March 2011 Archives

If only the Department of Education could hear this guy Obama, boy, they would have to rethink their approach!

In a town hall meeting hosted by Univision, President Obama was asked by a student named Luis Zelaya if there could be a way to reduce the number of tests that students must take.

His answer was superficially reassuring, but underneath, rather alarming.

He replied:

"... we have piled on a lot of standardized tests on our kids. Now, there's nothing wrong with a standardized test being given occasionally just to give a baseline of where kids are at.

"Malia and Sasha, my two daughters, they just recently took a standardized test. But it wasn't a high-stakes test. It wasn't a test where they had to panic. I mean, they didn't even really know that they were going to take it ahead of time. They didn't study for it, they just went ahead and took it. And it was a tool to diagnose where they were strong, where they were weak, and what the teachers needed to emphasize.

"Too often what we've been doing is using these tests to punish students or to, in some cases, punish schools. And so what we've said is let's find a test that everybody agrees makes sense; let's apply it in a less pressured-packed atmosphere; let's figure out whether we have to do it every year or whether we can do it maybe every several years; and let's make sure that that's not the only way we're judging whether a school is doing well.

"Because there are other criteria: What's the attendance rate? How are young people performing in terms of basic competency on projects? There are other ways of us measuring whether students are doing well or not."

Then he said something really radical.

"So what I want to do is—one thing I never want to see happen is schools that are just teaching to the test. Because then you're not learning about the world; you're not learning about different cultures, you're not learning about science, you're not learning about math. All you're learning about is how to fill out a little bubble on an exam and the little tricks that you need to do in order to take a test. And that's not going to make education interesting to you. And young people do well in stuff that they're interested in. They're not going to do as well if it's boring."

I think I am going to see if President Obama would like to speak at the Save Our Schools rally we have planned this summer protesting his administration's policies!

But here is what is alarming: Either President Obama is trying to mislead people, or he is unfamiliar with the policies being advanced by his very own secretary of education, who was seated just a few feet away from him at this event.

As someone who campaigned and raised money for Obama, I find both of these alternatives unacceptable.

Is President Obama aware:

• that Race to the Top requires states to tie teacher pay and evaluations to student test scores? If ever there was a recipe for teaching to the test, this is it!
• that his Secretary of Education is proposing to evaluate teacher preparation programs by tracking the test scores of the teachers they produce?
• that his administration's plan for the new version of No Child Left Behind continues to place tremendous pressure on schools attended by the poorest students, ensuring that there will still be extremely high stakes attached to these tests? This creates the most invidious inequity of all -- where students most in need of the sort of wholistic, project-based curriculum the President rightly says is the cure to boredom remain stuck in schools forced to focus on test scores.
• that his Department of Education is proposing greatly expanding both the number of subjects tested, and the frequency of tests, to enable us to measure the "value" each teacher adds to their students?

President Obama, I loved the way you described the role of assessment. It should be occasional, not punitive, and used to help diagnose where students need help. What Sasha and Malia are getting is wonderful. Is there a way we could get your Department of Education's policies to align with your personal vision?

UPDATE: Someone at the press office at the Department of Education has requested that I issue a "correction" to this post, because they believe I have misinterpreted President Obama's remarks. I have submitted several questions to them that I hope will clarify these matters. I will share their answers as soon as I get them.

UPDATE 2: The press team at Dept of Ed says they will have answers soon, and asked me to hold off on posting my questions until tomorrow. Stay tuned!

What do you think? Should we invite President Obama to speak at the Save Our Schools March? How can we get Federal policies aligned with his vision?

Posted by Anthony Cody at 12:29 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

In February I shared a conversation between a veteran teacher, David Greene, and his mentee, a former Teach For America intern named John Bilby. Today, we have a continuation of that dialogue, once again focused on how we ought to prepare teachers to work in our schools.

John: Here we are again. This time, I want to steer the conversation towards teacher training. I was inspired by a petition recently put forward by Joe Rogers, Jr., to Wendy Kopp, founder and CEO of Teach For America. Joe Rogers wants Wendy Kopp to instate a pre-service year of training for TFA teachers because, as the system stands, the kids who need the best teachers are getting the most unprepared ones. This was true in my TFA experience, when I did 16 hours of teaching in a summer school class of 10 kids and I was drowning once the school year began and I had no idea how to manage a classroom of 30.

I always like to point to my military experience as a means of comparison - there, I had to go through 4 years of ROTC and 6 months of officer training before I could tell people what to do. To me, pretending that a lack of proper preparation for one of the hardest jobs in the country is somehow part of your "corps experience" is not only stressful for both the kids and the teachers but unnecessary.

But the traditional teacher prep program that I am in now offers some lessons for what a TFA pre-service year would look like. For example, I have to do 100 classroom observation hours prior to student teaching; I am in the middle of these right now, and it has struck me that we never observed anyone during our TFA training, nor did I have time to once the school year began. I had no idea what a successful urban classroom looked like. Dave, what do you think? Are there lessons to be applied from the extensive observation model?

David: John, yesterday I was an observer in a Fordham University run Lesson Study Group. In it three Fordham Professors, another teacher, and I observed what happened when a team of Fordham MAT student/teachers collegially prepared a math lesson one of my mentees (S.) was to teach. We had a pre-observation meeting, observed the class, and had a post class meeting to provide feedback. Immediately following that the group revised the lesson and S. went back to teach the new and improved version.

Now that kind of group think may not be right for everyone. I myself offered the caveat that "a camel is a horse created by committee." I pointed out that the lesson needed to be less complex and that it's imperative to throw out the less good ideas in a group plan, because the goal has to remain what the kids can successfully accomplish, not what would be cool to do.

Over the years I have been part of Critical Friends Groups which follows much of the same protocol, but with the teacher as sole planner. Either way, these sessions along with at least a semester's worth of observations of other teachers (plural) and supervised practice in an internship setting similar to where the prospective teacher will end up are the only ways one can learn enough about how to teach before being given one's own room. In fact, they must be judged there first, before being allowed to be licensed and able to find a job. John, do you think prospective TFAmericans would be willing to add that extra (post graduation) time to their "commitment" to teaching, or are too many not really interested in teaching as a career enough to sacrifice that extra semester or year of training?

John: I'm a big fan of group work, if only because my time in TFA was so isolating. We had "Learning Teams" that ended up simply being another way for the organization to get data from us. And the kind of work that multiple minds can do in the critical thinking sessions you are advocating for would not only relieve some of the stress and loneliness that young teachers encounter, but it would also feed a sense of professionalism. I think that would go beautifully with a pre-service year.

My observations now have given me a much better concept of the "art" of teaching (as opposed to the science, which I think TFA stresses to its own detriment). I think a quote from one of my observees, an 8th grade Humanities teacher in Harlem, summed up some big concepts nicely: "You have to find the balance between giving the kids enough structure to do the work and treating them like babies...if you give them too much, then they'll get offended, and you're back where you started." And that tipping point will vary from class to class and, ultimately, kid to kid; knowing where to find it is a function of time, training, and teaching (well!)

I've thought about whether or not TFA candidates would be turned off by a pre-service year, and I think it's to the organization's benefit if they are. If the organization sees its numbers drop because it is getting serious about sending well-trained teachers into the neediest communities, then so be it; if they reduce their annual numbers because their funding model restricts the number of well-trained and qualified teachers that they can send into districts, then so be it; the kids will benefit from having teachers who know what success looks like for them beyond test scores.

But will the organization ally with the traditional programs to do it? Looking back, I think that our isolation was designed to be part of our "corps experience." Dave, you're closer to it right now - is there the will to incorporate observations, student teaching, and lesson study groups, all of which require a commitment of time and senior teachers, whom TFA has been wary of?

David: Oh boy, that's the killer question. Unfortunately, I think not. TFA ( the organization) has become more and more like an Empress with no clothes. As it gains more and more corporate and political supporters and funding, it is less inclined to do the kind of self and/or peer evaluation good teachers in good schools do. Good teachers work as hard at getting better as they did to become good. Great teachers work even harder. Who was known as the hardest worker in the NBA? Michael Jordan, arguably the greatest to ever play. Who among the TFA courtiers will tell the Empress the truth? Duncan? No. Obama? No. Who will be so bold as to say, "Wendy, you did a good thing getting so many new and able people to be at least interested in teaching. But now, what are you going to do to make things better? How will you do each of the following?

1. Decrease the number of resume builders who join the corps and leave after two years for the Ivy League grad school or Goldman Sachs.

2. Decrease the number of TFAmericans who idealistically want to do 2 years of Peace Corps but are afraid to go to Africa.

3. Decrease the number of "teacherpreneurs" who enter the corps to do their two years and go on to the new for-profit educational world.

4. Decrease the number of TFAmericans who see the administrative or business end of TFA as their life's work, not teaching.

5. Decrease the number of hardworking and sincere TFAmericans who drop out because they find themselves unprepared to start and undersupervised for their two year stint.

6. Increase the number of well prepared, well supervised professional teachers for whom this career is an avocation as well as a vocation, who seek advice, constructive criticism, peer review, and cooperation from experienced people outside the of the "Chosen."

Will TFA join with teaching professionals as well as other professional organizations and institutions to improve the quality of teaching and teacher training or will it continue to "believe its own hype"? Right now I am not optimistic. Of course new and experienced TFAmericans must have better training before and during their two year experience. Yesterday I observed a young woman who was having a terrible time "managing" her middle school ELA class. After class I pointed out to her the three times when they stopped misbehaving and actually were engaged and learning. Then I listed the "activities" when they misbehaved. Her response regarding the latter was, "Those are the things TFA and my supervisors want me to do. They tell me to keep giving the kids these things to do so they stay in their seats and stay quiet." You know how that feels. She can be good. Will she stay in teaching? Maybe. John, isn't that the shame of it all? While the Empress Kopp parades around in her new clothes, her serfs in the field are being sacrificed. Will she listen to reason? Will she ally with others in education for the benefit of all? Who will give her the mirror?

What do you think of the advice offered here? Does this connect with your experiences with Teach For America?

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

A week ago, a friend shared a video with me of a school superintendent giving a fiery speech at a Save Texas Schools rally. That is how I met the superintendent of Perrin-Whitt School District, John Kuhn.

After watching this video, I felt I had to get to know this man. He responds to my questions below.

Question: You have become widely known due to your Letter from Alamo. Can you explain the circumstances that led you to write this?

A Texas state senator spoke to a group of administrators in Austin back in February. It just so happens that this senator is the chair of a couple of very important education-related committees and is a former school teacher. As a result, she is kind of seen as an "education expert" among our legislators. This particular senator, however, has been at the forefront of drafting policies that I see as counterproductive for our public schools: she has pushed for more and more high stakes testing, and less and less funding. She also has advocated for maintaining the Target Revenue System, which is a school funding scheme in Texas that gives certain schools more funding than others, seemingly at random. In Texas, the luckiest schools have a Target Revenue of $12,000 per student and the unluckiest schools have a Target Revenue of $4,000--but all schools are held to the same hard-and-fast standards when it comes to state and federal accountability measures. It's unjust on the face of it.

So, going into this meeting, I was already angry about the moral underpinnings of our whole system. It just all seems like a parody of bad government to me, like something you'd read in a dystopian novel like 1984 or A Brave New World--except that it's real.

So this senator spoke to us and, after letting us know that there will be severe funding cuts due to the economic downturn--and never once mentioning the 2006 school funding tax swap that she and her colleagues adopted which capped property tax rates and slashed 1/3 of schools' revenue, replacing it with a business tax that generated billions less than what was cut (and which was labeled at that time by our state comptroller as "the biggest hot check in state history")--she then began to talk about a pet project of hers: the new State of Texas Assessment of Academic Readiness, or STAAR test. She spoke about it with a gleam in her eyes, as though it were her new grandbaby. And then she said a word that pushed me over the edge. After having spoken at length about making hard decisions and sacrificing and cutting local budgets, she bragged that spending on STAAR was "non-negotiable." Teachers' jobs are on the line, but not the precious test. I had trouble getting on board with her priorities.

She took questions at the end of her presentation, and I let her know my concerns. I pointed out to her that I had given myself a 10% pay cut and would be cutting positions soon, and I asked if anyone at Pearson (the firm that makes the test) would be taking a pay cut. I told her she was "saving the test but not the teachers."

Her responses to my (probably impertinent) questions left me even more concerned and frustrated than I had already been. Anyway, this particular senator has been a steadfast critic of public schools, calling us inefficient and creating layer upon layer of bureaucracy to watch over us and micromanage everything we do. This session she has often repeated a dubious statistic about the "1-to-1 ratio" of teachers to non-teachers in Texas schools, and how that ratio was 4-to-1 back in the 1970s--never mind the fact that a.) the state's statistics in the 1970s didn't include lunch ladies, bus drivers, and other non-teachers, creating a false comparison, and b.) the amount of bureaucratic nonsense and inflexible accountability measures piled on Texas schools beginning in the 1980s has created countless man hours of reporting and testing paperwork and has led schools to hire testing coordinators, math coaches, parent involvement coordinators, etc. When this senator implies that the state of Texas is broke because superintendents like me just go wild hiring unnecessary non-teachers, it feels very much like I'm being slapped for doing what the senators forced me to do. I feel like public school officials are the Official Scapegoat of Texas.

So, in short, I got my belly full. I went back to my hotel room that night and wrote the Alamo letter. I have written a million rants about government insanity in guiding educational policy over the course of my career, but I have always deleted them after venting. But not this time--I typed that bad boy out and sent it to my hometown paper and to Diane Ravitch, to heck with it. And it ended up on Valerie Strauss's blog at the Washington Post website. Then I spent about three nights not sleeping and asking myself, "What have I done?" But, even as I was pretty sure I was going to die from a heart attack over the near-certainty I would lose my job, I was kind of glad I had taken the things we school people gripe to each other about and put it out there for everyone to read. A wise superintendent friend once told me that teachers who complain to each other in the teachers' lounge don't really want things to change, they just want to gripe; but those who want things to be better will actually voice their concerns to the people who have the ability to fix them. So that's why I wrote the letter--I'm begging our legislators to quit driving us down what I believe is the fundamentally wrong trail.

Question: What has been the effect of NCLB on children in your district?

Well, they get to take plenty of bubble tests, and if they do poorly they get lots of remediation in the core areas that get tested. I guess NCLB has ensured that our teachers and administrators feel lots of pressure to perform on these tests. Like everyone else, we do diagnostic benchmarking and use released tests in the classroom to get ready. Like someone (I think it was Matt Damon, actually) recently said, we are doing less teaching of kids and more training of them, with an eye toward that test. I'm not blaming our teachers, though, for "teaching to the test," as I have often heard parents and citizens bash the schools for doing. Our leaders have created this creepy environment where standardized test scores are the great false god. If I raised my kids at home according to the prevailing philosophies, we would have a simplistic scoring device for how effectively my kids did their chores--ignoring every other, less measurable way they show me that they love me--and I would then meter out hugs accordingly. If I were to establish such a dazzlingly, nauseatingly wrong system at home, I couldn't very well then turn around and criticize my kids for adopting certain mechanical approaches to getting the results I wanted, could I?

So of course teachers are going to teach to the test, and even more so when those scores are tied to them personally (coming soon to a Texas public school near you!) As we move forward, I see the electives withering on the vine and the classroom increasingly becoming a place where kids work on "fundamentals" like they do on the football practice field--after all, that high-stakes test IS the big game, and the consequences of losing are very real.

Question: What do you see as the positives and negatives of current education reform efforts in your state and across the country?

First, I am not against accountability, just the incredibly convoluted, inefficient, and mean-spirited kind of accountability we have right now. In my mind, we should treat teachers the way we want them to treat students. But we don't. We ask them to encourage and remediate and support kids while we whip, label and threaten them. So the positives would have to be that teachers work hard (which they always did anyway in the rural school I grew up in), and that the top-down pressure has led schools to align their curriculum and really look at what they are teaching. The negatives are huge, however.

First, accountability has narrowed our focus down to--in Texas--just four subjects. It doesn't matter to Texas if kids learn anything in any subject but math, science, social studies, and language arts. Therefore, the only saving grace in the arts and foreign languages and vocational classes and athletics is that we have passionate people teaching those subjects who really care about their students and their subjects. And that is the core of my disdain for this ugly baby called accountability--if the test-and-label philosophy really worked, then you would think there would be far worse teaching going on outside the core classes, but there isn't generally. Why? Because good teachers are motivated by passion and a moral sense of mission, not by the threats of absent bureaucrats.

We are putting the wrong fuel in our car--it runs best on support, and we are gassing up with intimidation and blame. We are going to burn up this engine by making education a place where only hyper-competitive type-A individuals can feel comfortable, while all of those wonderfully kind and dedicated, supportive people who were born to teach abandon the classroom in search of a kinder profession where their skill sets are valued.

The other major gripe I have is this: if we really believed that accountability works, wouldn't we have accountability for all public servants? Why do we not require our legislators to make "Adequate Yearly Progress"? We have the data from their congressional districts, do we not? There is crime data, health care data, poverty figures, and drug use statistics for every state and federal legislative district. Why, exactly, do we not establish annual targets for our legislators to meet? We could eliminate 100% of poverty, crime, drug abuse, and preventable illness by 2014!

If accountability is the answer, we must move from the selective accountability that merely targets schools to a universal accountability that targets all players. We know that poverty, illness, crime, and addiction in the home all have a direct impact on the educability of our students--when legislators fail, schools fail. But we only blame the second domino to fall--it seems very cynical to me. It appears that accountability is currently more about finding a convenient scapegoat for our national failings than about really solving problems. I will believe this as long as we hold teachers accountable and not legislators. (I know that a legislator would instinctively say he or she is held accountable at election time, but an election is not remotely like an education-style accountability measure--when superintendents get their contracts renewed, we have a state-assigned label stamped on our foreheads. When politicians go out for re-election, they get to define themselves for voters, sans a state-issued label as to their fitness to serve. This happened recently in Texas, when our governor ran ads touting Texas' huge budget surpluses, which we discovered shortly after his re-election were actually huge shortfalls. Educators can't participate in those kind of games when their contracts are up--we have a label that we can't explain away. If this kind of system truly works to create positive outcomes, why do we not apply it to other public servants?)

Question: You seem unusually outspoken for an administrator. Have you experienced any repercussions?

My community and school board have supported me, and educators around Texas--as well as nationally--have emailed, called and written letters of support. It's been inspirational. I have received one letter expressing disappointment that I spoke at the Texas Rally to Save Public schools. There have been a few vicious comments posted in the comments sections of articles about the Alamo letter, but I don't take anonymous commenters very seriously. One superintendent indicated in an interview that he felt my letter was inappropriate--he's probably right, but appropriate behavior is what got us here. My contention is that quiet meetings in legislators' offices with frustrated school people asking for support has gotten us the current Rube Goldberg systems. I personally want the general public to be aware of these machinations and the back room legislative wheeler-dealing that gives rise to clearly immoral and self-defeating policies such as the Target Revenue System. I can't bring myself to believe that the average person wants a standardized-test-centric, blame-the-teachers-for-all-social-ills education for their kids. I am tired of educators' silence allowing the public to blindly criticize teachers and local schools for the effects of elected officials' foolish decisions. If elected officials want to play the blame game--and boy do they!--then I'm going to play it with them. There is enough blame to go around.

Question: How do you weigh the decision to speak out in this way?

I say what I believe to be true. And I'm willing to live with the consequences.


Question: Feel free to extemporize if there is something more you would like to share that I have not asked.

I have always believed that if a person has the audacity to accept the mantle of leadership, they'd better have the courage to lead. Unfortunately, many of my state elected officials play games and issue half-true sound bites rather than exhibiting true leadership. The greater good is dying on the floor while they preen and play to their fan clubs. (They use the word "constituents" because it sounds more grown up than "fan clubs.") It's all very sad to me, because historically we did education right, and now American education is writhing in hideous deformity on the experimenters' table while other countries do it right. And it's a vicious cycle: the more they mess things up, the more eagerly they then come at us with more clumsy surgeries to "fix" us.

I would like to note an incident that gave rise to my speech in Austin. Following the publication of the Alamo letter, I was invited to speak at a college here, and I spoke just before a nationally-known school reformer who is a high school principal. So he spoke about how he got miraculous results in his school, and how 100% of his students went on to four-year colleges, etc. It was all very inspirational. And then, in the middle of his speech, he felt the need to say, "I don't work at a charter school, either. I work at a public high school."

The implication was clear--he plays be the same rules as public school principals, he just gets better results. We all play the same game, he's just a better coach.

So I was troubled when I got home. I was a public school principal for several years, and I couldn't get 100% of my students to graduate, much less go to college. And I worked hard! What was he doing that I didn't do?

So I went to his school's website and I saw an interesting button on the home page. "Apply now!" it said. Weird, I thought. Nobody "applies" at my school. So I clicked on it and discovered that his "public" school is actually a "public magnet" school.

He strategically left out that important detail in his speech.

You have to apply and be accepted to get into his school; you only have to breathe and live in the district to go to my school. If you don't toe the line at his school, this golden child principal will--wait for it--send you back to the public school! He drafts his players and I play with the Bad News Bears over here, and then he sticks his chest out and tells us all what a skilled coach he is.

In short, he deliberately, calculatingly lied by omission to an unsuspecting audience.

And that's when I realized that the school reform movement is populated by self-promoting snake oil salesmen, and our elected officials are buying their tonic by the truckload. It's hard for me to watch this train wreck slowly unfold.

The narrative of the school reformer is a simple formula: kids are victims, teachers are the villains, and some administrator is the messianic hero. A dynamic personality comes into a bad school and doesn't accept mediocrity. He or she cleans up the discipline and fires all the bad teachers, confronting the wicked teachers' union along the way. The hero is this lone special individual and the administrative mechanisms the he or she put in place. It is, basically, the Heroic Ballad of the Bureaucrat. It sells books and dupes legislators. It makes people rich. It only requires a certain amount of arrogance and duplicity to pull it off. It relies on the same dangerous logic that tyrants use to justify lording over peasants and restricting their liberties. In this case, the benign dictator is a self-promoting principal or superintendent with all the answers, and the poor clueless peasants in dire need of a paternalistic leader are the teachers.

The narrative I cling to is also simple, but it doesn't make anyone rich. It would also make for a remarkably boring book. In my ballad, kids are still the victims, but bureaucracy is the enemy. Legislators too afraid to accept responsibility for the persistence of poverty, crime, poor health care, and methamphetamine addiction are the villains, eager only to place blame and not willing or able to actually fix things. And the passionate, beleaguered teachers picking up the pieces in their classrooms day after day are the heroes. My story plays out over years, with a million tiny acts of heroism, each one too small on its own to matter much--but when all of them are put together, how they speak powerfully of a life well-spent! These are the teachers I am sticking up for. And my story doesn't have a Hollywood ending. 100% of my kids don't go to a four-year college. Some of them become house framers or work for our local oilfield companies. But they grow up and raise families and go to church and serve on the school board. They are successes in every sense of the word. And there are others who aren't. Some of my students have gone to prison. Some struggle with addiction. My ballad isn't tidy.

But, the nice thing is, I don't have to leave out inconvenient details when I sing my ballad. The assumption that the school reform movement doesn't permit negative outcomes requires you to believe that they fix kids when the hard, unmentionable truth is that they cull them. And I take the culled ones and do the best I can with them. And I'm good with this arrangement because you can't spin the story when you stand before God. God sees through the omissions and knows that the reformer above runs a magnet school and that I take all comers. He can convince the politicians and his readers if he wants to. I'm good with that. I'll soldier on.

UPDATE: John Kuhn has endorsed the Save Our Schools March and will engage in a conversation with us at an upcoming free webinar, scheduled for 8 pm Eastern time, Sunday, April 10. Register here.

What do you think? Has this Texas superintendent spoken for you? He speaks for me!

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

Many of the most thoughtful people writing about education these days are taking time to focus this week on the reasons we support unions, through the EduSolidarity event. I support my union, the National Education Association, and I want to share my thoughts about the role I hope it, and the American Federation of Teachers as well, will play in meeting the challenges we face.

In ordinary times teachers unions play a valuable role in allowing us to elect people to represent our collective interests, and negotiate on our behalf. We have contracts that provide the rules that govern our work, and help create good conditions for teaching and learning. The union helps make sure our rights are protected if there are disagreements over these things. These are all worthwhile.

But in these unprecedented times we need our unions for a much bigger task. We need our unions to help save the institution of public education in America.

This is a very tall order, and one that our unions have not had to fulfill for a long time. How are we going to do it? We can only succeed if we are able to accomplish several difficult things at the same time.

With the help of our unions, we must push forward a different narrative than the one currently being promoted as "school reform." The source of the achievement gap is not bad teachers, nor even our admittedly flawed education system. The greatest source for inequality of outcomes within schools is the great inequities outside of schools. Until the wealthy stop making excuses for the ever-increasing number of children living in poverty, our schools can only have a marginal impact. Remember, every time you hear it said that "teachers are the largest in-school factor affecting student achievement," that this influence only accounts for about 20% of the total variation, and is dwarfed by out-of-school factors, such as family income and education level.

The Achilles heel of our public schools is their lack of success with our most vulnerable students, those who are growing up in poverty and violence. But what should be an indictment of society has become instead an attack on the schools themselves, and those of us who work in them.

How can we turn this around? We must take a hard look at what NCLB has done to these schools in the name of "education reform." A recent report from FAIRTest and several leading civil rights organizations takes on this task. Federal Policy, ESEA Reauthorization, and the School-to-Prison Pipeline is available here. It points out how NCLB's test and punish regime is leading schools attended by poor students to focus on narrow test preparation, which in turn intensifies student alienation. This then leads students to drop out, or pose greater discipline problems, for which the schools are increasingly resorting to police intervention. Thus, there are direct and indirect connections between our schools and the high number of our children who wind up incarcerated as young adults. NCLB, supposedly created to help the children living in poverty, has driven our schools to adopt policies and practices that are destroying lives.

Our unions have a role to play here, but they are not yet truly leading. Karl Rove's brainchild, and the centerpiece of the Bush domestic agenda, the No Child Left Behind Act, was a devastating blow to the alliance that advocated for public education, as it put in place the mechanism by which teachers and public schools could be indicted for societal failures. Our unions have tended to focus on aspects related to bargaining, and have failed to mount a decisive, principled challenge to NCLB.

Even now, as Duncan and Obama seek to revise the law in ways to continue to exert maximum pressure on schools in poverty, while releasing more affluent schools from the "failing school" label, some union leadership joins in press opportunities with Secretary Duncan pledging union collaboration in the "school turnaround" efforts. But as Sabrina Stevens-Shupe lays out here, the turnaround models the Department of Education is pursuing are a huge part of the problem, since they build a pathology of failure. We must embrace a different approach that builds on the strengths of a school.

Solidarity is the bedrock principle of a union. We stand together, and defend the vulnerable. Students at low-performing schools have taken the worst blows from NCLB, and only now, when 80% of the schools will be labeled failures, do we hear Duncan and Obama insisting the law must be changed. But they intend to continue to label and punish the schools of the poor. Where will our unions stand on this crucial issue? Will we accept or even support versions of NCLB that let most schools off the hook, but keep the test and punish pressure on the underdogs in the "bottom 10%"?

It has been inspiring to see the teachers and other public workers in Wisconsin who have been fighting for collective bargaining rights. In the long run, we need to make sure that as teachers, we are also fighting for the interests of our students, and articulating a clear vision for the schools of the future, for schools that bring creativity and imagination back to those currently turned off by test preparation drudgery. We do indeed have better answers than the ones coming from the Department of Education, and we have been developing them further as part of the organizing we have been doing for the Save Our Schools March this summer in Washington, DC. Many of our local unions - such as my own, the Oakland Education Association, are joining in this effort. This is the kind of leadership that will allow our unions to serve the role they must in the months and years to come.

What do you think? What is the role our unions should play in the months to come? How can we make sure they do this?

Posted by Anthony Cody at 12:50 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

The budget cuts we face this fall are likely to create a cascade of effects that could lead to the collapse of public education in America. We are facing a disaster for our schools that is different from an earthquake or hurricane, in that it is man-made. It is being forced upon us by choices being made by those in power, who no longer wish to provide the funds needed to sustain a basic service - more than a service - a basic right guaranteed by our state constitution.

In the state of California, one political party has decided that the economy cannot afford the taxes our schools need to be sustained at even a minimal level. State taxes here are largely connected to the value of recently sold real estate. Thus, the collapse in the real estate bubble has had a calamitous effect on tax revenue, and the Republicans are refusing to even allow a proposition on the ballot that would allow not new taxes, but an extension of some existing taxes to cover part of the deficit. Even with these revenues, the state would be cutting $12 billion. Without them, we are looking at cuts of $25 billion.

This will result in a projected cut of $900 per student. This week school districts around the state sent out layoff notices to thousands of teachers. In Oakland, one teacher in four got a pink slip, as did every principal. If these cuts go through, we will see class sizes increase to 35 to 40 students per class, and we will lose every single counselor and librarian. Special education students currently receiving the benefit of smaller classes and specialized instruction will be merged into regular classes, and even the aides that assist them will be laid off, or given caseloads of dozens to support.

And where are our "education reformers" in this crisis? Billionaires like Bill Gates who have made increasing the quality of public education the center of their charitable work have been entirely unhelpful. Mr. Gates suggests increasing sizes from 23 students to 28 as a means of cutting costs, ignoring the fact that most of our classes are already beyond that upper number. Michelle Rhee has launched a campaign to try to get rid of seniority. Instead of insisting that schools be adequately funded, her Students First group is focused on using these cuts to divide teachers between those who are "good" and should be protected from layoffs, and those who are "bad" and deserve the pink slip. And our Secretary of Education Arne Duncan dutifully echoes these sentiments, in between his speeches praising teachers.

The fate of our schools is directly tied to the economic and social circumstances of our neighborhoods. The fact is our communities are in a sustained economic crisis. As Deborah Meier pointed out this week, in Chicago more than half the adult African Americans are unemployed, and one in three live in poverty. Across our nation, one in four children live in poverty, and these children are concentrated at many of our schools.

This Saturday the mainstream media finally woke up to this fact, and Al Roker led a special report, Child Hunger Ends Here. The impending budget cuts are going to devastate schools that have been the one safe refuge for many of these children. Teachers and parents are organizing the Save Our Schools March this summer in DC in response. But from the champions of "education reform," we have not heard a peep. Why is that? Billionaires got your tongue?

What do you think? How are the budget cuts likely to affect children in YOUR community? Who is taking a stand for them?

Posted by Anthony Cody at 11:28 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Education Week currently features a commentary written by Teach For America founder Wendy Kopp that asserts that Teach For America (TFA) interns have "a chance to make history." But people with big visions have big responsibilities, because history records our follies as well as our triumphs. Mentor teacher David Greene has some first-hand understanding, based on his work with TFA interns, and he draws on this to offer some advice.

Educators who work with these young people often are confused about TFA and its motives, procedures, and effectiveness. Often they question the motivation of the participants. I have heard people accuse them of using their TFA experience only to pad applications to future graduate study or careers. I am sure for some that is true. But I have found that rarely to be the case. For most of these kids, and please don't forget they are kids, it's a rather painful way to get into grad school. The road is hard. It is filled with potholes the size of canyons. Why would they choose that path instead of a smoother one?

In a recent e-mail from a colleague, I was asked, "What factors increase the likelihood of success and what has been the most difficult for TFA participants to overcome? Here was my response.

I will start with the second question first.

DIFFICULTIES:

They are stuck between a rock and a hard place. TFA has indoctrinated them to believe that what they give them is Godlike. TFA has always had a Peace Corp image. To some extent that is a good thing. I am in favor of more community service work before career. But sometimes, that ideal turns into missionary zeal and the idea that a particular service organization has the only answers. I am afraid that has happened to TFA, especially because of all the powerful endorsements and huge sums of money it has been granted. As its collective organizational ego grows, its collective head becomes bigger than it's collective brain.

To maintain the edge and power TFA has gained over the past decade, it constantly reinforces its newfound authority and power through very concrete means. It uses public media who willingly feed the general public the TFA message. Politicians fall over themselves to get on line to congratulate TFA on its good work, with a photo op wherever possible.

But underneath that layer of propaganda is the real indoctrination. On top of all the time new TFA teachers spend in and out of their schools working, they must attend "mandatory" TFA meetings at "headquarters", have TFA "supervisors" with 2 years experience come into their schools to reinforce the TFA data driven gospel, and be told they must rely on TFA prepared materials to be successful. I can't tell you how painful it is to watch a young person cry because they were so frustrated about the pressure put on them by TFA to do all of those things. In some cases they actually travel hours out of their way out of their way to go to a local TFA "headquarters" because they feel they must go to a meeting or get the already prepared materials to copy and plug into the prescribed curriculum. The end result is having them drink more "Kool-Aid" and reinforce their fears of trying other things that actually work. To get a first hand account, watch this video by John Bilby: a TFA person with the guts to quit and learn to teach the right way.

The next issue that creates so much difficulty is that the schools they teach in vary. Some have administrators and staff that welcome quality teaching and are not locked in to teach to the test, Model Workshop agenda based lessons, and the like. They run more professional cultures where teachers can innovate and use ideas in their planning such as culturally responsive pedagogy. However they are the minority. Most schools have overbearing administrators who force these inexperienced teachers to rely on TFA materials and other corporate prepared materials or-lose their jobs. These educational leaders aren't teacher trainers. Many haven't taught.

Remember these are young people. In today's society it simply takes longer to become a mature adult. Although successful as students, many TFA kids are naïve. They are idealistic, and often followers. They were great students because they learned to obey the authorities in their schools, follow directions, behave well, and do as they were told. They are perfect fodder for TFA and authoritarian administrators.

As a result, stuck in quicksand up to their nostrils while being between the proverbial rock and hard place, there are those who find it difficult to take the rope (advice) from an outside mentor, even when they know the rope is strong and can save them. They try it, yet revert to what they are expected to do by the Rock (TFA) and the Hard Place (School Administrators), either out of fear or habit or both. So when tossed a rope by an outside mentor, they pull themselves to safety, and then often let go, only to become more frustrated and filled with self-doubt, remorse, and the goal of getting out after their two-year sentence is up.

SUCCESS?

The exceptions are part of the solution. Several TFAmericans have successfully pulled themselves to safety because they aren't followers. They are critical thinking problem solvers. Good teachers must be. They have practical wisdom. They have empathy. They clearly try to use, not fight the cultural baggage these kids come to school with. Clearly the criteria for job selection must include those traits. They also have to be lucky enough to be in the right school with the right leadership.

However good the new teachers may be, we have to keep them. That necessitates more principals who are teacher leaders. They must be people who are willing to listen to educators, not administrative, bureaucratic, pencil pushing, bean counters. They must read, research, understand where real staff development comes from, then go out and get it without fear of reprisal from above. It is a pleasure to work with young teachers in schools that foster this type of growth that work to encourage rigorous yet relevant, inquiry, discussion, project based learning.

These teacher leader principals cannot do it alone. Schools need a real mentoring program. In theory NYC schools have one. In practice it often doesn't exist. As an example, one TFAmericans who taught MS social studies had a Phys. Ed. teacher as a mentor because "he comes in to quiet them down". Who are these mentors going to be when schools don't have enough high quality, experienced teachers to go around? First, we must make sure we create an environment so that our young people will stay. Second, there are thousands of retired high quality teachers willing to do more than just post retirement substitute work or "F" status paperwork. Why not use their expertise? We are told that would be too expensive. But the money is paid out to for profit cookie-cutter lesson plan providers. It is simply a case of economic scarcity. Unfortunately the opportunity cost is good teaching.

While we are on the subject of training and mentoring, University Ed. programs must get with the program. The ivory tower is often blinded by its own light. They must retool and develop more in-school mentor programs rather than rely on pedagogy classes that, well, for the most part, are less than helpful. They must do more lesson study and critical friends groups with their trainees. They have to put more emphasis on the fieldwork and internship work and less on the classwork. As long as they think Ph.D. academics is more important than teacher training, things wont change much.

Finally, TFA isn't going away. It's too powerful. We also have to acknowledge that without it, we would have approximately 8,000 fewer teachers where we need them most. We have to try to get them to see how to work together with experienced teachers, their associations and unions, and universities. We need to have them see how better training of their inexperienced teachers will help them achieve their stated goals. Coalition is a better word than confrontation.

Mr. Greene has been referenced by Christina Hoff Sommers, in her book, The War against Boys. He has given talks on the issues of boys in schools in Scarsdale and for Dominican College. He assisted in the organization of The Foundation For Male Studies' Second Annual Conference On Male Studies: Looking Forward to Solutions. He has had work published in Ed Week on line and has also been referenced by Valerie Strauss in her Washington Post web based column, The Answer Sheet. Finally, he is a regular contributor to The Teachers Talk Back Blog and is also currently working on a book tentatively titled, So You Think You Know Education? A Teacher's Perspective.

How do you think we should respond to Teach For America? And how might Teach For America change so as to better serve our students?

Posted by Anthony Cody at 8:31 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

When I first heard about a school in Manhattan that was preparing to pay teachers up to $125,000 a year, I thought that was great. Finally, we are getting the respect we deserve. But after seeing the deal close up last night, I am not sure it is much of a bargain after all.

Last night the CBS 60 minutes team took us to a working class neighborhood in Washington Heights, Manhattan, to witness the latest incarnation of that elusive savior of children in poverty, the superteacher. Katie Couric visited a school there called TEP -- The Equity Project, whose claim to fame is their decision to pay their teaching staff $125,000 a year.

The school's principal, Zeke Vanderhoek, has taken the myth of the superteacher and built a school around it.

Here is how he explains his theory of action.

If you want to attract and retain talent, you have to pay for it. And that is ultimately how student achievement will be impacted.

There are great teachers in almost every public school in the city. The difference is that they're often the exception not the rule. So what we're trying to do is build a school where every teacher is a great teacher.

The difference between a great teacher and a mediocre or poor teacher is several grade levels of achievement in a given year. A school that focuses all of its energy and resources on great teaching can bridge the achievement gap.

Two thirds of the kids arrive at TEP reading below grade level, we were told.

Couric reports that "Money that would go to pay for an assistant principal, reading specialist and other staff, goes into teacher salaries, but that means the teacher has to do those jobs as well." One teacher, who was putting in 80 to 90 hours a week, was fired because she was not giving enough to the school. She had children of her own whom she found herself neglecting because of the demands of the school.

The staff is doing some excellent things. They are observing one another teach, and giving one another feedback. The students seem engaged, and report on camera that their teachers really care about their success.

But then we get to the tough part. The actual outcomes after their first year in operation. "The results were disappointing. On average, other schools in the District scored better than TEP."

Principal Vanderhoek responds, "We don't have a magic wand. We are not going to take kids who are scoring below grade level and bring them up in a year."

Come again? What happened to "The difference between a great teacher and a mediocre or poor teacher is several grade levels of achievement in a given year"?

The whole theory behind this school is that teachers ARE the magic wand. Get them to work hard enough, motivate them with a big enough basket of carrots, and add in the ability to fire at will, and you have the cure to poverty right there. It just has not worked so far.

But that does not keep Katie Couric from putting a pretty ribbon on the story. She ends the story by saying:

There are signs things are moving in the right direction. Remember Christian Peña who couldn't read when he got to TEP? He jumped two grade levels in reading in just one year.

So the fact that the performance of the entire school of 247 students was lower than the average school in the city, all these other schools stuck with mediocre teachers protected by tenure, is just wiped from our memory with the closing image of Christian Peña, who did not learn to read in the regular schools, but has learned here.

The real subtext of the story is the issue of tenure. We hear from Joel Klein, who was in charge of the New York city schools for 8 years, that "anyone with a pulse gets tenure." Who the heck is to blame for that?? If, in fact, tenure offers this ironclad protection, should not the school system be careful who receives it? Is this not an indictment of his management, if his schools are granting tenure to anyone?

I do not have direct experience with schools in New York. I worked in a program called Peer Assistance and Review in Oakland for several years, as a coach for teachers who had received poor evaluations. The majority of these teachers were, in fact, terminated or counseled out of the profession. Furthermore, in Oakland most principals DO exercise their right to "non-re-elect" some probationary teachers before they get tenure.

We are in a political process here, where the rights of teachers to due process protections are under attack, from Wisconsin to New Jersey to Florida. This school is being offered up as an object lesson in why tenure is not needed. We have a principal who appears to be reasonable and ethical, and his teachers have faith in him. But we all know, or ought to know, that not all principals are so virtuous.

Katie Couric seems to think that the idea of a vindictive principal is some sort phantom invented by unions to scare members into paying dues. Unfortunately, principals are not all paragons of virtue, and they are under tremendous pressure to balance their budgets and raise test scores. Teachers who cost too much, or resist test preparation, or are otherwise outspoken, may well find themselves in danger of losing their jobs. The contract between the union and administration sets out a process for this.

Union leaders can be faulted for neglecting this issue, and simply saying "it's the job of the administration to hire, supervise and fire employees." This is technically true, but if we want to stand tall as a profession, we need to take some responsibility for having a workable evaluation process in place. The evaluation system needs improvement - and teachers need to be a part of making this happen. Here is a report I helped write that offers concrete suggestions along these lines.

But the idea that we can hire superteachers to eliminate the achievement gap so far is not working out. Principal Vanderhoek says he needs more time - four more years he wants, to run his experiment. But if other schools, with all the limitations of tenure that supposedly doom them to mediocrity, continue to outperform his, we may have to reexamine this model.

What do you think? Would you accept a higher salary in exchange for giving up your due process rights? Can we expect great teachers to close the achievement gap?

Posted by Anthony Cody at 11:44 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

The great radio news man Scoop Nisker used to sign off with the phrase, "If you don't like the news, go out and make some of your own."

Many of us have not been too happy with the news for a while now. And some of us are taking matters into our own hands. As part of building for this summer's Save Our Schools March in Washington, DC, we are creating some video segments to build awareness. They will be posted on YouTube and Facebook. We are working with talented film creators Amy and Tom Valens, who recently premiered the wonderful documentary August to June.

We are turning to all of you, using an approach called "crowdsourcing." This means that instead of one or two people spending months gathering images and video clips, we are relying on the ingenuity and input of thousands. Are you game?

Here is the way this will work. Below are the scripts for four short video spots, each less than a minute long. Each segment is focused on one of the four most important aspects of education: teachers, students, parents and schools as a whole. You can listen to the segments as they are read aloud - and imagine the images that might go along with the words. Our narrator is Jim Griffiths, a long time Bay Area actor whose company World Of Tales performed for many years in the public schools.

Here are the scripts:

The ones who taught us to draw outside the lines.

The ones who opened wonderlands
of books and of numbers,
of questions and of curiosity.

The ones who went beyond just filling out bubbles
to get us to actually think for ourselves.

The best teachers do not give us all the answers.
The best teachers get us to question the answers we have been given.

We are standing with our teachers
at the Save Our Schools March on July 30 in Washington, DC.

Join us!

Here's to the students.

The ones who refuse to be standardized.

The ones who insist on learning their own way.

The ones who push the boundaries.

When their learning is reduced to a test score,
When they are crammed into classrooms
With little regard for their individual needs,
We are in danger of losing a generation.

Our kids deserve more respect from us than that.

Let's celebrate students,
And make our schools places where they will thrive.

We are standing with our students
At the Save Our Schools March on July 30 in Washington DC.

Join us!

Here's to the parents - and grandparents too.

The ones who care for our nation's children.

The ones who struggle to break through
The chatter of electronic screens and peer pressure
To keep our children focused on what really matters.

The ones who want public schools
That are exciting places for exploration and growth,
Not treadmills of worksheets and standardized tests.

Because our kids are unique and wonderful,
And they have a tremendous capacity to learn.

Parents, teachers and students will all stand together this summer
At the Save Our Schools March on July 30 in Washington, DC.

Join us!

Here's to our public schools,

To our hopes and dreams for the future,
To the breeding grounds of our democracy.

They have taken some hard knocks lately.

Now, when times are tough,
our neighborhood schools need us the most.

Let's give them support, not scorn.

So they can give our children what they need most:

A chance to imagine, explore, and create a world
That is better than the one they have today.

We are taking a stand for our schools this summer,
At the Save Our Schools March on July 30 in Washington DC.

Join us!

We have created a list of ideas for images that we need. You may have some of these in your own photo album already. Or you may be able to create a few with your own students or children. Please make sure you have parental permission for any images or video of students that you send.

Here is one of the first images I received -- Thanks Mary Kim Schreck!

We are looking for powerful images. If there is some humor to the image, all the better. These can be still images or short video clips - no more than ten seconds or so, and can come from any era. You can email images to me, at anthony_cody@hotmail.com. If you have a video clips, just upload them to YouTube and send me the link.

Here are some ideas:
For the teacher spot:
Irreverant images of teachers (i.e. funny, like the famous one of Einstein sticking out his tongue).
someone who is in the act of teaching.
Adult hand holding a small animal (frog, chick, snake, guinea pig, praying mantis...), or plant material
Classroom shot that shows a rich learning environment ( puppet stage, blocks, science project, murals, clay, cooking)
Teacher and children:

• laughing together


• shooting rockets


• looking through binoculars


• reading a picture book


• building a structure (newspaper bridge? Geodesic dome?)


• walking on a trail


• watching at a construction site


• working with hands-on math materials (tangrams, unifix cubes, pattern blocks...)


• involved in a play or puppet show


• releasing butterflies


• listening attentively


• in a yoga position


• measuring something


• at a ropes course


• sticking fingers in water

Very specifically we also need an image of:
Someone blowing bubbles
An adult artist or a child painting or drawing with abandon ( outside the lines)

For the parent spot:

• Child on parent's back


• Parent


• rocking a crying child


• feeding a child


• putting child to bed


• reading to a child


• cooking with a child (look for humor here)


• putting on a bandaide


• being vomited upon


• roasting marshmallows


• roller blading (awkwardly?) with child


• running next to a child learning to ride a bike


• waving good-bye as child heads off to school


• walking child to school door


• stooping to look at something a child is holding


• jumping into a pile of leaves,


• with a child who is wearing something unusual ( funny hat, oversized glasses, super hero outfit)


• with a child who is doing something unusual (walking on a tight rope, standing on his head, holding her pet pig, playing the tuba)

• Balancing a book on her head


• Writing in an awkward position


• Walking backwards


• Dressing himself (look for humor)


• Wearing something unusual


• Holding on to the railing at the ice skating rink


• Drawing (playing the piano?) with her toes


• Putting on make up


• Jumping from a high place


• Riding a bike with no hands


• Skate boarding


• Looking under a log


• Touching something tentatively


• Singing


• Laughing


• Fingerpainting


• Doing something with great concentration

For the school spot:
Exteriors of schools that include words Public School or P.S.--rural, urban, suburban, fancy, in need of repair.
Children arriving at or leaving school--getting off the school bus, walking up the front steps, lining up in the yard, greeting teachers, eating or serving a school lunch
Students active in classrooms--raising hands, working in small groups, digging in the school garden, performing in front of their classmates, demonstrating something they have made, tacking something on to a bulletin board
Children holding hands, comforting another child,
People demonstrating in support of teachers and public schools--shots of particularly catchy signs

For the final line of all the spots: Adults and children holding signs supporting schools or teachers.

photo by Mary Kim Schreck, used by permission.

What do you think? Can you send us some images or video clips? Are you ready to make some news today?

Posted by Anthony Cody at 4:12 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

The White House today launched a conference focused on fighting bullying in our schools. I found this definition of bullying here:

Bullying is when someone keeps doing or saying things to have power over another person. Some of the ways they bully other people are by: calling them names, saying or writing nasty things about them, leaving them out of activities, not talking to them, threatening them, making them feel uncomfortable or scared, taking or damaging their things, hitting or kicking them, or making them do things they don't want to do.

We have a White House with a split personality.

Today I heard First Lady Michelle Obama speak eloquently of the model we must set for our children. She said that as parents, we need to show compassion for others and treat one another as we would like to be treated ourselves.

This is such a deep issue, and the root of it is our empathy for others - our capacity to put ourselves in someone else's place, and understand how they might feel. And on a deeper level, to identify with them, to share their feelings even when we are NOT in their situation. And the response to bullying is twofold. Those who are being bullied need to stand up to the bullies. They should defy those who threaten them, or call them names. Because often times, the best cure for the bully is when the victim stands up and defends himself. And those not being bullied should step forward as allies to those being picked upon. They should stand in solidarity with the underdogs, and not allow the bullies to isolate their victims.

Michelle Obama is correct when she says this is a deep practice that we need to carry with us into all of our relationships. The most important way we teach is through our behavior, and the way we treat others, especially those with less power than us.

We have all seen how bullies operate. They scan the scene and size up the crowd. They identify the most vulnerable kids - the ones with some obvious flaws. The kid who is fat, has big ears, or is of a different race than the majority. It is important that the victim be isolated. And what is in the minds of those not targeted? "Whew!" A sense of relief - glad that's not me! And as the bully inflicts pain, those not targeted look away, and feel a mixture of pity and contempt for the victim.

Unfortunately, while our White House is four-square against individual bullies in our schools, it is guilty of supporting bullying of some of our schools. In America, it is the schools of poverty who have become the fat kids with big ears. No Child Left Behind and the leaders of "education reform" have preached that if a school has low test scores, it is because of the ineffective teachers. The solution therefore is to threaten those teachers and administrators with public scorn, labeling their schools as failures, and ultimately "turning around" their schools by firing the principal and/or half the teachers. This is classic bullying behavior. There is very little compassion towards the teachers working in these schools, and no consideration for the issues related to the proportion of the students who are English language learners, who are below the poverty level and affected by hunger and violence on a daily basis. And I believe the labeling of the schools, and subsequent closures, have the effect of disrupting the education of thousands of students, when what they need is more stability in their lives.

The problem with NCLB is that it has moved into a phase where soon every school in America will be the kid with big ears. And this is not just bad policy, it is impractical as a strategy for bullying.

In the very same news segment this morning was the image of Secretary Duncan warning members of Congress that more than 80% of our nation's schools are going to be labeled as failures next year. His purpose in doing this was to convince lawmakers that they ought to "fix" the law so fewer schools are targeted in this way. The MSNBC news reader missed that distinction, and simply reported that "next year, 80% of the schools in the nation will be failures."

But unfortunately Secretary Duncan and President Obama have made it clear that they are not opposed to the basic practice of labeling schools as failures. Secretary Duncan wants to change NCLB so that states will be required to identify the bottom 5% to 10% of schools each year, and these will be the ones targeted. Then they will be subjected, not only to the humiliation of this stigmatizing label, but also to the pain of having their principal and/or half their staff fired as they are "turned around."

Not surprisingly, this approach does not have a record of success. In Chicago, Mr. Duncan closed down 61 schools with low test scores, but followup research that tracked the students from these schools showed they did no better as a result.

Many educators have called for more flexible approaches to these challenges. Congresswoman Judy Chu's proposal was introduced last summer, and called for more supports for these schools, rather than the punitive approach now in place. More recently, the Forum on Educational Accountability has offered a detailed response to the administration's proposal.

Just as with our schoolyard bullies, the correct response to bullying behavior is for the victims to stand up and refuse to be intimidated. Teachers, parents and students at these schools should stand together and reject the false labels that reduce school quality to a set of standardized test scores. That does NOT mean we should be satisfied with low student abilities as revealed by these tests. But we do not get anywhere by the tactics of name-calling, labeling and arbitrary firings that are the hallmark of NCLB. Furthermore, if Secretary Duncan is successful in revising the law so that it lets 80% to 90% of our schools off the hook, the response for those of us at those schools should NOT be "Whew, glad that's not me any more!" It should be "Wow. I remember how awful and useless that label felt."

Just as our children should stand with the victims of the schoolyard bully, parents and teachers at schools that escape the "failing" label should stand with those left behind, those fat kids with big ears, the schools with the vast majority of their children living in poverty.

We will have a chance to show our support for one another, and stand up to the bullying tactics of No Child Left Behind this July, at the Save Our Schools March and National Call to Action.

What do you think? Is No Child Left Behind responsible for bullying high-poverty schools? Will it be improved if we only label the bottom 5% of schools as failures?

Posted by Anthony Cody at 3:15 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

The Parent Teacher Association in the state of Washington has issued their list of legislative priorities for the coming year, including these two:

4. Teacher Reduction in Force Policies: expand school district teacher "reduction in force" policies to include factors other than seniority, such as teacher effectiveness and cohesiveness of school teams.

6. New Model for Teacher Compensation: lead to a new research-based teacher compensation model that emphasizes rewarding teacher effectiveness in improving student learning

A colleague there asked how we might respond to these ideas. My thoughts:

We are at a place where fear has driven us to mistrust the teachers in our schools. We have been told a false story about our nation's teachers -- that large numbers are incompetent, "bad," and hiding in plain sight. And these "bad teachers" are responsible for our lackluster performance compared to other nations. First, debunk this. Our schools do a decent job -- schools where fewer than 10% of the students live in poverty score with the top nations in the world -- which, not coincidentally, have child poverty rates of less than 5%. Please take a look at Richard Rothstein's recent article here. The education "crisis" is truly a crisis of poverty, because we are in a nation where one child in four is living below the poverty line, and in many schools, that number is closer to 100%. If you want to understand how poverty affects educational outcomes, please read here.

Second, let's look at the supposed cure for this. We are supposed to uncover these "bad teachers" by using data drawn from one or two sets of tests given once a year. Evaluations of teacher effectiveness based on student learning sound great. And it *could* be great, if it was based on a reflective process that encouraged teachers to collect authentic reflections of student learning, and work with one another and their supervisor to see how students are learning, similar to the National Board certification process. However, that is not what this phrase actually means these days. Instead, it means that scores from a single set of standardized tests taken last spring are compared to the scores from tests taken the following spring, and the teacher is to be evaluated based on whether the students in her class matched the growth that might be expected. (Or in the newer models being developed, even more tests are given, with even more importance attached to the results.)

You are speaking with parents. Do you believe that the scores you get from these tests are an adequate representation of your child's skills, abilities and interests? Are these scores what you want your child's teacher to spend the year focusing on? What happens to instruction when we make these tests ever more consequential for our teachers and students? We know very well, because we have seen it over the past decade. More and more teaching to the test. Less time for activities that the students love, like art, science, history, physical education, music, and more time spent preparing for tests. And if your child happens to attend a school that has high poverty, these pressures are increased tenfold.

If you want to replace seniority with some system by which teachers are ranked according to their effectiveness, think about what that means. Every year there will be a different ranking, based on the latest test score data. Our experience with these Value Added models is that some 20% of teachers in the top level one year wind up in the bottom level the next year. Would you want to stake your job security or pay on such a set of measures? Did you see the article in last week's New York Times about the outstanding teacher who found herself rated in the bottom 7th percentile based on these models? And the latest research shows that programs that pay teachers more for test scores have zero effect -- even on raising test scores!

The real challenge we face is how to build effectiveness, not how to ferret out bad teachers. Schools can be places where teachers, just like students, can be nurtured and grow in their capacity to teach. But we need to understand that we want learning in many dimensions beyond the annual tests. We want teachers able to encourage all styles of learning. We want teachers who can spot the curiosity in our children and feed it with experiences that excite and engage them. At its best, this is a spontaneous, organic process, that builds on the interests and events that present themselves. Teachers who are able to do this are the most effective, and the school should be organized so that all teachers can learn to be this way. This does not mean they do not attend to academic basics. It means those basics are organized around the interests and curiosities of the children themselves, rather than a prepared script or even a textbook (though textbooks may be useful at times).

We want teachers engaged in processes that build their effectiveness. The best processes bring teachers together to reflect on authentic student work, or to observe students learning. Things like Lesson Study, or the National Board's Take One! process. I have heard from so many teachers who find their time being occupied by endless meetings where they pore over test data, as if looking at graphs and percentiles helps us understand what is going on in the mind of a child. This data may occasionally be useful in revealing patterns or deficiencies in our instruction, but its value has been greatly inflated in the false economy we have created. Great teaching is all about understanding our children and helping them to engage in learning new things. It is about giving them meaningful, timely feedback and helping them to improve.

What does this have to do with seniority? On the surface, nothing. Below the surface, everything. A basic premise is that teaching is complex work that takes at least three or four years of experience to begin to achieve mastery. Teachers gain in their effectiveness for at least their first ten years, and under the right conditions, throughout their career. I know I was still learning in my tenth year, and in my 12th year, when I went for National Board certification, I learned a tremendous amount. What does it take to get people to invest these years in a professional career? Especially if we ask them to take on the challenge of working in our many schools with high levels of poverty? It takes some level of confidence that their growth will be supported, that the rich work they do will be honored and not reduced to a test score. And it takes some degree of job security. Why would I choose to work in a high poverty school if I thought my chances would be one in five that my students' test scores might drop one year and I could find myself labeled a "bad teacher" and laid off? We do need to have better ways to evaluate teachers, that offer more feedback and opportunities for growth. But trying to turn this into a test-score data-driven process is going to lead us further down the dead end we have been following for the past decade.

Our high poverty schools already suffer from high levels of teacher turnover and burnout. Many schools in Oakland start each year with as many as half of their staff being brand new. This makes it very hard to build a culture of collaboration and growth. What these schools need most is stability and investment in the children and the adults working with them. We will not drive improvement by intensifying the climate of fear that already plagues these schools. These schools already spend far too much time focused on test preparation, sacrificing the aspects of school most likely to engage and enliven their students. We have ridden the NCLB train far too long, and it has taken us to an ugly place. Now is the time to change the scene, not make it even uglier by attaching even more consequences to test scores.

What do you think? Should we replace existing pay and seniority systems with new ones based on rankings of effectiveness based on test scores?

Posted by Anthony Cody at 1:54 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

by Anthony Colucci

The recent onslaught of teacher bashing is a relief to me. It validates my belief that proclaiming the importance of education and the value of educators has always been just a bunch of lip service. Turn on most cable "news" programs, read the bold but cowardly anonymous blog comments, or listen to your neighbors. You'll quickly realize that the niceties are gone, and the truth is no longer hiding. Too many Americans don't value education and think teachers are no more than lazy buffoons. I, for one, am over it! However, I fully understand that our current thrashing was caused by our very instinct to teach instead of to act.

We masterfully get the most troubled students to perform, so we are dumbfounded when we can't get adults to comprehend what we're saying. We must realize that many in America are no longer students; they gave up learning a long time ago. Take a look at Governor Walker who refuses to listen to an opposing viewpoint because it might cause him to change his mind. There is no convincing many Americans that we are grossly underpaid, standardized testing is destructive, poverty lies at the heart of the education "crisis," drastically slashing education funding is short-sighted thinking, and merit pay is an impending disaster. So what do we do?

I am taking a lesson from educator and perhaps the greatest unsung hero of the civil rights movement, Harry T. Moore. Even in Brevard County, Florida, the home of Moore, many residents know little about him. For the past several years, I have served as a member of the Harry T. & Harriette V. Moore Cultural Complex Education Committee. I had the privilege of learning about Moore's life from his now elderly daughter, a few of his students, and handful of dedicated individuals who fight to preserve his legacy. Over sixty years after his death, Moore continues to teach. I learned countless lessons about character. His drive, passion, unwavering commitment to a just cause, and courage is nothing less than awe-inspiring. In addition, Moore's work showed me the impact that an individual can have and what it takes to create change in America.

Moore was a man of action and organization, not of thundering speeches. Perhaps this is the reason why his enormous accomplishments get little attention. Nearly two decades before Dr. King was leading the Montgomery Bus Boycott, Moore was risking his life and limb fighting injustice. In 1934, Moore took the courageous step of forming the Brevard County Chapter of the NAACP. Later, he became the state secretary and worked to increase membership to over 10,000. In 1937, Moore was outraged by the inequality in teacher pay that he and fellow African Americans were forced to endure. Did Moore waste his time trying to change public opinion? Of course, he didn't. Moore filed a lawsuit to try to correct the inequality, which led to his wife and himself losing their teaching jobs. Moore realized that African Americans would not change their lot by trying to convince ardent racists that their positions were wrong. Instead, he acted. Moore organized the Progressive Voters' League. Moore's daughter, Evangeline, still speaks of how Moore and his family traversed the state in the family car in an effort to get African Americans registered to vote. Truly bold actions to take in a state abound with KKK members. By 1950, 31% of African Americans in Florida were registered; this was 51% higher than in any other southern state. Moore did not stop there. He investigated corruption, police brutality cases, and every time an African American was lynched. Moore and his wife paid the ultimate price for his actions when a bomb exploded under their home on Christmas night 1951, which also marked their wedding anniversary.

The Moore's murders have never been officially solved; however, a great deal of evidence points to KKK members. In 2006, there was a startling discovery 900 yards from his house. Moore's briefcase and all its contents were found in a neighbor's barn. Rather than shedding light on the investigation, its contents shed light on Moore's work. In the briefcase were countless letters written to politicians asking them to outline their position on civil rights. From their responses or lack of, Moore was able to guide African Americans in their voting. African Americans in Florida voted as a block, and politicians knew it.

Teachers, let's stop trying to convince the masses of what we hold to be true. Let's follow Moore's example of acting and organizing. Let the politicians see our strength at the Save Our Schools March in Washington D.C. this July and other events leading up to it. Through these means we can send those who belittle education a message. We will not vote republican or democrat. Educators will be at the polls next election voting for the candidate who holds education to be a sacred responsibility!!

Anthony S. Colucci, a National Board Certified Teacher, coordinates and teaches the gifted-student program at four elementary schools in Central Florida. He is the author of Copilots, Duties & Pina Coladas: How to Be a Great Teacher, and has earned numerous awards for his innovative and creative lessons.

What do you think of Anthony Colucci's advice? Should we focus more on getting organized?

Posted by Anthony Cody at 9:52 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

President Obama this week proved his point. Education is not a partisan issue. Both Democrats and Republicans are pushing terrible ideas. In order to endanger the great institution of public education in America, it has taken the combined efforts of both parties. And in order to save it, teachers, parents and students will need to stand up to leaders of both parties.

Barack Obama was recently in Florida, where he shared the stage with former governor Jeb Bush. President Obama said,

We are also honored to be joined here today by another champion of education reform, somebody who championed reform when he was in office, somebody who is now championing reform as a private citizen -- Jeb Bush...The truth is I've gotten to know Jeb because his family exemplifies public service. And we are so grateful to him for the work that he's doing on behalf of education. So, thank you, Jeb.

President Obama immediately got some flack for this. Jennie Smith, the one teacher on the Educator's Roundtable that followed, expressed her views:

I expressed to the President how I (and so many like me) felt about this apparent collaboration with the Bush privatization agenda. I told him directly that I and so many other teachers were very disappointed to see him on stage with Jeb Bush, considering the assault on public education he has led in this state and how his foundation has continuously tried to eliminate our contracts and our collective bargaining

President Obama's response? Jennie Smith summarized:

Education should not be a partisan issue, and we must work together in a bipartisan fashion to enact reform. He said that he was aware of the decertification issues for our unions and that he did not support that, but that we had to be willing to compromise in the interest of improving education for our children, and that teachers had to be willing to be held accountable. He said that instead of fighting reform, we should get in front of it and lead it. He also said there was a difference between Rick Scott and Jeb Bush, and that it was important to distinguish.

In her commentary Jennie Smith does an excellent job explaining exactly what Jeb Bush has done for education in the great state of Florida - remember the fight over Senate Bill 6 last spring? This law would have required pay and evaluations to be tied to test scores. As Smith brilliantly explains:

Everything about their pet legislation discourages qualified career teachers from working in the state of Florida, let alone in a struggling school. Even the most effective teacher recognizes the variability of test scores from year to year and class to class, and the unreliability of those measures. Statistic variations are such that a teacher who is rated "highly effective" one year could be rated "ineffective" the next simply from having a different group of students sitting in front of her.

But I noticed something else in the President's comments. He also said:

You know, I was reading the other day an article -- this is just a couple days ago -- in The New York Times about how teachers were just feeling beat up, just not feeling as if folks understood how much work went into teaching and how dedicated they were to the success of their students. And so I want to be very clear here. We are proud of what you guys do each and every day. We are proud of what you do each and every day. We need to honor teachers. Countries that are successful right now academically, typically teachers are considered one of the top professions.

I was quoted in that New York Times article. What I said was this:

"What we need in these schools is stability," said Mr. Cody, 52, who writes a blog about teaching. "We need to convince people that if they invest their career in working with these challenging students, then we will reward them and appreciate them. We will not subject them to arbitrary humiliation in the newspaper. We will not require they be evaluated and paid based on test scores that often fluctuate greatly beyond the teacher's control."

President Obama needs to understand that we do not need the combination of fulsome praise and punitive policies that have been the trademark of Arne Duncan's Department of Education. It may impress members of the media and politicians, but at the end of the day, you cannot have it both ways. You cannot claim to be all about honoring our profession and schools, and then support policies that are in danger of destroying them.

My great appreciation goes to Jennie Smith for speaking truth so clearly. Every time our leaders meet teachers, I hope this is what they hear. This week we broke through the noise. With the help of Jon Stewart and Diane Ravitch, our views punctured the false consensus that has been portrayed about education reform.

President Obama is right about one thing. Education reform is not a partisan issue. Teachers have to stand up to Democrats and Republicans alike. And we will not be holding fundraisers or walking precincts for candidates of either party that pursue these destructive policies.

Florida teachers showed us last year how to fight this trend. They made a powerful alliance with parents, and put immense pressure on their political leaders to stop Senate Bill 6. They ultimately convinced Republican governor Charlie Crist to veto the bill. This year they have launched a campaign called Awake the State that is holding dozens of rallies across Florida to oppose the huge budget cuts that loom for schools and social services.

Teachers have been called a sleeping giant. The giant is stirring. President Obama hopes to soothe us back to sleep with his sweet words of praise. But we are experiencing the nightmarish policies that his administration is enabling across the country. When you have a nightmare, the thing to do is WAKE UP. Stand up. And so we will. Find out how you can get involved - teachers, parents, students - we all need to stand together. We are marching next July 30, at the Save Our Schools March and National Call to Action.

What do you think? Are both Democrats and Republicans on the wrong track with education reform?

Posted by Anthony Cody at 11:10 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

A few weeks ago it was my privilege to share a letter from Peggy Robertson, Are you There Mr. President? Madison is Calling. This letter went viral - it was read by thousands and was widely shared on Facebook and Twitter. The author has now launched a new blog, Peg With Pen, and shares with us her first post there.

by Peggy Robertson
I have watched Madison, Wisconsin, day and night, over the last two weeks. I naively wrote a letter to President Obama hoping that he might hear me. I know words are powerful. Diane Ravitch used hers to keep Waiting for Superman from getting an Oscar. I listen to the voices of the protesters singing and chanting in Madison, Wisconsin via this site, since mainstream media has blocked the majority of all information the American people should be hearing. The words of the protesters in Madison are so filled with passion and power that they bring me to tears on a daily basis. They share powerful messages. And afterwards, I want to spit nails when I find that so few Americans heard their voices. Where are you CNN? NBC? CBS? You are pathetic. Disgraceful. In addition, without cable, where one might hear the true story on MSNBC, the internet is essential to knowing any truths. Every morning I jump up with my coffee and head to the internet and hope...did their voices make a difference? Was the true story shared? Did Obama react? Did Walker finally negotiate? Still, silence. Or untrue stories of greedy and slovenly people destroying the marble floors of the palace.

I wonder about the children living in poverty in America, over 22% of them to be exact - and I wonder - do their parents, if they have any, know what's going on in Madison? Many of those families have no internet, cable or even libraries where they might use the internet. This is a fight for survival, and I sit, incredulous, angry, as I watch the world go on around me as though nothing were wrong. If we all really knew what truly was going on, well then, what might happen? If ALL parents really knew that their child might have a teacher with no teaching degree, and an administrator with no teaching experience and a superintendent whose background was in the military, in a class size of sixty, would they care? Would they care if they knew that their child would be tested more and their school might be closed? Would they care if they knew the federal and state governments were quietly taking away services for the children, the poor and the needy? Would they care if they knew that the voices of the American people were being silenced? I believe they would care. I see the nervous beads of sweat pour from the faces of the wealthy as they consider this idea. Yes, dear noblemen, you are most definitely outnumbered; a fact that I relish.

Yet our leaders continue to follow the lead of the wealthy. Obama is in Florida this week schmoozing with Jeb Bush and promoting his ludicrous education agenda. Another disgrace. My heart is with those teachers. I am truly embarrassed by our President. Gates addresses our governors at a conference this past week and they all nod and smile at his uneducated findings.

Call me crazy, but I thought America was the land of the free. I know it's the home of the brave. I see them in Wisconsin. I thought Obama was a man of his word. Remember 2007? You said you would stand with the union workers if their collective bargaining rights were attacked? I am shocked that so many of us in the middle class do not see the destruction of the middle class in progress. We must win this fight in Madison, Wisconsin. If we do not, I fear the worst. I still have hope, but I watch the Pied Piper leading so many Americans astray as they listen to mainstream media and join the witch hunt for the bad teachers. I feel the rise of the Lord of the Flies and the devilish depths found in Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness as I read about the gluttony found in the paychecks of our public workers. I watch the royalty smile silently as they see us turn on one another.

Who are these Americans who spit on those who teach their children, take care of their sick and protect their cities? Who has led you astray? Sadly, I know they are around me.

I listen to the crazy ramblings about teachers and their sky rocketing salaries and their three months off a year. Do you really believe that teachers sit on their laurels for three months each year? First, it is not three months. And second, most teachers are in school, inservice, second jobs or simply preparing for the next year during the summer. As for myself, I believe I had one summer in fifteen years of teaching in which I was home without a second job or in school. And during this time I was caring for my son, rather than placing him in an expensive daycare. And of course, we are indulgent if we get to stay home with our children in this country.

Call me crazy, but I would have expected the media to step up by now. The silence has gone on too long. Who is purring in your ear and stroking your ego? Have you been promised the Queen's child in return for your silence? The gold is overflowing for the wealthy and the public workers are asking if they can keep their voice. They will not be silenced.

And goodness, dear mainstream media, you have a wealth of stories at hand. Who has caused you to stay in your seat when you must want to jump up and tell these delicious tales of good and evil? There is the story of the congressmen who pushed their desks out the windows of the palace, in order to meet with their constituents, simply in a desire to hear the voices of the American people who were barred from entering the palace gates. Did you hear the story of the Republicans walking in the dark, damp tunnels underground, as they flee the palace with their tails between their legs, while the people are heard drumming and chanting into the night? Did you miss the story about the King? It is especially full of intrigue and deceit. He fled the palace on a horse paid for by the wealthy noblemen, and he now travels the country trying to enforce his law. What about the lovely story of the patrons at the restaurant who booed King Walker out the door? That one may be my favorite as I flip through the pages of the story book. I think I like it because it has a happy ending. I'm like a child who says, read that part again. I want to hear good prevail as the King rushes out the door as the chanting and booing grows louder, ending with the final sound of the King's horse galloping away to a distant land to live alone in misery. There are so many more tales. Stories of a congressman tackled by guards as he attempts to enter the palace. The tale of how the palace was fortified with fences, cement barricades and bolted windows, while the common man slept on the palace steps in the cold of the night. The tale of the King being met by a man in disguise who tricks the King into revealing his deepest and darkest secrets. And, there are the thousands of stories of beautiful people singing This Land Is Our Land as they sit on a hard marble floor, representing the American people and our dreams. Their stories are the stories that I want to hear.

Call me crazy, but I would have thought you had enough smarts about you to realize that the story of Madison, Wisconsin beats Charlie Sheen any day. Which noblemen are lining your pockets in return for your silence?

Here I sit, watching the clock tick, waiting ever so patiently, for the American people to realize they've been had. And, sadly, a new character has appeared in my book. The green monster. So many have fallen under his spell as he spreads lies about the greed of the public workers. Fellow neighbors throw stones. They kick the workers while they are down. And the king smiles on his people. The workers, stand up, brush themselves off, and sing again. The workers grow in numbers. The king is nervous. My story book has no ending yet. Mainstream media, if you would tell them the truth, amazing things would happen.

I am waiting, ever so patiently, for the true story to be on the six o'clock news. Everywhere. With honesty. Integrity. And with heart. I am waiting for a happy ending. The American Dream stays strong in the hearts of the protesters chanting across our country, like a tree that falls in the forest with no one around. How much louder the chanting would be, if only everyone knew the tree was ever so close to home.

Peggy Robertson taught kindergarten, first, second, fourth, fifth and sixth grade, beginning her career in Missouri and continuing in Kansas, for a total of ten years. She was hired by Richard C. Owen Publishers in 2001 to serve as a Learning Network Coordinator and spent the next three years training teacher leaders and administrators in educational theory and practice in the state of Colorado, as well as around the country during the summer months. In 2004 she was hired as the Literacy Coordinator by the Adams 50 School District in Westminster, Colorado. While working in Adams 50 she mentored teachers and administrators and supported them in the writing and implementation of school development plans. Her new blog is Peg with Pen.

Photograph by Rochelle Gordon, used with permission.

What do you think? Has the media missed the story? Can we break through the silence?

Posted by Anthony Cody at 3:16 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Today I offer the reflections of veteran teacher David Greene, who shares with us a story of the teacher in his life who made all the difference for him.

All I ever needed to learn I learned, not in kindergarten, but in second grade. Truth be told, I don't remember much of kindergarten and first grade except nap time, blocks, being scolded for not wanting to nap, and having my mother told that I needed "testing". I never sure what Mrs. Bunned Witch meant by that. I think she meant psychological. It was before ADD was the easy answer. I prefer that she meant gifted and talented. Turns out it was probably both.

Due to circumstances beyond my control, up to the age of 5 I had no idea of what school I was to attend. Pre-school was nice enough. I loved Gene, my one armed driver. Seriously, he only had one arm and smoked like a chimney. I shudder to think what would be thought of him now. "That pervert can't work in a preschool." But back in the early 1950's it was ok, he was related to the boss, I went to kindergarten in PS 96, the Bronx. It was in the nice, mostly Jewish (at the time) Pelham Parkway area. I wasn't there long. My mom and I had to move out of our nice digs to my grandmother's place in the south Bronx. I didn't know then that we were evicted for lack of rent. Dad was not very forthcoming with the monthly child support and alimony payments and mom's job in the garment district as a former model turned Gal Friday paid her slave wages. She had no union. So, like little red riding hood, it was off to grandmother's (Mom's mom) I went, and PS 61, on Boston Road to finish kindergarten. You might know grandma's place. President Jimmy Carter visited the area. She lived on Minford Place and Charlotte Street.

Somehow we were able to move to our own place a few blocks away on Longfellow Ave. and 172nd street, a block from my new scholastic home, PS 66. It was there that I endured Mrs. B.W. in class 1-3. I have one class picture of me in a cowboy outfit. It must have been Halloween. I was smiling. Like I said, I don't remember much of 1st grade. Actually, I don't remember much of 3rd, 4th, or 6th grades either. I skipped 5th grade. I guess I really was gifted. I only remember 6th grade because of my most embarrassing moment in school. You know the one when you want to hide, not only under the screwed to the floor desks, but under the floor they were screwed into. Mrs. Blank (I have a mental block that prevents me from remembering her actual name.) was going over some spelling list I was not particularly interested in. Actually after 2nd grade, there wasn't much in school I was interested in except playing ball in the schoolyard. My second grade teacher spoiled me.

Anyway, Ms. 6th grade witch was giving each person in the room a word to spell and pronounce. After realizing there were enough words to reach me in my seat in the last row, I figured out which word I was going to have to spell and pronounce. "Oh s--t." I thought, "I have no idea how to pronounce it. a.w.k.w.a.r.d. What the freak kind of word is that?" I had never seen it, heard it spoken, let alone know its meaning. Pretty ironic, huh? "Hmm, is it owkword? Awwwkwaaard?" "Oh no, and now she says, "David, please do word number 26", or whatever number it was. I fumbled for the right pronunciation, screwed it up, spelled it, then as we all had to do back then, say it again.... incorrectly, while listening to the chuckles of my classmates and Mrs. Blank telling me to try again. As a result this experience would never be forgotten. It was a moment that probably led me to teaching, although I didn't realize it back then.

PS 66 was in the part of the Bronx that was changing rapidly. It was a place where white (mostly Jewish) flight had already started. It was a well "integrated" school with fewer and fewer white students annually. It was a rainbow school. Black, Puerto Rican and some white kids just played together and went to classes together. We didn't know anything else. We were all the same to each other, although I do remember my Mom saying that all people deserve equal rights but that I couldn't bring a "colored" into the house. I believed the first statement and I was forced to follow the second.

That takes me back to 2nd grade. Miss Stafford was our teacher. She must have been the ripe old age of 23. We had no idea. We were 7. In 1956 and 1957 she was ancient. She was also incredible. When she passed away in 2009 several of us from her 2nd grade class were at her memorial service. This is who she was to the world.

Dr. Rita Dunn, professor at St. John's University for nearly 40 years, died August 1 at her home in Pound Ridge after a short but valiant struggle with breast cancer. Dr. Rita Dunn, an authority on learning styles, a professor in the Division of Administrative and Instructional Leadership and the director of the Center for the Study of Learning and Teaching Styles became an inspiring, internationally renowned professor of higher education; prolific author of 32 textbooks and more than 450 manuscripts and research papers; the recipient of 31 professional research awards, and expert on using individual learning styles to improve teaching. During her career at St. Johns, Dr. Dunn mentored more than 160 doctoral students, many of whom now occupy positions of leadership throughout the world.

In 1995, Dr. Dunn received St. John's University's highly competitive first Award for Excellence in Graduate Teaching. She and her doctoral students have been involved in 37 years of prize-winning research. Researchers at more than 130 institutions of higher education have participated in international research on the Dunn and Dunn Model and have published more than 830 studies...

Rita was a woman who possessed unusual intellectual abilities. Along with her manifold personal qualities she had a powerful analytical intelligence. Her devotion to education was unparalleled."

We had no idea who she was going to become. At the time, neither did she. Little did we know as 7 year olds entering Rita Stafford's class 2-1 in PS 66, Bx. in September of 1956, that we were to become the happy guinea pigs for a life dedicated to helping children with all kinds of "personalities", as we called it then.

People marvel when they are told of what Rita did for us. They marvel at our advanced work. They marvel at our activities. They marvel at our reunions every Christmas time for 12 years, and at our last reunion, eight years ago this month. [44 years after our second grade class]

I can't count the number of times I have told students and teaching colleagues how we learned about the solar system by building one and hanging it from the ceiling; or about civil rights by writing letters to President Eisenhower. (We even received a reply and were quoted in the New York Times.)

She inspired me to become a teacher. Those activities were the seeds of every "outrageous" activity I ever cooked up for use in my classrooms. The more I look back on my body of teaching and work, the more I see how indebted I am to her. I used a variety of styles because I knew, not intrinsically, but because I experienced it in her second grade classroom, that they were necessary to reach more kids.

Over the past dozen years or so I have become increasingly interested in the rise of the number of underachieving boys in our society. The more I read about the subject the more I realize that she was right on the money those 53 years ago. Both directly as a teacher, and indirectly, through her research and training sessions, she saved countless students from failure. I know she saved me.

Over the years, I have never stopped talking about her. In addition to students and teachers, I have spoken about her to several colleagues involved in this latest endeavor. I have told the Teach For America teachers I mentor in the Bronx about her. She is their model.

I will continue to tell everyone I know about her. She was my hero. My work shall forever be in her honor and name.

I am the seed she planted in my head. She proved to me that in any one year, any one teacher could make a difference to any one student. The great ones do it for so many more. What will we do now to make more great ones like Rita Stafford Dunn?

Mr. Greene has been referenced by Christina Hoff Sommers, in her book, The War against Boys. He has given talks on the issues of boys in schools in Scarsdale and for Dominican College. He assisted in the organization of The Foundation For Male Studies' Second Annual Conference On Male Studies: Looking Forward to Solutions. He has had work published in Ed Week on line and has also been referenced by Valerie Strauss in her Washington Post web based column, The Answer Sheet. Finally, he is a regular contributor to The Teachers Talk Back Blog and is also currently working on a book tentatively titled, So You Think You Know Education? A Teacher's Perspective.

What teachers planted seeds in YOUR head? How have they grown?

Posted by Anthony Cody at 7:16 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Dear Mr. Gates,

I am writing to you because you have been getting a great deal of attention for your ideas about education, and from my perspective here on the ground in an impoverished urban district, I think you might be making some mistakes.

I read your recent commentary in the Washington Post (How Teacher Development Could Revolutionize Our Schools), and reports from your presentation to governors, where you advised them to raise class sizes in the rooms of the most effective teachers.

In your comments to the governors, you said "there are too many areas where the system fails. The place where you really see the inequity is the inner city. "

You presumably are hoping to redress this inequity when you make this proposal:

What should policymakers do? One approach is to get more students in front of top teachers by identifying the top 25 percent of teachers and asking them to take on four or five more students. Part of the savings could then be used to give the top teachers a raise.

I am glad you are aware of the inequities. But your suggestion that caps on class sizes be lifted does not suggest to me that you actually have much understanding of the nature of these inequities. First of all, do you actually believe that in the short time frame in which these governors are trying to balance their budgets, they are going to magically revamp their teacher evaluation systems so as to not only identify the best teachers, but also make sure that ONLY the best teachers have class size increases?

What is actually happening is that, partly buoyed by your suggestion that class sizes should not matter, there are going to be wholesale increases in class size across the board, for every teacher, at every grade level. In Oakland, principals have been told to prepare for cuts ranging from $300 to $900 per student. The only way to achieve such savings will be to lay off teachers and significantly boost class size. And there is no mechanism that can be put in place to reliably identify the top 25% of our teachers, no money to pay them extra for taking on these students, and if the class size increases were only limited to a fourth of the teachers, the savings this would provide would be inadequate. *(see update below)

In point of fact, the teacher turnover rate is one of the biggest problems we face in Oakland's schools. This instability makes it difficult to build the kind of caring, collaborative, reflective community that allows us to improve as professionals. This turnover is not a function of our teacher evaluation system. While improving our evaluation system is worth doing, it will not fix this problem. Getting rid of ineffective teachers is not the key. The key is keeping the good ones and helping them become better. A good evaluation system is part of this, but it is much more than this. We need to pay attention to the working conditions, and make sure teachers are well-supported.

One of the most important working conditions, especially in high poverty schools, is small class size. As a middle school teacher, my student load was capped at 160 a day. That meant about 32 students in each of my five classes. Just imagine 160 papers to grade every day, and you get a picture. It is not uncommon for teachers to spend half of their weekends grading papers. The quality of the attention we can give our students is diluted every time you add to that number. And if you are in a high poverty school, the chances are pretty much 100% that in every class you will have students who are currently experiencing traumatic events in their lives. I am talking about domestic and neighborhood violence, homelessness, eviction, parents incarcerated. As this report indicates, as many as a third of students in our tough neighborhoods suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. These problems all seep into the classroom, sometimes overtly, and sometimes through acting out behaviors. And larger class sizes make these behaviors even more difficult to handle.

This is not just my opinion. There is a large body of research that supports a strong link between class size and student achievement. And I would be very surprised if the private schools your children attend have large class sizes. On average, private schools attended by the children of the wealthy have class sizes roughly half those in neighboring public schools.

As class sizes increase across the board, as they are likely to do, we are going to see turnover rates rise among teachers. I serve as a mentor for beginning science teachers, and have built a program to try to support and retain them in Oakland. Sadly, more than half of my own mentees are leaving this year, after working only two or three years as teachers. If you ask them why, they will tell you, that the stress and challenge of the job is simply overwhelming. All of them are promising, bright young teachers. They all have huge gifts to offer their students. But the challenges they face leave them feeling defeated. Increasing their class size will only make this worse.

You are one of the wealthiest men in our nation. Do you see the challenges our poor communities face due to inadequate resources? Are you aware that the top one percent of our people have more than a third of the net worth of our nation? And they keep getting more and more tax breaks? The best thing you could do for schools would be to launch a campaign aimed at getting wealthy corporations and individuals to pay their fair share of taxes, so that the public schools, which rely on tax dollars, are not primarily funded by the middle class, which is hurting so badly now.

Update: I was thinking about the math involved in Mr. Gates' proposal. Let's take a school staffed by 40 teachers. You identify 25% as the "best," and give these ten teachers four students more each. That means you have served an extra 40 students, allowing you to reduce your staff by ONE teacher. That saves you approximately $75,000 a year, in salary and benefits. But according to this proposal we need to pay these teachers more, so if we pay them say $5,000 each, we have an expense of $50,000. So our net savings is $25,000. This is a drop in the proverbial bucket compared to the cuts our schools are facing. Please check your math, Mr. Gates.

What do you think? What would you like to say to Mr. Gates?

Posted by Anthony Cody at 11:29 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend