothing of performance pay. GPS units that can improve routing and tell repair crews where to locate a broken-down school bus can be used to check up on bus drivers. Which raises the other side of this coin - the implications of potentially all-encompassing information for school operations in a democratic society.

I spent the first half of my professional life at the RAND Corporation as a "young Strangelove" in what amounts to emergency planning and crisis management – the prospect of nuclear war and its aftermath. I have some distinct views on the nature of these activities. They start from the simple proposition that public k-12 schools are very different from any other facility secured by government or private contractors, and that the government's responsibility to k-12 students is very different from that of any secured facility to the people within.

Marc Dean Millot is the editor of School Improvement Industry Week and K-12 Leads and Youth Service Markets Report. His firm provides independent information and advisory services to business, government and research organizations in public education.

Posted by Dean Millot at 7:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Offered a day early because I plan to write more on integrated emergency planning for school districts.

From Monday's issue of K-12Leads and Youth Service Markets Report

Announcement: District-wide Strategic Security And Safety Plan Due May 21 (Apr 21) Los Angeles Unified School District, California

Their Description: The purpose of this Request for Information is to “identify” Interested Parties with expertise.... to help prepare a Request for Proposal to develop and implement a comprehensive Strategic Security and Safety Plan....The Los Angeles Unified School District... has over a million students and 83,000 employees at 1,200 sites in an area of nearly 710 square miles.... Parents expect a safe... school climate that encourages effective resolution of conflict.... that is physically secure, free of significant health and safety risks, and well-prepared for emergencies....

5. How would your firm approach developing a strategic security plan for security for all schools and their support functions in the District?

My Thoughts: K-12Leads clients know that I have been interested in the management challenge and revenue potential of a trend towards comprehensive emergency planning and support services for school districts for several years. This goes well beyond security products and services - indeed it makes sense of them.

In the May 23, 2005 edition of SIIW • Online I first discussed the business implications for school improvement providers of threats to stable teaching and learning environments from student obesity, teacher cheating on exams, sexual abuse, and armed student attacks on schools. Of particular interest was the need to link relevant professional development of teachers, administrators and other staff to the inevitably technical and technological flavor of initial security RFPs.

Approaches that integrate human factors with school districts' emergency plans will get far more bang for the back. Firms that offer this insight will gain competitive advantage in the sale of related technology and services. This RFP and conference provide an opportunity for providers to help a leading price-sensitive buyer think about this bigger picture.

More tomorrow.

Marc Dean Millot is the editor of School Improvement Industry Week and K-12 Leads and Youth Service Markets Report. His firm provides independent information and advisory services to business, government and research organizations in public education.

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Jim Snyder is Director of the Northwest Education Cluster, a regional trade group based in Portland, Oregon.

Since my first report on the happenings of the NW Education Cluster we have been busy - with some success. But we still have quite a journey to go as we work towards building a collection of organizations, both public and private, that strive to foster change and progress within the northwest education environment.

Our last meeting offers a case study.

On April 17th we heard the first presentation of a movement titled Accelerate Oregon. This is a new public/private partnership of businesses, educational leaders and policy makers to help improve the K-12 educational environment in Oregon. Lead by funding from Intel, input from the Department of Education and local Oregon Education Service Districts, the program is looking to improve student achievements by driving technology to the local school districts.

It was a great presentation but it left us asking a few questions about how the Cluster could help. The two ways that businesses can help are with funding for Accelerate Oregon now or, potentially, by offering products and services in the future. Since the cluster is self-funding with no money and many of the member businesses have revenue less than $10 million, the latter option looks good to many. An informal poll of the cluster members found that most of the businesses who are members of the cluster derive less than 10% of their revenue from within Oregon. It just seems out of place to have more than 40 businesses located in the northwest that are selling most of their technology products and services outside the state of Oregon. We are hope that Accelerate Oregon will open up some doors for member businesses in the coming months.

Another example of where the Cluster still needs to grow is in creating an overall direction. At the first meeting back in 2003, Fred Phillips, then Dean of the Oregon Graduate Institute's management school, presented a diagram suggesting how the Cluster could grow and issues we might address in the education market. (See below). His ideas are still true today but I sometimes worry that we are still lacking a common goal. One idea that we have explored is having the cluster create a sort of buying consortium where the power of all the businesses can be leveraged. This has been hard to tackle. Just last month, we were offered a nice reduced price on one service an organization was offering but the cluster could not get together to make it happen. The members of the cluster are a diverse group – providing tools to the pre-K market, school districts and adult education so it is hard to find one idea that works for all members.

We have also been approached in the past to make the NW Education Cluster a sub-organization of a larger more organized association. That organization would be better equipped to handle the day-to-day managing of the website, address list, and quarterly meetings. Right now I do most of that work in my spare time with web and creative work donated by members. I have a full time job besides running the cluster, and to take the cluster to the next level might require more work than is currently happening. I am proud of how far the cluster has come but I am not sure about it direction and would welcome any and all thoughts around the NW Ed Clusters’ growing pains – but at least we are growing!

The NW Education Cluster was founded in 2003 and has over 250 members representing over 40 companies located in the Pacific Northwest.

edbizbuzz readers note: In the interest of full disclosure, my firm proposed a full association-wide site license to K-12Leads and Youth Service Markets Report and associated information service to the Cluster. A group purchase would have driven the cost to each firm down to roughly $200 from the list of $1500/year. We have had similar arrangements with other trade groups in the past - with final pricing based on many factors. In this case, the large number of very small new firms and the small number of current K-12Leads clients were the prime motivations for the very low price offered. We are always open to unsolicited proposals from interested groups.

Posted by Dean Millot at 11:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The Education Industry Association (EIA) has won the Award of Excellence in the 2008 Associations Advance America (AAA) Awards program, a national competition sponsored by the American Society of Association Executives (ASAE) & The Center for Association Leadership. EIA received the award for its development and promotion of the Code of Ethics for SES Providers, which has helped guide the conduct and operations of tutoring organizations that provide supplemental education services (SES) under the “No Child Left Behind” law....

• Drawn public commitments/affirmations from 26 SES provider members
• Been used by 14 states, including CT, FL, DE, IL, OH, PA, MD, NC, NM, NJ, NY, MA, TN, and VA, as part of their criteria to approve SES providers.
• (been) revised and strengthened... to account for emerging concerns and issues surrounding the administration of SES nationwide.

ASAE is the membership organization of the association profession. Founded in 1920, it claims 22,000 association CEOs, staff professionals, industry partners, and consultant members. Its subsidiary Center for Association Leadership provides professional development services. In effect, the award says that people in the business of managing associations believe EIA and Director Steve Pines have done something worthy of praise.

I agree. There's a story behind this EIA press release of April 14 - and lessons for the school improvement industry - that deserve the attention of edbizbuzz readers.

The fundamental purpose of Washington associations is to advance the economic interests of their members through federal policy. This is why the American Federation of Teachers and National Education Association are headquartered here. It also explains why when the Association of Educators in Private Practice - formed by tutors in 1990, became the Education Industry Association in 2002 and quickly the trade group for tutoring firms, it relocated from Wisconsin to the District of Columbia. No big surprise.

The best strategy to achieve favorable federal policies is to convince decision makers that members' interests support the public interest. Too often, the image of alignment is far more important to the sponsors' efforts than any substantive argument. Anyone who has watched television ads sponsored by vaguely named coalitions with average Americans arguing for or against some legislative proposal knows what I'm talking about.

The Supplementary Educational Service (SES) provisions of No Child Left Behind are as controversial as any in the Act. (I favored them, and to a great extent still do despite the disappointing return on investment, but that's covered in many other edbizbuzz postings). It's hard to argue against the idea that students in Title I schools failing to make Adequate Yearly Progress could be substantially advantaged by after-hours tutoring in math and reading. This is why the provisions became part of the law despite great opposition from the teachers unions and most groups representing the traditional view of public education.

We all know that this was not the end of opposition to SES, but the start. Adversaries understand the widespread wariness of private sector involvement in public schools - codeword: "privatization." Since the 1990's there has been uninterrupted controversy about the motivations and operations of firms from Channel One to Education Alternatives Inc., soft drink and candy distribution, the relationships of Education Management Organizations to the voucher movement, and regular local coverage of scandals involving charter schools and private firms. Maybe disadvantaged kids in failing schools need extra help, but there is also a general fear that private firms will shortchange them and the taxpayers in order to maximize profits. If that perception were to dominate, if SES providers were seen as acting in ways contrary to the public interest, continuation of the SES program would be at risk.

This was the situation confronting the Education Industry Association. To make matters worse, SES services are vulnerable to exploitation. It is a potentially lucrative market. Payments can run over $1000 per student, and eligible students are concentrated in particular areas. Anyone can enter the market, with little capital, experience in tutoring or programmatic expertise. In 2001, SES providers were under no requirement to demonstrate that their tutoring program had a statistically significant impact on student outcomes, let alone one that was educationally meaningful. And to a great extent this remains true.

NCLB's SES provisions created of an artificial consumer market in after-school tutoring. "Artificial" in that the program is fully subsidized by the taxpayer, weakening the "buyer's" motivation for due diligence and strengthening an interest in factors other than student performance (for example, location). This encouraged the application of marketing practices developed for "real" consumer markets. If parents are paying their own money for tutoring services, it is perfectly reasonable for providers to offer them and students material incentives (cash, prizes) to sign up. Likewise, there is nothing wrong - on the tutoring firms' part at least, with paying third parties for student referrals. Despite the fact that these practices are clearly wrong when the payor is the government and the objective is finding students the best tutor on the merits, they work, and in the haste to attract clients and build market share the temptation to use them is great.

It is also easy to shortchange students and taxpayers in ways that no one would defend. It is impossible to police every provider, every tutor, everywhere. They might be offering real instructional support - or not. They might have the number of students they claim in attendance - or not. They might have capable tutors - or not. It could take a long time to determine whether a tutor did his job with his students - well after the payments have been made, profits taken, and a tutoring business closed.

EIA had two options.

The first, to follow the charter movement's de facto decision to deal with abuse after the fact. The basic strategy is to respond to government success in catching bad actors and shutting them down by saying "this demonstrates that markets work; these rule breakers were closed down, something that never happens to public school failures." It may be true, and it does avoid the difficult problem of defining unacceptable behavior up front, but it still reinforces a negative image of private sector involvement in public education.

The second option was to define standards of responsible conduct for SES providers. While this might be a "no-brainer" on paper, in practice it was quite difficult.

Perhaps the hardest thing for a new trade group to do in a highly fragmented industry, in a city with several associations competing for members, is to turn away potential members deliberately. It takes something on the order of $750,000 to run a Washington representation activity with any hope of influencing policy. In 2002, there were perhaps a dozen tutoring firms with any kind of a national or substantial regional presence - many were not not turning a profit, but living off investors' initial capitalization. The bulk of EIA's members were individual tutors or small tutoring companies, hard pressed to pay $1000 in membership fees. Pursuit of meaningful standards meant risking EIA's financial viability - upset too many large firms, or set standards small providers cant' reach - and the association could lose the critical mass of members required to remain a going concern.

After several iterations the key elements of EIA's current code now read as follows:

EIA Members will consistently implement the NCLB Supplemental Services provisions and promote full access to SES services. To that end,

11. Not encourage students/parents to switch providers once enrolled....

No set of standards, no code of ethics like EIA's, ends the abuse of any system. Nevertheless, EIA's code does several things to limit unethical practice and constrain bad actors, so as to demonstrate that the association sees its interests as coinciding with the public interest in the SES program.

• It clearly identifies the minimum standard the public should expect of any provider, the industry as a whole, and certainly EIA members.

• By process of elimination, it signals to consumers the firms they might not trust.

• When incorporated in SES regulations by fourteen state governments, it begins to set a legally enforcible floor on the activities of all providers, and serves as the start to something like a uniform code across the nation.

Where to now? EIA has done its best to demonstrate a commitment to ethical business practices in the marketing of SES services- something quite necessary when the federal program took effect. This has allowed policymakers and, ironically, opponents of SES to focus on the legitimate question of program efficacy. There is probably enough agreement among evaluators that SES services have demonstrated statistically significant effects on student learning to call it a consensus. On the other hand, there is also sufficient agreement among evaluators that those effects are not educationally substantial to call that a consensus. In effect, evaluators are not saying what SES does for kids is astounding; they are celebrating the fact they now have analytical tools powerful enough to detect tiny changes in student performance and relate them to SES programs. Add minute improvements to the relatively high cost of SES services - as much as ten percent of student expenditures per capita - and questions of value swamp questions of ethics.

EIA took an important first step in demonstrating how its members' interests in SES aligned with the public interest. The Code of Ethics bought the industry at least five years of goodwill. But the association cannot rest on its laurels. Issues of efficacy have replaced those of marketing. It's time for the Code to demonstrate that SES providers' interests in program evaluation coincide with those of the public, by setting standards for program review, evidence of effectiveness, methodology, frequency of evaluation and data disclosure.

Marc Dean Millot is the editor of School Improvement Industry Week and K-12 Leads and Youth Service Markets Report. His firm provides independent information and advisory services to business, government and research organizations in public education.

Posted by Dean Millot at 7:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

As a thinking person, I know that student outcomes are the joint product of students, parents, teachers, administrators, superintendents, and school boards; the products, services and programs employed in the classroom; and the tax dollars citizens allocate to public education through the election process.

As someone involved in school reform in dozens of districts, I know that no single factor assures success, but any can assure failure.

As someone who values fair play, I want teachers to be held accountable, but not solely accountable.

As a voting taxpayer, I want “the most bang for the buck,” the highest level of student performance for the most students for the tax dollar.

As an advocate of market-based public school improvement, I know that funding should go where the value-added to student outcomes is highest.

As one who believes in a school improvement industry, I want the basis of competition to shift from brand to value-added – the only way new innovative providers can take market share from established publishers, and the only way the industry can attract the investment it requires.

As a policy analyst, I know that the state of the evaluation art in k-12 is progressively better able to assess the value added by teachers, teacher training, educational practices, administration policies, proprietary classroom offerings and resource levels.

As someone who watches state and local education agencies purchasing, I know that both are installing student information systems capable of tracking all these inputs.

Finally, as someone who reads the newspaper, I am more than a little disappointed to see that the use of student information systems for accountability has focused narrowly on teachers. I know it is simplistic, impolitic, unnecessary and counterproductive.

Simplistic, because it puts far too much weight on one factor.

Impolitic, because it predisposes teachers to oppose the use of analytical systems for accountability and pushes the Democratic party in the same direction.

Unnecessary, because its well within our capacity to assess all these factors at relatively low additional cost.

Counterproductive, because it will only make it harder to institutionalize the use of these systems to assess teacher performance.

Student information systems should be used to assess teacher performance, but the nation is heading down the wrong path to do so. We have a real choice. Information systems and accountability strategies can be introduced in ways that turn teachers into scapegoats for systemic failures and reinforce the traditional adversarial relationships between labor and management, Democrats and Republicans, left and right that make school reform intractable. Or they could be introduced in ways that bring all parties necessary for school improvement – including teachers and their unions - into a process that makes necessary changes far more likely.

Employed correctly, student information systems can help us move from a debate based primarily on ideology and political power – which has brought us to stalemate, to one based on facts and analysis. Politics will never end, but it can be channeled in productive directions and focused on factual questions.

To understand how, consider the debate over clean air. Up until passage of the Clean Air Act in 1963, the arena for debate over the existence of air pollution, its consequences, and policies to deal with both was the ballot box. The Act gave the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) the authority to set limits on the amount of pollutants in the air. It does this through a process of adaptive management involving all those with a stake in the decision.

Setting an acceptable level of pollutants intelligently depends on several inputs. First, our ability to measure a pollutant’s levels and to identify its sources. Second, our understanding of how a pollutant affects health and the economy at different levels. Third, our appreciation of the state of the art in technologies that might reduce the release of a pollutant into the air. Fourth, our knowledge of the cost of adopting various emissions-reducing technologies.

The nation’s collective knowledge of these inputs is far from perfect. Instead, the process relies on the “best available information.” This standard incorporates and encourages constant improvement in our understanding of every factor.

The politics of air pollution hardly ended in 1963. Firms continue to worry about the impact of regulation on their competitiveness and profitability. Political leaders in regions that depend on industries that pollute continue to lean in the direction of those industries. Conservation groups continue to push for the highest possible standards of clean air. Politicians aligned with those constituencies follow a similar course. When all is said and done, Presidents and EPA administrators do make decisions that move pollution levels in one direction or the other - but placed in a historical context, politics now influences only the margins of debate.

What the act did was give those with a real stake in decisions about pollution a seat at the table, clarity about decision criteria, assurance of a fair hearing, and stability and predictability in the pace of change. Today, no party in the process would go back to 1962. Industry understands how much the process has reduced political risk, and so the cost of capital. The environmental groups see movement on net in the direction of clean. Politicians on both sides have fewer problems now that the debate is more technical than ideological.

I can think of no good reason why our information systems and ideas of accountability cannot be introduced to public education in precisely the same way. We want every child to be proficient in math and reading, and we’ve set 2012 as the goal. Setting those two objectives - and any districts plan to get there - intelligently depends on several inputs. First, our ability to measure proficiency levels for individual students. Second, our understanding of how students, parents, teachers, administrators, superintendents, and school boards; and the products, services and programs employed in the classroom affect student learning. Third, our appreciation of the state of the art for each of these inputs. Fourth, our knowledge of the cost of adopting various policies and programs.

As with air pollution, the nation’s collective knowledge of these inputs is far from perfect. But it is engaged in serious research and evaluation in each area. I imagine the “best available information” is comparable to what the EPA had in 1963. And, again, the standard would incorporate and encourage constant improvement in our understanding of every factor.

If we were to introduce the idea of teacher accountability as part of a broader approach to accountability covering all the relevant inputs, I believe teachers and the teachers unions would accept the use of student information for this purpose. Adaptive management would give those with a real stake in decisions about student learning – teachers, providers, parents, taxpayers, education advocacy groups - a seat at the table, clarity about decision criteria, assurance of a fair hearing, and stability and predictability in the pace of change. I believe that after a few years no party in the process would want to go back.

Marc Dean Millot is the editor of School Improvement Industry Week and K-12 Leads and Youth Service Markets Report. His firm provides independent information and advisory services to business, government and research organizations in public education.

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Responding to NASA K-12 RFPs is Not Rocket Science

From Monday's issue of K-12Leads and Youth Service Markets Report

First Announcement: ROSES 2008: Opportunities in Science Mission Directorate Education and Public Outreach Due July 15 (Apr 21)

Their Description: This National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Research Announcement (NRA)... solicits basic and applied research in support of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate (SMD).... SMD is committed to fostering the broad involvement of the Earth and space science research communities in Education and Public Outreach (E/PO) and contributing to NASA’s three education goals and outcomes:

Organizations of every type, domestic and foreign, Government and private, for profit and not-for-profit, may submit proposals without restriction on number or teaming arrangements....

Second Announcement: Endeavor Science Teacher Certificate Program Due June 17 (Apr 16)

Their Description: The NASA Headquarters Office of Education invites proposals to this Cooperative Agreement Notice (CAN) to develop, pilot, and administer the Endeavor Science Teachers Certificate Program (ESTCP).... The outcome of this initiative will be a cadre of elementary and secondary school teachers who are skilled in teaching science subjects....

Organizations interested in collaborating with NASA to develop, pilot, and administer a competitive, high-quality, national program for pre/in-service teachers are invited to submit proposals. Under this CAN we are soliciting proposals from domestic higher education institutions, nonprofit organizations, or consortia of organizations and institutions serving students. Partnerships within these institutions and/or organizations are encouraged to apply.

Third Announcement: Partner With NASA On The Development Of A MMO (Massively Multiplayer Online) Game To Support Stem Learning Due (Apr 21)

Their Description: Creating and managing a Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) game. The game would be fun and would enhance science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) learning. It is intended that this request will result in the establishment of a non-reimbursable Space Act Agreement (defined as one with no exchange of funds) that will define the full roles and responsibilities of NASA and the proposing organization....

For purposes of this request, a massively multiplayer online (MMO) game is considered to be a persistent immersive synthetic environment with built in goals, achievement system and rules. Existing examples of MMO games in industry include EverQues®t, World of Warcraf®t and Eve Online®. (Note: NASA does not endorse or sponsor any of these games; they are cited only by way of example.)

My Thoughts: Who says there’s no federal government support for k-12 program development? K-12Leads readers know such RFPs are out there, but you have to be looking and ready to pounce when they arise.

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Getting on a State's List of Recommended Positive Behavior Interventions

From Monday's issue of K-12Leads and Youth Service Markets Report

Announcement: Recommended list of conflict resolution and mediation materials, models and curricula Due May 20 (Apr 17) Mississippi Department of Education.

Their Description: The Mississippi Department of Education, through the Office of Healthy Schools is soliciting written proposals for the inclusion of resources on MDE’s recommended list of conflict resolution and peer mediation materials, models and curricula....To comply with... Senate Bill 2324, “the State Board of Education shall develop a list of recommended conflict resolution and mediation materials, models and curricula that are developed from evidence-based practices and positive behavior intervention supports to address responsible decision making, the causes and effects of school violence and harassment, cultural diversity, and nonviolent methods for resolving conflict, including peer mediation, and shall make the list available to local school administrative units and school buildings before the beginning of the 2008-2009 school year....”

• Evidence of Effectiveness;
• Links Between Research and Program Design;
• Connection to State Academic Standards and District(s) Instructional Program(s);
• Monitoring of Student Progress;
• Communication with Schools and Districts;
• Communication with Parents and Families;
• Highly Qualified Staff;
• Sound Financial and Organizational Capacity;
• Compliance with Federal, State, and Local Health and Safety Standards; and
• Compliance with Federal, State, and Local Civil Rights Protections.

My Thoughts:

• Everyone wants evidence of educational efficacy and financial viability.
• If your program is not on the list, it’s not part of the market.

Posted by Dean Millot at 6:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

John Thompson is a Teacher in Centennial High School, Oklahoma City Public Schools

I have a friend who wrote for the Heritage Foundation who argues, "In education there is no Left or Right, just ‘clued in’ and ‘clueless.’" Set to the tune of a Charles Wesley hymn, his words could be the rallying cry for true collaborative reform. During a bipartisan effort to raise taxes and reform our urban school system, our union leadership worked closely with some of the most conservative businessmen in one of America’s most conservative states, but we were not even sidetracked by a bitter election over the so-called "Right to Work." Given a choice between the practical judgments of teachers, as opposed to the theories of policy analysts, the businessmen invariably trusted the professional judgments of veterans of the urban classroom.

The businessmen and women were our best allies against the narrowing of the curriculum and opposing a destructive "testing culture." After all, they sought well-rounded employees who could show up on time for work, cooperate, and take initiative. Since their children attended elite schools that respected their children as whole human beings, business people were skeptical of the "quick fixes" that accompanied NCLB. When the central office proclaimed that we "have no time for dinosaurs," meaning that we had to abandon the goal of deep and enriching study of topics enjoyed by teachers and students, these conservatives were appalled. Counter-intuitively, it was the CEO of a Fortune 500 corporation who made the best case for site based management and collaboration. His franchise had sought a common brand, but top down mandates just hardened resistance. With respectful collaboration, though, franchisees voluntarily complied with the common theme that the corporation sought to project.

I do not believe our business/labor coalition was atypical. Richard Rothstein recently explained how today’s business leaders, after recognizing the myriad ways of gaming the systems, are moving away from the most primitive quantitative outcomes-focused accountability. Countering Eli Broad’s merit-pay approach, Rothstein showed how the private sector is moving toward "multiple measures" of accountability, and pay for performance approaches that value cooperation. Rothstein cited a Harvard Business Review conclusion that typical merit-pay plans "are inherently a zero-sum process," and the manager of such a plan who reported, "I was spending 95% of my time on conflict resolution instead of how to serve our customers." Many business leaders have been inspired by Edward Deming who insisted, "management by numerical goal is an attempt to manage without knowledge of what to do, and in fact is usually management by fear."

Above all, business people can be invaluable in addressing the "third rail" of educational politics - discipline and attendance. Typically, urban teachers want disciplinary backing, but the theorists and administrators rarely want to address that issue. Under the best circumstances, the issue of chronically disruptive, dangerous, and truant students is painfully complex. My old principal used to say of those students, "they have the right to be somewhere, and might as well be in your classrooms." As was demonstrated by an excellent series in the Philadelphia Inquirer after a teacher had his neck broken by a student who should have been in an alternative schools, central offices face an array of institutional pressures that result in dangerous and disruptive students being repeatedly returned to class. Our bipartisan coalition concluded that "truancy must be seen as an early warning," that "no child should perpetually disrupt class simply because the alternative schools are full," and that we should expand a range of high-quality alternative settings. These alternative slots should be of "Rolls Royce quality" to offset the potential stigma and to defuse tensions between administrators and the parents of at-risk students. (If such common-sense policies would become the norm, it would create a potential market for the school improvement industry.)

Then came NCLB. The law stimulated a cottage industry of consultants with Power Point presentations proclaiming simple "best practices." If teachers just "raise expectations" then behavioral problems would recede. Make instruction more compelling and the effects of generational poverty, such as truancy, could be managed with after-school "safety nets." The central office sought to limit the size of alternative education, arguing that teachers would just kick their challenging students out of school. It was a bizarro version of the "Field of Dreams," don’t build a capacity for treating the most challenged students because if you build it, the students will come. We invested millions of dollars in new money, producing few gains in student performance, and our district lost 1/6th of our White and Black students to charters and the suburbs in just five years. We thus conformed to the national pattern, explained in The Turnaround Challenge, where "instruction-driven reforms" produce minimal gains in "the complex eco-system" of high-poverty schools. Our district reached the logical absurdity of top down curriculum-driven reforms when we hired a new superintendent from the Broad School. He tried to mandate "vertical alignment" along with a regime of data-driven accountability, to cut alternative schools in order to send the most challenged students back to their regular schools, and even more testing.

After seven bitter months, the new superintendent and his theories are gone, and we are rebuilding our collaborative coalition. The union has renewed its offer to discuss virtually anything, ranging from performance pay to a tougher and much more efficient evaluation and accountability regime for teachers. Last week I felt "deja vu all over again." as we began planning a series of community meetings to restart the collaborative conversation and an institutionalized system of peer review to rebuild trust. In fact, the leader will be a "clued in" young man who just returned to his hometown from Wall Street. Maybe this time we will have a theme song, "In education we have no Left or Right, there is no ‘them’ or ‘us’ ..."

Posted by Dean Millot at 8:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Since NCLB passed, government efforts to develop the technical means of assuring provider accountability have languished. In contrast, school and district accountability have received the highest priority. Significant investments are being made in the information systems required to monitor individual students.

It is no great surprise that as these reporting systems are put in place, the information they produce is being used not only to review the past and manage for the future, but to hold individuals accountable for outcomes. At a minimum, school boards expect Superintendents to keep their schools and districts out of improvement status. Superintendents expect principals to meet AYP, or if their schools are in improvement, to make substantial progress towards meeting it. Increasingly, the job security of individual superintendents and principals depends on AYP. The new student information systems make this accountability possible.

All the strategy, planning, preparation and resource allocation superintendents and principals might undertake is for naught if what is supposed happen in teachers’ classrooms - doesn’t. They are the crucial link in student learning, what the military calls the “pointy tip of the spear.” So it is inevitable that administrators will pass the pressures they feel down to the teaching corps. Principals expect teachers to assure that an increasing number of their students will score proficient on state accountability tests, particularly students in those sub-groups where the school is not making AYP.

The information systems now being purchased by school districts to demonstrate compliance with NCLB, generally also provide teachers with some capacity to monitor student progress over the course of the school year. Compatible diagnostic systems, not necessarily purchased with the main system, can sharpen teachers understanding of individual student needs.

This is great. But it is also inevitable that administrators and principals will use this data to assess educators’ performance in ways that impact each teacher’s job security. The psychological rationalization is obvious – managers are being held accountable for outcomes, so why not teachers? You can imagine a principal thinking to herself, “it may not be fair to anyone, but it’s less fair if it’s not for everyone. My job security is based on AYP - period. I am not given slack for the fact that I don’t have all the resources this school needs, that half my teachers shouldn’t be here, that kids come to school without breakfast – or shoes, that gangs and drugs are right outside the door – heck, inside the door. If I shelter teachers from these facts, if I don’t focus them on AYP, they are less likely to meet it.”

The management argument is no less apparent: To date, assessing teacher performance has been subjective. Prior to NCLB, schools were graded not for individual students but for average student outcomes, so there was no direct quantitative link between a teacher and their students. Now there is, and the information systems provide the data regularly. Every manager facing large numbers of personnel reviews knows that each consumes a great deal of time and inevitably involves problematic decisions. Information systems offer a number generated by a disinterested third party (the computer program), which in turn can save manager’s time and reduce their angst over individualized personnel decisions - even if the new process results in the same number of problematic decisions.

I don’t favor these reasons, I’m simply pointing out that they will be used and not widely opposed by politicians, taxpayers and the general public. This has been the result of introducing information systems to every other part of the economy – why should we expect that their use will progress any differently in the education enterprise? Are school boards softer on bottom-line outcomes than corporate boards? Are voters and taxpayers less interested than stockholders? Are superintendents more sympathetic to the human dimension than CEOs? Are principals under less pressure than plant managers? I don’t think so.

Once managers get their hands on data correlating productivity with individual workers, once receipt of that data becomes part of managers’ weekly or monthly routines, they will use it to manage individual workers and they will never let go of it. Whether that data is the best possible decision support is irrelevant. Something beats nothing, and even simplistic quantitative measures that capture much of the problem are preferred to vague subjective rating systems that require a lot of time and unreliable judgment.

We see this playing out today in the debate, discussion, and disorder in school districts over moves towards very modest proposals to tie performance to teacher pay; modest at least in the total proportion of compensation at issue. I’ve pointed out before that that the worst case scenario for teachers is offered by DC Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee, who seems inclined to move teachers in the direction of at-will employment and employ student information on behalf of a personal view of adequate teacher performance based on those simple numbers.

At this point in the discussion, the writer either attacks the system as unfair, or supports it as essential to raising student achievement. My conclusion is neither or both. "Neither" in the sense that whether it’s fair or essential – it’s happening. It’s like the tide, and this tide's coming in. "Both" in the sense that a system based solely on teacher accountability is neither fair nor terribly useful – no one can deny the importance of many other factors and inputs; and in the sense that information gathering and analysis is essential if we expect to raise the performance of anything close to every child to basic proficiency in math and reading.

There’s nothing inherently good or evil in these information systems or the data they create. They don’t fire teachers, or principals or superintendents – people do. The disruptions they create stem from the basic question of all management – who will decide?

At current course and speed it's clear that administrators will decide. It’s no great surprise that student information systems controlled by school district managers tend in a direction that holds teachers both solely accountable and accountable solely for student performance. By failing to relate the baseline impact of factors affecting each student or the value-added of other inputs to student performance, the system creates unrealistic expectation of teachers and teaching. By suggesting a level of teacher performance based entirely on student outcomes, the information systems ignore any other value teachers might add to school operations or students’ lives.

My view is that this won’t get the nation to where it needs to be on student achievement. Teachers are a necessary part of student success, but not a sufficient condition for achieving NCLB’s goals. A system of school improvement based primarily on teacher accountability might conceivably eliminate the one-quarter, one-third, one-half of the teaching force that is not competent. Trying to follow through on that idea is equally likely to result in labor unrest that brings school systems to halt. Most likely is another phase of the ongoing paralysis fed by still more information reinforcing the perception of public education as an utterly intractable problem.

As an advocate for market-based solutions to public school reform, I don’t think this trend strengthens the new school improvement industry in the long run. It drives the revenues of student information service firms today, but it does not help the new providers of innovative programs and services used by classroom teachers. Even the best teachers need appropriate professional development, appropriate diagnostic tools, appropriate means of reaching each student, appropriate materials, and appropriate supports outside the classroom.

The very methodologies employed to relate teachers to student outcomes can and are being used to assess the value-added of these offerings - but not by districts in their student information systems. This does not reflect great management practice. We need a framework to assess the relative importance of all the factors and inputs we know are relevant to student outcomes. Student information systems give us that framework. We also know that our understanding of how to measure inputs and how what’s measured actually influences learning is imperfect – it’s no more perfect for the teacher input than the program input or the input of management decisions on, say, teacher training time.

With the right data, information systems can do more to help colleagues identify solutions rather than offering managers an easy way to assign blame. Consider one example from my own experience. Success for All has been introduced to thousands of schools. From that record we know that if the program is implemented with fidelity, reading performance will improve. If a school adopts the program but scores do not improve three explanations dominate the probabilities: teachers are not implementing the program properly because they resist the approach, teachers are not being given appropriate training by Success for All staff, or teachers are not being given adequate training because the district is not providing sufficient funding or is interfering with the training schedule. The right data can point us towards the answer and a solution to the problem; correlating teachers with student scores simply locates a scapegoat. The first approach uses data for the purpose of adaptive management, the second approach amounts to little more than the French Foreign Legion motto “march or die.”

Elsewhere in edbizbuzz I’ve suggested that making teaching a legally-recognized profession like law or medicine, and particularly adopting an analogous duty of care would push teacher accountability in a more reasonable direction. Like doctors and lawyers teachers would not be accountable for outcomes per se, but for doing all the things teachers should do in the circumstances they confront. The application of that standard to the circumstances faced by a particular teacher would be the responsibility of some disciplinary committee of teachers convened for that purpose. It might be that the teacher failed to do what fellow professionals found professional standards demand, and that that transgression led the student to fail. It might find that the district failed to provide adequate resources, or the right program for the student, or placed to many conflicting demands on the teacher – exculpating the teacher or at least mitigating their responsibility. It might conclude that the teacher did everything professional standards demand in the circumstances.

Whether the approach is a more comprehensive analysis of the data or an adversarial disciplinary proceeding, both systems are a bit more complicated than a computer supplying a number that automatically leads to a bonus under a union contract, or a superintendent deciding a teacher should be fired. The questions are 1) whether treating employees fairly has a long-run impact on overall performance and 2) whether better decisions are made over time if all the relevant data is at hand and made available for discussion. I say “yes” to both. I venture that no one will say “no”; those headed down the current path just don’t want to have the discussion.

Teachers should be accountable for their role in student performance, but not beyond the point of what’s reasonable. Including all the factors that bear on student outcomes begins to move school improvement in a constructive direction. It happens to be a direction that will improve labor relations, and one that advantages the school improvement providers with programs of demonstrated efficacy.

Marc Dean Millot is the editor of School Improvement Industry Week and K-12 Leads and Youth Service Markets Report. His firm provides independent information and advisory services to business, government and research organizations in public education.

Posted by Dean Millot at 2:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Six Glimpses Into the Evolving Market for Professional Development Services

From Monday's issue of K-12Leads and Youth Service Markets Report

Announcement: Professional Development Course Offerings for Algebra II

Their Description: The full educational potential of the (state) professional development portal cannot be fully realized without... modules that are research-based, standards-based and continuously available during the year....[T]he... Department of Education Is seeking... modules... that meet... Algebra II frameworks and... standards....

Announcement: Professional Development Services

Their Description: [P]rovide Professional Development Services for Staff... through the... Teach for Success Classroom Observation Program.... a research-based observational tool designed to assist... in observing and analyzing the quality of standards-based instruction.... Sections shall include Instructional Practices for All Learners, Student Engagement...

Announcement: Consultant Services For Professional Development

Their Description: The successful organization will help (the district) ....
1. Connect best practice... research to long-term school improvement goals....
3. Structure “next step” action plans for engaging our entire learning community...
7. Inspire school and district leadership teams, establish ownership....

Announcement: Instructional Coaching Support Services

Their Description: Instructional Coaches, Secondary Literacy are to work collaboratively with English/Language Arts teachers and... instructional support staff.... The role of the (coach) is to support standards-based, content-specific instruction for English Learners, Standard English Learners, special education and gifted students.

Announcement: Consulting Principals To Coach School Leaders

Their Description: Coaches must demonstrate a commitment to the achievement of all students and the dedication to supporting administrators in attaining this goal. Support... will include monitoring classroom instruction with principals, implementing districtwide initiatives, drafting and monitoring School Improvement Plans, and coaching principals in resource allocation and school leader responsibilities.... Coaches will report to the Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum and Instruction....

Announcement: Mathematics Professional Development Program

Their Description: The objectives... are:
1. Increase teacher capacity to use manipulative in order to deliver mathematics concepts to students using the constructivist approach
2. Provide teachers with grade level specifically needed resources... strategies for invoking higher-order thinking skills....ongoing direct classroom instructional coaching... weekly e-communication lesson plans...

My Thoughts: I have personally visited the website of every education and other agency listing k-12 and youth service grants and contracts at the federal, state and local levels via the internet every week since January of 2004 for clients of my RFP listing service. Last week, seventeen new state and local RFPs for professional development were released, more than I recall seeing for any one week.

Education agencies of all sizes are accelerating a trend to outsource a key human resource function. In principle, professional development could be stand-alone business. In practice, I’m not sure it can offer high value-added to student performance unless it is part of a well integrated program.

How will the winners relate to the curriculum and instructional practices favored by states or district - and with the providers of their products, services and materials? The RFPs suggest a move away from Kaplan-style “one stop shop” solutions for curriculum and instructional services, yet the record of educational agencies as general contractors is spotty.

Still, worth pursuing.

Posted by Dean Millot at 12:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Last week, I discussed the idea of teaching as a legally recognized profession – like law or medicine. My view - that teachers should have a similar status, but don’t, prompted a cross-blog exchange with Corey Bunje Bower of Thoughts on Education Policy as well as comments from readers of both blogs. (See here, here, here and here.)

Let me press my point.

I come to this question convinced that k-12 education is moving relentlessly towards a focus on the performance of individual students against state standards measured by state tests. It’s no great feat of prognostication. Every day, the state of the art in our understanding of human learning; its incorporation into educational products, services and programs; and the falling costs of these technologies makes it easier to identify specific gaps in individual student knowledge, specific student learning styles, and specific programs of instruction to address that student’s particular needs – at scale. I propose that the technological imperative towards mass-customization in k-12 education unfolding over the next five years is far more important to teachers than the specifics of NCLB reauthorization next year.

The degree of competence required for individual diagnosis, prescription, delivery and review in this teaching and learning environment implies both expert knowledge and training, and the grant of a wide range of discretion to teachers in their practice. This future – looming large on the very near horizon, describes the practice of medicine and law today. Here, society’s approach to quality assurance for mass customization is self-regulation. Practitioners are individually responsible for the decisions made to meet their client’s needs. When it is called into question, their conduct is judged by peers, based on standards set by members of the profession.

I suspect many teachers share Bower's fear of transferring the accountability of practitioners in legally recognized professions to teaching. Who would want to be held solely accountable for student test scores? Even assuming they were given absolute independence in decisions about educational programs for each of their students, teachers are almost certain to lack the resources required to fill whatever prescription is necessary, and they cannot control all of the inputs that influence student outcomes.

The fear is quite valid but, in the most practical sense, utterly irrelevant. It is only a matter of time before individual teachers will be held accountable for individual student performance. Indeed, the nightmare scenario above is already coming to pass. The most positive spin on this trend is merit pay (see The Benwood Plan an Ed Sector report, and the Dallas Independent School District's "Pay for Performance" RFP here.) The dark side is exemplified by the apparent interest of DC Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee’s in combining something like at-will employment for teachers with student test data and her personal view of what constitutes appropriate employee performance (see <