November 2010 Archives

One of the first letters I received last year after I issued my call for teachers to write to President Obama was this one from Connecticut educator Jesse Turner. Jesse wrote about how his mother would have him and his siblings walk in their unheated apartment to stay warm in the winter. He walked again, last summer.

Last year I walked 400 miles in 40 days to protest the NCLB/RTTT policies. This year I am walking again, but I am bringing a few friends with me. I am not waiting for Superman, or some dynamic leader to fix public education. Instead I am walking to Washington DC again. What our public schools need most is an Awakening of the American People. An awakening is no simple task before us. The purpose of public schooling in America is enormously complex. Every once in a while, we as a people lose sight of the purpose of schooling in America. As a country we have not had a serious conversation around the purpose of education in over 150 years.

I intentionally use the term awakening because in many ways our great nation has been asleep in regards to the purpose of our public schools. The last time such a conversation was had was when the great Horace Mann fought for the very idea of a public education. He led our nations' noble fight to establish a free public school system. Horace Mann had a great vision called the "Common School Movement." It is his vision that eventually became an American awakening. It was his life's work. His vision focused on building a quality public school system that would educate not only the poor, but would also attract the sons and daughters of the very wealthy. His vision was driven by equality. Indeed the yardstick for public education would eventually become equality. While it was never perfect, equality did become the legal measure of public schools in our great nation. We have a legal history that goes back over a hundred years attesting to this fact. Mann dreamed of a system that inspires the spirit of democracy and a sense of morality. Education was the very means of preserving our democracy. The leadership of his day, on the other hand - much like today, was less inspired by morality and democracy. They did however love the idea of a competitive workforce, (ironically not much has changed). In order to sell the idea of public schools Mann had to compromise, and sell both a competitive workforce and moral citizens. Some of us today refer to this as Horace's Great Compromise. In essence this is America's covenant with a free public education. Although it was a compromise, the moral yardstick of our public school system remained equality until the legislation of No Child Left Behind.

No Child Left Behind lacked any moral compass from the start. This law reduces equality to a test score. It assumes no federal responsibility in obtaining equality. This current education reform has discarded our yardstick of equality. Simply put, the one and only indicator to measure academic success under NCLB is the test score on a standardized measure. Astonishingly NCLB claims to focus on closing the achievement gap while effectively taking the focus off equity issues. It has shifted the focus to outcomes on standardized testing as public schooling savior. Policy makers, politicians, and many of our educational leadership no longer focus on issues of race, poverty, and those Savage Inequalities that Jonathon Kozal so effectively writes about. Standardized testing is seen as the means to end inequality. Policy makers point fingers of blame at parents, teachers, schools of education, even students themselves. In my mind the very weakness of NCLB reforms are driven by their fear that America is losing its economic edge in this global world. In their mind democracy and morality come second. Sadly in some circles it may even be seen as a hindrance.

We once again have the unique opportunity to revisit our public school covenant. This awakening will be driven by two questions: Is the sole measure of a child that of a test score?

Is the ability to compete in the workforce the most important outcome of our public schools?

If the answer is a resounding yes, then indeed all that matters is a test of basic academic skills in math, reading, and writing. Unequivocally, I believe that as Americans we expect so much more from our public schools. Morality matters to Americans. In particular it matters to the parents and caregivers of the children in our public schools. Character counts in America. Without a doubt the very principles of democracy matter a whole lot to the people of our great nation. NCLB has thrown the balance so far out of whack that the very fabric of our nation is in danger.

This awakening is so much more than NCLB. It is more than a simple test score, or even education reform. This awakening is about a covenant that has been broken. It must be fixed. In order to do this we need a movement that returns us to a conversation around our nation's public schooling covenant.

Some people naively think parents, teachers, and Americans in general are not ready for this kind of discussion. On the contrary, I believe this is what Americans are born to do. I plan on bringing this conversation to our people. I have great faith in Americans and their do the right thing attitude when push comes to shove. With NCLB push has come to shove. For this reason I walked 400 miles from Connecticut to Washington D.C. this past summer. It is why I am walking again next year. While my simple metaphor to begin this awakening was "Children Are More Than Test Scores" it really must be so much more. It must be a call to action. A call to reclaim our schools; reclaim our schools from fear. We need to return to Horace Mann's vision of purpose.

My walk ended this year on Labor Day on the campus of the American University. Those sitting at our presentation didn't want this to be the end. Instead we said, it is only the beginning. All of those present had followed my walk from Connecticut to D.C. (via the internet) since I started out in May. We knew we wanted to continue this conversation beyond test scores. So began our conversation around a balanced and fair assessment system. This will be a system that respects children, teachers, and local schools. This on-going conversation opens the door to the awakening. We as a group, parents, teachers, and academics, have been working hard on planning a series of actions against NCLB, (SOS's March/Teach-in July '11).

America and our public schools need every voice. We need to elevate this conversation to something more than the failure of NCLB. We must be reminded that public schools are at the heart of what makes us America. I think it is imperative to move congress, the senate, and the White House, but first of all we need to move the people of America. The rest will follow.

It is to the people of America I make this call, to the Mom's and the Dad's, the builders and the firefighters, the nurses and the teachers, you are our voice, our hope. I have always thought that each and every one of us can be the hope for each other. Together our voice is loud and clear, and only together can we move mountains.

I am not pessimistic these days. I am not fearful that the day is in danger of being lost. I am convinced this wakening is already happening. No congress, or senate, not even the president can stop this conversation now. We are beyond the tipping point. There is a choice, either get out of the way, or come ride our wave. I love the idea that every tidal wave has its origins in a single drop of rain. Are you part of the coming tidal wave? What is holding you back? Hold on this is going to be one heck of a ride. Teachers and parents come join us in Washington DC. It is your voice that is often missing in this extremely important discussion. Employees of public schools, the teachers and principals of the schools that we all cherish, are very vulnerable in all of this. They and their unions are the targets of so many of the current reformers. They can very easily be dismissed or moved, at the drop of a hat. You are unique. You can do something powerful by speaking up for someone who is crying inside. The teacher or principal that you've known forever may be too fearful to speak up. I call upon you all, especially grandparents, retired teachers and principals. You are the powerful potential.

It was Abraham Lincoln who shared: "I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live by the light that I have. I must stand with anybody that stands right, and stand with him while he is right, and part with him when he goes wrong".

Rather than tell people what to do, I prefer to say "Why not come join us in Washington DC this July 28th to July 31st, and become a pivotal part of the Save Our Schools Awakening." To connect with this, please join our group, Children are More than Test Scores.

Standing by those that stand right!
Jesse P. Turner,
West Hartford, CT

What do you think? Is it time for an awakening regarding our public schools? Are you willing to join Jesse when he walks again next summer?

Posted by Anthony Cody at 9:41 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Teachers Anthony Cody and Patrick Ledesma, both NBCTs and members of the Teacher Leaders Network, have taken two very different approaches to promoting the teacher voice in education policy. Anthony began with an open letter to President Obama, and then launched a Facebook group, Teachers' Letters to Obama, which now has more than 3000 members -- some of whom spoke with Secretary Duncan last May. Patrick has served for the past four months as a Teacher Ambassador Fellow for the US Department of Education, and in that role has represented teachers in discussions of policy. What follows is a dialogue between them, sharing their perspectives. This is Anthony's response to Patrick's post here, Teachers and Education Policy: Two Voices in Dialogue: Part 4.

Patrick,
I agree this dialogue between us has been useful in clarifying where we are now.

The whole question of dialogue is a tricky one, and as you noted, I have some mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, I do believe in the power of listening to one another. I think the members of Teachers' Letters to Obama put a tremendous amount of energy into investigating the issues, discussing our points of view and arriving at some common understandings, so we could share those with the Department of Education in our conversation. Clearly we were disappointed, because there was not a substantive response to the particular issues we were most concerned about. When we say we wish to be heard, what we are saying is we wish our understandings actually mattered - actually made some difference, and that we could see some shift in policy that reflects the understandings we shared.

I think your fellow Teacher Ambassador Fellow, Steve Owens, makes a valid point in his comment on your latest post. Perhaps we are looking for something more along the lines of a negotiation. Unfortunately, the 3,088 members of Teachers' Letters to Obama are a pretty small pressure group, and the Department of Education does not really need to negotiate with us. We are not presently in a position of power - and that is the problem with teachers across the nation as well. We have shifted to the margins of decisions regarding education policy. Our unions remain our most powerful base of organized strength, but they have been rendered politically vulnerable by constant, often propagandistic attacks (see OprahPaganda, here.) The control has shifted to an alliance that trusts in the power of standardized tests to improve outcomes and the power of the market to drive innovation.

You write:

I agree with your comment that '"having a seat at the table can never be an end in itself." I would add that "having a seat at the table is necessary to achieve the goals teachers seek."

Sustained engagement is a difficult and complex part of that process. As teachers, we remain engaged to make steady progress with students in the classroom, that same level of endurance and professionalism is needed at all levels of policy.

To which I would respond, taking that seat at that table needs to be a tactical decision, based on what is gained and what is lost. I would venture to guess that the reason Teachers' Letters to Obama was not offered a seat, (and some other group was), was due to our continual communication with our constituency. I think the primary source of strength we have is our ability to influence and hopefully activate large numbers of teachers and parents around these issues. When Florida's Republican governor Charlie Crist decided to veto the Race to the Top-inspired Senate Bill 6 last spring, it was because thousands of teachers wrote and made phone calls, and hundreds showed up with picket signs at every event he attended. So for me, at this point, if the condition of a seat at the table is that I cease public advocacy, it is not worth it. And I think those who are at that table need to look to see if the process is indeed advancing the issues we care about. Because process is necessary to achieve change, but process can also be used to create the illusion of openness and movement, when the reality is that there is neither.

So I ask again, can you share any evidence of progress on the issues I raised - or others -- from the ongoing dialogue you continue to engage in? If there is no progress, there is no point, and our presence at their table may signify some degree of acquiescence on our part.

For me, I think we have reached, as Steve Owens suggests, an impasse. There are others that have a great deal more power than us who are calling the shots. Our expertise does not matter much in this process. Our ideas do not matter much. We are vilified by the media, owned by the very corporations that seek to profit from the destruction of public education. The only way our ideas and expertise will matter is when we have a great many teachers, parents and students actively demanding that we be heard, as they did in Florida last spring. So that is my path. And I do not see it as walking away from the dialogue. I see it as a step we need to take in order to be heard.

A fellow member of the Teacher Leaders Network recently reminded me of something Frederick Douglass said more than a century ago:

Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.

I believe that our limits are being tested right now, in a thousand ways, across this great land. Within the next decade we will see either the destruction or the resurrection of that which has made this country what it is to the world. Our public education system is a key part of this, and those of us with some degree of clarity and vision need to be outspoken and visible. If we disappear into quiet negotiations at unseen tables for sustained conversations that produce not a thing, we will be sorely missed.

In concluding this dialogue, I want to acknowledge and thank Patrick for agreeing to it in the first place, and to putting his perspective forward. It is not easy to be an ambassador between parties in conflict. I wish him luck in the path he has chosen.

What do you think? How should we pursue our goal of shifting Federal policies? How can we be heard?

Posted by Anthony Cody at 1:53 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Teachers Anthony Cody and Patrick Ledesma, both NBCTs and members of the Teacher Leaders Network, have taken two very different approaches to promoting the teacher voice in education policy. Anthony began with an open letter to President Obama, and then launched a Facebook group, Teachers' Letters to Obama, which now has more than 3000 members -- some of whom spoke with Secretary Duncan last May. Patrick has served for the past four months as a Teacher Ambassador Fellow for the US Department of Education, and in that role has represented teachers in discussions of policy. What follows is a dialogue between them, sharing their perspectives. This is Anthony's response to Patrick's post here, Teachers and Education Policy: Two Voices in Dialogue: Part 2.

Patrick,

Thank you for your thoughts in response to my post. In your answer to my description of the apparently fruitless discussion with the Secretary last Spring, you tell us that this dialogue has, in fact, continued, but with some different group of teachers.

I wonder what made this subsequent group capable of a sustained dialogue of the sort you advocate, and Teachers' Letters to Obama apparently undesirable? When TLO had the chance for a dialogue with Mr. Duncan, we immediately reached out to the teaching profession and invited input. We asked people to share what they thought we should focus on, and asked people to volunteer to speak. We had an open and transparent process to poll people about the issues that were of greatest concern, and we spent a great deal of time developing our views so we could represent a broad constituency.

But although you grant that we approached the process with good will, this was apparently not enough for the Department to seek to continue the dialogue with us.

Perhaps you might find out for us why that was the case?

You suggest,

What if the purpose of your initial reaching out to ED that day was to establish a process for sustained dialogue that would occur regularly over a few weeks or months, where teachers and ED officials could identify very specific topics, share materials and resources, and work together for common goals to define areas where there is agreement, and if there is disagreement, to identify the specific components within the defined parameters of each issue?

Then you go on to wonder,

... if we could create an opportunity for longer dialogue on one specific issue so we can go for a deeper level of analysis (and not get washed away by the sudden unleashed free flowing logs) where could we start? Which log shall we try to first remove?

As I write this post, one possibility comes from David Cohen's comment on my original post about the teacher voice in ED. David Cohen belongs to both TLO and TLN.

"Have there been any policy proposals that were altered or adjusted in any way to reflect the input of teachers or the professional organizations representing them? Some of them are looking for evidence that their input has any significance here."

You also asked, "Where can we find evidence that our efforts over the past year have had an effect?"

Perhaps this is a timely topic to develop more meaningful dialogue with ED and the unions. By first understanding the impact of the teacher voice through unions and how unions represent teachers through their current work with ED, we better understand these relationships defining and influencing how teachers can engage in policy.

After all, we have to start somewhere.

Here is the thing. We DID start somewhere, more than a year ago. The reason I provided that detailed account of our attempts to shift Department policy was in order to demonstrate where we started and what has happened as a result. Which, so far as I can tell, is exactly nothing. My purpose is not, as you suggest it ought to be, to achieve a "sustained dialogue." My purpose is to change the disastrous policies currently being enacted by the Department.

We engaged hundreds of teachers in the process I described so that we could arrive at a consensus about what needed to change, and develop clear alternatives. Now you suggest that the next step in our process should be a dialogue where the focus is on finding out where our input made a difference in those policies? I am sorry, but shouldn't we have noticed by now if our input made a difference?

I summarized the key points that emerged over and over again when we asked teachers what we should focus on. Teachers want:

• An end to the over-reliance on standardized test scores for high stakes decisions.


• Support for more pay for teachers, but NOT based on test scores, even using the "growth model" the Department seems to think magically cures all that ailed NCLB.


• An end to the ineffective and cruel labeling of schools as failures, drop-out factories and other epithets, and a more creative and positive set of options than the four bad choices the Department offers to "failing schools."


• Genuine support of our public schools, and an end to the aggressive promotion of charter schools, as we see in the insistence that states remove any limits to their expansion.

These policies are destroying schools, careers, and opportunities for students right now. Experienced teachers are moving up their retirement, disgusted at the disrespectful way they are being treated. We are losing a generation of teachers before their time, and that wisdom will not be easily replaced. The curriculum is being narrowed faster than ever, and with the new "do less with less" budgets, we are seeing even greater cuts to luxuries like libraries and classes under 35 students. The Secretary advocates doing away with pay for advanced degrees, since they are not proven to raise test scores, so contracts are being renegotiated that will redirect scarce money away from degrees and towards pay tied to these scores. We hear from Rhode Island that Central Falls High, where Secretary Duncan called the firing of the entire staff "courageous," is struggling to find substitutes to cover classes vacated by overstressed teachers. Even schools that choose the less draconian "transformation" option find themselves engaged in a pointless and demoralizing process.

Meanwhile, a new breed of venture capitalist has entered the education arena. Encouraged by opportunities in "turning around failing schools," publishing, testing, and charter schools a host of "education investors" and entrepreneurs are seeking to remake our public schools in the image of our for-profit health care industry, where tax dollars underwrite services to the wealthy, the poor and hard-to-teach get leftovers, and profiteers reap the rewards. All enabled by recent Education Department policies that enhance the expansion of charter schools and make crisis and churn a permanent condition in schools of poverty.

I repeat and underscore all this, because these issues must be the focus of our dialogue. Having a "seat at the table" can never be an end in itself. We sought a conversation with Secretary Duncan to communicate our clear dissatisfaction with his policies and ask for a change.

If the Department wishes to understand better why we are so concerned about these areas, we are available to discuss them. If you have evidence that the Department actually heard us and actually shifted its thinking and policies on any of these issues, again, I would like to hear about that.

Thus far, we have seen no movement. It appears that a handful of billionaires have far more influence than millions of teachers. This dialogue with teachers remains broken, and cannot be mended, much less sustained, without a clear shift in the Department's policies on these core issues.

What do you think? How should teachers approach the Department based on our experience over the past year?

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

Yesterday was a Day of National Blogging for Real Education Reform. Scores of educators from around the country shared their perspectives.

And so did Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. Since I am engaged in thinking about the dialogue between teachers and his Department, I wrote the following to him and posted it on his blog. Please visit him there and share your thoughts as well.

Secretary Duncan,
You may recall we spoke on the phone last May when I was part of a group called Teachers' Letters to Obama that organized ourselves to share our concerns and ideas with your administration. Unfortunately, we never heard back from you (as I describe here: )

In your post yesterday, you wrote, "...we in education spend too much of our time and energy focused on issues that divide us. We forget how important it is to move forward on what we agree on."

The trouble I have is that we are truly confused by a mismatch between your words and your actions. This makes a real consensus impossible, and forces us to continually return to the core disagreements we have with your policies.

My question to you is that you frequently tell teachers of your conviction that we need to move away from "teaching to the test." Yet you are aggressively encouraging states and districts to:

• Pay teachers based on the growth in those test scores


• Evaluate teachers based on those test scores


• Close schools or fire principals or teachers based on those test scores


• Evaluate the "effectiveness" of teaching credential programs based on test scores.

You often say that we must recognize teachers for their greatness. Unfortunately, the primary means you have been promoting to measure greatness is the same one that doomed No Child Left Behind.

In your blog post yesterday, you wrote:

For education reform to be "real," we need to focus on what works. We need consensus on the right way to measure students' progress. And then we all need to hold ourselves accountable—and recognize those educators who are especially effective.

When you say we must focus "on what works," do you recognize the research that demonstrates that pay for performance does NOT work, even to raise test scores? Has this powerful evidence caused any reevaluation of this strategy within the Department?

Do you recognize that asking states to remove any limits on the expansion of charter schools is a mistake, given that charter schools have been shown to be no more effective than regular public schools?

While there may not yet be a consensus on the best way to measure student progress, there IS a clear consensus on what does NOT work—which you yourself frequently join in. That consensus says that the tests currently in use are, to use your own words, "low quality bubble-in tests." There IS a broad consensus among educators that says the over-reliance on these scores for accountability purposes is destroying the quality of education in our schools. When will you bring your policies in line with your rhetoric?

Teachers have a whole range of alternatives to these misguided policies, and we have offered them repeatedly, with the belief that our deep understanding of what works in our classrooms and schools is an essential, but missing, component of improving schools.

You have been in office now for almost two years. It is not just my perception that teachers are more alienated than ever from the Department of Education. Do you hold yourself accountable for any part of this broken dialogue?

What do you think? What is YOUR comment for Secretary Duncan?

(please visit here to give your thoughts to Secretary Duncan directly.)

Posted by Anthony Cody at 10:49 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Teachers Anthony Cody and Patrick Ledesma, both NBCTs and members of the Teacher Leaders Network, have taken two very different approaches to promoting the teacher voice in education policy. Anthony began with an open letter to President Obama, and then launched a Facebook group, Teachers' Letters to Obama, which now has more than 3000 members -- some of whom spoke with Secretary Duncan last May. Patrick has served for the past four months as a Teacher Ambassador Fellow for the US Department of Education, and in that role has represented teachers in discussions of policy. What follows is a dialogue between them, sharing their perspectives. This is Anthony's response to Patrick's post here, The Teacher Voice in the US Department of Education.

(Update: Here is Patrick's response to this post (part 2), and MY response to him (part 3).

As we write, the dialogue between the Department of Education and teachers is broken. Notwithstanding the efforts of the Teacher Ambassador Fellows, (which Patrick described here) we have a major failure on our hands. Most teachers are completely turned off by the "education reform" agenda currently being advanced by Secretary Duncan.

Let me share with you how I believe we got here. Many teachers and organizations have pursued dialogue and sought to shift the direction of the Department over the past year and a half. A Broader, Bolder Approach to Education offered a fresh framework that many supported, and many others raised their voices to object to the core pillars of Race to the Top. A year ago, frustrated with the policies of the administration, I wrote an open letter to President Obama, which I posted on my blog. Here are the issues I raised in that letter:

It appears that Race to the Top funding will not be used to save jobs or plug massive holes in state budgets, but instead will be used to "drive reforms." But these reforms do not enact the vision you have put forward.

As it stands now, Secretary Duncan has initiated policies to:

• "Turn around" 5000 of the nation's "worst" schools (based on test scores) although recent reports from Chicago reveal that the 5,445 students displaced by his school closures there did not do any better than before.
• Tie teacher pay to test scores, though research and common sense suggest this will result in even more narrowing of the curriculum and teaching to the test.
• Insist, in spite of more and more research that questions their effectiveness, that charter schools should be dramatically expanded.
• Rank teacher preparation programs - once again, by how well they increase student test scores

I got a huge response from other teachers that indicated they shared my frustration. I started collecting their letters, right there on my blog, and on a Facebook group I started called Teachers' Letters to Obama. After a month I had collected more than 100 letters, which I sent directly to President Obama and Secretary Duncan. In January of this year I shared excerpts from letters in a commentary in Education Week, and a link to download the whole collection.

We were actively seeking a dialogue with the Department of Education. We had very specific concerns, and a whole host of constructive suggestions about alternatives to the policies we saw harming our schools.

I got one short letter from the Department acknowledging the letters and thanking me, but no further contact. Then one of the members of our group got in touch with someone in the Department and convinced him they ought to hear from us. We were invited to have a conversation with Secretary Duncan.

We spent more than a month polling the then 1600 plus teachers in our group, and organizing a group of about a dozen who would represent us, and deciding on the issues we would discuss with him.

When the day in May finally arrived, we found we had only about fifteen minutes time to try to convey the pent-up frustrations of an entire profession. Secretary Duncan, for his part, seemed to think he was there to answer our questions, rather than take in our perspectives from the front lines.

The next day I got a follow-up call from Secretary Duncan, who wanted to know what my message for him was, since I had not had a chance to speak the day before. I shared my conviction that the way they were forcing schools with low test scores to close or fire principals and staff was very unfair. Secretary Duncan suggested that I was misinformed - that the principal need not be fired if she had been there less than three years. But this principal had been there four years, and indeed, would have to be terminated for the school to qualify for improvement funds.

I wrote that day:

The call from Secretary Duncan was an acknowledgment of that frustration, and an invitation to extend the dialogue. There has been a breakdown in communication between America's teachers and the Department of Education, that stretches back long before the current administration. There is a huge logjam of unheard ideas, perceptions and wisdom. We have not shared a vision for a long time.

But that call was the last we heard from the Mr. Duncan and the Department of Education.

We have continued our work at Teachers' Letters to Obama to get teachers informed and active in influencing education policy - we now have more than 3,000 members. But we hit a dead end with the Department of Education.

Patrick Ledesma's post, "The Teacher Voice in the US Department of Education," shares his experience of serving as a Teacher Ambassador Fellow under Secretary Duncan.

I suppose his intent is to reassure us that indeed, teachers' voices are present there. But I am not reassured. He writes:

Many teachers are concerned, upset, and even angry by the recent educational debates in the media that have collectively unfairly criticized and bashed the profession.

This continues to be the most difficult issue in education debates. In my experiences with other TAF and ED officials, how the message is interpreted and misinterpreted continues to be a heavy concern. The TAF have produced our own brochure to highlight the issues from our own classroom perspective to address the issues of assessment, evaluation, charter schools, etc.

When I read this brochure, I found some disturbing things. First, the preface, written by Secretary Duncan himself, states this:

In recent years, the federal government hasn't helped solve problems for teachers. The No Child Left Behind Act created incentives for states to lower standards and measure students' skills by using low-quality "bubble tests." The law focused on punitive measures when students didn't reach an absolute standard, yet failed to acknowledge growth.

The first section of the brochure is entitled "How the Blueprint for Reform
Empowers Educators," and is a point-by-point defense of the document. The trouble is this defense is not credible. The brochure is full of vague statements "teachers deserve to be evaluated fairly and paid for the hard work they do." But when it comes to specific policies and practices, the Department is still following in the footsteps of George W. Bush.

Secretary Duncan says that he is opposed to the emphasis on bubble-in tests, yet the Department of Education is INCREASING the stakes of tests even more than under NCLB.

Duncan has supported:

• The firing of principals and even entire staffs based on low test scores (see Central Falls, Rhode Island, earlier this year.)


• Tracking test scores of teachers back to the source of their teaching credential to rank the "effectiveness" of these schools.


• The publication in the newspaper of so-called Value-added rankings of teachers - based solely on test score data

.

So while Secretary Duncan comes to teachers and says we have been unfairly blamed, when the rubber meets the road, he joins in with the blamers.

Some parts of the brochure are misleading at best. For example, this passage:

Does the Blueprint for Reform favor charter schools? Under the new plan, do charter schools receive preferential funding? The Blueprint does not favor one form of public school over another. As Secretary Duncan says, he is for whatever works well for students. Of the $28 billion the president has proposed for the 2011 budget, less than 2 percent is set aside specifically for charter and other autonomous public schools.

Focusing on specific setasides is not the point. To qualify for Race to the Top, states were required to remove any limits on the expansion of charter schools. This led a number of states to change their laws. This paves the way for unfettered expansion of charters, even though they have not been shown to be any more effective than regular public schools.

Similarly, states were required to change laws to allow test scores to be used for pay and evaluation. Lawmakers in Florida responded by passing a law that said 50% of teacher pay and evaluation would be based on their students' test scores. Only the mobilization of thousands of teachers and parents in opposition forced a veto of this law - directly inspired by Race to the Top.

Patrick asserts: "When teachers can interact directly with ED officials in a professional manner, clear and concise dialogue occurs to advance issues on all sides."

I really would like to know on what issues that teachers care about we have achieved advances. I have not seen any significant advances in the past year.

We were professional in our approach, and we did our best to engage the Department regarding our concerns. But I have come to believe that the Secretary does not really want to hear about the teachers who WERE being fired for low test scores as a result of his policies. He does not want to hear about the continued narrowing of the curriculum that results from test scores being used for teacher evaluations and pay. He does not want to hear about the suicide of Rigoberto Ruelas, unfairly labeled "less effective" by the Los Angeles Times. He does not want to acknowledge the extensive research that shows that Value-Added is too unreliable to be used to determine pay or evaluations. Even documented studies showing that pay for test scores does not even work to raise the scores are ignored.

I am not the only one saying this. Last week, Dr. Pedro Noguera, who served on President Obama's education transition team, described a meeting early this year, when he spoke to fifty high level staff at the Department for ninety minutes. He shared his concerns, which are very similar to the ones we have raised. "Then I left and nothing changed. I realized that the Obama administration was staying the course not just in Afghanistan, but in education."

The dialogue that we sought with the Department of Education went nowhere not because we were uninformed, nor because we took the wrong tone. I can only conclude that it went nowhere because the Department has an agenda that has been set in stone and they are determined to carry it out. The reassuring words that we read in the Blueprint and the Teacher Ambassador Fellows defense of it ring hollow. They are quite literally incredible.

I am not sure where to go with this dialogue now. I am committed to the idea of a dialogue - an exchange of ideas and perspectives in the hopes that we can learn from one another. However, what we have learned thus far is that nothing we say has resulted in any change of policy. So I offer this history of our attempts at dialogue to you, Patrick, as our ambassador, and I ask you. We know we have listened. We read the Blueprint and responded to it. We know we have spoken clearly. When were we heard? Where can we find evidence that our efforts over the past year have had an effect?

What do you think? Has the dialogue between teachers and the Department of Education broken down? What can be done to repair it?

(This is my response to Department of Education Teacher Ambassador Fellow Patrick Ledesma's post, The Teacher Voice in the US Department of Education. Here is Patrick Ledesma's response to my post is here.)

Posted by Anthony Cody at 5:23 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Valerie Strauss today reported on a new study that reveals that college applications have risen dramatically in the past 15 years, and as a result, colleges have become increasingly selective. The result? This will "reduce opportunities for more low-income, first-generation students in all levels of higher education, including community colleges."

Yet the mantra of many "reformers" is that our public schools must prepare ALL of our students for college, a path that does not seem likely to work out for the majority of them, especially in schools of poverty.

I first wrote about this here, two years ago, pointing out:

But is it reasonable to propose that everyone will or should go to college? The reality of our economic straits has begun to cast the shadow of doubt on this vision. I have some basic questions for those who are pushing the system to prepare all students for college.

Currently about 25% of the adults in the US are college graduates. Statistics regarding the economic advantage conferred by a college degree are based on that proportion. What would be the effect on wages of college graduates if that number were to increase substantially? The middle class in the US is shrinking in the current economy, and a college degree in the future may not be as precious as it has been in the past. There do not seem to be enough jobs for the graduates currently emerging from college -- will those jobs expand if the number of college graduates expands? Or will wages simply drop?

And what does the report tell us about our often vilified public school system?

The report shows that the number of Hispanics graduating from high school rose by 57% between 2000 and 2007. The number of Blacks rose by 30%. Applications for admission at four year colleges have risen by as much as 70% between 2001 and 2008.

Are these larger numbers of applicants coming from our schools that have been condemned as dropout factories? It is remarkable that in the midst of this supposed education crisis, the abject failure of our public school system, we are seeing larger numbers than ever of Hispanic and Black graduates applying to college.

Strauss explains:

The rise in applications at community colleges, for-profit institutions and less-selective public institutions appears to be a result of the increasing sizes over the years of graduating high school classes, and there has been growth in the number of applicants who are Hispanic and black, students who are more likely from moderate- and low-income families with less rigorous academic preparation. Many of these institutions have been hard hit by the economic downturn, and research shows that many of these underfunded public schools lack resources to meet the needs of their growing student bodies.

I have a lot of sympathy for teachers and schools who are seeking to prepare all their students for college. Shouldn't we want for our students what we want for our own children? That they would be able to continue their learning beyond high school, and gain the skills and certificates needed for entry into the middle class?

But as a society, we have to look at the reality here. First of all, this plan is not working out for all our students. Though the colleges have expanded a bit to allow more students, now they are bursting at the seams, and publicly funded colleges are facing major budget issues. Second, as this report shows, the colleges are becoming more selective, and even with a boost from supportive schools and teachers, many of our students from poverty are not academically competitive with students from middle class backgrounds. They are losing out in this scramble for limited slots. Third, as our tax base diminishes due to the insatiable appetite the wealthy have developed, there are fewer resources for public universities, and the costs are soaring out of reach for many students. Lastly, the idea that all our students will complete college and become middle class seems to fly in the face of what is happening to our economy. A look at this table from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that the top seven occupations with the largest projected numerical growth require at most a two-year Associates degree, and most require only short -term on-the-job training.

While I believe college is a desirable goal for many of our students, it is not always the best choice for everyone - and sometimes may not even be possible. And I have to wonder if there could be a better way? Finland, to which we are so often compared, prepares some 40% of their students for careers that do not require a four-year degree. I wonder if some of the students who currently drop out do so because they realize that the goal the schools have chosen for them does not match up with their actual options?

Update 1: I just came across an article with some scary numbers about college graduates that raise additional questions about the wisdom of urging all our students to pursue college degrees.

Currently, even after a slight boost in jobs growth, unemployment for 18-24 year olds stands at 24.7%. For 20-24 year olds, it hovers at 15.2%. These conservative estimates, using the Bureau of Labor Statistics U3 measure, do not reflect the number of marginally attached or discouraged young workers feeling the lag from a nearly moribund job market.

The U3 measure also does not count underemployment, yet with only 50% of B.A. holders able to find jobs requiring such a degree, underemployment rates are a telling index of the squeezing of the 18-30 year old Millennial generation. While it appears everyone is hurting since the financial collapse, young adults bear a disproportionate burden, constituting just 13.5% of the workforce while accounting for 26.4% of those unemployed. Even with good credentials, it is difficult for young people to find work and keep themselves afloat.

Update 2: An article appeared in the Dec. 9, 2010, Chronicle of Higher Education, titled "The Great College Degree Scam." It states,

approximately 60 percent of the increase in the number of college graduates from 1992 to 2008 worked in jobs that the BLS considers relatively low skilled--occupations where many participants have only high school diplomas and often even less. Only a minority of the increment in our nation's stock of college graduates is filling jobs historically considered as requiring a bachelor's degree or more.

Update 3: an interesting video from ABC news:

What do you think? Is the drive to prepare all of our students for college hitting a wall? What might be a better approach?

Posted by Anthony Cody at 11:22 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Waiting for Superman director Davis Guggenheim has fulsome praise for teachers, and on Huffington Post this week he has asked for our feedback. He writes:

Teachers live it everyday so they get it -- the good and the bad. And I am moved by all the reactions: the emotion, the criticism, the longing to help the kids in my documentary.

So far, Guggenheim is the one who has been getting it. And the feedback teachers have posted thus far spans the spectrum from critical to blistering.

It is fascinating to follow this process. I watched (and wrote) when Waiting for Superman was introduced to the public through two Oprah shows, and a $2 million promotional campaign underwritten by the Gates Foundation. I watched (and wrote again) that very special week when NBC news lavished airtime on schools in their Education Nation programming, where Guggenheim and his celluloid heroes Michelle Rhee and Geoffrey Canada were toasted by billionaires for their courage. The voices of teachers occasionally peeped up unbidden, but were largely ignored.

In the realm of corporate-sponsored galas and conferences of grant recipients, I am sure Guggenheim remains the toast of the town. He is finding that teachers have an independent voice, however, and while we may not have much access when NBC runs the show, we are capable of typing in a little box and hitting the submit button.

Here are a few of the comments his post has received:

Amy Valens, who has created her OWN wonderful documentary, August to June, about what a great school looks like, writes:

What makes those charters better, and which changes are applicable to other schools--public or otherwise? Certainly showing teachers as people who pour knowledge into kids heads doesn't forward the conversation, nor does fear mongering with out of context statistics. With the opportunity to introduce little-heard voices with positive ideas, instead you relied on the same folks that the Business Roundtable has been trotting out through the media for years.

Shanee Garner writes:

We don't need a documentary about public education without a single public education teacher. I expected a more nuanced view of education you know, where, you look at the factors that cause failing schools such as poverty, inequitable funding, harsh government guidelines, zero tolerence policies. Not some union bashing and teacher scapegoating nonsense.

Glynis Cooney:

I am no fan of the teachers' unions, but in the current climate of anti-teacher and anti-(non charter) public school that you helped fuel, I fear what my job will look like next year without them. Since your film failed to show all the private donations that aided the profiled schools successes, there are reinvigorated claims that we are overfunded and wasting tax-payer funds.

TeacherSabrina:

This film was a wasted opportunity. How could you make an entire film about the problems in so-called "failing" schools, and never actually visit or interview anyone within them? And how could you rely on the "expert" analysis of people who have never taught or studied education, let alone tried to understand the issues facing struggling schools? Several of your "experts" are ideologues who are deeply invested in undermining public education. That would be like re-making An Inconvenient Truth, leaving out all of the findings of climatologists who have spent their lives studying climate change, and giving over the majority of the film to people who think climate change is a myth.

Johnthompson:

Superman is being used to attack due process in our state and the Republicans will probably make teaching an at-will job. Then, all you will have in inner city classrooms will be longterm subs and incompetents who nobody else will hire. Superman is being used to argue that kids don't need expensive socio-emotional supports, just more test prep and standardized testing to fire teachers. I've had more than forty students who have killed someone or died violently. Superman is being used to show that all we need to overcome urban pathologies is high expectations. Superman is feeding the civil war between progressives. You may not realize it but your sources almost all came from the same organized PR camapign choreographed by the McKinsey Group. Their TOTAL evidence that schools alone can overcome the achievement gap is that Ohio Hispanics outscore Whites in a dozen states, not noticing that Ohio Hispanics are not immigrants and have an average income of 50% more than Whites in those states.

Traceydouglas writes:

Given the funding sources for your film, I find it hard to believe your movie is anything but a slick propaganda piece for privatization via charter schools. I would suggest you are being disingenuous to suggest otherwise.

In the end, this WFS article made me feel like a rape victim whose attacker asks before leaving, "So, how did this work for you?"

Out of 52 comments posted thus far, there has been ONE person who has posted a positive comment and guess what? She wants his help to promote a for-profit education business.

Several people have also indicated their comments were filtered out by a moderator.

Thus far, Davis Guggenheim has not responded.

What do you think? What feedback do you have for Davis Guggenheim?

Posted by Anthony Cody at 10:54 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Few people were as successful as Doug Christensen in resisting federal encroachment on education. As Commissioner of Education in the state of Nebraska from 2002 to 2008, Christensen oversaw the development of a system of locally based assessments that were created by teams of teachers, as he described here.

In light of the recent election results, it occurred to me that one possible silver lining might be a return to more local control of our schools. Could this be the basis for educators, parents and students to regain some of the initiative we have lost under NCLB and Race to the Top? I asked Dr. Christensen to share his views.

Question: Do you see movement nationally toward more local control of schools?

I see some "movement." It may be more rhetoric than movement. But, at least we are hearing some policy leaders in Washington talking about less government, less intrusion into the work of the states, and more about partnerships with states in doing certain kinds of work like public education, social services and family supports.

I think some policy leaders and education leaders at the national levels are starting to see the effects of tightly wrapping states and local schools in a "bubble wrap" of regulations and consequences centralized at the federal level. I think some are seeing that if we keep winding this wrap tighter and tighter something is got to give and implosion is the likely outcome.

I think some others are starting to see that even though policy and regulation (and money) from the federal level may have good intentions, you can not treat schools, districts and the educators in them like puppets on strings and make them dance according to who is doing the string pulling and how the strings are pulled. I think some are seeing that leading "from afar" and by "remote control" does nothing to stimulate local engagement--initiative, local leadership and local discretion. You simply can not make people act, even when it is in their own self interest, by force. Prescriptions may be good for medications when we are ill, but even prescriptions require that we manage our own lives if we have any hope of getting better.

I am hopeful that we are seeing the beginnings of a more Jeffersonian notion about the role of the federal government. Jefferson would not be pleased to observe the goings on in our nation's capitol and the intrusive nature of the decision making at the federal level. If we really want to improve our schools, and I think our schools need to improve and I think we all want better educations for our children and grandchildren, we can't keep on the same course of prescriptive policies and funding to induce compliance as neither does anything to change the knowledge, skills and dispositions of those who lead our schools at the local levels. Jefferson was right when he stated something like this: "when we find individuals incapable of discretion in their own self interest, it is not appropriate to take the discretion away. It is our responsibility to inform the discretion."(paraphrase)

On the other hand, we have invested so much in what is now federal policy on steroids through NCLB and Race to the Top, including their first cousins in ARRA, i3, and the national assessment consortia, that it will be hard to advocate for dumping all of the effort and investment that has been made. It may not be the time to "cut and run," but it is sure time to find a different way to "run the race" and find ways to achieve a more appropriate balance at all three levels--local, state and federal.

Even with the elections as they unfolded this past week, it will be hard to do much with ESEA. It is already behind in its re-authorization. It will be hard to develop coalitions of support in such a divided congress. And, ESEA now has a huge price tag compared to what it was just two years ago. It is even more centralized than NCLB of 2001 with decision-making and discretion the sole province of the U. S. Department of Education than NCLB 2001 was.

Sometimes I see the stars starting to align and that we will come to our senses and get the federal government back to the place of leading policy in education through targeted funding. Some argue that that is what we are now doing. NCLB-RTT is targeted funding that comes with massive amounts of prescription and regulation and severe consequences for non-compliance. While the money is discretionary, the current financial status of our states and schools make the huge amounts of money so seductive we have sold our souls to the almighty dollar. RTT is buying compliance with huge sums of badly needed money at the state and local levels.

The policy makers in Washington make their case for regulation of our schools based on an overly simplistic notion of accountability. One, they make the case that if you take "federal money," you have to be accountable for it. What in the world is "federal money?" It is money that was paid in taxes from local taxpayers to hold in trust for those things the nation sees as a priority. It is not "federal money." If the money comes from local taxpayers, should not the accountability be back to the local taxpayers not to the federal government? I think the answer is that we have forgotten about accountability at the local level and these are the people who are paying the bills, not the federal government.

Second, the policy leaders at the federal level see accountability as a simple matter of "keeping score." The scores they want us to keep are test scores and just like an athletic contest, all the score tells us is who is winning and who is losing. The score does not in any way inform the actions that need to be taken to either keep on winning or move from "loser status" (think "failing schools") to better scores. Further, such focus on test scores ensures that the management of the system of schools will become a focus on the scores and doing whatever needs to be done to raise them by most any means possible. And, it means that management will become progressively more and more prescriptive thinking that narrowing the variation of instructional practice will ultimately produce the intended outcomes. Name a sport, where the score of the previous contest becomes the basis upon which the coach determines the content of the ensuing practice sessions?

Question: Do you see the movement towards local control as a positive thing?

"Is local control a good thing" is not the right question. We don't need more "control" at the local level, we need more initiative, self-determination, discretion and leadership. "Local control" can mean that local folks can be satisfied with mediocrity. On the other hand, initiative, self-determination, discretion and leadership means that each community has a responsibility to "be the best they can be."

In fact, local initiative, self-determination and leadership are the "only thing." No enduring change will occur in our schools until the folks at the local level who send their children to the schools and who pay bills are engaged actively in making decisions, initiating new programs and practices and providing leadership at policy levels.

Assessment and accountability must have their locus of action and policy at the local level and in the hands of educators and local policy leaders. Name a profession that is not in charge of their own metrics of success and the metrics of what is good practice? Lawyers are in charge of theirs. Medical doctors are in charge of theirs. So are accountants, nurses, bankers, and even morticians. Why aren't educators? Why aren't the local folks in charge and accountable?

We could have a great three-way partnership of educators and policy leaders at the local, state and federal levels if we would dump the notions of "local control" and that accountability at the state and federal level is the only locus of public accountability. The local leadership should take the initiative and use their discretion to guide the operation of the schools at the local levels. The state leaders should provide policy direction and capacity so that we can have schools of both excellence and equity. The role of federal leadership should be to give energy, policy direction and capacity at the state level to serve those populations that are most difficult to serve, are currently under-served and/or for whom the issues of equity can best be addressed by policy and capacity from the federal level.

Question: What is the relationship between local schools and districts and the state office of education in Nebraska under your administration?

We began our work centering on continuous improvement in the early 1990's and our relationships with local schools left a lot to be desired. We were the organization with the rule book in our hip pocket and school folks did what we asked them to do because they knew we could ultimately pull out the regulations when we needed them. We were not the "go to" agency that schools would come to for advice, for help and for much of anything other than money. In fact, in a survey we conducted in 1994, the Department was ranked 22nd in a list of agencies and associations where school people went when they had a question or needed help. We found the linkage of policy and practice from state to local level was fragile at best and non-existent in many cases. We knew we could not strengthen this relationship through more regulation, more pressure or any means which involved force--policy, regulatory or financial.

Through three major initiatives we were able to turn this around in a relatively short period of time, two years. One, we scheduled regional meetings with anyone and everyone who would come talk to us about their issues. The Commissioner and assistants, the program staff, the regulatory staff and the State Board of Education all participated in hosting regional meetings. The meetings were opportunities for us to listen and we did. The second strategy was to approach any of our "design" work as "adaptive" work where we engaged the stakeholders in the design of those programs, practices and regulations that affected them. We designed programs and practices, like reading and math with the full engagement of those who were going to teach in them and those who were going to be affected, like parents and students. We wrote or revised rules and regulations with the stakeholders at the table working out areas of conflict or disagreement until we had a draft that we could take to the State Board.

Third, we formed a working partnership with our regional educational service agencies who provided staff development, technology training, library and media resources and a host of other educational support systems for local schools. They were the agency that our schools trusted and turned to for help. They were the agencies that had the expertise and the people that local folks trusted to lead continuous improvement. Our partnership around continuous improvement was the central strategy.

When we repeated the survey two years later, we had moved from 22nd on the list to number 2 right behind the regional education service centers with whom we were full partners.

Question: Do you have any thoughts on how parents and teachers should approach the re-authorization of ESEA?

With educators and parents as major stakeholders in public education, how can we continue to ignore them. Educators and parents must demand a seat at the table. They must demand that they are part of the partnership. They are not the only voices that need to be heard but they are ones that count the most. Theirs are the voices that represent the core work of the school, i.e., teaching and learning. Theirs are the voices with the passion for doing this work, doing it well and doing it well for all of our children.

What do you think of Dr. Christensen's views? Is local initiative the key to improving our schools? Can we get this message across to our leaders?

Posted by Anthony Cody at 2:59 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

My colleague Renee Moore has an interesting reflection on the recent report by the Council of the Great City Schools on the crisis we face with Black boys.

She writes:

But why are so many people acting so surprised by these facts? Is it that they've been too distracted by other events such as the background noise of Waiting for Superman or The Education Nation? Too enthralled with the superegos placed in charge of major schools systems (NYC, DC, NOLA) and their flashy but largely ineffective (especially for Black males) turnaround strategies? Or, is the ignorance of the plight of Black American boys and men a case of collective self-imposed ignorance? The information has been around and many have been speaking out about it for a long time.

Renee is correct. We can't pretend we don't know. But that has not been the main strategy employed by our leaders. From the genesis of No Child Left Behind, a phrase taken from civil rights leader Marian Wright Edelman herself, the strategy has been to use the inequities this report describes as the justification for a host of policies that actually make things worse.

This report, to its credit, describes not only educational outcomes, but also some of the conditions that contribute to them. High infant mortality and a lack of access to health care also have an impact, and most African American children are not enrolled in high quality pre-school. The number of children in poverty has steadily risen, and more than a third of African American children live in poverty, and two thirds in a single-parent household. Two thirds of Black children's parents do not even have a high school diploma.

The breed of educational reformers that emerged under NCLB take pride in "shining a spotlight" on the poor educational outcomes we see from sub-groups such as African American boys, but they studiously avoid addressing these material conditions. These, we are told, are beyond our ability to change, so instead we must focus all our attention on their teachers, who we are (falsely) told, are the primary determinant of student success.

This sleight of hand yields us the whole gamut of phony reforms now being promoted by the Department of Education, and the various billionaires who have become self-taught experts in repairing our supposedly broken schools. All promoted under the self-righteous declarations that this is the "civil rights issue of our generation."

While the report deserves credit for recognizing some of the harsh realities that contribute to the poor outcomes for Black boys, the recommendations it makes are rather timid. There are a host of programmatic suggestions, such as mentoring programs, counseling services and after-school programs, all of which are worthwhile. But there is nothing about desegregation, nothing about directly addressing poverty and unemployment, and nothing about access to high quality early childhood education.

The actual Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 60s did not hesitate to call for economic justice. The 1963 March on Washington included calls for desegregation, civil rights and economic justice, including a minimum wage of $2. Civil Rights leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr. also made the explicit connection between the economic injustices taking place at home and the terrible human and economic waste of war.

In 1967, Martin Luther King, Jr, said,

The problem indicates that our emphasis must be twofold: We must create full employment, or we must create incomes. People must be made consumers by one method or the other. Once they are placed in this position, we need to be concerned that the potential of the individual is not wasted. New forms of work that enhance the social good will have to be devised for those for whom traditional jobs are not available... Work of this sort could be enormously increased, and we are likely to find that the problem of housing, education, instead of preceding the elimination of poverty, will themselves be affected if poverty is first abolished. The poor, transformed into purchasers, will do a great deal on their own to alter housing decay. Negroes, who have a double disability, will have a greater effect on discrimination when they have the additional weapon of cash to use in their struggle.

Beyond these advantages, a host of positive psychological changes inevitably will result from widespread economic security. The dignity of the individual will flourish when the decisions concerning his life are in his own hands, when he has the assurance that his income is stable and certain, and when he knows that he has the means to seek self-improvement. Personal conflicts between husband, wife, and children will diminish when the unjust measurement of human worth on a scale of dollars is eliminated.

Now, our country can do this. John Kenneth Galbraith said that a guaranteed annual income could be done for about twenty billion dollars a year. And I say to you today, that if our nation can spend thirty-five billion dollars a year to fight an unjust, evil war in Vietnam, and twenty billion dollars to put a man on the moon, it can spend billions of dollars to put God's children on their own two feet right here on earth...

The pressure created by the Civil Rights movement actually resulted in President Johnson declaring a War on Poverty, with a host of policies and investments towards that end. Educational historians note that the greatest closing of the achievement gap occurred in the 1970s and 80s, as a result of these changes. But all that has been rolled back now, and our economic inequality is back to where it was in 1928, and segregation back to where it was in the 1950s.

As Frank Rich made clear in his column this morning, we have seen the wealthy become vastly wealthier in the past decade due to government policies enacted at their behest. Why then is it apparently taboo for even social reformers to raise the need for policies that would correct the huge problem we have with poverty? We can afford to give billionaires tax breaks, and spend further billions bombing distant nations, but we cannot afford any significant programs to address poverty and unemployment? Perhaps teachers, parents and students will need to write our own reports for such solutions to be included.

What do you think? Are the recommendations from this report adequate? Or should we push for some deeper economic and social changes?

Posted by Anthony Cody at 2:32 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

This Spring I devoted several posts in this space to a debate over the merits of charter schools. I shared the thoughts of a charter school proponent, and my own response. Today I am offering the thoughts of a fellow Oakland teacher, who is critical of the emphasis on charters. Please read and respond.

By Steve Neat

Charter schools have a track record of inconsistency at best. A Stanford University (2009) study--the most comprehensive done yet--found that only 17% of charter schools outperformed public schools according to the tests that receive the most attention as the only evidence of effectiveness. 37% did not perform as well as traditional public schools. Charter schools, however, represent a critical step away from traditional public schools, where public money goes to a public entity run by democratically elected officials, and towards yet another privatization scam. Charter schools are private entities funded by public money. They are semi-private. Look up charter in the dictionary. It's defined as "an official document in which certain rights are given by the government to a business." "Public charter" is an oxymoron. Certainly there are some charters that are wonderful neighborhood schools, but schools of this kind could be--and have been--replicated under the traditional public school model. Charter schools have been agents of destruction in New Orleans in the wake of Katrina. A parent there put it best when she said, "They stole our public schools, and they stole our democracy while we were out of town." Here in Oakland they are stealing our public education and our democracy and we don't even have the excuse of being out of town. It's not only particular charters here and there that are failing. The entire charter movement has failed, whether you call them public or not.

Time and again in the past 20 years experiment after experiment has used our students--particularly our students of color--as guinea pigs in attempts to close the "achievement gap." We do not have an achievement gap. We have a poverty gap and we have a funding gap. Of course poverty is not such an easy problem to solve, nor is the problem of adequate school funding, so we have to invent problems that have a simpler solution. The latest idea is that the problem is ineffective teachers protected by unions. So now the solution is to use test score pay to prod teachers into finally educating the children (I'm not sure what they think we've been doing). They used to call it merit pay. But since "merit" really just means "worth" or "goodness," perhaps the term was too vague. Its new name is the value-added model because however extensive is the damage done to our society by the corporate world, the business of America is business. The corporate world sets the agenda and the corporate world decides our vocabulary list. Money is made from public schools. More money could be made if schools were completely privatized and unions were eviscerated.

Just as is the case with charter schools, all evidence indicates that the value-added model (latest study coming from Vanderbilt, September this year) is not effective in raising students' test scores. So even if we start with the loaded assumption that higher scores on bubble-in, high-stakes, once-a-year tests somehow equates with education, test score pay does not improve the education of our children. Yet test score pay continues to be pushed. Even within the text of [recently defeated local bond] Measure L the adjective "effective" was inserted before "teachers." Why? I consult my dictionary again and I find that "effective" is defined as "bringing about the result wanted." Now isn't that interesting? What is the result wanted? That was never explained by the people who--at the very last minute inserted the word "effective" in the ballot language of Measure L. Did that word lead to the loss of the measure? It was certainly a factor, and when a vote is so close, any factor could have been the difference. The fact of the matter is the value-added model has no merit, whatever new name for it you come up with. In addition, people in positions of power in education shouldn't throw around terms like "effective" without clearly defining what they mean.

I'm not a billionaire TV personality. I'm not a failed Chicago schools chief turned Education Tsar. I'm not a millionaire motion picture director. I'm not even an OUSD director. But I have been a classroom teacher for nearly a decade now and I'm getting very tired of buzzwords and schemes like public charter, merit pay, value-added, effective, and rigor (which I bet you didn't know actually means "great strictness or harshness"). My brother was in the Air Force for 6 years. We've had lots of conversations about euphemisms ("blue-on-blue mishap," "insurgent," etc.). I find it particularly offensive that some people who purport to have the best interests of our children at heart use words in the same deceitful way as people who are in the business of killing. If they want to use words in the same way as those who wage war, then I declare a war of words on them. Every time I hear "public charter" I will say "you mean semi-private school." Every time I hear "achievement gap" I will say "you mean poverty gap, or funding gap." Every time I hear "merit pay" I will say "you mean test score pay." Every time I hear "value-added model" I will say "you mean business model." Every time I hear "rigor" and every time I hear "effective" I will ask "What do you mean?" and when they give me their answer, then I will say, "I think you need to pick a more accurate word."

I urge all of you to do the same.

Steve Neat has taught elementary school for 10 years in Richmond, CA and in Oakland. He has been active in union organizing and activism since 2004. He is currently an officer in the Oakland Education Association and an elected representative from Oakland to the California Teachers Association State Council.

What do you think? Should we consider charter schools "semi-private" schools? The achievement gap a poverty gap? Merit pay as test score pay?

Posted by Anthony Cody at 10:37 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Nicholas Kristof this week described the economic state of the nation in rather stark terms. Due to the accelerated concentration of wealth, this country is in danger of becoming what is derisively termed a "banana republic." This term has been used to describe the Central American dictatorships such as Nicaragua and the Honduras, where a handful of families control the wealth, land and economy, while the poor barely get by. Kristof shared statistics that reveal the US has pretty much arrived at a similar situation.

The richest 1 percent of Americans now take home almost 24 percent of income, up from almost 9 percent in 1976.

C.E.O.'s of the largest American companies earned an average of 42 times as much as the average worker in 1980, but 531 times as much in 2001. Perhaps the most astounding statistic is this: From 1980 to 2005, more than four-fifths of the total increase in American incomes went to the richest 1 percent.

And the tax cuts from the Bush era continue to put billions in their pockets.

How is today's economy affecting our students?

Rising inequality also led to more divorces, presumably a byproduct of the strains of financial distress.

Mounting evidence suggests that losing a job or a home can rock our identity and savage our self-esteem. Forced moves wrench families from their schools and support networks

Yes, unemployment causes divorce. Unemployment causes tremendous stress. Stress that bubbles over in the homes of those in poverty, unable to keep the lights on, to buy adequate food, to feel safe and secure. These stresses are terrible for children, and for their ability to concentrate and learn in school. In many of our schools we have more than 90% of the children on free and reduced lunch. We have unemployment in excess of 15%, and much higher for African Americans and Latinos. The transfer of wealth we are experiencing will be felt by a whole generation of children, and affect school performance for years to come.

As Stephen Krashen pointed out here recently,

American students from well-funded schools who come from high-income families outscore all or nearly all other countries on international tests. Only our children in high poverty schools score below the international average. The US has the second highest percentage of children in poverty of all industrialized countries (22.4%, compared to Sweden's 2.6%) which of course pulls down our overall average. The success of American children who are not in poverty shows that our educational system has been successful; the problem is poverty.

When the problem of poverty is solved, all children will have the advantages that right now only middle-class children have. This will close the "achievement gap" between children from high and low-income families.

And how will our public institutions be able to respond? All indications are that we are entering a new era of economic austerity. Newly elected congressional representatives believe they have a mandate to "pay as you go," and cut way back on "discretionary" spending. Most of these policymakers, unfortunately, do not think they have any say over the half of the federal budget that is devoted to military spending, so that is off the table for cuts. And they can't touch Medicare or Social Security - so actually 85% of the budget will not be touched. But things in that 15% that are considered discretionary are vulnerable, and that includes federal education spending.

This will have a mixed affect. On the one hand, the reduction of discretionary spending will mean the days of Daddy Warbucks Duncan dangling tempting billions before state policy makers to get them to race to adopt his policies may be numbered. This could be a healthy thing, since many of the reforms he has promoted have been bad ideas. On the other hand, Federal dollars provide crucial support to many low-income schools, and if these funds are cut now, at the same time state dollars are dwindling, the results will be devastating. We should be clear that when taxes are cut for the wealthy, and education is cut for the poor, dollars have, in effect, been transferred upwards.

There is one other area of spending that has, up to this point, been immune from cuts - our prison system. As James Carroll pointed out yesterday,

In 1975, there were fewer than 400,000 people locked up in the United States. By 2000, that had grown to 2 million, and by this year to nearly 2.5 million. As the social scientist Glenn C. Loury points out, with 5 percent of the world's population, the United States imprisons 25 percent of all humans behind bars. This effectively created a vibrant shadow economy: American spending on the criminal justice system went from $33 billion in 1980 to $216 billion in 2010 -- an increase of 660 percent. Criminal justice is the third largest employer in the country.

In the 1990s, as federal corrections budgets increased by $19 billion, money for housing was cut by $17 billion, "effectively making the construction of prisons the nation's main housing program for the poor.'

'

Most of those 2.5 million Americans lived in poverty, and many of them have children enrolled in our schools. If poverty has a devastating effect, imagine the effect incarceration of a parent has on a child.

The war on poverty has been replaced by a war against the poor.

In states across the nation, there has been a call for more local control of schools. This is a healthy direction when coupled with real democratic control by parents and educators, but there is one big problem with this. Resources are not spread evenly, and some areas are much wealthier than others. Local control cannot always generate the resources the schools need. The ideal of high quality public schools for all has also been greatly undermined by the drive to standardize everyone and punish those with low scores.

How does the extreme concentration of wealth affect our schools? The middle class is being squeezed out of existence. The result is that voters are more reluctant than ever to sacrifice their money to pay for services - and so they want their taxes cut. People in wealthier communities contribute directly to their schools to make sure they have the resources that are needed - as I described in this post last year. Or they simply abandon the public schools and send their children to private schools that charge up to $30,000 a year. Oddly enough, many of these people are willing to spend this sum for their own bairns, but balk at such largesse when other people's children are involved, insisting "money will not improve the schools." Private schools across the country have class sizes roughly half that of public schools, and per pupil costs that are roughly double, as shown by the School Finance 101 blog.

What sorts of schools exist in banana republics? Highly stratified, just like the society. The very wealthy send their children to private schools of privilege, just as is becoming the norm here. The poor go to schools where they are daily reminded of their inferiority. How many ways do we have to remind our students of their academic inferiority? Could this be an unconscious or sub-rosa part of the high stakes we now attach to test scores? Is this perhaps part of the reason schools, teachers and communities are stigmatized when schools are condemned as failures and dropout factories? Our schools are inevitably mirrors of the society in which they function.

I must add here, lest I be accused of adopting a fatalistic stance, that I believe schools have a powerful role to play in cushioning the blows of poverty, of lifting the aspirations of our students beyond their circumstances. But everywhere in school reform these days we hear of the need for "urgency," as if the reason that previous generations of educators failed to eliminate the achievement gap was a lackadaisical attitude, or persistent low expectations. Not so. Unfortunately, although schools can make a difference, poverty and a genuine lack of opportunity usually trumps our efforts.

The intense discomfort the "school reformers" have with our low-performing schools may reflect our unwillingness to recognize that yes, we have a growing underclass in the United States. Yes, we have a burgeoning strata of society that no longer can even grasp the bottom rung of the economic ladder. We can blame the schools for this, but the schools did not create this situation, and getting everyone ready for college and careers will not fix it. Only when we get our economy back onto firm ground and restore some balance, so the wealthy are paying their fair share of taxes, and the middle class can survive and prosper, and the poor can truly access the ladder to success, only then will we see hope return to our students and see the gaps in achievement really begin to close.

Special thanks to teacherken for highlighting these issues in his blogs.

What do you think? Are we becoming a banana republic? Do our schools reflect this as well?

Posted by Anthony Cody at 9:16 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

According to this week's Education Week article about the election results, the new leader of the House Education and Labor committee is likely to be Minnesota Republican John Kline. Kline will replace one of the authors and principal sponsors of No Child Left Behind, George Miller. This may bring a welcome shift in priorities. I took a look at Congressman Kline's positions in recent years, and discovered that this Minnesotan may take us in a very different direction on education policy. According to his website, one of his top priorities is fully funding special education. The Federal government mandates extensive services be available to special ed students, but does not fund them adequately. As a result, these students are often not served as well as they should be, or their services come at the expense of other programs. Kline said:

I strongly believe Congress can and should provide the funding schools were promised under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act - or IDEA. And Congress should ensure we do so before we even consider authorizing new programs.

Almost 35 years ago Congress authorized IDEA to ensure children with disabilities would receive the same educational opportunities as their peers; along with IDEA came a promise to fund 40 percent of the excess cost of special education and related services. However, since 1975 we have never met that promise. In fact, we have never even come close.

But even more significant is Kline's perspective on No Child Left Behind. Although education secretary Arne Duncan has shed the NCLB moniker, most of the test and punish elements of the original law are still in effect -- and some even made more harsh. Duncan hopes to create a bipartisan consensus around reauthorizing the law, under its original name, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. But he is likely to run into some trouble with Kline. According to this Washington Post article from the summer of 2009, Kline has a different approach.

Unlike his predecessors, who gave Bush crucial support for the law, Kline said he is not committed to the core requirement of testing all students in reading and math in grades three through eight, and once more in high school. He said he wants to give states "maximum latitude."

"I'm not looking to tweak No Child Left Behind," Kline said. "As far as I'm concerned, we ought to go in and look at the whole thing."

Back in July of 2009, Republicans like Kline had little power to put their ideas into practice. The latest election, however, changes that landscape decisively, and that is going to be felt as strongly in education as anywhere. Those of us who have been critical of the Federal role in education may find fresh traction under the new leadership.

What do you think? Does new leadership offer us a chance to shift Federal policies?

Posted by Anthony Cody at 9:56 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

This week I received an email from a reader who shared some thoughts in response to last week's post, A Declaration of Professional Conscience for Teachers. Here is what she wrote, followed by my thoughts.

What you outlined in your opening comments is what successful businesses have realized they must do to keep and attract the best associates and to keep and attract clients.

I am tired of people saying education is not a business or cannot learn from the business community on how to do things better. Look around at successful businesses in your community...ask them what they do to be successful and to stay successful...you will find they do exactly what you outlined. How many teachers will take this upon yourself and do this?

Successful businesses listen to their associates, their clients and their shareholders. Education has all three of these groups. Can you identify which is which? Do you truly ask for feedback, value suggestions and act upon them?

Successful businesses act on what their associates, clients and shareholders say and the results show. Do all things get acted upon? No, but everyone knows their voice has been heard and appreciated. Does this happen in education? Rarely if ever have I truly seen it.

Successful businesses regularly survey their associates, clients and shareholders to see how they are doing and what they need to do better. Then they act on those results and every associate has a role. This is not done in education.

If you want to be treated as professionals you need to look around you and see what other successful organizations are doing and see what you can incorporate. Educators think they are special, that they are unique, that no one understands their plight. In my opinion that
cannot be further from the truth. Educators have an incredible job to do...they are educating the future of the country...but you are not unique in the challenges you face to be treated as professionals or be the best your can be.

Business clients have real choice. If the product is not up to snuff, the value not in line with the price, they can leave. This is a big problem with government schools...the students and families are stuck and educators know it...it is the biggest weakness to true reform in education. What if you had to work to attract every student? I am so waiting for total choice to come to government schools...are you ready?

Come out from your self imposed isolation and monopoly and you will be astounded. Remember you are given every dime you have to operate your schools and systems...the money is literally taken from the people by law. This is not reality...successful businesses earn every dime of
revenue, the value the client...if this attitude could be adopted in education...watch out...the revolution would be mind blowing...

My approach is more for educators to look around to what they consider to be successful organizations and ask what makes them successful and the other ideas I threw out. I have no clue how to break up the monopoly with closing down the DOE and returning the responsibility of education to the states. I think it is too late for that. The Feds only provide 10% of education funding. If states weren't totally dependent on those dollars this would a whole different conversation. Now that ten percent has basically give the Feds majority control. What am I missing?

Real change to education needs to come from within but not in a vacuum. Educators have historically told me if you are not a teacher or educator you don't have a voice in change. I may not know how to manage 30 kids in a classroom but I and others have perfectly good, successful solutions for other parts of the school that could help that teacher be more effective and have a much more manageable classroom Why are educators fearful/reluctant to look around and see what others (outside of education) do to be successful and adopt/modify those practices for their classroom, school, etc?

(a reader)

First of all, let's see if we can agree on some common ground.

Schools and businesses both work best when they meet the needs of their students or clients. Both schools and businesses need to be closely connected to their communities, and be accountable for the quality of work that they produce. In fact, my school district, Oakland Unified, conducts an extensive annual survey, called "Use Your Voice," which asks students, parents and community members for detailed feedback on how we are doing our job as educators. We reflect a great deal on what our students, parents and community members want from us, and we have tried our best to respond.

But there are some significant differences between a school and a business, and I am afraid our students are worse off in some important ways as schools have been pushed to be more business-like.

Learning is not the same as making money. The primary goal of a business is to make a profit, measured by the bottom line at year's end. Our schools have come under tremendous pressure to produce learning outcomes that are similarly quantified, through test score gains. This reduces learning to that which shows up on multiple choice tests, and more complex learning suffers.

But the heart of your argument is really about the issue of choice and competition. Public schools are a service offered for free to every child in our community. We currently have some levels of choice available to community members. Those with money can choose private or parochial schools, while those without can still exercise some choice based on the various schools made available within the school system. I well remember the outreach my middle school principal did each year to the elementary schools feeding our middle schools, to convince parents to send their students to us. Parents do have some choices. But we do not have a level playing field where everyone has the same choices available to them. Instead, as in other markets, we have many choices available to those with cash to spend, and few choices available to those without money.

Let's play out your proposal. You are critical of the public school's "monopoly," so I presume you favor some sort of system where the dollars currently going to public schools are made available to any school that provides education to students. Assuming we pay these vouchers across the board to parents who have already moved their children to parochial and private schools, we are taking money from public schools that must accept all students and shifting it to schools that are more selective. I fear this actually deepens the separation between haves and have nots, in that those with the resources can add to their voucher and get into elite private schools, while those without the additional funds needed will still be stuck -- and we will be no better off.

And this brings us to the heart of my concern about competition. Contrary to your assertion, schools have been greatly influenced by ideas from business. Charter schools are often cited as the best source of competition for regular public schools, but there are some significant differences between the two types of schools, which ought to give the charters significant advantages. First of all, some charters attract large donations that allow them to greatly exceed the funding levels of the public schools against which they compete. Second, many charters require some form of parental involvement. If public schools could screen out all children without parents willing to stay involved, many of their troubles would go away. In spite of these advantages, charters have NOT been shown, on the whole, to be more effective than regular schools at overcoming the effects of poverty. Could it be that student outcomes reflect the conditions outside the school as well as within?

What do we really want to see for the future? My own vision for the public schools is rooted in my belief that our schools ought to serve as a microcosm of the society we want our children to graduate into as adults. For that reason, I really value the school as a meeting place for people of different ethnic and economic groups. I sent my own children to public school because I wanted them to learn to relate to lots of different people as equals. As a teacher I spent time working with my students to help them get along, to understand different points of view and respect one another. The public schools accept all students, and we help them learn to cooperate as well as compete with one another. As teachers, our most important asset is the community of professionals at our school. We all benefit when we collaborate and contribute to a common culture of learning at the school. It is strange to me that business-oriented people can understand the power of competition, but seem blind to the fact that cooperation and collaboration have great power as well.

And is it so terrible for our schools to be run by organizations that are owned by the public at large? We do not complain about the government "monopoly" in law enforcement, or fire protection. Why is it so horrible to have a local neighborhood school governed by a locally elected school board, supported by our tax dollars? If only ALL my tax dollars went to support something as useful as a school system, instead of being squandered on bombs and drones, I, for one, would be a whole lot happier.

This blog is devoted to dialogue. I want to thank this reader for sharing her views with us, and invite her and others to respond below. What do you think? What should teachers learn from business-people? What do we want business-people to understand about schools?

Posted by Anthony Cody at 5:14 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend