As I noted on Friday, I spent the latter part of last week out in Clark County, Nevada, talking with local leaders and the local Public Education Foundation. The Clark County School District, which encompasses Las Vegas, is the nation's fifth-largest school system (serving 310,000 kids). After two years in office, superintendent Dwight Jones unexpectedly stepped down two months ago. Nevada chief Jim Guthrie stepped down a short time later, after only about a year in office. This has all led to considerable, and understandable, consternation. Given the recent spate of superintendent openings in big school systems, e.g. Baltimore, Boston, Indianapolis, and so forth, this is a challenge with which a bunch of communities are wrestling.

In Clark County, acting superintendent Pat Skorkowsky is charged with keeping school improvement efforts on track in a system with 40,000 adults and more than 300 schools. Meanwhile, a school board marked by strong personalities and real differences of opinion tries to decide whether to conduct a national search. Oh, and the state has just decided that the district's "school performance framework," which leaned on Colorado's growth model and which formed the backbone of Clark County's accountability and improvement strategy, needs to be revised to reflect the state's preference for a more NCLB-like model.

It all takes me back. Some readers may remember that I got my start in education with my 1998 Brookings book Spinning Wheels, in which I studied 57 urban systems and found that the typical district was launching a steady drumbeat of reform initiatives. Given this, it wasn't too surprising that nothing seemed to deliver -- or stick. Educators learned to close their doors and wait out the breathlessly announced new changes, knowing "this too shall pass." Leadership turnover aggravated the problem -- as each new supe felt a need to put his own stamp on the district by launching a new set of dynamic reforms (while losing interest in those already in place). The upshot: changes in district leadership can amount to a reset rather than a passing of the baton. If the existing strategy stinks, then hitting reset makes sense. But my experience is that system after system intends to pass the baton, but winds up stumbling into a reset due to mixed signals, petty politics, and the natural inclination of new leaders to respond to expectations and prove their mettle by busting out some fresh moves.

Three suggestions on how to pass that baton and avoid accidentally hitting the reset button.

1. System leadership needs to push back against the natural inclination (especially among local press, advocates, and civic leaders) to rave about fanciful new promises and practices and to push for the district to embrace the hot new thing.

2. Accept that course corrections are inevitable, and that leadership turnover is a good opportunity for just that -- so long as folks work hard to distinguish adjusting course from abandoning course. This also means keeping honest disagreements in context and not throwing everything out the window, hoping that a "fresh start" will purge all contention and conflict.

3. Stay focused on pursuing and tracking incremental gains (in attendance, teacher behavior, enrollment in rigorous courses, cost efficiencies, and such) so that the sense that progress is "too slow" doesn't lead to a reflexive, frustrated decision to start all over again.

Posted by Rick Hess at 7:07 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

I spent yesterday out in Las Vegas at the Southern Nevada Leadership Summit, where the Clark County Public Education Foundation was hosting school, system, and business leaders. (Full disclosure: I'm a senior fellow for the Foundation.) One of the speakers was Newark superintendent Cami Anderson, who drew a warm reception to her thoughts on the need to shift thinking "from what's probable to what's possible."

I thought Anderson had a number of terrific things to say. And, given that it feels to me like she doesn't say this stuff all that much in public forums, I thought a few worth sharing. Most of them boiling down to the facts that school and system leaders need to do what they think is right, can't be intimidated by the threat of resistance or litigation, shouldn't be paralyzed by conventional wisdom, and need to proceed with both resolve and respect. As she said, "Lawsuits are lawsuits. You're going to get lawsuits whatever you do. We can't let them stop us from doing the right thing for kids."

Anderson said a lot of current efforts to improve school leadership "focus on principals but not on who's managing them." So, she first cleaned house on principal supervisors and then hired assistant supes who've demonstrated "breakthrough" performance, have "worked across schools," and evince a "coaching mindset."

She talked about Newark's new collective bargaining agreement. With the aid of Mark Zuckerberg's (in)famous $100 million gift, they were able to get a deal done. She said the three big changes were opportunities to more readily extend the school day, to let 51% of teachers at a school waive contract language, and to modify the treatment of teacher performance. She said, "Now, when most of the teachers want to do something, they can no longer be held up simply by two teachers waving the contract." The new deal specifies that "ineffective" teachers won't get a step increase, the increase for "partially effective" teachers is at managerial discretion, "effective" teachers will get their step, and "highly effective" teachers will get their step and a bonus. "Now," Anderson said, "the pay is interesting, but not that interesting. What's more interesting is the clarity" this brings to discussions of instruction and teacher performance.

Five other useful notes that struck me:

"Politics are politics, and the work is the work." She said that was her answer to people who ask, "You're going to sit across from him?!" in reference to the teacher union chief (who's said some pretty harsh things about Anderson). She said, "Our kids don't care that he said I'm a five-headed monster."

"I don't need compliant principals. I don't need rule followers. I need transformational school leaders. You know the biggest reason why people say, 'I can't do that?' It's not law or regulation. It's past practice. Well, they need to change practice."

"You would think the more rigorous you are, the fewer people would want in. In fact, it's the opposite. The more you send the signal out that you're rigorous and that the principalship is a serious thing, the more people want to come. We've doubled the number of people applying."

"We're trying to reimagine the system as a service-oriented team. That is a huge mindset shift. And honestly, two years in, we're very much at the start of that journey."

"Families are so tired of the school reform wars. They just want to know, 'How can I help my kid do well or get into an awesome school?' Yet we get so wrapped up in everything but that. So we're trying to work on that, and to break down the barriers between school and home."

Newark's not a big district, and Cami's tenure has seen its share of conflict, but her tenure is a fascinating example of trying to wrench a historically low-performing system onto a better course. And there's much to learn from, both when it comes to how she's proceeding and how things turn out.

Posted by Rick Hess at 7:12 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Second terms are notoriously brutal. Clinton and Lewinsky. Reagan and Iran-Contra. Nixon and Watergate. Bush 43 and New Orleans, the Iraqi insurgency, financial meltdown, and everything else.

It didn't take long for Obama to join the club. His Attorney General has been nailed for wiretapping the Associated Press, bringing condemnation from even Obama-friendly precincts like CBS and the New York Times. We've now learned that the IRS targeted conservative groups on his watch, and lied about it. Health and Human Services Sec. Kathleen Sebelius has been shaking down businesses and charities, asking them to "voluntarily" contribute to help implement Obamacare. And then there's Benghazi...

The question today is how much any of this matters for schooling and education reform. The (perhaps) surprising answer: a lot. Why? Three reasons.

First, the Bush and Obama administrations have woven education policy much more tightly into federal and partisan politics than was historically the case. The old "apolitical" days of education policy were so placid due to a bipartisan willingness to focus on cutting checks and hoping for the best. Today, after NCLB, Race to the Top (RTT), and ESEA waivers, the shape of education reform is bound more tightly to the President and to Washington. Given that the President is already anathema on the right, the news that his Attorney General is wiretapping the media and the IRS is targeting Tea Party outfits is only going to make it tougher on GOP governors to be seen as Obama allies.

Second, all of this is certain to crop up when it comes to the Common Core. The IRS story, in particular, is the kind of thing that reminds us that sometimes paranoia is nothing more than prescience. The grudging revelation that the feared, rumored, but oft-denied abuse had in fact happened justifiably fuels skepticism about the worth of federal assurances. This will inevitably carry over to something where skeptics have been told that RTT dollars and ESEA waiver conditions are no big deal, because the Common Core is "state-led," "voluntary," and no cause for concern.

Conservatives are innately dubious of government's good intentions or that a little "friendly support" from Uncle Sam won't morph into a new federal claim. With the IRS abuses, DOJ wiretapping, and Sebelius casually telling firms that she and the Prez would appreciate a bit of "voluntary" support from the same firms she'll be regulating, it's hard to see how Common Core backers can keep dismissing such concerns as unreasonable.

Third, barring any remarkable developments, the President's $75 billion pre-K proposal-slash-tax increase is already dead. (Boy, that was fast!) The notion was always a long shot, unless Obama could corner House Republican leaders into a spot where they'd be eager to do some kind of big budget deal. Now, the travails and the immigration push mean the oxygen is pretty much sucked up through July or August. Then it'll be time to start crashing on a debt ceiling fix, and then on a budget deal, and then we'll be into an election year--when there's no way R's are going to agree to raise taxes. And, even if there proves to be room on the agenda, what are the odds that GOP lawmakers are going to be willing to create new federal programs in collaboration with an administration that they regard as Nixonian?

The price of a bigger federal role in championing, funding, or promoting education is that it makes schools and colleges more dependent on what happens in Washington. Ed advocates may want to keep that in mind. Bottom line: the next three-plus years in education are going to turn to a surprising degree on how Obama fares when it comes to the familiar second-term blues.

Posted by Rick Hess at 7:45 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

I finally joined Twitter the other day. (I'm at "rickhess99," if you care.) I haven't yet actually penned any tweets, and don't know that I will. But I thought I'd practice my tweeting a bit (just in case), by taking a crack at boiling down last week's familiar back-and-forth debate over "is it schools, or is it poverty?" Fordham's Mike Petrilli kicked things off last Tuesday with a letter to Debbie Meier over at "Bridging Differences." That yielded a flurry of back-and-forths in a "reply all" public email exchange. Unsure how much of this was posted anywhere, I thought I'd try to distill it for you, twitter-style, since I thought it fairly illuminating. (Note: I may have taken some liberties in Act 3 when it comes to current or former U.S. Secretaries of Education, and the ghost of Kurt Vonnegut.)

Act I: Exposition

Mike Petrilli: Poverty matters. But Ravitch, Carter et al. wrong that schools don't matter. Schools matter. Vocabulary matters. So Common Core is good.

Diane Ravitch: Mike, you mischaracterize me. I agree schools matter. But we can't ignore poverty. Poverty matters too. So Common Core is bad.

Mike Petrilli: Diane, sorry about that. But schools matter. They need more rigorous curriculum, vocab building. That's why Common Core is good.

Debbie Meier: Mike, poverty matters. Achievement gaps in elem reading are mostly about poverty. Vibrant schooling matters. So Common Core won't help.

Act 2: Rising Action

Prudence Carter: Mike, you've got me wrong. Schools matter, but poverty matters too. Don't forget asthma, toys, health. Need to spend more on poor kids.

Mike Petrilli: Yes, poverty matters. That's why growth is right metric. But already we've got Head Start, EITC, food stamps. Now Common Core will help.

Robert Pondiscio: Sounds like no one is happy about early elem reading tests. How about we agree to ditch those?

Mike Petrilli: Cool idea! Some state should try that via ESEA waivers.

Act 3: Resolution

Arne Duncan: As if!

Margaret Spellings: Props to Sec. D-dog. Boy, that is one terrible idea.

Mike Petrilli: Well, I think we can all agree that poverty matters and schools matter. And that vocab can help. And that's why Common Core is good.

Diane Ravitch: Poverty matters. Schools matter. But leaked Com Core tests look awful. Will drive more mindless test prep. That's why Common Core is bad.

Ghost of Kurt Vonnegut: So it goes...

Posted by Rick Hess at 7:07 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

It's been a turbulent few months for the Common Core, raising real questions about its future. Opposition on the right has stretched well beyond the fringe has now been voiced by the Republican National Committee, with several Republican U.S. Senators speaking out in opposition and legislation to withdraw from the Common Core proposed in seven state legislatures. Meanwhile, in a big blow from the left, Randi Weingarten used a high-profile speech to weaken previous AFT support for the Core and to raise doubts about how the standards are being implemented and used.

Amidst all this, there are two questions that I've been asked a lot lately. Was this turbulence inevitable? Is there anything that Common Core proponents can do, or could have done, about it?

I'll answer both in a moment. But first, indulge me, given that I've long predicted these travails (see here, here, here, here, and... you get the picture).

I've been asked whether I'm taking pleasure in all this. Nope. I've always seen some real potential benefit in the Common Core. But, the act of Common Core adoption matters a whole lot less than what happens after. And I've been struck by the dearth of interest proponents have shown in exploring, anticipating, or addressing policy and political challenges (they've had more enthusiasm for the technical stuff of test creation or for training teachers). If anything, advocates have seemed to rather gleefully seize opportunities to alienate and belittle skeptics. [For my attempt to help with the exploring and anticipating piece, see the collected AEI working papers here.]

Look, I suspect that after the Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Topeka a lot of champions wanted to celebrate and rush off to tackle big, new, exciting, noble crusades. (Say, something like universal pre-K, funded by $75 billion in new taxes.) But it turned out the real work had hardly begun. There were decades of blocking, tackling, and politicking ahead to turn that remarkable moment into something real and important. I've been dubious that many Common Core'ites had that kind of staying power, patience, or strategic sense. I think that's what we're seeing. I've not enjoyed it. But it does remind me how frequently education reformers produce a nifty idea, don't want to do all that's necessary to woo skeptics or make it work, and then scapegoat opponents or sorrowfully lament "implementation" when the idea disappoints. And I feel no hesitation in pointing that out.

So, the two questions. Could the turbulence have been avoided? I doubt it. It's always easy to forge broad coalitions when the idea is alluring, practical implications are fuzzy, and you've got a little money to help ease things along. The practical stuff of implementation was always going to ruffle feathers and spur the emergence of opposition. New standards and tests would pose concerns for teachers and unions when tied to new evaluation and tenure systems. Legislators and governors (many of whom weren't in office when the Common Core was adopted) would have to come up with hundreds of millions for implementation. Proficiency rates would either remain high (angering advocates) or would be slashed (angering parents). The national machinery of implementing the Common Core would become more disconcerting to the right as it became more concrete and visible.

Second, could anything be done about it? Sure. For instance, Weingarten's concerns are reasonable and were predictable. Union support was going to soften as teachers saw the headaches of transitioning to new standards and tests that are used for test-based teacher evaluation. Strategies to support a smarter transition would help, but have received almost no attention. There's plenty more like this.

But the more interesting question is what could've been done to help secure more bipartisan support.

The Obama administration's exertions have given many conservatives the impression that the Common Core is a partisan, federal initiative. Proponents can argue that the taint of federal involvement brought by Race to the Top was worth the extra states that signed on (I think they're wrong, but so be it). But, at some point, proponents to get the administration to back off when it came to NCLB waivers, Duncan brow-beating South Carolina, the DNC crediting Obama for the Common Core, the President taking credit in his 2013 State of the Union, and so on. Such acts mean that, however artfully proponents argue it's a state-led effort, conservatives are not unreasonable in regarding the exercise as an Obama initiative. Now, even at this late date, it's barely possible that a mea culpa from the administration and serious, specific proposals to firewall the Core from federal involvement could make a difference with conservatives sympathetic to the exercise.

On the right, what might've made a big difference were if the Republican champions of the Core had drawn a line in the sand with Obama and Duncan. Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, and Tony Bennett could have penned a Wall Street Journal op-ed sometime in 2011 or 2012 that said, "Enough! We think the Common Core is good for kids and the country. But that's only true so long as it's nonpartisan. If you guys mention it one more time, to take credit or to try to browbeat various states, we're going to have to walk." (Marco Rubio has been trying to execute a version of this strategy when it comes to immigration reform). I suspect this would've made it much more likely that Sec. Duncan and Obama's speech writers would think twice before invoking the Common Core. And it would've helped bolster confidence on the right that these guys were on their side when it came to the Common Core, and would've left them better positioned to address concerns.

Anyway, food for thought.

Posted by Rick Hess at 8:25 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

I recently had a fascinating exchange with a smart journalist. He wrote, "I'm looking into the major donors from across the country who tried to influence school board races. Critics have questioned the[ir] motives...To what extent are they sincere in advancing reforms they believe in?"

I was struck by how little the question surprised me. After all, supporters of charter schooling, test-based accountability, mayoral control, overhauling teacher tenure and pay, and the like are routinely denounced as "corporatists" or worse. Given that they haven't yet definitively disproved such charges, they must be true. But why are these foundations assiduously pursuing a malevolent, covert agenda?

To learn the truth, I set out to interview an Insincere Reformer. I found him by hitting one of those watering holes that those fancy foundation staff frequent and hitting the palm of the bartender until he pointed out a likely suspect. I walked up, approaching a slick-dressed guy wearing a fedora and drinking a scotch.

"Hidy," I said. I pulled up a chair. "Look, I don't want to waste your time," I said. "I'm trying to talk to an insincere reformer. I heard you're one of 'em."

"Yep," he said, taking a drag on his electric Blu stogie. "That's me. I help dream up insincere education 'reforms' that can help provide cover as we work to dismantle America's schools."

"Why would choose such a horrific line of work?" I asked.

"It's a conspiracy, dude. I can't just say. That's not what conspirators do." He paused. "But, if you were to ask the right questions, I might let a hint slip." He stopped. "Oh, and I really hated my high school social studies teacher, who gave me a week of detention once when I defended the Iraq War."

"How'd you wind up being an insincere reformer?" I asked.

He thought for a moment. "Well, I originally wanted to lobby for big tobacco or the NRA, but tobacco stopped hiring and the NRA only had jobs in its Washington office. I wanted to spend more time hanging out in hotspots like Denver, Indianapolis, Memphis, Milwaukee, and Detroit, and state capitals like Tallahassee and Sacramento. Education reform was obviously the way to go."

"Gotcha," I said. "So, let me ask you this. What's the game plan? What is it about education that's so appealing to you profiteering foundation types?"

"Sheesh," he sighed. "You're a little slow. K-12 schools spend $600 billion a year. That's a big chunk of change for us to get our slimy, double-dealing hands on."

"Hmmm," I said. "But you guys are aren't even a nonprofit--you're a bloody foundation. You're giving money away, you're not taking it. So how does changing teacher evaluation or adopting mayoral control put money in your pocket?"

"You're a step behind, my friend, a step behind," he said. "You see, I and my fellow grant officers may not be raking it in, but there are companies out there that will sell tests and technology to schools."

"But haven't those big vendors always sold tests, instructional materials, and technology to schools?" I asked.

"Well, yes. But now they'll be able to sell more."

"Oh," I said.

"Yes," he said.

We looked at each other for a moment. "What I still don't get," I said, "is what that does for you. I get why sleazy vendors or schools of education may benefit from striking sweetheart deals with mayors or for professional development, but I don't understand how you personally benefit. I mean, you don't get a cut or a commission. Changing a law doesn't get you a finder's fee. It's not like many former foundation staff get cushy, big-dollar private sector jobs. And it's not like Bill Gates, Eli Broad, or one of the Waltons are looking to score a couple bucks in kickbacks. So what's the advantage of being an insincere reformer?"

"Huh," he said. "You know what? We may need to give this a bit more thought."

Posted by Rick Hess at 8:15 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Hidy all. Well, I'm back. I'd like to offer a big thanks to all the terrific folks who stepped in while I was off sabbaticalizing. (Not that it involved many thrills--mostly lots of talks about cage-busting, a big dose of AERA and the NewSchools Venture Fund summit, and such much... apologies to Casablanca).

Now, most writers write from a place of compassion and love, or wit and wisdom. As you all know, that's not really my bag. Me? I mostly write from a place of distemper and disgruntlement. Happily, time away from RHSU has led to an invigorating buildup of frustration and bile. Anyway, sitting down to write RHSU for the first time in a couple months, I had two thoughts. First, I hope you'll forgive the rust. Second, I found myself inclined to opine on a few recent developments that have consistently merited mention during my travels. In no particular order:

Federal Research Funds Used to Proselytize for More Edu-Spending. Going out of its way to politicize its federally supported work, the National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER) at Rutgers used its April release of its "The State of Preschool 2012 Yearbook" to demand more pre-K spending. NIEER's press release billed a modest national decline in 2011-12 pre-K spending as "devastating" and -- name-checking President Obama in the process -- kvetched that, "even as states emerge from the recession, pre-K continues to suffer." Maybe it's just me, but I think NIEER's job is to conduct and disseminate research on how to improve pre-K -- not to wade into political debates about spending levels, much less flack for a president's agenda.

Duncan Announces, "All That 'New Normal' Stuff I Said? Well, I Lied." Three years ago, in fall 2010, our earnest Secretary of Education announced that a "new normal" had come to education spending, and that schools and systems had to spend smarter. This spring, that same lovable goof tripped all over himself arguing the President's case that trimming two percent of the federal budget will ring in the end times. Duncan started yammering on national TV about slews of teachers getting pink-slipped and the districts being crushed by a reduction of one percent in their total outlays. Unfortunately, he appeared to have made up his facts whole-cloth, managing to get the dreaded "Four Pinocchios" from the Washington Post's fact checker (no mean feat for an Obama administration official). Overlooked was how completely Duncan had abandoned any pretense of believing that schools have to get more bang for the buck. Instead, he made it clear that the "new new normal" is all about "more." Period.

DFER Decides That McCarthyite Tactics Are Just Swell. In a development that highlighted just how poorly equipped Common Core proponents are to argue their case, Democrats for Education Reform (DFER) launched a (blessedly short-lived) campaign to woo Democrats skeptical of the Common Core by warning that they'd wind up allying with, yuck, conservatives. DFER operative Larry Grau wrote, "Dear Fellow Democrats: It's growing late and some of us have spent the night canoodling with far-right opponents of the Common Core State Standards...It's time you ask yourself this question: "Am I going to hate myself for this in the morning?" In a series of e-mails, Grau revealed that Republican Indiana state senator Scott Schneider opposes state funding for Planned Parenthood and that Heather Cross (founder of Hoosiers Against the Common Core) once worked for Republican U.S. Congressman Dan Burton. (Grau offered many more such bombshells). Now, I'm neither a Common Core enthusiast nor a Democrat, and even I can think of much better reasons than that as to why Dems should embrace the Core. So long as proponents would rather belittle their critics than address serious questions, they shouldn't be surprised that their push is taking on water.

AERA Reminds Everyone Why Ed Researchers Get So Little Respect. This was going to be the American Educational Research Association's lucky year. I was on sabbatical, so I skipped my annual, "Man, this is what passes for ed research?" column. And, while AERA weighed in with a highly politicized amicus brief in the Supreme Court's Fisher case, at least the AERA leadership offered a reasoned and delimited defense of its decision in Educational Researcher. Yet, just when I was about to cut AERA some slack, the nation's proud edu-professoriate went out of its way to embarrass itself. Having asked Secretary Duncan to come address AERA, the assembled faculty behaved like a bunch of wannabe Occupy Wall Streeters. They waved banners reading, "Not In Our Name" (I have no idea what that meant). They booed Duncan. They called him a war criminal. They accused this guy of being disinterested in poverty. (Whatever his shortcomings, that's not one of them). Well, there are just desserts. AERA managed to infuriate and offend key allies at the Department of Education. Whoops.

John Merrow Reminds Me of a Dumped Sophomore Obsessing Over His Ex-Girlfriend. Journalist John Merrow spent the first year or so of Michelle Rhee's tenure as chancellor in Washington D.C. slobbering all over her, in a fairly gross display of puppy love. He ran a ludicrous number of stories lionizing her, prompting some of us to think, "Dude, chill out." Somewhere along the line, Merrow got disenchanted. He's has now gone on a frenetic kick to figure out whether Rhee moved aggressively enough to investigate possible cheating incidents that occurred during the Bush years. He's written long treatises on five-year-old DCPS memos and dragged other journos into his pursuit. It's a legitimate question and Rhee's prominence means the whole thing is not purely a matter of historical interest. That said, I'd have a whole lot more faith in Merrow's motivation and judgment if he wasn't wheeling so hormonally from one extreme to another.

Posted by Rick Hess at 8:06 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Note: Rick Hess is on sabbatical through May 6th. If you're missing him, you might try to catch him while he's out and about discussing his new book Cage-Busting Leadership (available here, e-book available here). For updates on when he might be in your neck of the woods, check here. Meantime, a tremendous lineup of guest stars has kindly agreed to step in while Rick's gone and share their own thoughts on the opportunities, challenges, implications, and nature of cage-busting leadership.

Andrew Vega teachers 8th grade English/Language Arts at Orchard Gardens K-8 Pilot School in Boston. He is an alumnus of the Teach Plus Teaching Policy Fellowship and currently an America Achieves Teaching Fellow. Follow him on twitter at @mravega.

I am a supporter of teachers unions. While I openly admit that this was not the case in my early days of teaching, I can proudly say so now. I have met inspiring colleagues throughout my career who have pushed my thinking on unions and helped me realize that our profession continues to be under attack. Teachers must strive every day to professionalize our work and make sure we are treated in accordance with the importance of the work that we do. At times, however, this means challenging each other and advocating for changes within our unions.

As recently as last year, my union, the Boston Teachers Union, required that all members vote in person at the union hall. With the union hall located in the far reaches of the city, voting meant an additional one to two hour commute for some teachers. Any teacher will tell you that the day is already long. As an advocate for teachers, the union should make voting accessible for all members. But this wasn't the case. Due in part to this in-person requirement, only 13 percent of the membership voted in the previous election.

At the time, a group of teachers, myself included, sought to improve our union and become more actively involved with it. We wanted a way for voices like ours to be heard. The best way to do this, we determined, was by changing the voting policy so that all members could more easily access the voting process. What began as a conversation over beers at a local Irish pub became BTUVotes, a grassroots, teacher-led movement.

Our leadership was informal. Not all the teachers involved were union representatives; indeed, some had never attended a meeting. What we shared was the knowledge that our union, while necessary and successful in many ways, was not necessarily representative of all teachers' views. The effort to garner support for this required reaching out to colleagues around the district in a grassroots effort to get teachers on board. Meetings over coffee and in pubs, e-mails to alumni networks of teaching programs, and information sessions worked to spread the word about the movement. Through this effort, more than 1600 teachers signed a petition to take the idea of mail-in ballots to a vote at a union membership meeting.

To this day, attending the union meeting where that vote took place has been one of the most inspiring moments of my teaching career. Over 400 teachers filled the union hall--tremendously more than the usual attendance--to lend their voices in support of mail-in ballots. Despite the extraordinary turnout, the initiative failed by five votes, and many teachers who had internalized frustration with the union had their views validated, rather than upended.

The group persevered, however, and a modified version of the change to the BTU voting policy was approved in the fall. Many saw this change as controversial and the conversation continues, but meaningful change is not supposed to be without resistance.

The message here? It is easy to complain about the challenges we face as teachers, but it is another thing to step up and take on leadership. We need our unions, but our unions also need us--they need us to be involved and help them effectively protect us and thereby protect the needs of our students. Leadership need not be formal. I was part of a change in a large urban district that began with a small group of teachers talking over drinks. The next time you find yourself venting about an issue regarding your school, district, union, or classroom, I ask my fellow teachers to ask themselves: "What can I do to fix the problem?" If your answer is "nothing," you aren't stepping up.

- Andrew Vega

Posted by Guest Blogger at 9:42 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Note: Rick Hess is on sabbatical through May 6th. If you're missing him, you might try to catch him while he's out and about discussing his new book Cage-Busting Leadership (available here, e-book available here). For updates on when he might be in your neck of the woods, check here. Meantime, a tremendous lineup of guest stars has kindly agreed to step in while Rick's gone and share their own thoughts on the opportunities, challenges, implications, and nature of cage-busting leadership.

Guest blogging this week are teachers from Teach Plus. Today we have Maria Fenwick. Maria taught in Boston Public Schools for six years, and is the former Executive Director of Teach Plus Greater Boston.

I entered teaching with a mission. I was motivated by the research showing that students in chronically underperforming schools were least likely to get the high-quality teachers they deserve. I was troubled by the fact that there could even be "chronically" underperforming schools - schools that seemingly no one could figure out how to turn around so that they "performed" for students. As a beginning teacher, I sought out a struggling school, a school where I could make a difference with students. I went there to teach and to learn what it is like on the inside of one of those schools.

What I found, unsurprisingly to me, was a school full of children with great potential. I watched my fourth graders learn to really engage in their class work, to maintain a positive culture within our classroom, and to take their homework seriously. The work was challenging and rewarding. It was not without a battle that I got Rayana to stop having temper tantrums in class or that my students learned to focus intently on their writing for long periods of time. I was so proud of them and felt like my decision to teach had been worth all the hard times and struggles that any beginning teacher encounters.

But I also got an inside view into an adult culture where I did not see a real sense of urgency to improve outcomes for all students. I felt that no matter how hard I worked in Room 10, I couldn't really change the bigger picture.

In my third year of teaching, I joined the inaugural cohort of Teach Plus Teaching Policy Fellows, a group of local teachers who were similarly driven to impact education policy beyond their classrooms. In our monthly meetings, we gravitated towards various interest areas. I found myself working with a group of teachers who wanted to solve this seemingly intractable problem of low student achievement in some of our nation's schools. As we dug into research on the inequitable distribution of effective teachers, a surprising narrative came to light: many policymakers thought it wasn't possible to convince experienced, effective teachers to teach in the so-called "worst" schools.

From our experience, we knew that was incorrect. We believed teachers like us would be eager for the challenge to teach in an under-performing, "hard-to-staff" school...if the right conditions were in place.

Over the next several months, we set out to define what those conditions would be.

We delved into research on teacher effectiveness, including the difference between the rhetoric of "highly qualified" teachers and what was actually needed - teachers who were highly effective and could make real gains with students. We studied research on the relationship between experience and effectiveness. We found that data supported what we had experienced as beginning teachers--first and second year teachers are generally not as effective as they will become, and we learned that teachers are leaving the profession in droves just as they are becoming most effective.

We also spent long hours talking about our own experiences. I worked at a school where teachers did not readily collaborate and were not passionately rallying around the mission of closing the achievement gaps within our own school. Another Teaching Policy Fellow had a different experience - her school day included collaboration time, and the culture was such that teachers were not afraid to accept constructive criticism from each other. At her school, everyone, from the teachers to the principal to the custodian, took collective responsibility for students' success. I was often the last teacher in my building at the end of the day; her school's hallways buzzed with teacher activity long after students had left. We took lessons from our different experiences. While my school highlighted a need for adult culture to lead the change that would benefit students, her school was a proof point that schools with high-need populations can be high-achieving as well.

From our research and our experiences, we honed in on five conditions that we believed would be necessary to attract outstanding, experienced teachers to work in struggling schools:

• First and foremost, a guarantee of working with a sizeable cohort of like-minded teachers who would be effective both in the classroom and as peer leaders who could lead a transformation of school culture.

• A rigorous selection process to ensure that teachers selected for leadership roles have a proven track record of success with students, in addition to the capacity to be peer leaders. We felt this type of recognition would also potentially boost retention of top teachers, who might be seeking a way to advance their careers...without leaving teaching.

• A defined leadership role that would give teachers authentic influence on school-based decisions. We believed giving teacher leaders authority over decisions of importance would be vastly more successful than prescribing programs or structures that teachers would be forced to follow. We also felt that it would be important to get the right support structures in place for the teacher leaders--such as coaches who could help them hone their leadership skills.

• A principal who would truly support and "go to bat" for the teacher leaders.

• Additional compensation in recognition of the additional work it requires to take on leadership in a really meaningful way.

After many months of collaboration, we published a report detailing our idea. We framed the model with a strong research base, emphasized the fact that we were current classroom teachers, and laid out our five conditions with supporting evidence that came from personal vignettes. We launched the report in front of an audience of nearly 100 prominent education leaders and local decision-makers in Massachusetts, generating interest that landed us in meetings with everyone from local union leaders to the Boston Public Schools superintendent.

The program that resulted from our efforts, known as T3: Turnaround Teacher Teams, is now in place in eight Boston public schools, as well as schools in Fall River, MA and Achievement School District in Memphis. T3 plans to expand soon to D.C., too. In the first two years of the T3 Initiative, students in T3 partner schools in Boston closed the achievement gap in math with all other Boston public schools and other Massachusetts turnaround schools, and they've nearly closed the gap in English language arts. And T3 teacher leaders speak of school cultures where everyone--teachers, administrators, students and parents--are actively engaged in making positive, lasting change.

When we developed the idea for T3, we didn't know that the program would someday become a reality in districts across the country. Now we have proof that when teachers are allowed to define the conditions that would enable them to make huge progress in struggling schools, and are then empowered to enact that change as teacher leaders, tangible school-wide change is possible.

- Maria Fenwick

Posted by Guest Blogger at 9:54 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Note: Rick Hess is on sabbatical through May 6th. If you're missing him, you might try to catch him while he's out and about discussing his new book Cage-Busting Leadership (available here, e-book available here). For updates on when he might be in your neck of the woods, check here. Meantime, a tremendous lineup of guest stars has kindly agreed to step in while Rick's gone and share their own thoughts on the opportunities, challenges, implications, and nature of cage-busting leadership.

Guest blogging this week are teachers from Teach Plus. Guest blogging today is Sarah Zuckerman. Sarah was a teacher in Indianapolis Public Schools, the majority of her nine years spent at the Key Learning Community, a Multiple Intelligence magnet school, where learning is done through interdisciplinary projects. As an art teacher, she is deeply committed to enabling students to develop as rigorous and curious thinkers. Over her career, Sarah has received numerous awards and fellowships and recognition for her work, including the Sontag Prize for Urban Education, and is an alumna of the Teach Plus Teaching Policy Fellowship. Currently, she is finishing her M.Ed at Harvard Graduate School of Education.

As the 2010 school year came to a close, a group of Indianapolis teachers gathered together, tired from a long day's work, but excited to catch up on what was happening in our schools across the city. It was time for the now-annual layoffs, and we were comparing notes on who was told they would not have a job the next fall.

Among the laid off teachers were new parents, others who had just bought homes, some who had even won Teacher of the Year awards; all were being laid off in the early years of their careers because our districts used years of seniority as the only measure to determine who kept his or her job in times of fiscal crisis. This policy, known as Last In, First Out (LIFO), had historically guided all layoff decisions in our district, and was considered a fair measure. But on this spring day, after another year of hard work with our students, we found nothing fair about quality-blind layoffs, and we decided to do something about it.

We recognized the importance of years of service in the classroom, and understood that early career teachers were still developing their skills. We all appreciated the guidance and leadership of the many veteran teachers who were masters in the art of teaching, but unfortunately, we also knew some teachers who should not have been in the classroom. We found it outrageous that job performance was not a factor in layoff decisions.

With predicted IPS enrollment shortages, we knew this layoff trend would continue annually, forcing committed teachers with strong potential out of the classroom. Beyond creating a cycle of teacher attrition, we knew quality-blind staffing policies were harmful to children. In Indianapolis, entire school communities were dismantled when 20-40 percent of their teaching staffs were cut annually. Though some of these teachers were offered jobs again in the fall, many had already accepted jobs in charter schools or higher paying township schools. As a result, LIFO was disproportionately impacting the kids in our city's lowest-performing school district.

There had to be a way of making necessary cuts that better served students, and we decided to lead that change. To do so, we needed the support of both the district and the union.

We met with the Indianapolis Education Association, our local teacher's union, and working together, wrote two key reforms to the existing policy that would take performance into account (along with seniority) when our district faced job cuts. Though seemingly minor, this reform was substantial; nationally, it was one of the first policy changes that introduced teacher performance as one of many metrics in school staffing decisions.

From there, we went on to publish a report entitled The Domino Effect: How Seniority Based Reassignment Impacts Teachers and Students. This report outlined the unintended consequences of LIFO in schools. The combination of our voices from the classroom, coupled with research and predicted impact, generated a lot of attention from education policymakers across our state.

In the spring of 2011, Senate Bill 1 was introduced in the Indiana Senate, and several of us provided testimony to the House Education Committee on how the quality-blind layoffs affected our schools, and the implications this had at a state level. I shared the story of an amazing teacher who left his career at a township school to come to IPS because of our school's Multiple Intelligences program. Though he had seven years of experience teaching in another district, he was laid off after two years in IPS, because the policy ignored both his talent and his experience outside of the district. I spoke of how costly this policy was for program-specific professional development, and the difficulties in keeping a school's mission and curriculum intact with annual cuts to strong and promising teachers.

When Senate Bill 1 became law, it officially ended Last In, First Out in Indiana. In just under a year, a group of classroom teachers had helped drive a cage-busting change in our own district and then leveraged that experience to help change state law. By sharing the reality of how LIFO hurt our students, our classrooms, our colleagues and our profession, we were able to change the conversation, and offer a solution that benefited both students and teachers.

While critics of this change feel that the new policy favors young teachers, this is not the case. This policy favors good and great teachers and prioritizes keeping these teachers in the classroom. While research shows that experience does matter in classrooms, it also tells us that experience alone does not equal effective teaching, and that the LIFO policies were cutting teachers just as they were reaching their peak effectiveness. Can you imagine choosing your child's pediatrician based solely on years of experience? We all know that experience is important, but it doesn't provide a complete picture of one's ability to perform.

It is time we take an approach that takes multiple factors into decisions that impact our children by respecting and protecting what matters most: great teaching. Our state law now requires districts to emphasize teacher performance over seniority when layoffs must be made.

Policy change is a vital first step, but we must remain committed for the long haul to ensure that smart implementation follows. Today, we still have a long way to go to improve the quality of education in Indiana and nation, but for us, the teachers who sat at the table, something had changed in how we viewed our challenges. Teachers can lead change; we were proof. One step at a time, one conversation, one idea, one bold act, followed by another and another, can turn the tide.

- Sarah Reynolds Zuckerman

Posted by Guest Blogger at 4:35 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend