Guest post by Kelly Flynn.

It's an unspoken pact: teachers will not talk about the biggest roadblock to teaching and learning. They'll talk about all sorts of other things, things you've heard a million times before: that it's hard to teach a hungry child, a frightened child, or a sick child.

They'll also talk about the students they love, kids who have succeeded in spite of deplorable home lives and serious learning disabilities, kids who are kind, empathetic, funny, and wise.

But they refuse to talk about the elephant in the room because it has become politically incorrect to do so.

And that elephant is this: bad behavior, student apathy, and absenteeism are the real reasons schools "fail."

If every child listened in class and did their schoolwork, most would be successful learners.

Really.

But they don't, and there are hundreds of reasons why. In media reports, those reasons hide behind the more general term of "poverty." And yes, sometimes a child who grows up in poverty has never been taught how to behave. And sometimes students are apathetic because they are hungry, or frightened, or sick. Poverty manifests itself in schools in hundreds of devastating ways. But "poverty" has become a catchall term, so overused in reference to education that it's lost its power.

For readers the word "poverty" has different connotations, depending on their worldview. Some equate poverty with laziness. Some think poverty is a choice. And still others think no further than "there but for the grace of God go I."

So it's important that we take bad behavior and apathy out from behind the label of poverty and address it for what it is: the direct result of parental choices and societal influence.

Because there's an entire stratum of students who are not poor, yet don't behave because they've never been expected to. Thousands of students, and sometimes their parents, are at war with their teachers and their schools every day.

At parent/teacher conferences, when faced with an indisputable transgression on the part of their child, I heard dozens of parents say, "I know, I can't do anything with him either." But just as many parents adamantly stuck up for their children with the claim, "It's not my kid's fault."

When teachers attempt to discuss disruptive, violent, mean kids, they walk a razor-sharp line between professional discourse and whining. One wrong step and their careers are in shreds. They know this.

So they don't talk about it. And thus no one acknowledges -- least of all the corporate reformers who create education policy in this country -- that Johnny is hyped on caffeine, strung out on drugs, glassy-eyed from video-gaming, has no self-control, talks back, uses foul language, neglects to bring materials to class, refuses to do schoolwork, or is rude beyond belief. No one acknowledges that as a society we are not only at a loss as to how to discipline kids, we often enable their bad behavior.

The idea that more testing is going to solve anything is ludicrous.

A quick scan of the education blogosphere on any given day turns up dozens of articles about education reform: teacher quality, merit pay, tenure, professional development, Common Core Standards, Gates-funded teacher evaluations, charter schools, vouchers, scripted lessons, differentiated instruction, and most strenuously, standardized testing. The list is endless.

A quick scan of "Indicators of School Crime and Safety: 2010" at the National Center for Education Statistics website turns up student issues that school personnel spend an inordinate amount of time struggling with every single day: insubordination, student and teacher victimization, fighting, weapons, theft, verbal abuse, sexual harassment, gang activity, drugs, alcohol, tardiness, and an astonishing rate of absenteeism.

So why don't schools just make kids behave?

They try. Every school has a student code of conduct that clearly outlines discipline procedures. But there are few effective discipline options available to school personnel and some days the sheer volume of infractions threatens to overwhelm understaffed schools. When I first started my teaching career, kids trembled at the thought of a call to their parents. Fifteen years later, a kid in trouble was more likely to demand, "Get my mom on the phone. She'll take care of you."

It would be unprofessional and inappropriate to discuss particular students' behavior problems with anyone. We know that. But at some point this national education conversation has to acknowledge the growing number of students who don't learn because they don't want to. The ones who choose, every minute of every day, to be non-learners, the ones who have checked out mentally, and often physically, of the entire learning process.

You can't force someone to learn something. You can't force someone to try to learn something, either.

If disruptive behavior, student apathy, and absenteeism were taken out of the equation, if students came to school healthy and well fed, rested and eager to learn, and simply tried their best, then we would see a true education miracle.

Instead of attempting to improve student learning by asking how we can make better teachers, maybe the question we should be asking is, how can we make better students? What do you think?

Kelly Flynn is the author of Kids, Classrooms, and Capitol Hill: A Peek Inside the Walls of America's Public Schools (second edition to be released later this year with a foreword by Nancy Carlsson-Paige). Connect with Kelly at her website, on Facebook, and Twitter. And for a giggle, check out the Flanigan O'Malley book trailers!

Posted by Anthony Cody at 11:21 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Follow me on Twitter at @AnthonyCody

In 1961, a Republican president, Dwight Eisenhower, closed his term with a speech that carried a prophetic warning. He said:

Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

This year, we will spend an amount that would be equivalent to $20 billion for each of the 50 states on the military. Can you imagine the schools we might have if we spent half that amount on education? There is little doubt that, with our current state of apparently endless wars, we have entered the realm Eisenhower warned us of.

This week another Republican used the phrase "military-industrial complex." Only he was not talking about the arms industry. He was talking about the diverse alignment of vested interests now driving our schools towards a common goal. The speaker was Robert Scott, Education Commissioner of the state of Texas.

Here is what he said:

The assessment and accountability regime has become not only a cottage industry but a military-industrial complex. And the reason that you're seeing this move toward the "common core" is there's a big business sentiment out there that if you're going to spend $600-$700 billion a year in public education, why shouldn't be one big Boeing, or Lockheed-Grumman contract where one company can get it all and provide all these services to schools across the country.

Mr. Scott said a great deal more about the over-use of standardized tests, a critique readers of this blog are well- acquainted with. Valerie Strauss at the Answer Sheet has the key comments he made.

But I want to dwell on the language he used, and suggest that what we are up against in education is indeed comparable to the military-industrial complex which drives the lion's share of federal spending. But perhaps a better term might be the techno-scholastic complex.

If you think Mr. Scott was being some kind of conspiracy theorist, here is what Joanne Weiss, Chief of Staff to U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and former leader of the Race to the Top program, had to say last spring:

The development of common standards and shared assessments radically alters the market for innovation in curriculum development, professional development, and formative assessments. Previously, these markets operated on a state-by-state basis, and often on a district-by-district basis. But the adoption of common standards and shared assessments means that education entrepreneurs will enjoy national markets where the best products can be taken to scale.

What are arms of this techno-scholastic complex?

1. Vendors of computers, and computer-based learning systems, who stand to gain billions as funds are shifted from paying teachers into the purchase of soon-to-be obsolete hardware and software, in constant need of updating.

2. Publishers of tests, and curricula aligned with the tests, such as Pearson. To see this in action, witness the announcement last spring of a partnership between the Gates and Pearson Foundations for the creation of online curriculum in math and reading.

3. Prominent non-profits, often funded by anti-union billionaires such as the Walton and Broad Foundations, which make their mark by claiming the "system is broken," which they bolster by reliance on test score data, and offer solutions such as poorly trained novice teachers, elimination of seniority, or charter schools.

4. Hedge fund managers, who have emerged as unlikely "reformers," especially enthusiastic about charter schools. It turns out there may be some money to be made here as well.

5. Media outlets, many of which provide a platform for propaganda such as Waiting for Superman, or rely on the Gates Foundation to provide them with the "facts" to guide their discussions of the issues.

6. The US Department of Education, which, much like the cozy relationships defense contractors have had with the military, has a very close bond with "reform" proponents like the Gates Foundation.

6. The Obama administration, which apparently values the enthusiastic assistance and support of these various parties more than it does that of teachers, parents and students affected by these transformations.

Just as the military/defense industry alliance created a new self-sustaining dynamic in the 1960s, the techno-scholastic complex has, through the use of standardized tests and federal policies, permeated -- and to use Robert Scott's term -- perverted our educational system. These various entities have somewhat distinct ambitions, but they coalesce around similar policies.

Teachers' unions are by far the most powerful potential obstacle to this, and thus are the most frequent target of "reforms." Whether it is the ever-expanding use of Teach For America novices, removal of collective bargaining rights, elimination of seniority, or expansion of charter schools, unions are always in the crosshairs. Although our unions have been valiant in some places, in other ways their leadership has been lacking.

Robert Scott was no doubt correct in his warning, as was Dwight Eisenhower. The forces allied in promoting the techno-scholastic complex are strong, but there are more than four million teachers, and millions of parents, students and citizens who understand the importance of our public education system. Our work is clear. We need to help the public understand what is under way. This is not a partisan issue. In this election year, we need to let every candidate in the land know we do not want our school buildings sold off to charter operators and hedge fund managers. We do not want our teachers replaced with iPads or smartboards. We do not want our schools staffed by revolving cadres of poorly trained novices. We want our union leaders to take clear stands against the selling off of our schools and our profession. And we DO want real reforms that respond to the very real needs of our students, as described very clearly just last week by Chicago teacher Katie Osgood.

There was a whole generation that responded in the 1960s to the war that emanated from the military industrial complex. That movement helped to end the Vietnam War at long last in 1974. We need several generations to march together once again, against the military-industrial complex that still consumes our treasure and yields destruction, and the newer techno-scholastic complex we now face in education.

What do you think? Is there a techno-scholastic complex at work? How can it be confronted?

Posted by Anthony Cody at 10:53 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Guest post by Jack Hassard

Who the #@!% would make such a statement? Why would such a statement be made about America's youth?

If you go the Broad Foundation Education page you will find the answer to the first question. This is the first of four statements about American youth, followed by "stark" statistics. The Broad Foundation says:

"We have low expectations for American students."

Shame on them!

This is the foundation that has channeled over $400 million into education, primarily in charter schools, training of administrators, and online education. It's a very good time to be in the business of influencing and undermining public education these days, especially if you run a very well-endowed foundation or corporation.

For years now, these same foundations and corporations are using statistics that misrepresent and pervert what is actually the case. Data from tests, especially international test results, are used by politicians, foundation heads, the media, and even the U.S. Department of Education to make proclamations about the status the country's educational system. Needless to say, American youth are beat over the head for not meeting someone else's expectations.

TIMSS and PISA: The Super Bowls of Education

Two international assessments are: Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) and the Program for International Assessment (PISA). Each of these international organizations test students in mathematics, reading and science. PISA studies 15 year-olds, while TIMSS assesses students in grades 4 and 8. TIMSS claims to assess students' performance on the curriculum, whereas PISA claims to test student's abilities to apply what they have learned to real-world problems. But please keep in mind, these are low stakes bubble tests comprised of a pool of questions that in general are without a context.

Since about 65 countries participate in these assessments, there is the general feeling that the results are important, and provide us with a glimmer of the nature of science education in these various nations. Some would agree, others would argue that the real issues facing any nation's educational system are masked by looking at average scores, and simple rankings. Still others report that the findings are inconsistent. For example, a country might score low on TIMSS, yet higher on PISA. Most researchers urge that we use caution when interpreting the results, and not rely of simple averages (now someone's thinking) to make judgements about student performance.

That said, Dr. Svein Sjoberg, Professor of Science Education, University of Oslo, and Director of the ROSE project (The Relevance of Science Education), an international comparative research project that gathers information about attitudes of students toward science & technology, makes this point regarding PISA:

the main focus in the public reporting is in the form of simple ranking, often in the form of league tables for the participating countries. Here, the mean scores of the national samples in different countries are published. These league tables are nearly the only results that appear in the mass media. Although the PISA researchers take care to explain that many differences (say, between a mean national score of 567 and 572) are not statistically significant, the placement on the list gets most of the public attention. It is somewhat similar to sporting events: The winner takes it all. If you become no 8, no one asks how far you are from the winner, or how far you are from no 24 at any event. Moving up or down some places in this league table from PISA2000 to PISA2003 is awarded great importance in the public debate, although the differences may be non-significant statistically as well as educationally.

If a team doesn't win the Super Bowl, is that team a failure? What do you think? What does the public think?

Are our schools failing? Is is a fair claim to say we have low expectations for American students? The answer is no!

Let's take a look.

The Math and Science Conundrum

It is easy to make a quick decision about what you think about math and science education when you read headlines in the newspaper that report that the sky is falling on our educational system, or that we are experiencing another Sputnik moment. But the teaching and learning of mathematics or science, as seen by practicing teachers and collaborating researchers is much more complex (and interesting) than the questions that make up the tests that PISA or TIMSS uses to assess mathematics and science in more than 60 nations.

The conundrum is this. The vision of science that each of these tests measures gives meaning to scientific literacy that looks inward at the canon of orthodox science--the concepts, processes and products of science. Science is seen through the lens of the content of science. But added to this the fact that we have a second vision of science. This vision of science includes public understanding of science and science literacy about science-related situations. In this vision we are more interested in the context of learning, as well as the meaning that students attach to science and mathematics, and how it relates to their world. The lens we use here to view science is within the framework of socioscientific issues (SSI).

TIMSS, because it is tied to the current traditional curriculum, is likely measuring the outcomes of vision I. PISA claims to be measuring students' abilities to apply what they learned to real situations. But science education researchers Troy Sadler and Dana Zeidler disagree with this, and suggest that the test items that have been released publicly seem quite removed from the intent of the SSI movement.

Given this analysis, we are quite safe to claim that these tests are measuring Vision I of science education, and do not provide a full picture of what actually is happening in many classrooms, schools and districts. Science education is more than learning terms, and concepts. It should include problem-solving and inquiry, and investigations into problems that are relevant to students lived experiences.

Standings

Where do we stand?

PISA and TIMSS are favorite sources of data for foundations and corporations, and especially the U.S. Department of Education (ED) to use to show how poorly American students are doing in mathematics and science. The Program for International Student Assessment ( PISA) is a system of international assessments that tests 15-year-olds in reading, math and science in 65 countries every three years. The latest results are available for 2009. The next will be administered in 2012.

Using scores from tests such as PISA or TIMSS to evaluate and assess science education misleads the public into thinking that science learning has been assessed in the first place. For instance, in the United States there are more than 15,000 independent school systems, and to use a mean score on a science test, such as PISA, or TIMSS does not describe the qualities or inequalities inherent in the U.S.A.'s schools. Furthermore, as we showed above, there are at least two visions for teaching science, and these tests seem to assess Vision I, ignoring perhaps more relevant and interesting science learning that is taking place in many science classrooms. That said, let's look at two interpretations of data from these international tests.

Interpretation 1.

For example, take a look at these statistics that you can find here on the Broad Foundation website, most of which were based on PISA results from past years.

American students rank 25th in math and 21st in science compared to students in 30 industrialized countries.

America's top math students rank 25th out of 30 countries when compared with top students elsewhere in the world. [PISA Math Assessment, 2006)]

By the end of 8th grade, U.S. students are two years behind in the math being studied by peers in other countries. [Schmidt, W., 2003 at a presentation]

Sixty eight percent of 8th graders can't read at their grade level, and most will never catch up.

The Broad Foundation paints a picture of American education as a broken system, with little hope for many students, especially those who the Broad Foundation claims cannot read at their grade level.

Interpretation 2.

Let's take a look at another way to examine these data. I have gone to the ED site that presents PISA data, and downloaded Highlights from PISA 2009 in reading, math and science to provide another view of the results. Here is another interpretation, point by point.

1. In mathematics, the only country of similar size and demographics that scored higher than the U.S. was Canada. Most of the other countries that did score significantly higher were small European or Asian (Korea, Japan) countries. The U.S. score was above the average score of OECD countries. Although there were 12 countries that scored significantly higher, there were only three that are similar to the U.S. in size and demographics. We are not ranked 25th in math and 21st in science. (source: PISA Data 2009)

2. America's top students' performance place near the top of all students tested by PISA. For example Dr. Gerold Tirozzi, Executive Director of the National Association of Secondary Schools, analyzed the PISA data from the lens of poverty, as measured by the percentage of students receiving government free or reduced lunches. For example, Tirozzi found that in schools where less than 10% of the students get a free lunch, the reading score would place them number 2 in the ranking of countries. This is very far from being 25th as reported by the Broad Foundation.

3. Are we two years behind in the content of math that is being studied by 8th graders? There is no data that would support such a claim in the form of statistical analysis. Curriculum differences have great variance from one country to another. As in other countries, curriculum is implemented in American schools based now on the Common Core State Standards in mathematics, and the high-stakes tests that are used in each state.

4. It is not true that 68% of 8th graders can't read at their grade level. In the 2009 NAEP reading achievement-level results, 76% of American 8th graders were above the basic level of performance. The graph below shows 8th grade reading results, 1969 - 2011. Yes, we have work to do, but the claim that 68% of 8th graders cannot read is not justified.

NAEP Eighth-Grade Reading Achievement Results 1969 - 2011

Trends in Performance

Here is the truth.

I have provided graphs showing trends in science, mathematics and reading for American students as measured by National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). You will find that the trends reported by NAEP do not support the Broad Foundation's opinions of American youth.

Science. U.S. students have significantly improved on the PISA test from 2006 to 2009, as shown in the graph below. This trend is a positive sign, and disputes the claim that expectations for American students is low. One of the ways in which data is perverted is to claim that American education, including science education is broken, and that the cause probably has to do with poor performance of "bad" teachers. It is an unsubstantiated claim.

Average scores of 15-year olds in the U.S. and OECD countries in science

Source: Fleischman, H.L., Hopstock, P.J., Pelczar, M.P., and Shelley, B.E. (2010). Highlights From PISA 2009: Performance of U.S. 15-YearOld Students in Reading, Mathematics, and Science Literacy in an International Context (NCES 2011-004). U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.

Student performance is affected by a number of factors including gender, race/ethnicity, type of school, family income level. The figure below shows Grade 4 results on the 2009 NAEP science assessment. The graph shows relationship between family income (as measured by eligibility for reduced-price or free lunch). Note that students of families with lower incomes perform lower than students from families with higher incomes. This is an important factor when we interpret test scores, as Dr. Gerold Tirozzi found when he analyzed the PISA data from the lens of poverty.

Grade 4 Science Results, NAEP 2009 by Family Income. Click here to explore this data in more detail.

Mathematics. According to NAEP results, mathematics scores for 9- and 13-year olds were higher in 2008 when compared to previous years. There was no significant change in the White - Black or White - Hispanic score gaps compared to 2004. However, since 1973, Black and Hispanic students have made greater gains than White students.

Trend in Mathematics scores for 9- and 13-year olds 1973 - 2008. SOURCE: U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Statistics, National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), various years, 1973-2008 Long-Term Trend Mathematics Assessments.

Reading. Overall, the national trend in reading showed improvement from 2004 to 2008 for students at three ages (9, 13, and 17). The average reading score for White, Black and Hispanic students was higher than in previous assessments.

Trend in fourth- and eighth-grade NAEP reading scores 1992 - 2011

Have you visited any of the educators in your community that teach science? Have you heard about any of the projects that they doing with their students? What do you think about the Broad Foundation's crummy assessment of American students' performance in math and science and that we should have low expectations.

What are they thinking?

Jack Hassard is Professor Emeritus of Science Education, Georgia State University. He is author of The Whole Cosmos Catalog of Science, Science Experiences, Adventures in Geology, The Art of Teaching Science (2009), Second Edition, Routledge, and most recently, Science As Inquiry (2011), 2nd Edition, Good Year Books. Specialities include science teaching & learning, global thinking & education, geology, web publishing, blogging, writing, and antiquing. His blog is The Art of Teaching Science.

All graphs are used with permission.

Posted by Anthony Cody at 5:34 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Guest post by Katie Osgood.

I have a pretty unique job. I work as a teacher on a child/adolescent inpatient unit at a psychiatric hospital in Chicago. My students come from all over Chicagoland and attend all types of schools: neighborhood, charter, turnaround, private, suburban, alternative, and sometimes no school at all. The vast majority of my students, however, come from low-income minority neighborhoods. My job allows me a rare birds-eye view of the educational landscape here in Chicago.

And I do not like what I see.

My students are often very sick. The reasons they find themselves hospitalized vary, but usually it involves some type of crisis, either a threat of harm to themselves or others. They are in my classroom, on average, for only about a week or two. Some kids are filled with anger about being bounced around to yet another foster placement. Some are depressed because they don't feel wanted or cared for at home. Some are sad because their lives are a series of upheavals including bouts of homelessness, nights without food, and a new school every year or two. Some kids are involved with gangs, and although they may not want to admit it, they are terrified of the violence. Many have drug and alcohol problems already at their young age. My kids are the kids who tried to take their own lives after being bullied and tormented because of their sexual identity. My kids are the ones who have run away after being abused by a relative. My kids get into fight after fight in school because they feel they have nothing left to lose. All in all, my students tend to be those disruptive, difficult-to-educate kids with behavioral or emotional disorders who frankly no one really knows what to do with. So they end up in a hospital like mine.

As I listen to my students' stories about their experiences in school and then look at the current education reforms sweeping our nation, I am increasingly alarmed at what I see. Every change pushed by the corporate reform movement seems to do a greater disservice to my students than the last.

Charter schools are being hailed as 'the answer' and then they unapologetically push my students out. I have worked with kids who were counseled out of all of the major charter school providers in Chicago, even the highly publicized ones lauded by Arne Duncan, Mayor Emanuel, and President Obama. The charters are not serving my kids. My students are also getting more and more untrained novice teachers, like the corporate reform favorite Teach for America provides, and fewer experienced educators. Many of these young college grads know nothing about these students' cultural backgrounds or extensive social-emotional needs. To add to all of that, my students are being labeled as "failures" by the standardized tests mandated by corporate reform's signature piece of legislation, No Child Left Behind.

All I hear coming from the powers that be is to "fire more teachers," "create more charters schools," or "give more tests." None of the remedies being peddled by the elites help my students AT ALL. They are the kids being left behind.

So what DO my students need?

They need caring, committed, EXPERIENCED teachers. They need people with extensive training and practice teaching students who have intense needs. They need as many seasoned professional teachers as possible who already know techniques and strategies that will help them from day one.

They need stability. Every time some politico decrees from on high that a school is failing and proceeds to fire the staff or close the school, they are disrupting children's lives. They are violently, often without a word of explanation to the child, ripping a trusted adult or mentor away from these kids. My students' lives are already chaotic enough, why add to that?

They need "a village". One of my favorite parts of my job is working with a dedicated TEAM of professionals. I am never alone with the kids. There is always at least one and usually more staff around to help coach kids through conflict or frustration. While I teach, the social workers are working with the patients' families and with the child individually to address those important social-emotional needs and family dynamics. Nurses are soothing their physical ailments. Doctors are helping imbalances in the brain. The activity therapist guides kids through therapeutic play, music, and art. It is a collaborative, holistic, team approach to learning. And the kids respond to it.

They need extra resources. My kids have more needs than students from affluent areas. Their schools need to be flooded with social workers, mental health workers, nurses, teacher aides, special education experts as well as with material items like books, science labs, technology, and art and music classes. Flooded.

They need to have their basic needs met. Another perk of my job is that I know that every child in my class had a good night's sleep in a safe environment, every child has a full belly and knows their belly will be full again soon, and that there will be no violence or trauma inflicted on my kids after they leave my sight today. It is a luxury many inner-city teachers do not get. We need to get serious about combating the realities of poverty.

They need creativity and flexibility. How I would love to see schools which were using the most progressive, exciting, inventive teaching techniques possible--The kind of teaching and learning which seems to only happen in private, elite schools. Instead, teachers' hands are tied to scripted curriculum and standardized outcomes. Charters are no better. In fact, some schools, like the highly-praised KIPP franchise, preach "zero tolerance" and "no excuses" with rigid expectations that are so high, my students have little chance to ever reach them. In this manner, the charters conveniently push low-performing students out. Schools need to bend to meet the needs of students, not expect the kids to know how to change themselves. That's the beauty of public education. All are supposed to be welcomed.

They need strong peer groups. Most schools and teachers can figure out creative ways to work with just a small handful of children with truly significant behavioral and emotional needs. Unfortunately, there is a critical mass that is reached when schools become overwhelmed with difficult-to-teach children. As charter schools and turnaround schools skim off the students who are strongest academically and behaviorally, the peer group in the neighborhood schools suffers. And of course, the great paradox in American education is that the schools with the greatest numbers of these challenging students are given the fewest resources to help them.

They need personal attention. Class size matters. When I ask my students what they need from the adults in their lives, the answer is almost always, "someone to listen to us." My students require positive adult attention as often as possible. And so, teachers need small enough classes to reach every child.

They need high-interest curricula developed specifically for them. Thanks to the enormous autonomy my job affords, I get to tailor my lessons to the specific kids in my classroom. This past week, for example, the kids in my elementary class got extra excited about the children's book, The Teacher From the Black Lagoon by Mike Thaler. This pure, accidental interest in the book sparked a whole week's worth of literature lessons where we read all the series, acted it out, and wrote stories of our own. This independence is an extravagance many public school teachers today can only dream about. Instead, they are forced to teach boring, skill-acquisition, test-prep curricula--the kind of terrible lessons which often create more negative behaviors. The only real exciting learning occurs "between the cracks" in those spaces just after the testing week or at the very end of the year after the last grade has been turned in. Those are some of the few moments when students' faces really light up in the process of learning and teachers are reminded why they chose this noble profession.

They need their mental health issues addressed and not punished. These children are sick. We let kids grow up in environments where they are exposed daily to violence, trauma, racism, substance abuse, and neglect. And then we blame them for acting out in rage. They are subsequently funneled into a for-profit prison system instead of supported in their grossly underfunded and overwhelmed schools. It's sick and wrong. These kids can still be helped.

I am tired of hearing that poverty doesn't matter. While mental illness can strike anyone regardless of socio-economic status, living in poverty exacerbates and sometimes creates many of the illnesses that bring my students to the hospital. Teachers are some of the few people out there who work directly with these kids. And as wonderful as they are, teachers alone are not enough. Society at large needs to step up, stop blaming the teachers, and start focusing on the real barriers to achievement.

I am in awe of my kids every day. They are such dynamic, vivacious, intelligent, curious, sweet, funny, young people. I love talking to them, hearing their stories. They have so much to say. But I feel like society has written them off, thrown them away, resigned itself that some people are just not worth saving. A two-tiered education system in being created where the kids who can meet expectations behaviorally get one type of school and everyone else is forgotten in the purposefully starved neighborhood school.

And it makes me so very sad.

When will the conversation shift away from non-issues like choice, competition, bad teachers, and test scores, to finally focus on the kinds of reform that would actually make a difference in these kids' lives?

Katie Osgood is a special education teacher in Chicago currently working at a psychiatric hospital. She also taught special education in the Chicago Public Schools. She holds a Masters in Elementary and Special Education from DePaul University. Before teaching in America, she taught ESL/EFL for six years in Japan.

Posted by Anthony Cody at 8:38 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Guest post by John Kuhn.

Part Two of two.

I ended the last posting with a list of possible causes of the superior academic results seen in Highland Park ISD as compared to Everman ISD. In this posting, I want to talk at length about causality, because it is at the core.

The battle line over causality, like all battle lines, is defined by two sides. One side shouts, "It's poverty, stupid," and the other shouts, "Quit making excuses and get results." Who to side with?

There are two main reasons I side with the poverty faction (not including the fact that I am a teacher and tend to hate it on principle when non-teachers tell me I am terrible at what I do.)

The first reason is simple. To use a baseball analogy, rich and middle-class kids from stable families are fastballs over the plate. We tend to hit them out of the park with regularity. Poor kids, on the other hand, are knuckleballs and rising curveballs. The poorer they are, the nastier the junk. Poverty, in my first-hand experience, makes a HUGE difference in the classroom. In general, homework gets done more consistently if you aren't poor; notes get taken; tests get studied for; parent phone calls get answered; parent conferences are actually attended; commitments are made by parents and followed-through-on; online grades are checked; parent-initiated phone calls are received; questions about grades get asked; supplies are provided from home and not from the teacher's mug of cruddy free pencils.

If you are a reformer, you are likely tempted to say, "So what? Baseball players don't make excuses. They either hit the ball or they get sent down to the minors." But here's my philosophical rub: baseball players face an opponent. There is another team trying to strike them out. I'm left with a fundamental question: in the field of American education, who is trying to make teachers strike out? Who is the opponent throwing this junk? And why don't they just stop?

Everyone you talk to says they want us to hit homeruns. No one self-identifies as the opponent. As far as I can tell, an opponent of education doesn't exist. But these factors that challenge the education of our children keep arising nonetheless. School reformers seem to believe that these pitches are magical and immutable. God is the one throwing the heat, and who are we to tell Him to stop? Poverty has no origin. It has no cure. It cannot be ameliorated or minimized. And any teacher who breathes the p-word, "that which must not be named," is just making excuses.

I say baloney. Poverty can be contained; it's just that no one wants to do it. "Inequality is inevitable" would make a really pathetic national motto, wouldn't it? So quit screaming at me to put out these fires faster and admit just once that there's an arsonist on the loose.
The only problem many are willing to acknowledge is bad batting. They wear jerseys with our logo on them, jerseys that say "Students First" and have pictures of apples and the whole bit. Everyone--everyone--says positive outcomes for children are "the most important thing in the world." But none of this changes the fact that someone is still out there throwing junk over the plate, still trying to make teachers fail in accomplishing "the most important thing in the world," and no one is lifting a finger to stop him. I'm left with the disheartening belief that the reformers' commitment to success for all students crumbles when they are asked to do anything more strenuous than condemn others. Ask them to work for some meaningful improvement in the life conditions of students and they, ahem, balk.

Accountability is only for the teachers in our modern republic. There is no visible or sustained pressure to address school funding, no pressure to address the inequity of resources or the unequal opportunity to learn that, while many are content to pretend it doesn't exist, nonetheless devastates kids in Everman far more than it devastates kids in Highland Park. We batters are supposed to live with these nasty pitches; we are supposed to accept poverty as "part of the deal." There will be no hue and cry in opposition to inequality. And to that I can only say, "Why?"

When Dr. Steve Perry titles a book No One is Coming to Save Us, I can only ask myself why he has given up so easily on equality and the moral imperative of social justice. In surrendering equality and embracing the inevitability of poverty, so many who think they are serving the interests of poor children have traded their birthrights for a bowl of soup (or a stack of standardized tests).

The myth of the Bee-eater is that the outcome of kids is so important that any and all obstacles to their success should be confronted. But that doesn't appear to be the case when it comes to obstacles that aren't teachers.

If you contend that poverty and inequity are "part of the deal," to be lived with and accepted, then I think you are either cruel or you possess a deficiency of moral courage. If you say--as an acquaintance on Twitter recently argued--that inequity is inevitable, then I think you're an enabler for the 1%. If you stand in the public square and say schools must change but society must not, you are a fraud and you aren't fixing anything. After all, there are many places on this green Earth (brace for Finland reference) where inequity is much less pronounced than in the USA. Apparently inequity isn't inevitable everywhere. And before you jerk that knee and say, "But Finland is homogeneous," let me just telegraph to you that my reply will be: "So you're saying America would be more equitable if it weren't for all the black people?" (I like to say that we are just as homogeneous as Finland because we are all people here. I don't subscribe to the prominent philosophy that accepts different treatment of other races as the norm.)

The "quit making excuses" refrain rubs me the wrong way because my "excuse" is the straightforward statement that kids run more slowly in flip-flops than they do in Nikes, no matter how hard I coach them, and that it's pure, cowardly nonsense to say this nation can't give every kid in flip flops a better pair of shoes. When did it become fashionable to throw in the towel on equality in the USA? When did we all agree that Thomas Jefferson missed the mark when he said "All men are created equal"? When did we decide that egalitarianism was no longer a worthy aim for our democracy?

The quick dismissiveness of so many regarding the "excuses" of soul-searing inequality and bone-grinding poverty leads me to believe that they aren't really interested in finding solutions for our children unless the solutions are as convenient as firing 5% of our public school teachers or maybe opening some lucrative charter chains.

I'll ask a question I've asked before: if accountability is good for our schools, then isn't it also good for our society? If bad teachers can be identified and fired, then surely bad policy can be identified and repealed. Benchmarks for statistical progress can survive outside the confines of our public schools, can they not? Or is school the only place in all of America where we are willing to demand improvement and levy stiff consequences for its failure to materialize?

Under NCLB, teachers and schools have been on trial continuously for 10 years. But poverty and inequity haven't had a single day in court. Reams of data have been collected and then paraded before teachers with the question, "What are you going to do about this?" But who of the prominent school reformers has taken the time to parade the readily available data pertaining to school funding inequities and say, "You know, it isn't enough to hold teachers accountable. Our public policy needs a close look too. Policymakers should be held to account"?

If you're in a rowboat that's sinking, it seems to me that you wouldn't waste time arguing about whether you should bail water or plug the leak. It doesn't have to be either-or. Seems that you would let those who think plugging the leak is vital to get about that and those who think bailing water is vital to be about that. In the words of John Thompson in comments here, folks should "play their own position." Listening to policy wonks talk about what teachers should be doing is a lot like listening to white people expound on problems in the African-American community. It is perhaps the least productive and most offensive way of trying to fix something. Yet teachers have acceded (because they had no choice) to the machinations of the policy wonks. But policy has yet to accede to the demands of teachers for accountability on the other end.

I sum up the prevailing narrative in American education policy this way: "Teachers, you must be accountable; policy-makers, eh, do the best you can."

Every time Diane Ravitch or a teacher brings up poverty, you can count on some wag to say something like the declaration in the comments section after one article that "we should not wait until all our nation's social differences are erased to take more steps to improve schools," as if Diane Ravitch or any teacher has ever actually argued for that. What teachers say is, "Please, tend to poverty. We're dying here." And the reform movement's callous reply is "Shut up and teach harder." If we say, "Hey, while you're holding us accountable, could you also demand action on the poverty/inequity issue?" we can expect to be summarily ignored. Poverty will not be addressed, thank you very much. The curveballs will not cease. Learn to hit them or go home.

But you and I well know that teachers will never hit the curveballs like we hit good pitches. And each one of those kids who isn't a home run is a real person, with a real future, good or bad. And we don't get those pitches back. So you can pile the guilt on me and my colleagues if you want. And you can wish in one hand and spit in the other and see which one fills up first. You can puff yourself up and assure Oprah Winfrey and all your snooty friends that you are better and more pure than the sorry teachers like me and every last member of my blood family, regular middle-class people who pollute every town in America with our mediocrity. But I see through you. We are your scapegoat; we make you feel better about being privileged in a nation where many are not. "If it weren't for bad teachers," you say, so that you may avoid saying, "If it weren't for people like me."

This all comes to me in the context of a Texas funding system that funnels more money to a child's school if it's in a wealthier community, and less if not. Contrary to popular straw men, no one is saying, "Fix poverty and only then hold me accountable." We have said (or tried to say), "Hey, while you're beating the tar out of me with all this accountability, would you mind terribly slapping society on the wrist for the outside factors that simultaneously influence these test scores (which, incidentally, you'll be using to fire me someday)?" And as long as enough education wonks dismiss truly diabolical schemes like Texas's Target Revenue funding system as nothing more than a lazy teacher's excuse, such poxes won't get cured. The curveballs will be incoming. And my friends and I will keep swinging (and all too often missing).

Why is there not a parallel system of accountability for public policy that affects learning? After all, no one honestly believes that test scores are solely affected by teaching; yet no one proposes that we use these same test scores to identify other weaknesses in our democracy. Why aren't we bailing water AND plugging the leak? In the strange reality of these education debates, any proposed effort to ameliorate poverty is seemingly rejected out-of-hand, on the off chance that helping poor kids might accidentally bless teachers with a kind of collateral beneficence.

So what I argue for is the fairly obvious concept of shared causality. The poor scores of poor children are not caused merely by bad teachers, but by a variety of factors, all of which can be remedied (but not all of which can be remedied by teachers).

Surely the day will come when it is considered simplistic and unproductive to insist that bad teaching is the sole or even greatest source of our educational woes. Surely some of the attention will one day get fixed in the direction of that other giant causal agent, inequality.

And if shared causality is acknowledged to be real, then it follows that there must be shared accountability for the outcomes of our children. Every actor whose fingerprints are on these children should be held equally responsible for the results of his or her actions. The fact that Texas lawmakers can routinely invest $7 million dollars more educating 6,000 kids in a rich neighborhood that they spend educating 6,000 kids in a poor neighborhood and NOT be faced with relentless cries of "Inadequate Progress" or "Unacceptable" speaks volumes to me. The fact that school reformers can't find the time or energy to speak out against systematic fiscal child abuse--yet also can't stop rooting out a tiny proportion of bad teachers in a select subgroup of our schools--leaves me little choice but to ascribe to dark conspiracy theories about the deliberate undermining of the American public school system.

The children's song "There's a Hole in the Bucket" never ends. After starting by singing "There's a hole in the bucket, Dear Liza, Dear Liza," Henry and his wife go through a list of steps needed to fix the hole, the last of which is fetching a bucket of water. That, of course, takes them back to the beginning.

The education reform debate is like that. But it's even worse because we disagree over which lyric truly begins the sad tune: "There's poverty, Dear Arne" or "There's bad teaching, Dear Diane." The chicken-and-egg nature of the debate may never end, but sensible folks should hedge their bets and insist that one not be addressed without also addressing the other, and with equal attentiveness and urgency.

John Kuhn is Superintendent of the Perrin-Whitt Independent School District in Texas. Last year he spoke out on the steps of the Capitol in Austin, and was featured in this interview here.

What do you think? Are teachers being used as scapegoats by a society unwilling to address systemic inequality? How can we change this song?

Posted by Anthony Cody at 8:40 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Part 1 of 2

Guest post by John Kuhn.

"There's a hole in the bucket, Dear Liza, Dear Liza."

At the root of the school reform debate as I see it is a fundamental disagreement about causality. No one disagrees that by any number of measures (PISA scores, graduation rates, etc.) the academic outcomes of some American students are horrendously unacceptable. On this point, even Michelle Rhee and Diane Ravitch are in perfect agreement, along with everyone else who thinks even a little bit about education.

But then the wheels come off.
When you ask the question, "What caused this?" the wheels come off.
When you ask the question, "How do we fix it?" the wheels come off.
We are all friends until we're not. And when those questions come up, we go to our respective corners and we prepare to fight for what we see as the best way forward. This is great. This is the messiness of democracy. I'm thrilled to be wearing these gloves. (I don't pretend to be impartial.)

You discover many battle lines when you survey this field of contest. Charter schools force traditional schools to get with the program vs. charter schools skim kids in order to look better. Vouchers encourage competition vs. vouchers haven't worked in Milwaukee. Merit pay encourages excellent teachers vs. merit pay destroys morale. And on and on.

But I want to use my happy visit to this blog to study my favorite battle line of all, one that I have revisited various times in past comments. First, a bit of local context that will help me advance this discussion:
In 2006, legislators in the great state of Texas--that beacon of compassion for the unfortunate--planted into statute a creation called the "Target Revenue System." Under this system, each one of the 1029 (or thereabouts) school districts in Texas was assigned a dollar amount that would be its full share of state and local revenue. No more and no less. It was to be a floor and a ceiling. Now, since school districts in wealthier areas were accustomed to a certain standard of living, the legislators decided they couldn't very well fund them at the same rate as those unfortunate suckers in the border towns, inner cities, or fading farm towns. Ergo, different districts got different Target Revenues, which to this day differ. (In essence, some of Sam Houston's children get a higher allowance than others, depending of course on how black they are.)

So, if you look at the current list of Target Revenues in Texas (published here since the Lone Star State doesn't seem eager to put it out for public viewing), you'll find that Star ISD gets $3809 per weighted average daily attendance (WADA) while Westbrook ISD gets $13,116 per WADA. (I will be using the shorthand "per student" in place of "per WADA" for clarity from here on out.) So, if both these sample school districts have an identical 1000 students, Texas policymakers will lavish upon Westbrook ISD $13,116,000 and will bless Star ISD with a slightly less generous $3,809,000. Keep in mind that both districts are required to provide the same curriculum, both are required to offer the same mandated programs, and both are required to have their students achieve identical minimum outcomes in terms of test scores, attendance rates, graduation rates, and so forth. (I wonder if the "Money doesn't matter" folks will honestly contend that Star ISD should have no problem getting the same results as Westbrook ISD with 10 million fewer greenbacks to play with. I'm sure if Star ISD would just cut some of the fat in its administration office and quit hiring so many dad-blamed assistant football coaches they could close the gap!)

So clearly, the Target Revenue System in Texas is from the devil. But I don't want to shortchange our esteemed congressmen, so let me just add here that they really, really intended to "bring the bottom up" over the past six years, but the darned economy just didn't leave them enough money to do that AND give tax breaks to luxury yacht buyers. Sometimes you have to make hard choices.

Westbrook and Star are the most extreme example of the funding gap in Texas; I want to focus on a less extreme (but no less egregious) specimen.
North of Dallas there is a well-to-do suburb called Highland Park. According to the last census "per capita money income in past 12 months" for Highland Park was $116,772 and "median household income 2005-2009" was $176,375. The median value of a home is $982,600 in Highland Park.

South of Fort Worth, there is a blue collar neighborhood called Everman. According to the same census "per capita money income in past 12 months" for Everman was $16,685 and "median household income 2005-2009" was $39,508. The median value of a home is $80,700 in Everman.

I'll ask two rhetorical questions here: 1.) should these two school districts be funded at the same level? And 2.) if not, which district should get funded at a higher clip, and why?

If you answered that Highland Park should be funded higher because rich white kids are used to nice things, you are a winner! (And on a side note, I'd like to thank you for reading the blog, Congressman.)

Now, here are some relevant educational funding facts taken from the Texas Education Agency's "Academic Excellence Indicator System". (You'll notice that it doesn't say a word about "funding excellence" anywhere.) The hyperlink will take you to the TEA's AEIS search engine so you can verify that I'm not just making junk up. (Please be aware that there are two Highland Park school districts in Texas. This Highland Park is usually denoted as Highland Park-Dallas. Also note that the state of Texas accidentally forgets to acknowledge the existence of the Target Revenue System on the AEIS report it releases as public information regarding each school district; that being the case, I have taken the target revenue information for these two schools from the link previously shared above, which contains information appropriated from the Equity Center.)

Comparing Two Districts: Everman Vs. Highland Park

Funding
Target Revenue: Everman: $4973... Highland Park: $6013
WADA: Everman: 6184... Highland Park: 6697
Allotment for first 6184 kids: Everman: $30,753,032 ... Highland Park: $37,184,392

Teaching Quality
Avg actual teacher pay: Everman: $50,491... Highland Park: $55,894
Teachers w/adv. degrees : Everman: 14.6%... Highland Park: 67.1%
Students per teacher: Everman: 15.5 ... Highland Park: 15.6
Turnover Rate : Everman: 18.0%... Highland Park: 9.2%

Outcomes
4-year completion rate: Everman: 85.2%... Highland Park: 98.1%
Met standard, sum of all tests: Everman: 67%... Highland Park: 98%
College-ready (TSI)-English: Everman: 50% ... Highland Park: 93%
College-ready (TSI)-Math:: Everman: 58% ... Highland Park: 96%

Demographics
% of student body is white: Everman: 6.3%... Highland Park: 90.4%

The one conclusion we can all agree on here is that students in Highland Park are turning out better than the students in Everman, academically speaking. But now I have to knock the wheels off our happy consensus and ask the question: "Why?"

The way I see it, there are a few possible answers.
1. White people are intellectually superior. (The KKK prefers this answer.)
2. Higher income parents have smarter kids. (Higher income parents prefer this answer.)
3. Inequitable school funding stunts academic achievement. (I prefer this answer.)
4. Everman has crappy teachers and Highland Park has awesome teachers. (School reformers prefer this answer.)
5. Everman has crappy parents and Highland Park has awesome parents. (Republicans and burnt-out teachers prefer this answer.)
6. Social factors outside-of-school in Everman are more toxic to education than factors outside-of-school in Highland Park. (Democrats prefer this answer.)

In my next posting, I'll delve deeper into causality and explain why I titled this posting as I did. I know you can't wait.

John Kuhn is Superintendent of the Perrin-Whitt Independent School District in Texas. Last year he spoke out on the steps of the Capitol in Austin, and was featured in this interview here.

What do you think of the funding of schools in Texas? How does this compare to school funding in your state?

Posted by Anthony Cody at 6:51 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Follow me on Twitter at @AnthonyCody

As state after state rewrites their education laws in line with the mandates from Race to the Top and the NCLB waiver process, the teaching profession is being redefined. Teachers will now pay the price - be declared successes or failures, depending on the rise or fall of their students' test scores. Under NCLB it was schools that were declared failures. In states being granted waivers to NCLB, it is teachers who will be subjected to this ignominy. Of course we will still be required to label the bottom 5% of our schools as failures, but if the Department of Education has its way, soon every single teacher in the profession will be at risk for the label.

This revelation came to me as I read the Score Card on Education prepared by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), authored by Dr. Matthew Ladner and Dan Lips. This is a remarkable document. It provides their report on where each of the states stands on the education "reform" that has become the hallmark of corporate philanthropies, the Obama administration and governors across the nation.

It begins with a histrionic comparison between the struggle over our schools and the Battle of Britain in the Second World War. The authors write:

Britain's enemies overreached, invading the Soviet Union and attacking the American fleet at Pearl Harbor. Finally, British forces defeated the German army in Egypt, securing their hold over the strategically vital Suez Canal. Prime Minister Churchill recognized the turning point:

Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning. Henceforth Hitler's Nazis will meet equally well armed and perhaps better armed troops. Hence forth they will have to face in many theatres of war that superiority in the air which they have so often used without mercy against others, of which they boasted all round the world, and which they intended to use as an instrument for convincing all other peoples that all resistance to them was hopeless.

We mean to hold our own.

In 2011, America's struggle for education reform may have also reached a turning point--an end of the beginning.

In case you missed it, in this analogy, the teacher unions represent the Nazis, while the forces for corporate reform represent the doughty British and their allies.

The greatest success story cited in this report is Indiana, where the corporate reform "alliance"succeeded in passing comprehensive "reforms."

Gov. Daniels detailed the reforms to the American Enterprise Institute audience, describing how Indiana lawmakers limited collective bargaining to wages and benefits. Indiana law ended the illogical practice of LIFO (Last In, First Out) in layoffs, mandating a determination of merit-- based in part on student test-score gains--rather than simply seniority be used as the basis for making layoffs.

Readers may recall my post last July describing the role the Gates Foundation-funded group Teach Plus played in advancing this legislation. The Gates Foundation last year also gave ALEC a grant of $376,635

to educate and engage its membership on more efficient state budget approaches to drive greater student outcomes, as well as educate them on beneficial ways to recruit, retain, evaluate and compensate effective teaching based upon merit and achievement.

The report describes many other reforms enacted by the Indiana legislature, including expansion of vouchers, charter schools, "virtual schools," and a parent trigger so that parents can petition to convert neighborhood schools into charters.

But it was the introduction to the report, written by Indiana governor Mitch Daniels, that brought this into focus for me. He writes:

Prior to this session, 99 percent of Indiana's teachers were annually rated "Effective." If that rating were actually true, 99 percent--not just one-third--of our students would be passing national tests. From this point on, because of the diligence and fortitude of our reform-minded legislators, teachers will be promoted and retained based on performance rather than seniority. Teacher evaluations, which will be locally formulated, will rely on student improvement. Successful educators will be rewarded, while those whose students lag behind will be asked to find work elsewhere. Additionally, schools will now be graded on an A-F scale and they, too, will be held accountable for student advancement; and the state will not hesitate to intervene in those schools that fail repeatedly.

According to this logic, the individual teacher's accountability for student performance is absolute. Governor Daniels apparently believes there ought to be a one to one correspondence between student achievement and teacher effectiveness. This is rather incredible, but there you have it. Most systems base between 25% and 50% of the teacher's evaluation on test scores, but that is enough to make a big difference in one's career, as examples below illustrate.

Even Eric Hanushek, the economist who has done more to advance these evaluation systems than anyone, admits that teachers only account for around ten percent of the variability in student test scores. (Teachers are the largest IN SCHOOL variable, but their influence is dwarfed by factors such as family income and education levels.) But when teacher unions represent the axis of evil, I guess anything that can be done to rout them is justifiable.

According to the Wall St. Journal, as of last fall, nearly half the states now link teacher evaluations to student test scores. This week Connecticut became the latest to make the move.

I do not think teachers in many states quite understand how the profession is being transformed. And our unions are, in some cases, negotiating these agreements into place. Tennessee has been ahead of the curve, and may offer us a preview of what may be in store. There, the state has had en extensive data collection system for years, and, in order to gain Race to the Top funds, implemented a comprehensive system that rates teachers using test scores.

Michael Winerip wrote about Tennessee in the New York Times:

Teachers have it worse. Half of their assessment is based on their students' results on state test scores, a serious problem for those who teach subjects with no state test.

To solve that, the state is requiring teachers without test results to be evaluated based on the scores of teachers at their school with test results. So Emily Mitchell, a first-grade teacher at David Youree Elementary, will be evaluated using the school's fifth-grade writing scores.

These "reforms" have been created to give principals more authority, so they can fire bad teachers. But even principals are questioning the new model. Carol Corbett Burris has been outspoken, and has rallied more than 1,278 principals in the state of New York to object to the new evaluation system there.

In a New York Times column posted yesterday, Principal Corbett Burris writes,

The right question to ask, however, is not whether this evaluation system is good or bad for adults, but rather whether it is good or bad for students.

Numerical evaluations of educators, 40 percent of which is based on student test scores and achievement, will damage the relationship between teachers and students, a relationship at the heart of student success.

It will accelerate teaching to tests instead of teaching to the needs of kids.

It will put teachers in the terrible position of wondering whether the performance of their weakest students on a test might be a threat to their careers.

It will make principals hesitate to lead schools where test scores are low.

This is a good summary of the bad effects of this shift. In the brave new world of teacher evaluations based on test scores, every teacher, every year, will be subject to the vagaries of chance. Every teacher will have to decide how that class of English Language Learners will affect their livelihoods. Every teacher will live in fear of being assigned special ed students, likewise difficult to move on the VAM charts. We are moving from the time when schools were blamed to a new time of the toad, when individual teachers will be vilified, their careers ruined over their scores.

To make this more real, I want to share with you some specific results from the Houston Independent School District (HISD).Houston has been evaluating teachers based on value-added student test data (calculated through a widely-used commercial system called EVAAS) for the purpose of both merit pay and dismissal.

In spring of 2011, a number of HISD teachers' contracts were not renewed, largely due to:
"a significant lack of student progress attributable to the educator," and
"insufficient student academic growth reflected by [EVAAS] value-added scores."

A recent research summary included evidence about the value-added scores of several teachers, including this one, who had been a highly-regarded elementary teacher in HISD for more than 10 years. In each year, she "exceeded expectations" across every domain in her supervisor evaluations. She was given a "Teacher of the Month" award in 2010 and a "Teacher of the Year" award in 2008.

Here are her scores for the previous four years:

Many studies have found that the scores that come from these models are subject to a great many factors, and are highly variable from year to year. In Houston, the study quoted here found that most teachers' value-added scores were lower in the years when they had a large number of newly mainstreamed English learners, a practice that occurs in grade 4, as shown in this teacher's case.

Here is another example.

This teacher certified for grades 4-8 via HISD's Alternative Teaching Certificate (ATC) program. She took a full-time position in HISD in 2006. Until 2010-11, she was rated as "exceeded expectations" or "proficient" across every domain in terms of her supervisor evaluations. Like most teachers, she had positive (3 out of 6) and negative (3 out of 6) value-added scores across the years.

In 2009-2010, when she was assigned to teach a large number of English Language Learners who were transitioned into her classroom, her value-added scores went down. This well-regarded teacher has now also left the Houston school district, while those who have stayed are increasingly confused and demoralized by this system.

These teachers report that there is no relationship between their instructional practices and their value-added ratings, which appear unpredictable. As one teacher noted:

I do what I do every year. I teach the way I teach every year. [My] first year got me pats on the back. [My] second year got me kicked in the backside. And for year three, my scores were off the charts. I got a huge bonus, and now I am in the top quartile of all the English teachers. What did I do differently? I have no clue.

These examples were drawn from the report of a policy briefing sponsored by the American Educational Research Association and National Academy of Education, Getting Teacher Evaluation Right: A Brief for Policymakers, by Linda Darling-Hammond, Audrey Amrein-Beardsley, Edward Haertel, and Jesse Rothstein. The report notes the results of a number of studies that have found wide swings in teachers' value-added ratings, based on classes and characteristics of the students they teach, the year, the test, and the statistical model used. For these reasons, this research summary points out that leading research organizations, like the National Research Council, ETS, and RAND Corporation, have all counseled against the use of these kinds of ratings for high-stakes decisions for teachers. As a letter from the National Research Council's Board on Testing and Assessment stated in a letter to the US Department of Education:

"VAM estimates of teacher effectiveness ... should not used to make operational decisions because such estimates are far too unstable to be considered fair or reliable."

Of course this is all taking place against a backdrop of rising class sizes and cuts to support services such as school libraries and health programs. But teachers alone are held accountable for the results of their students, on the narrowest of measures. How many more teachers will we lose as these policies spread? How far will this corporate reform war on our profession go? At the end of the day, this will hurt the most vulnerable students the most, as it will speed up the revolving door of their teachers and create a dynamic in which teachers with options will try not to teach in the schools and classes where poor students and English Language learners predominate.

It seems that ALEC considers itself engaged in a battle of epic proportions, yet many teachers are too busy working to even realize that their profession is being redefined in state after state. I would offer another quote from Winston Churchill:

One ought never to turn one's back on a threatened danger and try to run away from it. If you do that, you will double the danger. But if you meet it promptly and without flinching, you will reduce the danger by half.

What do you think? Will teachers suffer a fate similar to that of our schools under NCLB, and find themselves declared failures? Is it time to turn and confront this danger?

(tables from the report, Getting Teacher Evaluation Right: A Brief for Policymakers, used with permission.)

Posted by Anthony Cody at 11:41 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

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Last night in President Obama's State of the Union address, he repeated a familiar refrain about the importance of teachers.

A great teacher can offer an escape from poverty to the child who dreams beyond his circumstance.

But it seems that it is those in power who are actually using teachers to escape from the realities of poverty these days.

President Obama offered as evidence a citation from a recent Harvard report:

We know a good teacher can increase the lifetime income of a classroom by over $250,000.

He went on to say,

Teachers matter. So instead of bashing them, or defending the status quo, let's offer schools a deal. Give them the resources to keep good teachers on the job, and reward the best ones. In return, grant schools flexibility: To teach with creativity and passion; to stop teaching to the test; and to replace teachers who just aren't helping kids learn.

There are several problems with this. As others have pointed out, if you take a classroom of 25 students, and spread $250,000 over their 40 years of earnings, this amount comes to a grand total of $250 a year per student. This is unlikely to represent an escape from poverty. (see more thorough responses to the Chetty report here, and here.)

The second problem is a glaring contradiction, a logical flaw so huge it has been overlooked by almost every journalist apparently too polite to challenge the administration on it. If you do not wish teachers to teach to the test, if you want them to be passionate and creative, then how can you insist that their performance be measured by the use of test scores?

Let us be crystal clear. The Obama administration has made the use of test scores to evaluate principals and teachers a pre-condition for federal aid. Both Race to the Top and the NCLB waivers require that states develop evaluation processes that incorporate this data. Furthermore, the administration proposes to continue to identify and target for closure or "turnaround" the bottom 5% of schools, once again based on these same test scores we are told should not be taught to.

You cannot have it both ways. You cannot tell teachers to be creative, you cannot pretend you are "flexible," when you mandate the use of test scores for teacher and principal evaluations, and continue to use them as the basis by which schools are condemned as failures.

But the biggest burn is this. Everyone now knows that many of the wealthy have abandoned any pretense of caring about the poor in this country. They use every device to cling not only to their privilege, but to obscene levels of enrichment. The answer to poverty ought to be clear to us, as it was to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. more than fifty years ago. Poor people need a living wage. People need opportunities to work. We need a tax structure that rewards people for working and producing, not investing billions in tax havens overseas.

Of course teachers make a difference. But the idea that teachers will somehow elevate the one in four children in this country from poverty is not only wrong, it is a distraction from the real sources of poverty and inequality. In short, it lets the billionaires off the hook.

To his credit, President Obama discussed a number of measures that could result in a fairer tax structure, and encourage investment in our infrastructure and manufacturing base. These things could create jobs and opportunities.

Teachers have already chosen to put our shoulders to the wheel of inequality. Those of us who work with children in poverty are making tremendous sacrifices to meet their needs. The reason child poverty has expanded over the past two decades has nothing to do with "bad teachers," and everything to do with the huge concentration of wealth, and the devastation of America's manufacturing base, as millions of jobs have been shipped overseas in pursuit of higher profits.

The drive to get rid of bad teachers for the benefit of the poor is a phony crusade. The use of test scores for this purpose ensures that students in high poverty schools will continue to wallow in year-round test preparation, even while Arne Duncan sails around telling everyone he is opposed to teaching to the test..

The only people who are escaping poverty as a result of this charade are the wealthy. By making teachers the source of salvation, the rest of society is off the hook. By claiming that "bad teachers" are the reason our students lag, we can, as a society, ignore the enormous opportunity and resource gap that condemns millions of our children to poor futures.

Enough.

What do you think? Do teachers offer students an escape from poverty? Or is it the wealthy who are looking for the easy way out?

Posted by Anthony Cody at 1:05 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

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It has been a busy week for the internet Goliaths -- education tweeters who have enjoyed turning Michelle Rhee's #sixwordessay contest on its head. Perhaps we can shift our focus to our President, whose education policies leave a great deal to be desired.

Tomorrow evening President Obama will take to the air to make his State of the Union address. Advisor David Plouffe explained that an enhanced version of this speech will be broadcast on the www.whitehouse.gov website, and the speech will be followed by a discussion where staff will respond to questions from the public. Before and after the speech, use the hashtag #SOTU. For the discussion during the speech, use the hashtag #WHchat You can also submit your questions via YouTube. See details here. On January 30, President Obama will hold a separate event where he will respond to these questions.

This is an opportunity for teachers and parents to communicate our concerns once again.

So what would you ask the President?

Here are my questions to kick us off. Please add your own below, and if you have a Twitter account, begin tweeting them as well.

1. No Child Left Behind will soon declare every school a failure. Why must states agree to use test scores to evaluate teachers and principals to get relief from this terrible law?

2. You say you don't want teachers to teach to the test. Isn't this inevitable when you make teacher pay and evaluations depend on these scores?

3. How will your administration respond to states like California that fail to apply for NCLB waivers?

4. Teachers in Hawaii have just voted to strike rather than agree to the conditions imposed by the state's Race to the Top application, in particular an agreement to be evaluated by some as yet to be determined system based on their test scores. Doesn't this raise questions about the wisdom of this approach?

5. As we go further down the road of expansion of charter schools, supported by Race to the Top and other federal policies, researchers are finding that these schools are intensifying the degree of economic and racial segregation. Does the administration plan to continue to support the expansion of charter schools?

6. Last March you said we are too often using tests to punish students or schools. You suggested we could shift away from annual tests. But your administration is moving towards even more frequent tests, with even more rewards and punishments attached to them. Why don't your policies match what you know to be sound practice?

7. The practice of labeling schools as failures has become impractical as almost all schools will soon fail according to NCLB. But the idea that we can improve education for students by declaring their schools failures, and subjecting them to closures or harsh "turnaround" strategies has not worked. Your administration's proposal to continue this practice for the "bottom" 5% of our schools will perpetuate the high pressure on test scores for student in poverty. If punishing schools for low test scores has not worked -- as you suggested last March, (and was not shown to work in Chicago under then CEO Arne Duncan) why is it being continued for any schools at all?

8. Last year Congress passed a law that allows people with as little as five weeks of training to take positions of responsibility as full time teachers. These poorly trained teachers are concentrated in areas of high poverty. Will you support efforts to reverse this law, to ensure that all students have fully qualified teachers?

9. I worked in the schools of Oakland for 24 years. We have huge problems with high teacher turnover, and part of the reason is the endless pressure to raise test scores. Why would anyone choose to teach in high poverty schools when this pressure is the status quo?

What questions do you have for President Obama? Please share them here, and if you make a YouTube video, please share the link.

Posted by Anthony Cody at 5:54 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

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Ten days ago, I shared a guest post authored by Kelly Flynn, Teachers Hold the Key. They Always Have. This morning it received the following comment:

While I wholeheartedly agree with Ms. Flynn that teachers need to become more aware and involved in the reform strategies that are shaping our profession, I wonder what the best method for involving teachers should be. I belong to a group called the Denver New Millennium Initiative. We are a varied collection of voices of teachers who have 3-30 years of experience in K-12 schools in the Denver metro area. Though we have many differences in regards to our backgrounds and affiliations, we share a desire to be active members of the educational policy sphere. Where I think I am at odds with Ms. Flynn is that we couldn't do all that we have been able to do without the financial support of various foundations. Does this mean that we are less effective? I certainly hope not. We strive to be an organization that empowers teachers to have a voice in the policy sphere, and we are completely teacher-driven in our goals and efforts. I, too, have fears of corporate powerhouses taking over public education, but I am also grateful to those funders who have provided the means for my peers and I to become powerful voices for our profession here in Denver.



--Jessica Keigan, English Teacher and Member of the Denver New Millennium Initiative

Here are my thoughts in response to this important issue.

Ms. Keigan,
Thanks for your comment. This is a tricky issue. Like you, I have participated in many projects that were funded by foundations. Without non-profit foundation support I would not have had the chance to network with others through the Teacher Leaders Network. The whole National Board project would not have happened without foundation support, and that was hugely helpful to me as well. Even Education Week, which publishes this blog and many others, would not exist without ongoing support from foundations. I am grateful for this support. I am also aware of the work the New Millennium Initiative has done, and even participated in the early stages of some of that work with the San Francisco Bay Area project.

But foundation support has, it seems to me, become more agenda-driven than in the past. And sometimes that agenda may have an influence on the direction teacher advocacy projects take.

What is the emphasis of projects that receive funding? The organizations that apply for grant funding must anticipate what the foundations want to support, and tailor their proposals accordingly. This means that even though teachers that are recruited to participate may have a voice in the work that is done, the template has been laid down even before the work has begun.

You may find that there are certain things that "the funder wants" that must appear in your final product. That has been my experience. For example, I worked on a report on teacher compensation several years ago, and while within the pages of the report we were allowed to be critical of the use of test scores for teacher pay, it was made clear to us during the editing process that our final report had to allow for test scores to have some role.

This is not a black or white issue. There are some foundations that are much more aligned in their outlook with teachers than others, and thus give projects much greater latitude. There are others who have decided to focus their philanthropy on a particular agenda, a particular set of policy goals. In this regard, the Gates Foundation stands out, both because of the magnitude of their role, and the clear agenda that has emerged from most of the projects they have been supporting. I think it is important for teachers to look closely at the stated goals of the projects they participate in, and be alert for hidden agendas as well. For example, I do not think students and teachers in Indiana were well served by legislation that was passed with the help of the Gates-funded group Teach Plus, as I wrote here.

I think Kelly Flynn's post is a reaction to this sort of manipulation of teacher voice, and a call for teachers to develop our own voices in ways that do not depend on foundation support. I think this is very important because clearly, if teachers depend on these foundations to have a voice, then we are subject to their control.

More than two years ago, many of us were intensely dissatisfied with the Obama administration's education policies, especially the squandering of billions of dollars on the Race to the Top. Would any foundation at that time have funded outspoken advocacy against these policies? I didn't think so, and did not even try for funding. Instead, I launched the group Teachers' Letters to Obama, which I think was effective because of our ability to speak truth to power - and it cost us next to nothing. Would any foundation have supported a teacher and parent-led grassroots protest at the White House, such as the Save Our Schools March? I doubt it. There are real limits to the kinds of advocacy that foundations are willing to fund.

I do not think we need to reject foundation support on principle, but we need to make sure we are not being used to advance an agenda that is not in the interest of our students or our profession, and we need to develop our independent capacity to speak out and be effective advocates without utter reliance on foundation support. At a time when public education faces unprecedented dangers, teachers need to be able to stand on our own two feet, and do what it takes to be heard.

What do you think of the role of foundations in teacher leadership? How should teachers relate to leadership opportunities funded by various foundations?

Posted by Anthony Cody at 1:55 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend