February 2010 Archives

This week I am facilitating a dialogue with a colleague involved in education philanthropy, who responded critically to my recent post, Competition Can't Beat Collaboration.

My colleague wrote:

So, my question to you would be, how could only 80% agree with that statement? [that teachers share responsibility for student achievement] Everyone knows that the key ingredient in a student's education is the teacher. I would argue that it's the most important ingredient and I know of many studies that would prove this point. Do 20% of teachers really think they don't even "share" responsibility for all students?

My response:
I agree with your thrust here, though commenter Borealis led us to inquire further, and we discovered that actually what we have is 80% who "strongly agree" that teachers share responsibility, and another 16% who "somewhat agree" with this statement. So we are apparently actually only dealing with 4% of teachers who deny responsibility at all, and that changes things a bit. That said, I think 
there are teachers who may not feel effective, for whatever reasons, and for them, it must be difficult to accept that their lack of effectiveness is their responsibility. And as some of the commenters have indicated, when teachers are handed a scripted curriculum and told to teach it with fidelity, this may undermine feelings of accountability as well.

My colleague added:

Unfortunately, one of the biggest issues I see in low-performing schools, especially in low-income areas, is one of low expectations for what students can achieve and a willingness to blame other issues: poverty, drugs, single-parent households, etc. There is no doubt that these issues make learning more challenging for students, but the best schools and the best teachers find ways to help kids learn, despite these challenges. I'm convinced that the only way to solve poverty is through education and we can't blame poverty for poor academic results of children. There are too many examples out there of successful schools working in high-poverty areas and those teachers are the reason I have hope for improved outcomes of disadvantaged kids.

I have seen convincing research that shows that a highly effective teacher can make a big difference for children academically. So we clearly should be doing everything we can to make sure every teacher is as effective as possible. But I want to be very careful with the way we assign responsibility. In my years of teaching there were students I was not successful in reaching, for any number of reasons. I consider myself pretty "effective." I was creative and thoughtful in my lessons and assessments. I gave students feedback. I called parents with good news and bad. I took my students on field trips, I spent thousands of my own dollars on materials and equipment for my classroom. But there were classes where I was less effective than others. There were times when I felt a bit overwhelmed by the challenges I faced, by the violence that seeped into the school, by the circumstances of children with parents in prison, repeating sixth grade at age 14, after having repeated second grade a few years earlier. You try calling that parent's home, to find the child is living with an elderly grandmother, or in a group home, or doesn't even have a working phone number.

There are times when this is absolutely overwhelming for the individual teacher, and to be told "you are responsible" for the success or failure of each of these students can be a burden that is simply too great to bear.

I did feel responsible, but there was a limit to what I felt I could do. I had children of my own waiting for me at home, and a working wife. There are indeed schools that take on some of these responsibilities more systematically, and that is great. There are such schools in Oakland. I would point out, however, that many of these schools struggle to retain teachers, because the 12 hour days that this sort of effort requires of them is difficult to sustain, especially when they want to have families of their own. So we must temper the responsibility of the individual teacher with the collective responsibility of the school and community to respond to these crises, and with our society's responsibility to care for those in poverty.

The fact that a teacher makes a difference cannot be extended to mean teachers alone are responsible for making up the difference between rich and poor in our society - and that is precisely what has happened with NCLB. Those in affluence have huge advantages, and they do not stand still when their privilege is threatened. Their advantages are guarded jealously. Their children are well fed, and get private tutors to help them with their studies. Students in poverty have huge disadvantages, and even effective teachers are not sufficient to bridge this gap - especially when the wealthy schools have excellent teachers, and stable schools, and do not have to rely on untrained interns.

All that said, I think we can agree that it is better for teachers to accept at least a share of responsibility for how well their students do. And then that brings us to the key question - how do we increase the proportion of teachers that feels strongly that this is true? I think the MetLife survey suggests that we can do this by increasing the amount of time teachers are given to collaborate. And to return to my original question, why is it that the current reform paradigm places so much emphasis on using competitive devices to get this result, when we can see that collaboration may actually be more effective?

What do you think? What does it mean to ask teachers to take responsibility for student achievement? How can we best build this spirit?

Next time: Why do so many oppose charter schools when they actually work?

Posted by Anthony Cody at 10:55 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Now that entire school staffs are being fired in order to "transform" their struggling schools, the issue of teacher responsibility for students' success or failure has gained tremendous significance.

Last week I posted a piece entitled Competition Can't Beat Collaboration, which challenged the central metaphor being used to drive education reform. I received a provocative response from a respected colleague who works in the field of education philanthropy, which challenges some of my assumptions. I would like to open this dialogue up so that others can participate as well. I think this dialogue is a good representation of the larger debate that is reshaping education in our country, and is of critical importance for that reason. I am going to post passages from my original post, followed by his response, and then open up the comments to get YOUR responses.

I wrote:

First of all, according to many reformers, we need financial incentives to force teachers to take responsibility for the performance of their students. The grievances teachers have lodged against the unfairness inherent in the punishments meted out by NCLB have been widely interpreted as a disavowal of this responsibility. However, according to the MetLife survey, 80% of teachers "strongly agree that the teachers in a school share responsibility for the achievement of all students."

My colleague writes:

I agree that more collaborative schools would allow for greater teacher satisfaction and a general atmosphere of responsibility for the needs of children. But, the pure act of collaboration does not unfortunately always produce results. I'm sure you must have run across collaborative principals in your career that did not have the capacity to evaluate, motivate and train a teacher how to be better at his or her craft. That being said, I find it likely that more collaborative schools find a way to work with struggling teachers (be they new or veteran teachers), with the hope that students will benefit. Frankly, I would be surprised if all teachers didn't agree with the statement that they "share responsibility for the achievement of all students." So, my question to you would be, how could only 80% agree with that statement? Everyone knows that the key ingredient in a student's education is the teacher. I would argue that it's the most important ingredient and I know of many studies that would prove this point. Do 20% of teachers really think they don't even "share" responsibility for all students?

Unfortunately, one of the biggest issues I see in low-performing schools, especially in low-income areas, is one of low expectations for what students can achieve and a willingness to blame other issues: poverty, drugs, single-parent households, etc. There is no doubt that these issues make learning more challenging for students, but the best schools and the best teachers find ways to help kids learn, despite these challenges. I'm convinced that the only way to solve poverty is through education and we can't blame poverty for poor academic results of children. There are too many examples out there of successful schools working in high-poverty areas and those teachers are the reason I have hope for improved outcomes of disadvantaged kids.

Posted by Anthony Cody at 5:41 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Last month Secretary of Education Arne Duncan responded to requests from his Teaching Ambassadors to record a special message to America's teachers.

His opening passage is appealing:

Excellent teachers matter. What you do has an extraordinary impact on student achievement and on their lives. Even in the best of circumstances, teaching is really, really, hard work. Great teachers go above and beyond the call of duty. You work tirelessly, on your own time. You work late into the night and on the weekends, working on lesson plans. You spend your own money on supplies for classrooms and lunches sometimes for your students. You wake up at night worrying about students who might be headed for trouble. And you enter challenging and sometimes dangerous environments, because you know those are the communities and students who need you the most. You care about every single child, personally.

But this week, when a school district in Rhode Island decided to fire all the teachers at Central Falls High School, Duncan "applauded school officials for doing the right thing." And the Secretary has a list of 1999 more schools ripe for "transformation."

The posts I have carried over the past month from Los Angeles teacher Chuck Olynyk bear witness to the toll this sort of draconian decimation takes on our teachers, many of whom are exactly the sorts of dedicated individuals who Secretary Duncan praises in his message. Am I alone in finding it hard to reconcile Duncan's words of encouragement for teachers working in challenging schools with his applause for the wholesale termination of an entire school faculty?

Secretary Duncan does care what teachers, think, however. And perhaps we should let him know.

The Teaching Ambassador Fellows are our profession's representatives in the Department of Education. They have set up a special site to collect feedback from teachers to share with the Department, as we prepare for reauthorization of NCLB.

Here is the first question they have posed:

Many teachers say they support ESEA's accountability measures, but that they need to be fair, based on students' academic growth, and can't be arbitrary or based on a single test score. What are your thoughts on how we do this best? What would it look like in your classroom? What would tests have to look like for you to think they were fair?

Over at the Facebook group Teachers' Letters to Obama discussion forum we are posting the messages we are sending. Here is mine:

Dear Teaching Ambassador Fellows,
Thank you for opening up a dialogue with teachers.

You asked what it would take for tests to be fair, and how that would look in our classrooms.

First of all, we need to be clear about what is unfair in current law.

It is unfair to expect students who live in poverty and violence to have the same outcomes as students who live in privilege and wealth. Poverty and violence have repeatedly been shown to have major effects on student performance. I am NOT saying that teachers and schools do not make a difference, but hunger and the trauma of violence also make a difference, and it is unfair to punish schools and teachers in impoverished areas when their scores are not as high as those in wealthy areas. This unfairness is compounded by the inequity of resources -- where schools in wealthy areas get more funding that those in poor areas. Teachers in Oakland, where I have worked for 23 years, are the lowest paid in the region -- and now our district must cut $40 million from next year's budget.

It is unfair that the law requires all subgroups to rise simultaneously. I understand the intention was to ensure that attention would be paid to all groups of students, but this puts diverse schools with multiple subgroups at a HUGE disadvantage. I taught at a school where we made big gains with our African American students one year, but we had a large influx of English Language Learners, and so our Latino group dropped by a few points. We were labeled a failure. The next year our African Americans and Latinos went up, but our Asians, already performing at a high level, stayed the same and did not rise. A failure again. This was completely demoralizing for our staff.

It is unfair that we test primarily reading and math, and largely ignore other subjects. This results in the well-documented narrowing of the curriculum. I work as a science coach in Oakland, and I can tell you there are elementary schools where teachers are NOT ALLOWED to teach science because they are required to spend every available minute following scripted curriculums in reading and math. Of course the wealthier schools in the district have time for science. A law that was supposed to create equity is having the opposite effect.

So what would it look like if it were to be made fair?

First of all, we would remove the absurd requirement that all students be proficient by 2014. We would create a system that allows each school to conduct an investigation into performance at their site, and set goals. These goals would extend beyond reading and math to encompass the other things that are valued in that community. We all know that we expect schools to do much more than teach reading and math. We need ways to set goals and measure accomplishment for more than reading and math. Can the students create a scientific investigation? Can they create an artistic performance in music or visual arts? Can they understand the past by reading historical documents? Our assessments should reflect much more broadly what we value.

What should those tests look like? They should be much more than multiple choice. They should include authentic assessments of critical thinking -- and they should focus on growth over the school year. For example, in science, a student could be given the task of making observations and coming up with a scientific hypothesis, and then designing an experiment to test his hypothesis. This task could be repeated in the Spring. This would encourage teachers to give students practice actually doing science, rather than merely memorizing facts for a multiple choice test.

We should ask schools to look at the performance of subgroups, but we should eliminate the expectation that every group should move up every year. We should allow schools to set goals for their subgroups, and reflect on what is occurring with them.

We should shift away from the emphasis on punishment and labeling schools as failures. We should move towards giving struggling schools support and encouragement to improve. Repeatedly studies emerge that the most powerful things we can do is give teachers time to collaborate. We need to set high expectations for teachers -- that they are capable of tackling these problems, and then give them the time and resources to do so. We should carefully evaluate research that shows the lackluster results of wholesale school reconstitutions in which staffs are blamed for the school's "failure" and required to reapply for their jobs. We should stop labeling schools as failures and shift towards a more constructive engagement with staffs, giving them time to collaborate, problem-solve and develop creative solutions involving parents and students.

What do you think of Duncan's message to teachers? What should our message be to Secretary Duncan? Will you send him one?

Posted by Anthony Cody at 11:24 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Starve the Beast is what they call it. Those who hate "big government" have decided that since it is politically untenable to gut popular programs such as Social Security and public education, they will simply obstruct the revenues necessary to support such services, and government will be forced to shrink because there won't be enough money to pay for it.

In California, our governor was elected after his predecessor was recalled over an unpopular increase in vehicle registration fees. Governor Schwarzenegger rolled back those fees, costing the state billions of dollars in revenues. And we have Proposition 13, which has frozen property taxes at 1978 levels for everyone, including large corporations. The taxes go up when property changes hands. Funny thing though. Individual homeowners on average own their homes for five or six years before selling. Corporations hold them for decades. Guess who has wound up paying the lion's share of these taxes, and who has gotten the greatest benefit?

We have a state legislature with a Democratic Party majority, but there is a two-thirds requirement for the budget to pass, and the governor holds a veto threat as well -- no new revenues can be found, even when the state faces huge deficits.

The Great Recession has hit California hard. Unemployment is at around 12% -- much higher in some neighborhoods. Property values have declined by as much as 40% in some areas, leading to a significant decline in tax revenues.

Schools have taken a huge hit. Over the past two years, $17 billion has been cut from education spending. This coming school year will be even worse, with the state cutting an additional $200 per student from the funds provided to each school district. My own district, Oakland Unified, is looking at a $40 million deficit. San Francisco - more than $100 million in the hole.

Students, teachers and parents are taking a stand on March 4. Last October, college students across California protested cuts to education. From this emerged plans for a statewide - and now a national day of action. The California Teachers Association has joined in, and is planning protests as well.

Oaklanders will be gathering downtown at Frank Ogawa Plaza at noon on March 4. There is a larger rally in San Francisco at the Civic Center at 5 pm.

There is a Facebook group for news of events, and another site called Stand Up For Schools where information is posted.

Is your school starving yet? What do you think should be done to provide adequate funding for our schools? Will you protest on March 4? What are the plans in your community?

Posted by Anthony Cody at 10:32 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

The MetLife Survey of the [North] American Teacher was released last week, and it holds some fresh reminders of the chasm between teachers and the prevalent education reform agenda.

First of all, according to many reformers, we need financial incentives to force teachers to take responsibility for the performance of their students. The grievances teachers have lodged against the unfairness inherent in the punishments meted out by NCLB have been widely interpreted as a disavowal of this responsibility. However, according to the MetLife survey, 80% of teachers "strongly agree that the teachers in a school share responsibility for the achievement of all students."

But the most striking finding of the survey is the following:

Teachers and principals in schools with higher levels of collaboration are more likely than others to strongly agree that teachers in a school share responsibility for the achievement of all students and that greater collaboration among teachers and school leaders would have a major impact on improving student achievement. Teachers in higher collaboration schools are also more likely to strongly agree that other teachers contribute to their success.

Most striking is the higher level of trust in more collaborative schools. Overall, half of teachers (51%) and 71% of principals strongly agree that the teachers, principal and other professionals trust each other at their school. However, those in schools with higher levels of collaboration are more likely to strongly agree that this level of trust exists (teachers: 69% vs. 42%; principals: 78% vs. 60%). Furthermore, teachers in schools with higher levels of collaboration are more likely to be very satisfied with teaching as a career (68% vs. 54%).

We find scarce funds to pay these mentors for their time, but that is not what drives this collaboration. We are motivated by the same thing that drew us to teach in these challenging schools in the first place - a deep concern for the well-being of our students. We want to collaborate, to share, to support one another and COOPERATE.

So why is it that the central metaphor for education reform has become a competitive race?

Race to the Top has been defined as a competition - starting with its name, and in the means by which states "win" the rivalry for the best and most innovative grant proposals.

The most trendy innovations focus on strategies that reward individual teachers for their performance - or punish them for their students' low scores. Once again, competition is supposed to drive reform.

Charter schools, which offer educators a worthwhile opportunity to innovate, have been touted as forcing public schools to compete for students and tax dollars. Unfortunately, although some are outstanding, they have not yielded the results that were predicted, and recent reports indicate there are huge obstacles that are likely to prevent them from scaling up to meet the promises that are being made for them.

The central innovation of which the Duncan administration is most proud is that it has replaced the clumsy stick wielded by the Bush administration with the clever carrot of one-time funding.

Teachers may be disinclined to compete with one another, but leaders at the state departments of education have had no qualms about doing whatever it takes to please the master dangling the carrot.

It is probably not a coincidence that this overwhelming drive to compete comes at a time when corporations have assumed a huge influence over education policy. This influence comes in three forms. First of all, corporations control large parts of the public discourse through ownership and editorial control of the media. This could be seen rather clumsily last week when Dean Millot was censored for raising questions about the integrity of the Race to the Top process. It is also seen in the general slant of most coverage of education issues, which widely embraces the condemnation of public schools as abject failures. Secondly, corporations have greatly disproportionate influence over our elected officials, through the legalized bribery system of campaign donations. This has been expanded recently by the Supreme Court decision rendering free speech rights to corporations. Lastly, corporate philanthropists such as Bill Gates have figured out that strategic investments of millions of dollars can powerfully swing public policies, redirecting billions of public dollars in the desired direction.

I am not one who believes this is all about corporations trying to make money off the public schools. I think Bill Gates and many of the others supporting these efforts genuinely believe their outlook will result in better outcomes for students. Most of these guys have tons of money and they do not need to make a buck this way.

But that doesn't mean their perspective is going to work in our schools.

Corporations are driven by the need to compete for profit. Success is achieved when we outsmart our rivals in the marketplace, when we work harder, innovate, and compete to win. It is not surprising that when people successful in this field turn their minds over to the task of improving schools, they apply the lessons they have learned in their work.

They accuse teachers of resisting their solutions because we are selfish and lazy. Nothing could be further from the truth. The solutions we seek are not selfish, but are based in our ethics of cooperation and mutual benefit. We want to expand learning for all of our students, by working to support one another through collaboration, not competition. We are not seeking to prove that we are better than our rival teachers, to eke out an extra thousand dollar bonus for better test scores. We do not want to set up selective schools that take the academic cream off the top of the public schools. We are choosing to work in these public schools not because it is an easy road. Anyone who walks in a teacher's shoes will know this profession is not for slackers.

Rather than fighting against this deep-seated ethical grain, education reformers must learn to work with it. We need reforms that expand the time teachers have to collaborate, to compare student work, to share lessons and reflect on how well they worked. Our schools are often compared unfavorably to those in Finland and elsewhere. But those schools do not rely on merit pay to motivate teacher performance. They DO give teachers significantly more time to collaborate and learn together.

The spirit of innovation and creativity inspired by the desire to compete and excel is a productive part of our culture. Good teachers tap into these impulses to build motivation among their students. There should be ways that great teachers are recognized and rewarded - this mustn't be an all or nothing battle. But we need a greater balance in the direction we pursue, and the desire among teachers to learn together should be recognized as the powerful force for improvement that it is.

What do you think? Is competition a useful driver of school reform? Or do we need more emphasis on collaboration?

photo by Anthony Cody

Posted by Anthony Cody at 3:50 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

On Feb. 5, blogger Marc Dean Millot apparently committed the equivalent of heresy by questioning the integrity of the Race to the Top. In a post on Alexander Russo's "This Week in Education, Millot wrote:

I have now heard the same thing from three independent credible sources -- the fix is in on the U.S. Department of Education's competitive grants, in particular Race to the Top (RTTT) and Investing in Innovation (I3). Secretary Duncan needs to head this off now, by admitting that he and his team have potential conflicts of interests with regard to their roles in grant making, recognizing that those conflicts are widely perceived by potential grantees, and explaining how grant decisions will be insulated from interference by the department's political appointees.

Russo pulled the post, apparently after a complaint was lodged by Andy Rotherham, which can be seen on his blog, Eduwonk:

Scholastic, a serious publisher in the education space (that produces some good products, for instance Read 180) is now allowing its bloggers to call out senior government officials as corrupt on the basis of anonymous third party hearsay and no evidence. We've crossed into a strange new - and unfortunate - world if this is the new norm or somehow even remotely acceptable.

In his responses, Millot offers a lawyerly defense of his original post, and effectively refutes the charges Rotherham makes, pointing out that his post did not accuse officials of corruption, but warned that there was a growing perception of this danger.

The whole incident is remarkable on several levels. First of all, it reminds us of the futility of censorship. Millot's original post has been reproduced and read far more than if it had been ignored by those who were offended. Second, the defensive reaction shows the explosive nature of the questions he raises. We are dealing with billions of dollars of public funds, and the future of an entire generation. The stakes could hardly be higher.

Historian and blogger Diane Ravitch does a great job of putting this all into perspective in her post last Tuesday. She ends with a rather dire warning:

When someday we trace back how large segments of our public school system were privatized and how so many millions of public dollars ended up in the pockets of high-flying speculators instead of being used to reduce class size, repair buildings, and improve teacher quality, we will look to the origins of the Race to the Top and to the interlocking group of foundations, politicians, and entrepreneurs who created it.

In recent weeks, I have tried to be optimistic about statements Duncan and Obama have made that indicate their willingness to depart substantially from the test mania that has driven us for the past decade. However, this incident raises a host of questions that need to be explored much more deeply.

What do you think about this imbroglio? Was Millot's original post hearsay or heresy? How about the warning from Ravitch?

(Hat tip to David Cohen over at Accomplished California Teachers for flagging this.)

Posted by Anthony Cody at 12:20 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Chuck Olynyk has taught history for the past 16 years at Fremont High School in Los Angeles. More than half the year he shows up to class dressed as a Roman Centurion, or some other character from the era under study. But this week Chuck, along with many of his colleagues, submitted transfer requests to their administration, rather than reapply for their jobs, as required by the reconstitution plan of Superintendent Ramon Cortines. Here are Chuck's thoughts about the lessons we can learn from this process. These are some precious lessons we had better learn fast, before thousands of schools meet a similar fate.

Today is Day 136 in my time left at Fremont. I got my transfer papers signed, which was coincidently the day the applications for the "reapplication process" (redundant, eh?) were placed in our mailboxes. Two of the SLCs [small learning communities] marched in en mass and had their papers signed. I went in solo--better that way, I guess. It did allow me to see one of my favorite kids as I came out the principal's office.

This child was a major irritant to me the first ten weeks of school. You know the species: 15-year-old eye-rolling chatterbox addicted to her iPod and iPhone and so lazy you'd have to tell her to breathe. Then there was some miraculous understanding in week eleven, where I stopped longing for her to be absent and instead of jumping her case about being LATE, she'd be a minute late to first period and I'd raise a Mr. Spock eyebrow. She's also a "B" student--might even get an "A" this semester if I know my kids, and I've been teaching since 1983 and I usually watch them come ALIVE in my class second semester. She asked, "Are you making trouble again?" We matched grins. You see, she understands why I am doing this.

Kids like this mean a lot to me. As I've said before, I feel good teachers teach life lessons all year long--they just use their subject areas as the vehicles to do so. Another kid, who's playing basketball, got into a massive yelling match in September, which was especially painful because this is another of those "lazy" kids who eventually earned a "B" and I fully expect to get an "A" at year's end (the joy of 10th grade--first semester is a nightmare and second semester I watch them bloom) expressed his concern for me a couple of days after the Cortines bombshell. "Hey, O, you straight?" It took a while for me to reply, but did my usual minimizing what's going on with me. He didn't buy my bull and told me, "Hey, it's not your fault."

That's two reasons right there.

Another set of reasons comes from a lesson I do annually, this happening a couple of years ago. When I teach the Cold War, my all-time favorite lesson involves giving the kids lyrics to a dozen songs, with images of the time. I play the music, starting with "For What It's Worth" (all the youngsters can stop rolling your eyes now); on that day, all the kids have to do is read the lyrics, listen to the music and look at the images, sort of a multi-media romp through the Sixties and Seventies. In twenty-six years of teaching, I only have had to shut down this lesson TWICE out of all of my classes. In the year in question, most of the Fremont staff participated in a one-period boycott. Students and community members watched us as we demonstrated; those of us who did taking the loss of an hour's pay. The lesson? Everything comes with a cost. In the words of Stephen Stills: "Find the cost of freedom buried in the ground." But that day, those kids heard the music--really heard it--and saw what we were doing--for them! After one period, I had a couple of girls come up to say, "No one in our lives has ever taught us like that. Thank you." There's intangible rewards. Yeah, I'm not one of those teachers who gets praise from colleagues or administration--the previous principal pretty much denigrated me for five years. But I'm not doing this for him. It's for those kids, hoping they can take my lessons and go further, kind of an Isaac Newton, "We stand on the shoulders of giants" sort of thing.

That's why I'm doing what I am doing. This isn't to feed my ego and have sixteen-year-olds praise me. It's to have them see the life lessons. One of my kids said today (I saw an amazing number of them today): "You don't give a damn what anyone thinks." "Not true," was my reply, which came from the heart.

Does it matter what others think of me? Of course it does. But what matters more is to be the person I was raised to be; there were lots of hands in that process: my parents, my sister thirteen years my elder, the example of my stiff-necked grandfather who died in a gulag, teachers I have known, science fiction writers I have met, other writers I have only known through their works, such as Tolkien (and for the record, I look like Gimli, think Aragorn/Strider is the coolest one, but it is plain old Sam Gamgee who is the real hero), poets, musicians, comic book characters (for the record, again, Green Arrow, because he has always fought
for those who need a champion)... and those I've met along the way in the Society for Creative Anachronism. All of these shaped me, gave me my pain-in-the-butt, devil-take-the-cost attitude.

This, too, has been my favorite teaching "gig," sixteen years' worth. That's also why I had to put in transfer papers today. If I stood by and did nothing, EVERYTHING I TAUGHT MY KIDS WOULD BECOME A LIE! And I firmly, passionately believe in what I am doing and what I am teaching. I must teach and lead by example. There another couple of quotes that come to mind:

"When one man says no, Rome begins to fear. We were tens of thousands who said no. That was the wonder of it."--Kirk Douglas in "Spartacus"

"I think there's only one thing that a father needs to leave his son, and that's a good example of how a man should live his life. Anything else, the son can learn for himself. The greatest gift my father ever gave me was the courage to trust my own abilities, and I learned that through his example."--Fraser, Due South (The Gift of the Wheelman").

I haven't lied to Mr. Balderas. I haven't lied to the kids. I'm not about to start.

Chuck Olynyk, teacher, Fremont High School

Some links about the situation at Fremont High and beyond:

Local TV coverage of the December 16 Rally held to save Fremont High School jobs

How Does it Feel to be Reconstituted: Day 168

Day 152: The Battle for Fremont High

Reconstitution: There Has Got to Be a Better Way

A Tale of Two Urban Schools: An article about how reconstitution at a high school in Seattle didn't work

What do you think are the lessons we can learn from this story? What can we learn about how to better serve struggling schools?

images by Chuck Olynyk, used by permission.

Posted by Anthony Cody at 10:14 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Over the past month I have posted two guest blogs authored by Los Angeles history teacher Chuck Olynyk (here and here.) Chuck has shared his experiences and feelings as his school undergoes the process of "reconstitution." At Fremont High School, staff members are given the option of applying to stay, or transferring to another school in the district.

Here, police line the entrance to Fremont High, to make sure teachers, parents and students protesting keep out. A permit to hold the rally on school grounds was canceled by the superintendent.

In Brooklyn, New York, plans to close schools there drew hundreds of protesting parents, students and educators who recently stayed until 3 am trying to convince the governing panel to spare their schools this fate.

This process has taken on new significance now that Secretary of Education Arne Duncan is proposing that 2000 schools across the nation should be restructured (the fourth pillar of Race to the Top.) The protests from parents, teachers and students indicate that this is a highly disruptive and painful process. Does it have to be so? According to Chicago turnaround specialist John Simmons there is a better way.

In this interview in Public School Insights, Simmons describes the process his group, Strategic Learning Initiatives, has developed. The process focuses on a shared leadership model. Parent involvement in pivotal and is used to build support for changing the climate in the school, and for helping the students meet standards through their homework. Their work has led to as many as 50% to 70% of the parents attending workshops at the schools. The parents themselves are the source of this organization, which is the key to its success. But teachers are also drawn into leadership, and the principal as well, because together they must define a new vision for where the school is headed.

The amazing thing is that this is much less costly than the traditional model of reconstitution. It does not have the dramatic flair, the clean sweep of the cobwebs that is the hallmark of the traditional reconstitution. But the results have been convincing. Eight of the ten schools SLI has worked with over the past decade have made significant improvements.

The reconstitution process as it is being done in New York and Los Angeles is fundamentally demoralizing for the staff and students at a school. It places the blame for dysfunction on the heads of the teachers and administration, and suggests that replacing these people will produce better results. But many of these individuals have done heroic work in these schools. Forcing them to reapply for their jobs is humiliating and dishonors their work. The process of closure is traumatic and divisive, with school employees pitted against one another. These schools are located in communities already suffering from the traumas of violence and poverty. Rather than reinforce these patterns, our school leaders ought to be working to make these schools oases from this dysfunction. They ought to be bringing the community together to solve the issues these schools face.

Another issue that ought to be considered is the means by which schools in need of restructuring are identified. Currently the only measurements in use are standardized test scores. These scores are a very weak diagnostic tool. There may be schools that are good at test preparation but are weak in other dimensions. And there may be schools with many strengths that are overlooked or devalued because of this limited focus. We must have more sophisticated ways of looking at the strengths and weaknesses of a school, and find ways to build on what is working. Sam Chaltain made a fascinating proposal in this regard last week.

There ought to be ways that schools can become reinvigorated, that the leadership of administrators, teachers, parents and students can be drawn upon to reinvent the schools. John Simmons has offered us one model, and I believe there are others as well. Rather than toss a staff on the trash heap, let's look for some ways to rebuild and support them.

What do you think? How should we help struggling schools to improve? How should we determine which schools need help?

photos by Chuck Olynyk, used with permission.

Posted by Anthony Cody at 1:12 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

My mind is reeling a bit this morning, trying to come to terms with what we heard yesterday from Education Secretary Arne Duncan. According to this story in the Raleigh News & Observer, Duncan told a group of educators there that they should avoid teaching to the test.

"We want to give every child a chance to discover their genius, what they're best at."

Otherwise, Duncan said, the nation won't be able to keep up with technology advances being made in other countries. He also took aim at the emphasis on standardized testing as part of President George W. Bush's "No Child Left Behind" program.

This is consistent with President Obama's remarks in New Hampshire that I wrote about a few days ago, indicating an interest in richer assessments and moving away from bubbling in answers on multiple choice tests.

This is a shift with huge implications.

First of all, No Child Left Behind remains the law of the land. Even as we anticipate possible reauthorization this year, schools are laboring under the mandates that test scores must rise. Schools -- including Fremont High School in Los Angeles -- are being taken apart and reconstituted based on low test scores.

But more significantly, this calls into question the way states have been interpreting the "four pillars of reform" central to the $4 billion Race to the Top fund announced by the Duncan last July. These pillars are:

Pillar 1. Every state must have high standards.

Implications: The prevailing testing philosophy has been that high standards = many facts, many things to memorize that can be easily tested on multiple choice tests. If we in fact wish to privilege critical thinking and honor the spark of creativity in each students, these standards -- and assessments -- will need to look very different.

Pillar 2. Closing the "data gap." Seek high quality data tracking student achievement in every district.

Implications: What makes data high quality? We will need new kinds of data, especially data that will reflect students' abilities in areas currently ignored by the reading and math tests central to accountability systems. What will that data look like? Student portfolios reflecting their growth over the year? Teachers will need a much stronger role, in gathering and working actively with this data to guide our instruction.

Pillar 3. Reward and retain excellent teachers, and bounce the bums.

Implications: Many states have interpreted this to mean we evaluate and pay teachers according to their test scores. This is absolutely unacceptable if you say you do not want people to teach to the test! Even a business leader can understand that you cannot attach an incentive to an undesirable outcome! We will need to return to more wholistic and collaborative ways of determining the quality and effectiveness of a teacher.

Pillar 4. Remake failing schools.

Implications: The primary means used up until this point to determine if a school is failing has been math and reading scores. If test scores cease to be the primary indicator then we need to rethink who is actually failing. A school that is doing extensive test preparation may actually be a worse school than one with lower test scores! Just as our appraisal of teacher effectiveness must become more sophisticated and nuanced, our evaluation of schools must likewise be completely rethought.

I do not know if Secretary Duncan or the leaders in our state departments of education have realized all the rethinking we are going to need to do.

Leading teachers are ahead of the curve on this one. Over at Teachers' Letters to Obama we have been discussing this approach for months, and are actively discussing many of these implications, and searching for practical solutions that will work in our schools. It is exciting to feel that our concerns are being heard by Secretary Duncan, and I think we need to dive in and help find the way forward.

What do you think of Secretary Duncan's remarks and their implications? How should we receive this news?

Posted by Anthony Cody at 12:11 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

This week President Obama held a town hall meeting in Nashua, New Hampshire. His main focus was jobs and the economy, but one of the six questions he took was from a woman named Judy Loftus, who is a teacher at Nashua South High School, Nashua, New Hampshire. Ms. Loftus asked the question that has been on our minds for months. She got a very intriguing response. (Click here to watch the exchange.)

Judy Loftus:
What are you going to do about No Child Left Behind? We have a lot of legacies from the last administration, and as an educator, I've seen the impact in my school, and it hasn't been a positive impact. We're focused more on testing and worrying about test scores than what's right for kids.

President Obama:
We used to have the best, and now we have pockets of the best, and then we have mediocrity, and then we schools that are just terrible. We've got to make sure EVERY child is getting a good solid education. And what that means is, we continue to invest in early childhood education, as my budget does, so our kids are prepared when they start school. It means we help schools with their basic budget, and the Recovery Act prevented a lot of layoffs, and really patched holes in a lot of budgets. It's not sexy, it doesn't get a lot of credit, but it made a huge difference. We've got to make sure though that the single most important factor in an elementary or secondary school education is fulfilled, and that is that we have got excellent teachers in the classroom, and that they are getting a good salary and the support that they need.

Traditionally, the debate between the right and the left over the schools has said, the Left just says "We just need more money in the schools, and everything will be ok." You know, for new equipment, new computers, smaller class sizes - that's been the argument on the liberal side. The conservative side says "The whole problem is bureaucracy, teachers unions, you gotta blow up the system." What my administration believes is, it's not an either or proposition - it's both-and. We need more money, but we need to spend the money wisely and we need to institute reforms that raise standards that push everybody in a school - principal, teacher, student, parent - to pursue excellence.

So last year we started with something called Race to the Top. It's a pretty simple proposition. We carved out a little bit of money that doesn't just go to general revenue - you know, Title 1, the general federal support for schools. And we said, "this money, this Race to the Top money, you get it only if you are working to make for excellent teachers, you're collecting good data, to make sure your students are actually making progress at the schools, you're dealing with the lowest-performing schools in the district, you've got ideas that are showing concrete results - in improvement - not in absolute test scores, but in the progress that that school is making, we're going to fund those improvements." And we've already seen reforms across 48 states, just because we incentivized reform. That's a good thing.

This year is when reauthorization for what's called No Child Left Behind would be coming up - as part of the broader education legislation that's up for reauthorization. And what we're saying there is, on the one hand, we don't want teachers just teaching to the test, on the other hand, we also want to keep high standards for our kids. And I think the best way to do that is to combine high standards, measurable outcomes, but have an assessment system that you work with teachers on, so that its not just a matter of who's fillin' out a bubble and you're also taking into account where do kid start, because not every kid is going to start at the same place, so you want to see where do they end up (applause) at the end of the year.

I just had a meeting with my team this week about this, trying to find ways that we can improve the assessment system, so we're still holding schools accountable, we're still holding teachers accountable, but we're not JUST holding them accountable for a score on a standardized test, but we have a richer way of assessing whether these schools are making progress. So that's the answer on the No Child Left Behind front.

Here is what I think: I think we are seeing the first sliver of hope for change. President Obama is calling for more authentic assessments of student learning, and he appears to be beginning to act on his promise to shift us away from standardized tests. He says teachers need to be involved in the process of developing these assessments. I think we need to take him up on this challenge and develop some clear proposals for the kind of assessments that would, in fact, be richer and more meaningful than our current tests. We will need to continue to organize and put pressure on every level and in every state, but there may be some room for our ideas to be heard.

Note: Our Facebook group, Teachers' Letters to Obama, now has 850 members, and active discussions are underway focused on our ideas about authentic assessment and other aspects of school change. Come join us!

Update: Arne Duncan warned 200 educators in North Carolina yesterday that they should not teach to the test! According to this story in the Charlotte News Observer, he said:

"We want to give every child a chance to discover their genius, what they're best at."

Otherwise, Duncan said, the nation won't be able to keep up with technology advances being made in other countries. He also took aim at the emphasis on standardized testing as part of President George W. Bush's "No Child Left Behind" program.

This is the strong evidence that we are beginning to be heard! Of course this has HUGE implications for the many policies Duncan has been pursuing -- pay for test scores, closing down schools with low test scores, etc. So we will have to see how this plays out in terms of these actual practices. But this feels like a potentially significant shift from our leaders.

What do you think? Do the President's words offer us some hope? What sorts of assessments would you like to see used in place of the current tests?

Posted by Anthony Cody at 12:46 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Last month I published a guest post from Chuck Olynyk, a veteran teacher at Fremont High School in Los Angeles. Our education leaders have decided that one way to improve low performing schools is to shut them down, and make everyone working their reapply for their jobs. Education Secretary Arne Duncan did this to 60 schools in Chicago, and has plans to put the 5000 lowest performing schools in the country into a process that could lead to reconstitution.

This week we hear once again from Chuck, who allows us to witness this process as it unfolds. Things are heating up in LA.

Today is Day 152 of my time remaining at Fremont High School.

The workshop on "How To Transfer" really drove home how serious this situation at Fremont, which means other "loser" schools in LAUSD has become: ninety minutes on how to move out or be evicted from a place you dedicated the past sixteen years to. The library was packed, the facilitators bombarded with earnest questions. It's funny how we talk daily about doing it, about strategies like not reapplying, of signing petitions (or, more properly, pledges, I guess) not to do so, then the inevitable that comes with such gestures.

"I don't want to leave." Picture a whining voice in your ear. "I want to stay here..." Yeah, guess what? We all do (well, mostly). A number of us envisioned finishing out our careers here at the Mont, but Superintendent Cortines would have it otherwise in his grand publicity stunt. Yes, Dr. McKenna (III, in case you need to figure out which one) "encourages" us to all "reapply," if you were at Tuesday's meeting. Does it actually make sense to ask us all to reapply if having us all together is such a bad thing for Fremont? Oh, wait, I remember... "Just because it doesn't make sense doesn't mean it's not logical." Yes, Mr. Balderas also is asking us to reapply. Can you blame him? What might look like a dream-come-true for a principal--hand-picking your faculty--is really a nightmare, with a bunch of us with experience saying, "Okay, pick a school for me, since I suck so bad and have no idea what I'm doing." My sister is an M.D. and she likens having the majority of experienced people leaving to staffing a hospital with interns and medical students; sometimes experience matters.

"I'm not worried. I'm so good I know they have to hire me back. Only the bad teachers have to worry." Assuming you are re-hired, under what working conditions will that be? Dr. McKenna says that it's "a work in progress, subject to revision." So you want to sign on, while the "contract/compact" is under revision? If so, can I get you to sign a blank check for me? Won't you already be committed to working here and THEN you find out what the conditions are? What do plan to do then--leave? We need to know what the conditions are--and one of the conditions is that WE stay. (I think I'm channeling Lee Marvin in The Dirty Dozen--"This is one time we're going all the way with the Army's starting line-up?" "Even Maggot?" "Even Maggot.")

If we are all being encouraged--no, begged--to remain, then we cannot be the problem. But if we are not the problem, then why the wholesale forced exodus, why the Trail of Tears, why the Stalinesque deportation to an educational Siberian gulag? Dr. McKenna, you need to stick to one story. If we're being removed from Fremont because we have created a "culture of failure," then why are we being encouraged by you to reapply? Why has it become so important for us--teachers, counselors, clerical staff, food services, security, school police, custodial, and assistant principals--to reapply?
--Chuck Olynyk

Note: This was written over the weekend. Today, I got an update from Chuck:
Lots going on at Fremont. Thursday is Parent Conference Night, so we've got networking with parents going on. Saturday, there is a neighborhood walk scheduled, with teachers going door to door. Tuesday will be a rally in from of the Mont after school. Thursday there will be another meeting on our football field.

And the petition/pledge now has something like 120 out of 240 (more or less) faculty, who will not be reapplying.

More news on this battle can be found at the Save Fremont! web site.

What do you think? Would you reapply for YOUR job if your school was reconstituted?

Posted by Anthony Cody at 10:28 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is preparing to invest $45 million on research to discover what makes a teacher great. This week, retired teacher James D. Starkey offered his list of ten qualities in an Education Week column. I am going to offer my own suggestions here, and invite you to offer yours as well, but first I must make an observation about the hubris involved in this enterprise. Our definition of what makes a teacher great is a Rorschach test revealing our own philosophy of education. So the most important part of this process would be an in depth review of our cultural values to determine what education should be, because a great teacher is only great in the context of these expectations. And what is great in one setting might be disastrous in another. Our current system of measuring student achievement missed this step and we are paying a huge price as a consequence. We should not make the same mistake in defining teacher quality.

So I offer my own suggestions, explicitly stating the values that drive them.

First Value: The Interests of our Students come First
Great teachers place the interests of their students first. That means they consider their future lives when making decisions about how and what to teach them. They look at each of them as an individual and try to shape that child's experience to help him or her succeed. I just heard a wonderful story on This American Life (in the episode titled "2010") about a child named Lewis, who was struggling earlier this year. Typical 6th grade boy troubles - difficulty focusing on his work, distracting classmates, etc. Then one day he asked for five minutes of "Lewis time" in front of the class. A light bulb went on for his teachers, who from that day forward, would allow him five minutes every morning to hold forth, sing songs, tell stories from home, and teach the class whatever he wanted. But only if he earned it the day before. With this connection, he became far more able to focus and learn. We need to be constantly on the lookout, as teachers, for that hook that we can use to engage, motivate and focus our students. And we should evaluate every choice we make to see what is in their best long-term interests.

Second Value: A Passion for Learning
Great teachers needs to be able to transmit to their students a passion for learning about the world. Whatever the subject, we need to make it come alive in our classroom. We are not learning because something is on a test. We are learning because this is fascinating! Each of us has our own special area of passion - it might be music, or math, or biology. If we are lucky we get to spend time sharing that excitement with our students. A great teacher finds ways to build on that and take the students deep into the subject. I love turning students on to evolution, and I have a whole collection of fossils, including a genuine dinosaur egg, that I bring to class for the students to hold in their hands. That spark is infectious and is a precious thing. Great teachers feed those sparks and keep them burning by ongoing involvement in their subject - as a science teacher taking part in field research or real laboratory work, as an English teacher reading and writing literature, or a history teacher conducting research into the past. And the best thing is when we can connect our students to this work in real ways, getting them involved in projects where they are interviewing elders for history class, or doing field research themselves.

Third Value: Community Building
Each classroom of students is either a collection of 32 individuals, or a community of learners actively supporting one another. A great teacher can build a functioning community that learns together, and the students who are a part of that community will learn a great deal more as a result. They will learn more of their subject matter, because they will share their knowledge and help one another, and they will also learn the precious skill of collaboration. A great teacher knows how to structure teamwork so that individual effort is still required and recognized, but the groups nonetheless produce work that is greater than the sum of the parts.

Great teachers extend their sense of community beyond the walls of their classrooms, to collaborate with peers across the school and district -- and even country. They share curriculum, project ideas, and other resources, and actively collaborate with peers to conduct teacher research, do lesson study, or serve as mentors.

What do you think? What values and characteristics come to mind when you think of the great teachers you encountered in your life? What do you do that makes YOU great?

Posted by Anthony Cody at 7:14 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend