May 2011 Archives

I offer here a short list of seven things that have become obvious, from my position as a teacher. If only our education policies might be constrained by the requirement that they honor the obvious!

1. Children do not learn well when they are under stress. This single fact is enough to explain so many things. If we were to design an ideal learning environment, there would be great attention paid to relieving all involved of unnecessary tension. A recent study found that first grade students in classrooms affected by budget cuts suffer because of the stress their teacher experiences in trying to meet their needs. Children who live in poverty experience stress at home due to insecurity around food, housing, and violence in their neighborhoods and homes. The very least we should do to address their needs is to make their schools a refuge from stress.

2. Tests, and high stakes attached to them, are very poor levers for increasing learning. We have exit exams that have reduced graduation rates, especially for minority students, but failed to increase real learning.

This study from the National Academy of Sciences found that when there are high stakes attached to tests, the scores on those tests tend to rise, but real learning, as measured on low stakes tests, has not increased. When you make people's jobs and pay depend on those scores, they will figure out how to get the scores up. But the underlying learning is going to suffer, as instruction is narrowly focused on preparing for the tests.

3. It takes time to learn to be an excellent teacher. Therefore it is unwise to invest large amounts of resources in programs that target young college graduates and ask them for a short, two-year-long commitment. We need to make the teaching profession a solid one, with opportunities for growth, that attracts bright people who want to stay and build their careers. Our high-needs schools especially need such expert teachers, and are suffering due to high turnover. The answer to this turnover is not more poorly-trained interns to fill the empty classrooms. It should be careful investment in programs to improve conditions, increase collaboration and build stability.

4. Programs like the Quality Education Investment Act (QEIA) in California, that deliver smaller class sizes and time for teachers to collaborate together and do work like this, yield much stronger results. Programs like this require us to invest time, money and trust in our teachers and students. But teachers who engage in this work feel empowered, and I believe this is the best possible antidote to stress.

5. When unemployment levels are high, and opportunities are few, students struggle to see the purpose in their education. I do not have a study for this one. Just my own observations after working in the Oakland schools for the past 24 years. Students are profoundly affected by the economic and social environment in which they live. There need to be visible, viable pathways to successful careers in order to keep students motivated and on track. There is a strong connection between the opportunities our students will find when they graduate and their level of engagement and motivation while they are in school. Teachers struggle to motivate their students when they are surrounded by communities that have been left to rot. We need to uplift our schools and our communities together. No school is an island.


6. The people in charge of education policy in this country are dangerously out of touch with these obvious things. We have policies that increase stress on students and teachers by raising class sizes and pressures to perform on tests. We are planning to expand our investments in testing and data systems at the same time we decrease funding for classrooms. School performance is treated as a phenomenon in isolation from the economic and social conditions that surround our students, and schools are expected to compensate for the economic decline these communities have endured.

7. The teachers, parents and students will need to take a visible, public stand to turn education policy in a better direction. We are gathering together in Washington, DC, for the free Save Our Schools march and rally on July 30th. There will be a conference on the two days preceding as well, and registration is now open.

What do you think? What else should be obvious regarding our schools?

Posted by Anthony Cody at 2:27 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Last month I wrote about the Oakland Teachers Convention, which was convened by the Oakland Effective Teaching Task Force, of which I was a member.

One of the most powerful messages to emerge from this dynamic event was that teachers desire time and support for collaboration centered on their teaching practice. They also want to build on what is already working in the District, rather than bringing in costly consultants from elsewhere. Last week I attended an event at an East Oakland elementary school where nine teachers, who had engaged in teacher action research this year, shared their insights. This work, organized and supported by the Mills Teacher Scholars, based at the Mills College School of Education in Oakland, is a good example of the sort of teacher collaboration that improves outcomes for children, and strengthens teacher expertise. I asked program leaders if they would share a description of their work.

By Dr. Anna Richert, Claire Bove and Carrie Wilson

Recently two groups of Mills teacher scholars showcased their new understandings to their staff at New Highland Academy in Oakland Unified School District and at Roosevelt Elementary in San Leandro Unified. Teachers in both settings identified questions about their students' learning and their own teaching practice to help them better address their diverse students' learning needs. The process supported the teacher scholars to develop ways to "make their students' learning visible," which gave them a window into their students' thinking.

Aija Simmons, a fourth grade New Highland Academy teacher explained at the outset of her project, "What I'm trying to figure out is: 'what's happening in a child's head?'" Working with the Mills Teacher Scholars, Aija and her school colleagues met monthly in cross-grade level teams at New Highland Academy, a QEIA school (Quality Education and Investment Act) in the East Oakland flatlands. Each teacher selected a small group of focal students to focus his or her investigation. They systematically collected "real time," everyday classroom data that they then analyzed with colleagues. The methodology allowed them to witness change over time.

The teachers reported that slowly and carefully over the academic year they developed a deep understanding about what their student know and are able to do. Working across grade levels brought insight to the progression of the students' thinking not only over the year, but also across the grade span. Aija's study provides a good example of how the inquiry process works. Her research focused on helping students make their reading process visible through the use of clarifying strategies, which she documented as part of her study. Designed to help student build their comprehension she introduced a set of strategies for students to engage with the texts they were studying. Her goal was to understand if, and how, these clarifying strategies affected her focal students' ability to make sense of what they read. Throughout the process she monitored her students' learning by routinely collecting various forms of data in the form of student work. She also interviewed students to hear their stories about what they were learning. These data, which Aija was able to collect as a routine part of her teaching day, allowed her to see what her students were doing and learning--and what challenges they encountered along the way.

Before using this data-driven approach to her practice, Aija felt her understanding was random at best. She explained:

My analogy is that I'm throwing darts at a target trying to hit it but I have no idea where the target is. Because unless you help the student to figure out how to make their thinking visible to you, you just keep giving reading lessons aimlessly throwing these darts out hoping you meet the target. So this research is an attempt to figure out where the target is.

In presenting her work on May 18th to her colleagues at the New Highland Scholars presentations, Aija explained how routinely collecting and analyzing student learning data allowed her to teach with intention. "[This year] I was never trying to figure out 'what should I do for a reading workshop," she explained. "Every time I looked at a data set and looked at what was emerging I knew exactly what to do for what kids..."

After the presentation to the staff, Aija wrote up her study to share to share it with others who were not at the presentations. She concludes her write-up by describing her classroom as a place where reading comprehension is a shared norm and her teaching moves are based on a clear understanding of what students need to encounter next. In comparing her teaching now with her approach before her research she writes:

My reading classroom is alive with clarifying conversations between my whole class, small groups, and even individual readers. Students are developing identities as comprehenders and clarifiers of text. I am teaching more targeted and strategic reading lessons. We are developing into more powerful readers. I say we because as this process happened I was becoming more aware of my own reading identity. Do I think I have the solution to my troubles of teaching reading comprehension? Not exactly. What I do have is a way to communicate effectively with my students about what they were thinking about a text and how they came to their conclusions. What I do have is a community of readers who no longer leery of saying, 'wait lets use a strategy because, I'm not understanding.'

What I have is a reading space alive with possibility and students who are now saying to me, 'we need more lessons on this because when I read that story, I couldn't figure out this strategy.' We have a process where I can guide the skills needed to help student comprehend and no longer just say sorry but 'that's not the main idea.

Teachers like Aija and her teacher scholar colleagues who are provided the time, space and support for pursuing questions they have about what and how their students know, are better prepared to help those students become the powerful learners they are capable of being. The responsibility for teaching all children well is then located in the hands of those who have the best chance of making school "work" for the children they serve. Let us draw on them to frame their path to building their professional expertise. Our best hope for improving student learning outcomes for all students is to create opportunities for their teachers to pursue what they decide they need to know to do their important work. The Oakland teachers have spoken up. Let us make this moment of change a reality.

If you are interested in learning more about this work, you may attend a special presentation of inquiry findings on Tuesday, May 31, 2011, at the Mills College School of Education Building, room 101, 5-8pm (see details here: http://millsscholars.org/).

Anna Richert is a professor in the Education Department at Mills College, and Executive Director of the Mills Teacher Scholars. Clare Bove is a former science teacher, and the Associate Director of the Mills Teacher Scholars, and Carrie Wilson is also a former teacher, and the Associate Director of the program.

What do you think? Have you found action research of this sort to be a useful approach to improving your teaching?

Posted by Anthony Cody at 9:09 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

A New York Times article published on Saturday has uncovered some of the strategies billionaire Bill Gates is using to influence the future of education in America. Reporter Sam Dillon has dug beneath groups that appear to represent ordinary teachers or parents, and found that often, these groups are funded by the Gates Foundation. And the funding may have a great influence over what these groups wind up advocating. These groups look like grassroots advocates, but are termed Astroturf due to the compromises they make to sustain their funding.

As Diane Ravitch has so clearly described, the Gates Foundation has an agenda that aligns closely with the policies of Arne Duncan's Department of Education. The tenets of this agenda are familiar by now.

How does this operate in the real world? Just over a year ago, I wrote about a presentation I heard from a leader of the New Teacher Project. Their report, The Widget Effect, was cited by Arne Duncan in pushing for changes in the teacher evaluation system. They argued, as does Gates, that we will improve schools by focusing on test scores, and identifying and rewarding teachers who get their students to score well, and getting rid of those teachers who do poorly in this regard. This research was paid for by the Gates Foundation.

This research was woven into the guidelines for Race to the Top, which has in turn led to legislation across the country for pay for increased test scores, and the use of test scores in the evaluation process. It also means support for an ever-more sophisticated system of testing and data collection, so that ever more decisions can be built around this wealth of data. Thus the Gates Foundation has invested heavily in the Common Core Standards, and in systems of curriculum and assessment derived from them. Groups like the national PTA have taken money from Gates to support advocacy campaigns in favor of the Common Core.

So how do we mount an effective response? The best response to a phony grassroots campaign is to create a genuine one. Parents, teachers and students, and others who care about children, are doing just that. The Save Our Schools March is uniting parents and teachers in a true grassroots effort to bring attention to the need for sanity in education policy. We are connecting with others, like the educators that publish Rethinking Schools, and the advocates for sane testing at FairTest. There are teachers organizing to make sure their unions represent them well, and preserve their rights to collective bargaining and due process. There are groups like Parents Across America, and the work surrounding the documentary movie Race to Nowhere, which are engaging parents in thinking about how our schools are affecting their children.

Astroturf defenders attempt to create a false equivalence between the various efforts of the Gates Foundation, test publishers, and pro-charter profiteers on the one hand, and teacher unions on the other. According to this view, anyone who is associated with or supported by a union is just as corrupt as the corporate reformers. But this is a bogus charge, for several reasons. First of all, the resources of the unions are dwarfed by the might of the billionaire reformers, and the US government agency they currently control. Second, the unions are, unlike these corporations and foundations, membership organizations, with elected leadership that is responsive to its membership. The Gates Foundation is responsible to nobody outside of its sponsors. Lastly, union advocacy for teachers is closely connected to the interests of students as well. They fight for due process, decent class sizes and working conditions and time for teachers to collaborate - and these things all make our schools better.

Those of us organizing to respond face a challenge to our credibility as well. Rick Hess, whose institute got half a million dollars from Gates a couple of years ago "to influence the national education debates," said "Everybody's implicated." Not quite. Not all of us are on the Gates payroll, though it is tough to avoid any connection at all. I am affiliated with the Teacher Leaders Network, which is a project of the Center for Teaching Quality, which has received money from Gates in the past few years. But I take my independence seriously, and think it is crucial for advocates to avoid selling their souls for funding.

Last August I wrote about the various consortia working on assessments aligned with the Common Core Standards, and the opportunities being offered to teachers to help develop them.

As these opportunities proliferate, often with money attached, we need a real discussion among educators about the ethics of cashing in on phony reform efforts. What is the cost when teachers lend their names and expertise to such projects? Are we actually empowered enough to make a valuable difference in the assessments that are produced? Or are these projects doomed by the test-driven philosophy of their sponsor? Is a seat at the table an end in itself? What if our students and colleagues are on the menu?

I think we are beyond the poor choices offered us last year. Then our choice was to participate in a predetermined process and hope for some marginal influence, or boycott the process, preserving our integrity but unable to change the outcome. I think the movement of teachers, parents and students is starting to create a third alternative. It is possible that we can organize and influence the political sphere in which these decisions are made, and actually shift policies in a new direction. The foundation of this movement must be the authentic voices of classroom teachers, parents and students, unfiltered by billionaire sponsors. The moral authority of these voices comes from their direct connection to the issues at hand, and their independence from the corrupting influence of sponsored advocacy. And we will be heard when we come together in Washington, DC, on July 30th, at the Save Our Schools March.

What do you think? How can teachers, parents and students get our authentic voices heard?

images by Anthony Cody.

Posted by Anthony Cody at 1:46 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Parents may end up being the deciding force in determining the direction of our nation's schools. Will we continue to use an ever-larger share of instructional time and scarce dollars for more and more tests? Will we continue to starve local public schools and expand semi-private charter networks? Or will we reclaim the institution of public education for future generations? These short videos have been created to build awareness of the Save Our Schools March, coming up July 30th in Washington, DC.

Three months ago I shared some scripts for some video spots to build interest and awareness for the Save Our Schools March in Washington, DC, this summer. I asked readers to share images, and then I worked with talented film makers Tom and Amy Valens, who created the wonderful documentary August to June.

Today I am sharing the third video in the series, celebrating parents.

Here's to the Parents! Please share it far and wide.

The second in the series, Here's to the Students!, has been a viral hit. Check it out!

And here is our first video, released two weeks ago in honor of Teacher Appreciation Week:

And by the way, we still need some more photos and/or video footage. We need an image of parents or grandparents together with teachers, and images of tough schools in need of repair, and of community members pitching in to fix up their schools. Please email them to me at anthony_cody@hotmail.com

What do you think of our videos so far?

Posted by Anthony Cody at 9:17 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

California Governor Jerry Brown has taken a big step towards reducing the testing mania in the nation's most populous state. Up until his administration we have been on an accelerated path towards the comprehensive data-driven system that test publishers and corporate reformers have convinced leaders is needed to improve schools. But in the May budget outline from Brown's office, he makes it clear he is putting on the brakes.

From the Thoughts on Public Education blog comes this:

Gov. Jerry Brown is proposing to suspend funding for CALPADS, the state student longitudinal data system, and to stop further planning for CALTIDES, the teacher data base that was to be joined at the hip with CALPADS.

What is even more encouraging is the explanation Brown offers, which shows a great deal of understanding of these issues. The document states:

A number of problems have been identified with California's state testing, data collection and accountability regime. Testing takes huge amounts of time from classroom instruction. Data collection requirements are cumbersome and do not provide timely - and therefore usable - information back to schools. Teachers are forced to cub their own creativity and engagement with students as they focus on teaching to the test. State and federal administrators continue to centralize teaching authority far from the classroom.

The (Brown) Administration proposes to deal with these issues by carefully reforming testing and accountability requirements to achieve genuine accountability and maximum local autonomy. It will engage teachers, scholars, school administrators and parents to develop proposals to

(1) reduce the amount of time devoted to state testing in schools;

(2) eliminate data collections that do not provide useful information to school administrators, teachers and parents; and

(3) restore power to school administrators, teachers and parents.

The goal is to improve the learning environment in every classroom, thereby encouraging the demanding pursuit of excellence. The May Revision proposes to suspend funding for CALPADS in 2011-12 pending this continued review of data collection requirements.

Praise be!

Jerry Brown is unusual among our nation's governors. He got a bit more involved than most in on-the-ground school reform while he was serving as mayor of Oakland. He learned the hard way how schools are a reflection of deeper social issues. In a statement he wrote to respond to Arne Duncan's Race to the Top a year and a half ago, while he was California's Attorney General, he said:

You assume we know how to "turn around all the struggling low performing schools," when the real answers may lie outside of school. As Oakland mayor, I directly confronted conditions that hindered education, and that were deeply rooted in the social and economic conditions of the community or were embedded in the particular attitudes and situations of the parents. There is insufficient recognition in the draft regulations that inside and outside of school strategies must be interactive and merged.

Even more revealing was what he wrote about federally-driven education "reform":

The basic assumption of your draft regulations appears to be that top down, Washington driven standardization is best. This is a "one size fit all" approach that ignores the vast diversity of our federal system and the creativity inherent in local communities. What we have at stake are the impressionable minds of the children of America. You are not collecting data or devising standards for operating machines or establishing a credit score. You are funding teaching interventions or changes to the learning environment that promise to make public education better, i.e. greater mastery of what it takes to become an effective citizen and a productive member of society. In the draft you have circulated, I sense a pervasive technocratic bias and an uncritical faith in the power of social science.

We all know that Secretary Duncan did not heed Jerry Brown's thoughtful advice, and still has not. But Brown's proposed budget takes on the testing machine from the top, and that is a very hopeful sign.

By the way, yesterday I shared news of a new book, The Myths of Standardized Tests. The authors will be guests at a free Save Our Schools March webinar Thursday night, May 19, at 8:30 pm Eastern time, 5:30 pm Pacific time. Please register to join the conversation here.

What do you think? Might this be a sign of sanity?

Posted by Anthony Cody at 9:29 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

An excellent new book, "The Myths of Standardized Tests," has hit the shelves, and its authors, Phillip Harris, Bruce M. Smith and Joan Harris, are taking a systematic look at the belief system driving current education reform.

They explain their outlook in the introduction:

We are referring to the barrage of standardized testing besetting our schools and districts. No Child Left Behind is only its most recent, and most punishing, incarnation. And the Obama administration's proposals for "amending" NCLB reflect a similarly misguided reliance on test scores as the primary measures of success for students, teachers, and the education system as a whole. For decades more and more tests have been seeping into our schools, sapping the energy and enthusiasm of educators and draining the life from children's learning. And while some of the motivation for this burgeoning movement is clearly commercial, it is at least partly driven by what we have come to think of as "the tyranny of good intentions."

We think every concerned citizen ought to be raising serious questions about the standardized tests used in their schools, about the decisions that are based on the outcomes of those tests, and about the potential for harm as a result of those published school "report cards." We hope to enable you to ask questions of the people who are making the decisions--as citizens first, but also as parents and educators yourselves.

Think back and ask yourself about the many ways most of us never pause to consider what's up with standardized tests:

• Have you ever thought about how well students' knowledge and skills can be assessed by the limited sample of content included in a forty-five- question test? What does a score on that test tell you about the vast range of content that simply can't be included? (See chapter 2.)

• Have you ever talked about the high achievement at a particular school when all you really knew about the school was the average test scores of its students? (See chapter 3.)

• Have you ever argued--or heard someone argue--that what we need is objective information about student achievement? For most people that word objective used in a school context automatically means standard- ized test scores and very little else. (See chapter 4.)

• Have you or your school system ever handed out punishments or rewards to schools, to teachers, or to individual children based on their test scores? How motivational are such practices? (See chapter 5.)

• Have you ever thought that improvement in scores on "high stakes" tests is a sound indicator of improvement in learning? (See chapter 6.)

• Have you ever wondered about whether the tests have an effect on the curriculum and on classroom life? Have you ever questioned what's left out to make time for the tests themselves and for the often extensive preparation for them? (See chapter 7.)

• Have you ever given more weight to an "indirect" measure (a standardized test score) of student achievement than to a "direct" assessment of achievement? Direct assessments range from judgments teachers make to your own reading of your children's work to the response of those who attend a school performance or a school open house. (See chapter 8.)

• Have you ever thought that moving to a district or attendance area with high test scores would mean high achievement and success in life for your children? How well do standardized tests forecast future success in school, of course, but also throughout life? (See chapter 9.)

These three scholars will offer their perspectives on these questions and more at a Save Our Schools March free webinar at 8:30 pm Eastern time on the evening of Thursday, May 19. You can register here.

What do you think of the questions the authors pose? Are we living in an age where the standardized test has taken on mythical qualities?

Posted by Anthony Cody at 7:15 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Yesterday I posted some concerns about the recent decision by leaders of the National Education Association to seek an early endorsement of President Obama at their Representative Assembly (RA) meeting in the first week of July. I also voiced concern about a statement on teacher evaluation that allows for the use of standardized tests for this purpose. A friend who is the President of his local teacher's association wrote me the following note, and gave me permission to share it here.

By Romero Maratea

By endorsing Obama's reelection without making his administration answer to their record on public education, the message would be sent that millions of NEA members approve of his Education Department's policies, which are rapidly unraveling our public school systems at the seams. I do not think this message accurately portrays the sentiments I hear expressed each and every day.

As the President of my local Association, a CTA State Council member, past NEA RA delegate and former District Teacher of the Year (It's funny how I feel the need to qualify my teaching credentials to address the myth of the "union boss"), I speak to hundreds of educators in my area on a regular basis. This includes teachers, psychologists, coaches, counselors, school board members, superintendents, support personnel, etc. I cannot recall encountering one who endorses the Obama administration's push to privatize public education (a contradictory notion at best) and to increase the stakes on student testing.

I go to school board meetings, PTA meetings, community meetings and meetings of business leaders, and so many are frustrated by what is being done to our public schools. Our curriculum has become incredibly monotonous because teachers are forced to adhere to pacing calendars, classroom practices and testing schedules that focus on getting the lowest test performers up to "proficient." Exciting activities that stimulate higher order thinking skills and student engagement seem to be afterthoughts, although teachers work valiantly to work them into the jam packed school day.

We've dropped music programs, art programs, after school programs and almost all programs for the gifted in order to focus on getting the "bubble kids" up to proficient so the feds will get off of our backs. (We are a program improvement district.). Kids are not as engaged as before and there is little time to go beyond the "power standards" that focus on test content.

This reality has resulted in a mass exodus of many of our best and brightest students to charter and private schools (which are unbridled by many of the guidelines public schools must adhere to and whose demographics are the polar opposite of the community as a whole) as frustrated parents seek a thoughtful education for their children. Whose left? Our schools are becoming increasingly segregated into the charter schools of the "proficient" and "advanced" and the public schools of the "below basic", the "basic" and the English Language Learner. Not good.

Do most educators believe that education needs to be improved? I have yet to meet one who doesn't. They are working diligently to do so, absent the flexibility to do what is right for individual students, without a voice in the decision making, minus professional development to help them improve their practice and lacking the funds necessary to maintain vital programs that benefit those who need the most help. Are tests with increasingly higher stakes the solution? They haven't seemed to help over the past decade since NCLB was passed. Everyone is frustrated by this reality, and it seems a slippery slope for NEA to agree to up the ante on this testing gamble.

As educators we are, by nature, a non-confrontational lot. But I have been involved in political campaigns and elections, and I have learned that power answers to power; whether it be power in numbers (as unions and grass roots movements possess) or power in terms of dollars (as corporations and a few oft-noted billionaires have at their disposal). To gain the endorsement of most organizations, candidates for public office usually have to articulate their beliefs on specific issues. Incumbents usually have to speak to their records. If they have enacted or voted for policies that damage what said organization stands up for, they usually do not get an endorsement.

This standard needs to be upheld for the Obama administration. This administration needs to be challenged (on record) on their education policies and to address the legitimate concerns of the many educators, parents and community members who have a stake in our schools. And they need to be held accountable for that record. The same should be done for any potential challengers who seek NEA support. If they fail the endorsement criteria, they should not get the backing of the members of the NEA. Even if that means that the NEA as an organization sits this one out. If that happens, future candidates will take notice and shape more effective policies regarding public education. Educators may gain that place at the table.

If sitting out an election is unpalatable, NEA's Representative Assembly could use the leverage of an endorsement to pressure Obama to replace Arne Duncan (along with his contradictory words and shortsighted policies) with someone who will bring practicing educators into the fold and base policy on what real research says about teaching and learning.

However this endorsement process proceeds, the message should be clear: If your rhetoric and your actions do not mesh, and you are not going to do what's right for our public schools and the students and families they serve, you are not going to garner the official endorsement of the organization that officially represents the views of millions of educators. An organization that prides itself as a defender of our nation's kids and the education they deserve.

Regardless of what I think, though, I do foresee a lively debate on these two issues when the thousands of delegates gather this July for the NEA's Representative Assembly in Chicago. It is a democratic body indeed, made up of a very diverse group of folks from every state. And these elected representatives will have the ultimate say.

Romero Maratea has been teaching since 1995. He has taught grades 2-12 Social studies and language arts in South Carolina, Oregon, and California. He was a middle school teacher for 12 years, mainly with kids of low socio-economic status. He recently received his MA in Teaching and Learning from UCSD, with a thesis on culturally responsive teaching. He was District teacher of the year in 2006, and is the current president of his Association.

What do you think? Do you believe President Obama has earned the support of teachers in his bid for reelection?

Posted by Anthony Cody at 9:11 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

In the past week we got news of two very significant moves by the nation's largest teacher's union (and actually the largest union of any kind). The National Education Association's Political Action Committee voted to recommend an endorsement of Barack Obama, and the NEA Board of Directors approved a statement adjusting their stance on teacher evaluations. Both of these recommendations must be ratified by the Representative Assembly, which will meet in Chicago during the first week of July.

To put this in perspective, the National Education Association has more than three million members in the US. That is about one percent of the country's population. It is the largest and most powerful labor organization in the country. And, I should note, I have been a dues-paying member for the past 24 years.

On the Possible Endorsement of Barack Obama
If the response to Secretary Duncan's letter last week is any indication, I am not alone in my belief that the Obama administration has been a colossal disappointment in the education arena. I was a supporter of Obama three years ago, and walked my precinct during the primary, and organized a fundraiser attended by dozens of educators. But as I have made clear in this space many times over the past year and a half, Obama has failed to deliver on his campaign rhetoric, or even on his CURRENT rhetoric.

I am not sure what has motivated the NEA to seek such an early endorsement of Obama. But the NEA is a democratic organization, and the Representative Assembly is there to allow the members to have their say.

The Obama administration gets some credit for delivering a bailout to the nation's schools a year ago, but the response I am hearing from my fellow NEA members indicates some serious misgivings about this early endorsement. Has President Obama earned our support? Are we giving up leverage we might have in the next year to finally reset federal policies as No Child Left Behind collapses of its own weight?

On the Use of Test Scores for Teacher Evaluation
Which leads us to the next political statement from the union, focused on teacher evaluation. The critical paragraph reads as follows:

iii. Indicators of Contribution to Student Learning and Growth demonstrating a teacher's impact on student learning and growth. Such indicators must be authentic, reflect that there are multiple factors that impact a student's learning beyond a teacher's control, and may include the following indicators or others chosen by a local or state affiliate: student learning objectives developed jointly by the teacher and principal/evaluator; teacher-created assessments, district or school assessments, student work (papers, portfolios, projects, presentations); teacher defined objectives for individual student growth; and valid, reliable, high quality standardized tests that provide meaningful information regarding student learning and growth.

This statement is perfectly fine until the last fifteen words. So far, no research has demonstrated the existence of "valid, reliable, high quality standardized tests" that are appropriate for the use of evaluating teachers. The use of test scores for evaluation of teachers is one of the major goals of the Department of Education - even as they profess to abhor high stakes for test scores. I do not need to rehash all the research into this practice, except to say that thus far, it has not worked, even to raise test scores! It does, however, threaten to further narrow the curriculum for our most vulnerable students in high poverty schools.

As I mentioned, both of these recommendations must be ratified by the several thousand rank and file teachers who will attend the Representative Assembly this summer. There is already some vigorous discussion taking place, and there will be more when these issues are brought to the floor in July. That is one of the great things about a democratic union. The members have a real say!

What do you think of the NEA's Political Action Committee's recommendation to endorse President Obama? How about the statement on teacher evaluation?

Posted by Anthony Cody at 11:54 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

A couple of months ago I shared some scripts for some video spots to build interest and awareness for the Save Our Schools March in Washington, DC, this summer. I asked readers to share images, and then I worked with talented film makers Tom and Amy Valens, who created the wonderful documentary August to June.

They put some of the photos we gathered together with some of their video footage, and have thus far produced two wonderful videos, narrated by actor Jim Griffiths.

Today we are sharing the second video, Here's to the Students! Please share it far and wide.

And here is our first video, released a week ago in honor of Teacher Appreciation Week:

And by the way, we still need some more photos and/or video footage. We need an image of parents or grandparents together with teachers, and images of tough schools in need of repair, and of community members pitching in to fix up their schools. Please email them to me at anthony_cody@hotmail.com

What do you think of our videos so far?

Posted by Anthony Cody at 11:36 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Today a "counter-manifesto" was released, opposing the move towards a common national curriculum. Entitled "A Critical Response to the Shanker Institute Manifesto and
the U.S. Department of Education's Initiative to Develop a National Curriculum and National Assessments Based on National Standards," it was signed by people with a range of beliefs, but most of them are on the conservative end of the political spectrum, including Grover Norquist and a number of fellows from the Hoover Institute. Though I do not often agree with most of the signers, I find myself sharing much of their critique in this case.

I especially agree with this statement:

... there is no evidence to justify a single high school curriculum for all students. A single set of curriculum guidelines, models, or frameworks cannot be justified at the high school level, given the diversity of interests, talents and pedagogical needs among adolescents. American schools should not be constrained in the diversity of the curricula they offer to students. Other countries offer adolescents a choice of curricula; Finland, for example, offers all students leaving grade 9 the option of attending a three-year general studies high school or a three-year vocational high school, with about 50% of each age cohort enrolling in each type of high school. We worry that the "comprehensive" American high school may have outlived its usefulness, as a recent Harvard report implies.9 A one-size-fits-all model not only assumes that we already know the one best curriculum for all students; it assumes that one best way for all students exists. We see no grounds for carving that assumption in stone.

This resonates with Nancy Flanagan's recent thought experiment, a trip into a future where the schools have embraced a national curriculum, and the critique made by Yong Zhao, in his book Catching up or Leading the Way.

The Department of Education still does not wish to acknowledge what is happening here. In a recent conversation with a representative, I noted that the Department's promotion of connecting test scores to teacher pay and evaluations was attaching even higher stakes to tests. He responded that I should understand that we have a "decentralized system." But since these changes were largely inspired by Race to the Top, this claim seems to be a weak one. Witness the recent incident in Delaware, where a local school board reversed itself and reaffirmed the reassignment of 13 teachers, after a "scolding" from Secretary Duncan, who froze their "Race to the Top" funding to force them to comply. Nothing decentralized about that. [Correction: It was the State of Delaware which actually froze these funds to force compliance, a move which was then praised by Secretary Duncan.]

The efforts to create a national curriculum aligned with the Common Core Standards now under development put us on the road to transforming our system into the epitome of centralization. The Department of Education has been quiet about this. Everything is voluntary. The states are not obliged to sign on - however, federal funding is increasingly contingent on the degree to which one obeys their directions.

Federal funding for education under ESEA was originally developed as an outgrowth of the War on Poverty in the 1960s, and was designed to make up for inequities in local funding. Ever since the passage of No Child Left Behind, in 2001, these funds have been increasingly used to advance the Department of Education's vision for education reform. In today's fiscal climate, when state revenues have declined drastically, federal funding has become an absolute necessity. Though states and local districts technically have the option of refusing these funds, in practice they are totally dependent on them. This explains why even the chance of getting funded under Race to the Top prompted many states to change laws in order to qualify.

The move towards national standards, a national curriculum and nation-wide tests is likewise proceeding on a "voluntary" basis, with nothing but the persuasive power of philanthropic support from the Gates Foundation, and the promise of future billions in federal funding. We may end with all of our states "volunteering" to become centralized, with the Department of Education (and Gates, Pearson and other publishers of the national curriculum) at the helm.

What do you think of the "counter-manifesto" against a national curriculum?

Posted by Anthony Cody at 12:19 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Teacher Appreciation Week got off to a rocky start for Arne Duncan. He posted a letter to America's teachers, acknowledging our frustration, but expressing his determination to push forward the agenda that has us so frustrated. His letter was posted in three places that I have seen. Here, on Teacher Magazine, where there are now 76 responses, only about three of which could be interpreted as vaguely supportive or even neutral. The rest ran the gamut from skeptical to caustic. On the Huffington Post, and the Department of Education web site, here, where there are 74 comments, the response is similar.

I posted my response on Monday, and Sabrina Stevens-Shupe wrote an open letter that raised many of the same points raised in my letter. These posts, combined with the overwhelmingly negative comments posted in response to Secretary Duncan's letter, prompted Department of Education press secretary Justin Hamilton to respond in the Huffington Post. He said:

"It's disappointing to hear that someone feels that way, but we don't think that's how the broader teaching community feels about it," said Justin Hamilton, a spokesman for the Education Department.

In response to teachers' claims that Duncan was disingenuous in saying he intended to work together with students, Hamilton noted that the Education Secretary has visited 169 schools in close to 45 states. "Everywhere he goes he sits down with parents, educators, education stakeholders, community members," Hamilton said.

I read some of the other responses that were posted. One was especially telling.

A commenter named becut wrote on the Huffington Post:

Arne Duncan visited my school. The school cleaned the main building spotless, put up large university banners and huge glossy pics of students enjoying themselves at school. Mr. Duncan visited a second year "Teach for America" teacher's classroom. Her (period) 3 students were rearranged with only the good students. Her record was touted for raising some of the lowest math students test scores.

Many of the teachers knew that during this teacher's first year she had extreme difficulty managing classroom discipline; another teacher had to take her difficult students everyday and security was called daily to her room. It was so insulting to the experienced teachers that this teacher, who could not even control her classes was given such high praise. Most math teachers know that if you take very low math students and teach them the simplest thing (1+2), their scores will rise. She shared a practice test she was using which had actual problems from the test, just in a different order.

Mr. Duncan never knew what he was being fed. He never visited random classes, un-announced. He went to 2 classes that had been staged. The parents were hand selected also. The community people he met were politicians (the mayor, school board members, city councilmen, etc.), and businessmen. They changed our bell schedule, we had to hold all the other students until he left. He never saw anything real. He never talked to anyone other than people the administration selected. Media photo opportunity, that's all!

This might explain how Secretary Duncan and his team have formed the impression they have of what teachers think. As an old saying goes, "The rich man knows not who is his friend." When you are handing out billions in government funding, it might be expected that many of those hoping for some of that will appear to support you. But the response to Secretary Duncan's letter has been far more revealing than his school visits appear to have been.

I wrote last week about the "bubble" that has been inflated around the supposed value of test scores. I wonder if Secretary Duncan is somehow living inside of that bubble, and is unaware of the depth of the frustration felt by classroom teachers.

So either the overwhelming majority of teachers feel as do Sabrina Stevens-Shupe, myself, and the roughly several hundred who posted critical comments in response to Secretary Duncan, or we represent some sort of cranky complainers, outside of the mainstream of American education. Which is it?

Going back to Secretary Duncan's letter, there is a huge clue there that they actually know the answer to this question. He states in his letter that when he visits schools he finds teachers "are frustrated when teachers alone are blamed for educational failures that have roots in broken families, unsafe communities, misguided reforms, and underfunded schools systems."

This is hardly the sort of feedback that would indicate support of the Department's agenda. It seems to me that this summary of frustrations aligns much more closely with the skeptical response I shared in my own open letter this week.

It is possible that the bubble-like environment described by becut has allowed Secretary Duncan to sail along with his agenda unaware that he has succeeded in alienating the vast majority of American teachers. Or it is possible that he and his Department are aware of this alienation, and are simply hoping that the traditionally docile teaching profession will, in spite of our great frustration, do little more than post angry comments on our blogs.

Some of us are doing more.

Some of us are actively organizing to change the direction in which we are headed. We are calling for parents, teachers, and advocates for children join us at the Save Our Schools March this July 30th, in Washington, DC.

We are connecting with parents like Tim Slekar and Michele Gray of Pennsylvania, who have been organizing others to get their students to opt out of state standardized tests. We have found common ground with activists like Rita Solnet, one of the founders of Parents Across America. These three will be leading a discussion at the next Save Our Schools webinar on Saturday, May 7, at 8 pm eastern. Please join us.

What do you think? Do those of us voicing skepticism in response to Duncan's letter represent a fringe element? Or are we in the mainstream of teacher opinion?

Posted by Anthony Cody at 11:46 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Today, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan recognized Teacher Appreciation Week with another of his confusing tributes - a mixture of fulsome praise, acknowledgment of the errors of NCLB, and a reiteration of the fierce urgency he feels for pushing forward his agenda. This has become a familiar message, offered every time he encounters teachers.

In my continuing effort to engage this administration in meaningful dialogue, I offer the following open letter in response to him.

Dear Secretary Duncan,

I continue to be confused by the messages you are sending to teachers.

Your letter states:

In today's economy, there is no acceptable dropout rate, and we rightly expect all children--English-language learners, students with disabilities, and children of poverty--to learn and succeed.

You are clearly aware of what has happened to school budgets in today's economy. What does it mean to say it is unacceptable for a single student to drop out, or for students with disabilities to fail, when the funds that support these students have been slashed to bits?

You state:
"The quality of our education system can only be as good as the quality of our teaching force."

How is it that your Department of Education continues to fund programs that place poorly trained interns in urban classrooms, and supported legislation that circumvented a court decision that ruled such interns are not "highly qualified"?

If you agree with us that it is unfair when "teachers alone are blamed for educational failures that have roots in broken families, unsafe communities, misguided reforms, and underfunded schools systems" why did you support the firing of the entire staff of teachers at Central Falls High in Rhode Island last year?

If you are aware that, as you said:

Because of the pressure to boost test scores, NCLB has narrowed the curriculum, and important subjects like history, science, the arts, foreign languages, and physical education have been de-emphasized.

Why then do you continue to support the labeling and even closure of schools using these narrow indicators?

If you realize that worthwhile evaluation means "real feedback in a professional setting rather than drive-by visits from principals or a single score on a bubble test," why do you support publication of teacher quality rankings by newspapers like the LA Times, which rely exclusively on test scores?

Why do you require, as part of Race to the Top, that states adopt teacher pay and evaluation practices that significantly increase the use of test scores for these purposes?

You write:

So I want to work with you to change and improve federal law, to invest in teachers and strengthen the teaching profession. Together with you, I want to develop a system of evaluation that draws on meaningful observations and input from your peers, as well as a sophisticated assessment that measures individual student growth, creativity, and critical thinking. States, with the help of teachers, are now developing better assessments so you will have useful information to guide instruction and show the positive impact you are having on our children.

Working together, we can transform teaching from the factory model designed over a century ago to one built for the information age. We can build an accountability system based on data we trust and a standard that is honest--one that recognizes and rewards great teaching, gives new or struggling teachers the support they need to succeed, and deals fairly, efficiently, and compassionately with teachers who are simply not up to the job

Earlier in your message, you seem to be acknowledging that the current accountability system - the result of decades of work by presumably well-meaning and intelligent designers -- is unfair to teachers, and results in a narrowing of the curriculum for students in poverty. What makes you think that our current generation of policymakers and test designers have a hitherto unseen capacity to produce NEW tests and evaluations that are so vastly superior to existing ones?

The current state-level budget woes appear to be a long-term, rather than a one-year phenomenon. Given these financial pressures, won't the great expansion in testing in the works divert even more scarce resources from classrooms?

We have, as I have pointed out since I wrote my original open letter to President Obama a year and a half ago, a deep gulf of mistrust between your policies and the nation's teachers. Your letter does very little to bridge this gulf.

Your press office responded last month to related questions that I raised, but I must confess my concerns persist. Until these issues are resolved, I find it difficult to take seriously your proclamations of support and honor for the teachers of America.

By the way, I will be at the Save Our Schools March in Washington, DC, on July 30th, protesting these policies with several thousand other teachers, parents and students who share my concerns. Might we arrange a meeting?

Skeptically yours,

Anthony Cody

What do you think? What is your reaction to Secretary Duncan's missive? Do you have any questions to add to mine?

Posted by Anthony Cody at 5:16 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

We celebrate Teacher Appreciation Week with the release of a video we created to honor teachers.

It has been almost two months since I reported on a project we started, to create a series of short videos that would celebrate teachers, students, parents and public schools, and encourage viewers to stand together for them at the Save Our Schools March this summer in Washington, DC.

We got a great response from many of you, who sent in photographs and Flickr feeds. Tom and Amy Valens, the talented film makers who created the movie August to June, have been hard at work, drawing on the material that was contributed, and a variety of video sources as well. The very first of the four videos is now ready, and we present it here:

And here is the script:

Here's to the teachers.
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!

Please share this widely to spread the message.

And Amy and Tom are working on the remaining three spots. There are still a few images we need. These could be video or still images, of:

• Parents and grandparents with kids--humor in the image is a plus.
• A scene which includes parents, teachers, and kids. For example the end of the school day as parents are picking kids up, or a conference scene including all three.
• At least 2 images to illustrate the "treadmills of standardized tests": students bent over their desks or looking bored.
• Strong images of high school age students engaged in learning
• A Wisconsin video showing protestors with signs (Save Our Schools? We Love Our Teachers?)

Please send any of these to me, at Anthony_cody@hotmail.com

What do you think of our tribute to teachers? Can you stand with us this summer in DC?

Posted by Anthony Cody at 11:42 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend