October 2011 Archives

Billionaire Bill Gates was in the news again this week, bemoaning the sorry state of America's schools, insisting that business leaders like him have a lot to teach us about measuring performance.

Mr. Gates, in years past, has worried about the fact that we rank poorly on international educational comparisons, suggesting this will cause us to fall behind economically. The answer, according to Mr. Gates, is that we must get rid of bad teachers. He said, during his appearance on Oprah last year, that if we got rid of all the bad teachers, "our schools would shoot from the bottom of these rankings to the top."

In order to be able to fire all these bad teachers, we need to be able to measure their performance. The measurements he wants to use are the data from our students' test scores, which tell us how much "value" we have added to them. These students are our raw material, and just like any manufacturing process, we ought to be paid and evaluated according to how much value we have added to the product as it passed through our hands. His foundation created the Measures of Effective Teaching (MET) project, which has come up with something they call "multiple measures" of good teaching, but unfortunately it appears all these measures lead back to test score data.

One great thing about the past decade is that teachers have become good at analyzing data. But we are now being presented with data that goes beyond the test scores, and I am wondering if Bill Gates has any interest in this. I think it might be germane. It sheds some fresh light on where the United States is in relation to other countries on some other indicators.

New York Times Columnist Charles Blow wrote today:

We have not taken care of the least among us. We have allowed a revolting level of income inequality to develop. We have watched as millions of our fellow countrymen have fallen into poverty. And we have done a poor job of educating our children and now threaten to leave them a country that is a shell of its former self. We should be ashamed.

Poor policies and poor choices have led to exceedingly poor outcomes. Our societal chickens have come home to roost.

Here are some of the data points Mr. Blow shared this morning, citing a report called
On Social Justice in the OECD.

The report summary states:

Poverty and the growing gap between rich and poor is a major problem in the OECD. Of the 31 countries examined, on average, 10.8 percent of the people are poor. This means they have to live with less than half the national median household income.

U.S.: 21.6 percent of children affected by poverty

Particular concern is the phenomenon of child poverty: on average about 12.3 percent of children live below the poverty line. Therefore, it lacks many places on the basic requirements of social justice and participation. The differences within the OECD is alarming: While in Denmark only 3.7 percent of children affected by poverty, the rate in the United States at alarming 21.6 percent (rank 28). Only Turkey, Chile and Mexico cut worse than the largest economy in the world.

Education needs to invest!

Many of the 31 participating OECD countries have significant deficits in the question of equitable educational opportunities. Again, it is the Northern European countries, Iceland, Finland, Sweden and Denmark, which are particularly successful in this respect also. The U.S. major economies (ranked 20), Britain (21) or Germany (22) land on the other hand only in the lower third of the rankings. Including school systems and increased investment in early childhood education are key tools to continue to provide more equal opportunities in education.

So the United States, according to this report, ranks next to Greece, Turkey, Mexico and Chile in terms of the percentage of children in poverty. Here is the data. (And interestingly, if you want to connect the dots, and you break out the international test scores according to the poverty level of the students, you will find that American schools NOT afflicted by poverty rank among the top in the world.)

Teachers see this data in a different way. Here is a note from my friend Sarah Puglisi, who teaches third grade in California,

Homelessness and poverty up close is hard. It smells, actually in my room this year, it takes from the very fiber of a being, it is destructive to those that stand in uselessness looking as well as those suffering it. I'm dealing with a woman and her child suffering terribly now-she should never be alone in this, her faculties are not good enough to deal. She can't go grow food on some family place, she's like a forgotten being. And so are the supports that should exist, dysfunctional. But my concern is a child, one not washing, that can't get into a shelter til after 9 at night that's out by 5AM, that hasn't had a real bath in a month. No costume for him. And I need to go buy him a pair of pants or two really, couple shirts and get his clothes and wash them. Among the realities in my teaching work I think I'm beginning to understand what I really need to articulate is what poverty is like to a learner. A child that didn't pick, nor make any of this. And who is so sweet.

Many teachers see poverty up close, although our students do their best to hide it. Like wounded birds, they do not want others to see their weakness. They tease one another about buying clothes at Salvation Army, or living in a cardboard box. Those of us who have worked in schools with children in poverty are very familiar with this data.
Are our billionaire education reformers interested in any of this information?

We can choose tax structures that underfund our schools, we can believe that we are collectively "broke" while some people stack up the billions, and still need tax breaks. But the data is in. We have become a banana republic, with a widening gulf between rich and poor. And the schools alone will not fix this. Sending more children to college will not fix this. Only social policies that aim to reverse the concentration of wealth will make a real difference.

Bill Gates can produce the most elaborate teacher evaluation system in the world, but any system built upon the two dimensional data provided by test scores will be trumped by the smell and taste of poverty in our classrooms, and the cold hard data that shows we are failing to provide the most basic level of support for our children to live healthy lives and learn well in school.

What do you think? Have you seen evidence of poverty in your school? Why might our billionaires be so reluctant to bear witness to this data?

image by Sarah Puglisi, used by permission.

Posted by Anthony Cody at 6:09 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

When I was in Washington, DC, last July, I participated in a press conference prior to the Save Our Schools March, which I had helped organize. A gentleman who had asked several critical questions spoke with me afterwards. He tried to help me understand why tough federal mandates were needed to improve schools. He told me "You know there are school districts all over the country that have been stuck for decades, where there is corruption. We have got to have some way to force them to improve."

This is the mentality that brought us No Child Left Behind. This is why some liberals, like the late Ted Kennedy and California Congressman George Miller, bought into the law. They abhor the inferior education many of our students have received, and they are determined to use the powers they have to make a difference.

Unfortunately, there is a fundamental problem with the levers of power they have chosen to use. They have decided that test scores will be the measure of success, and demanded that schools improve or lose federal funding. After a decade of applying this pressure at the District and school-wide level, we are seeing it pushed ever downward, so that in many states individual teacher evaluations and pay are determined in part by test scores.

The machinery of government education "reform" seems to be a never-ending search for coercive levers that can be applied to force or entice people to do what they would otherwise not choose to do. The result has been to make many of our most challenging schools intellectual wastelands, where the vibrant questioning and discussion that might shape creative responses to the ever-changing conditions we face has been replaced by a relentless pursuit of improved test scores.

I met another education activist in Washington, who has taken a different approach. Diane Ravitch has been involved with school reform for many years, and was one of those pushing improvements based on standards and tests as Assistant Secretary of Education in the first Bush administration. Dr. Ravitch is exceptional in that she has reappraised her own stance, and come to a completely different perspective.

This week she wrote a post entitled NCLB, End it, Don't Mend it. She showed just how much she has learned. She writes:

When, if ever, will policymakers realize that they should find ways to
support teachers, not to demoralize them? I just don't see how it is
possible to "improve" schools without the active engagement of the
people who do the daily work of schooling. There is just so much
top-down beating-up that can go on before teachers and principals rise
up in protest, especially when so many at the top are not educators.

In the past few weeks, I have done interviews with two education leaders in Oakland, Dr. Anna Richert, and Dr. Catherine Lewis. These women are on the ground in our schools, showing us how teachers improve their practice through Teacher Action Research and Lesson Study. They are engaged in thoughtful inquiry, where the critical questions are determined by the teachers themselves. This sort of collaboration has been shown by research to correlate highly with increased teacher retention and better student outcomes. Yet a report that came out last fall reported that while 88% of teachers engage in some form of professional development, the percentage of teachers engaged in "cooperative efforts" like Lesson Study or collaborative teacher research had dropped by half, from 34% to 16%. I can tell you why. In the high pressure environment created by NCLB, every minute of teacher time must be devoted to figuring out how to increase test scores. Professional development is often turned over to consultants who tell administrators they will help teachers "target instruction," or "plan backwards" starting with key items that will count most on the tests.

The type of deep teacher-driven professional development described by Drs Richert and Lewis has, with some notable exceptions, been pushed aside in most schools to make room for trainings that promise to increase test scores. If you were an administrator whose job depended on bumping scores upward every year would you take a chance on allowing your teachers to define the questions they wish to focus on in their professional growth?

So long as No Child Left Behind, or its direct descendants now being considered, have the goal of "forcing" everyone to improve, through an ever more powerful series of coercive levers, our schools will be locked in dysfunction. If we turn this model upside down, and look at the teachers in our schools as the ones with the real power, then we get a very different scenario. Then we could raise the bar on what is expected of teachers, who are now merely expected to be technically proficient deliverers of curriculum. We should challenge them to investigate, collaborate, create and lead their schools forward. Diane Ravitch has managed to figure this out. Can our Congressional representatives?

What do you think? Can government policy succeed at forcing schools to improve? Might we have better luck if we gave teachers a bit more responsibility for their work?

Posted by Anthony Cody at 12:17 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Research consistently shows that teacher effectiveness and satisfaction with our work increases when we are able to engage in deep and meaningful collaboration. Earlier this month I wrote about one model for this sort of work, Teacher Action Research. Today I am sharing an interview focused on another model, Lesson Study. Both of these models have a strong history in the Oakland public schools. At Mills College in Oakland, distinguished research scholar Dr. Catherine Lewis is a national expert in Lesson Study, who has studied the practice for more than a decade, and worked with thousands of teachers in the US to bring the model to life here. I asked her to describe how Lesson Study works.

What is Lesson Study?

Dr. Lewis: Lesson study is a collaborative approach to instructional improvement. In lesson study, a team of 3-6 teachers works together to:

• Consider their goals for student learning and students' long-term development, and identify gaps with current reality.


• Examine research and curriculum related to a pressing need in student learning, and collaboratively plan a "research lesson" to study and advance instruction with respect to this issue.


• One team member teaches the lesson, while other team members collect data on student learning during the lesson.


• Teachers use the data collected during the lesson to learn about student thinking, about the teaching of the particular topic, and about teaching and learning more broadly.


• In the process of these activities, teachers build shared knowledge about teaching and productive, supportive relationships with colleagues.

How do teachers begin Lesson Study?

Dr. Lewis: You can learn more about lesson study by looking at a website such as www.lessonresearch.net or www.teachingamericanhistory.us/lesson_study/index.html. You can read the handbook Lesson Study: Step by Step, which includes a 22-minute DVD of U.S. teachers conducting a whole lesson study cycle.

Another great way to learn about lesson study is to sit in with a lesson study group in your area, or attend a lesson study conference that includes public research lessons. Upcoming events are posted along with a list of lesson study groups.

What sort of work is involved in preparing the lesson?

Dr. Lewis: Lesson study is not about developing new lessons from scratch. It's about studying the best available lesson plans for your chosen topic, and "tweaking." An important part of lesson study is to anticipate student responses to the lesson activities, considering what students currently know and what misconceptions they may bring. What well-formulated questions and activities will help students advance their thinking? Team members can build their knowledge of student thinking during the lesson planning phase by providing tasks or writing prompts to students and looking at the student work together. Team members should also try the lesson task themselves, considering how their students might approach it, and gain insights from seeing colleagues' thinking.

How do teachers overcome their fear of being judged by peers?

Dr. Lewis: Lesson study is about study of student thinking and learning, not about evaluation of teaching. Make sure you use a lesson observation and discussion protocol, like that found in Lesson Study: Step by Step, to set up from the start a culture of focus on student learning. Observation focuses on student thinking and actions, and on unpacking the elements of lesson design that enabled students to progress, or posed barriers. Observation does not focus on "teacher moves." Collaborative work prior to the lesson plan ensures that the lesson is "our" lesson, not "your" or "my" lesson. A good way to start your lesson study work is by agreeing on norms and setting up rotating roles. You can find protocols for both these activities in Lesson Study: Step by Step.

What happens when teachers observe a lesson?

Dr. Lewis: When teachers observe a lesson, they collect specific data agreed on in advance by the team. Usually, they observe one student (or one partnership or group) over the course of the entire lesson, in order to see how students' thinking progressed (or failed to) and what were the key lesson elements that provided supports or barriers. Teachers do not assist students or interfere with the lesson. Teachers are an extra set of eyes and ears, not an extra mouth or hands!

What happens following the lesson?

Dr. Lewis: Shortly after the lesson, the team holds a "post-lesson discussion" that follows a structured protocol (see Lesson Study: Step by Step). The instructor speaks first, noting any challenges or areas where the lesson did not go as planned. Team members then present data collected during the lesson, focusing on questions agreed upon by the team. For example, the team may discuss how students used primary source documents, and what inferences they drew from them, or what strategies students used to compare the area of two rectangles. If the lesson involves student written work, the team may spend the beginning of the meeting reviewing it. For example, teachers may study how students used counterarguments in their essays, or how they explained a change in temperature.

What kinds of things do teachers learn from lesson study?

Dr. Lewis: Lesson study supports the growth of individual teachers, and also supports the growth of teachers as a professional community. Individual teachers grow in their knowledge, instructional practices, habits of mind, and sense of efficacy. Some quotes from U.S. teachers asked to reflect on their lesson study work illustrate the impact of lesson study on teachers:

Mathematically, I learned a lot about fraction concepts. I've always understood how to work with fractions but didn't understand all of the "why's" behind the procedures.

Since the lesson study I have been much more aware of the ways in which I tend to focus too much on completing the activity or playing the game, and my...teaching has become more purposeful and focused as a result.

I am including more presentations, and problem solving. My students are thinking more. I am finding some resistance. They want the formula and to repeat back to me. But I think they are growing.

[The students] may have more ability than I thought.

I think this was my 7th or 8th cycle of working with lesson study and every time I am amazed at the amount of growth and learning that happens professionally for me...the biggest impact for me is having more ears around the room listening to the students' conversations and what they are actually thinking.

The professional community (at a school and more broadly) changes as teachers become more willing and able to share their instructional knowledge and challenges with each other. As one veteran teacher put it, "Lesson study changes how teachers talk to each other around the water cooler." Teachers see how students' development depends on the efforts of many teachers, over many years, and they become committed to improving colleagues' practice, as well as their own practice. They think in terms of "our" students, not "your" and "my" students.

[I learned about] working with colleagues - In order to build new effective relationships with colleagues it's best to do it in the context of student thoughts and evidence of student work.

In the past, a lot of us never really thought about two grades down the line and how what we were teaching affects them. And now we really are.

Great trust has developed over time that allows us to be both teachers and learners with each other. Isn't that what it's all about?

How does this affect student learning in the schools where it is done?

Dr. Lewis: Students at a California elementary school that practiced school-wide lesson study in mathematics over a 4-year period increased mathematics state test scores at more than triple the rate of other schools in the district (Lewis, Perry, Hurd, & O'Connell, Lesson Study Comes of Age in North America, Phi Delta Kappan 88:4, 2006: 273-281.)

A recent randomized, controlled trial (download report here) found significantly greater gains in mathematical knowledge by teachers and students in the group assigned to lesson study (with high-quality mathematical resources) than to comparison groups. Teachers also showed significantly greater increases in reported collegial learning effectiveness, expectations for student achievement, and the perceived relevance of research for practice.

How is Lesson Study taking hold in the US?

Dr. Lewis: Lesson study has now persisted in the U.S. for more than a decade in many locations, often as a teacher-led, grassroots movement, although there has been support from local foundations, universities, and other organizations in some areas. Annual conferences with public research lessons are held in several regions of the United States, including Chicago, New York, and several places in California (see here and here).

Teachers in the Oakland Unified School District (California) have been national pioneers in the use of lesson study in history and social studies, and have inspired several similar efforts in other regions of the United States. The model pioneered by OUSD educators includes presentations by university-based historians to help support teachers' historical inquiry. Teachers use shared assignments or prompts to gather evidence on their students' historical thinking and knowledge, and lesson study teams then use this information to develop inquiry questions about student learning. For example, teachers investigated such questions as:

• How well can students use an immigration story to understand a larger historical movement? ( A focus on making generalizations and inferential thinking.)


• Can 5th grade students develop a nuanced understanding, through multiple perspectives, of freedom in the South before the Civil War?


• How can we help students understand that it is possible to tell different stories and come to different conclusions about the same event?


• Given a variety of documents, how can we help students identify and understand the debate around the decision to go to war with Mexico, and also how do we help students understand how debate is a key component of the democratic process?

What should happen next in Lesson Study?

Dr. Lewis: In Japan, teachers lead the policy implementation process through lesson study. Lesson study provides a proving ground for reforms like the Common Core State Standards. Lesson study groups receive small grants to study the reform (often working with university-based colleagues) and bring it to life in public research lessons, where thousands of teachers can see and discuss actual lessons, and quickly build a shared knowledge base about the subject matter, student thinking, and what does and doesn't work to implement the reform well. With experienced lesson study groups now working across the United States, we could do this here. We could recognize that we learn to teach better through cycles of planning and doing instruction, analyzing students' responses to our instruction, and honing our instruction.

No stick or carrot can match the motivational power of seeing students' deepen their thinking and build their persistence in response to improvements we have made to our instruction. Teams of lesson study practitioners across the United States know this. I hope policymakers will figure it out soon.

What do you think of Lesson Study? Have you had success with collaboration of this sort?

Image credit to Dr. Catherine Lewis, used by permission.
This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0207259 and Department of Education Institute for Education Sciences, Grant No. R308A960003. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the funders.

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

Guest post by John Thompson.

In 2009, I assumed that President Obama appointed Arne Duncan to split the differences between data-driven and traditional reformers. I sure hoped the President did not think that a non-educator who became the CEO of Chicago schools at the age of 37 would have had the opportunity to learn how schools actually work. I hoped that Duncan understood that the briefings he received in that position were based on numbers that often said little about teaching and learning.

Duncan served at the end of a twenty year experiment in "reform." I doubt that he had much direct knowledge about the reasons why standardized metrics are so flawed, but Duncan had access to the Consortium of Chicago School Research. Surely he could have been influenced by one of the greatest research organizations in education or any other field.

So, the latest study by the Consortium on Chicago School Research (download here) could play an essential role in informing a dialogue between Duncan, and practitioners and social scientists. The Consortium analyzed the results of "reform" over twenty years in the city that pioneered data-driven accountability. It found Chicago's publicly reported data, which supposedly showed tremendous progress in elementary math and reading tests, was inaccurate. In fact, a generation of reforms only produced "incremental gains in math and almost no growth in reading." The Consortium documented discrepancies that are due to myriad issues with publicaly reported data ... that make year-to-year comparisons nearly impossible."

Researchers found improvements in overall school organization, although they "did not translate into better overall instructional quality in classrooms." Era One, 1988 to 1995, actually got a bad rap, despite showing modest improvements in both elementary and high school. The greatest increases in test scores occurred during Era Two, under Paul Vallas, but the Consortium explains persuasively why they did not signify "real" increases in learning.

Ironically, Duncan had his era's successes backwards, which raises the question of how many of the statistics that staff used to brief him were backwards. Contrary to his claims, it was high schools, not elementary schools that improved more during his term, with some of their gains being large. In other words, Duncan's numbers were misleading about both the failure of his policies and their successes. Duncan's prescriptions were not as successful in the real world as he thought, but during his term, as in the 1990s, many educators were doing better than he realized.

On the other hand, Duncan's main targets were schools that failed the most disadvantaged students. In contrast to his claims, equity declined under his term, as did progress in closing the achievement gap or improving the most challenging schools. Also, the saddest results occurred under Duncan, with students reporting declines in relationships with teachers and in a trusting environment.

Of course, these results aren't about Duncan or about teachers. The Consortium used Chicago as a huge laboratory that evaluated whether it makes sense to use test score growth to fire educators and drive policy. Combine the Consortium's findings with those of the National Academies of Sciences, and other scientific explanations why standardized test-driven "reform" has failed, and it is hard to explain how the unintended effects of Duncan's approaches are worth their risks. If there are two factors that transcend all others in improving schools it is teaching children to read for comprehension and building trusting relationships, and Duncan did not do either.

I doubt that the Secretary of Education has had the time to read, reread, and wrestle with the Consortium's new findings. Were I in his shoes, I would use the research as an opportunity to revisit pivotal decisions based on bad information. I would want to know when, how, and why my staff briefed me with untrustworthy numbers. I would sure want to understand the mistakes made in the city that I know best before imposing those unsuccessful policies on the rest of the nation.

I am sure Duncan knows that the Consortium has long argued that it is impossible to turn around troubled schools without trusting relationships. Since the Secretary can only have a limited personal contact with the nation's diverse schools, the question for Duncan is who and what does he trust, and mistrust, as he seeks evidence about relationships in schools. Should Duncan continue to trust the accountability hawks who surround him, while mistrusting the social science that traditional reformers find persuasive?

I have often exasperated my friends by trying to give Duncan, and the President, the benefit of the doubt. I have often sounded like a proverbial peasant before the French Revolution who would rationalize, "If only the King knew ..."

At least I was not naïve enough to believe that Duncan could craft a workable reauthorization of No Child Left Behind. ... But lo and behold a deal was crafted by Senators Tom Harkin and Wayne Enzi. All that the new NCLB compromise would cost Duncan would be his claim that the federal government should force states and localities to use standardized tests to fire teachers. Sure, the teacher bashers would complain, and Duncan would have to give them some rhetorical support, but this sort of win win opportunity should be a no-brainer for both Duncan and teachers.

I would think that anyone, liberal or conservative, Democrat or Republican, regardless of their educational policy, would have some trepidation about the federal government telling local districts how they should evaluate their employees. Keeping with my desire (illusion?) that we could devise a "big tent" coalition for reform, I will gladly acknowledge a federal role in promoting teacher quality efforts for poor schools. It would be dumbfounding, however, if Duncan stuck with his position that the federal government, through NCLB, must force states to adopt dangerous and untested evaluation systems that are "autopsies" of student work.

And that gets us back to the Consortium's key finding, "the publicly reported statistics used to hold schools and districts accountable for making academic progress are not accurate measures of progress." (Emphasis by the Consortium) The challenge of making assessments valid for schools and districts is far easier than using them for high stakes decisions for individuals. I cannot understand why Duncan would thus take the risk of incentivizing educational malpractice due to teaching to primitive high-stakes assessments by imposing not-ready-for-prime-time evaluations on the entire nation.

Duncan often says we must act on "imperfect" information. After a generation of failed experiments, perhaps Duncan now needs to go on record about how he parses imperfect evidence. Duncan loves to praise "great teachers," as he rejects our accounts of the unintended damage done by high-stakes testing. Duncan, personally, shows no public animosity towards teachers or our representatives, but neither does he show any skepticism about advisors who scapegoat us, as they double down on their one-size-fits-all gambles.

So, perhaps we should turn the question around and ask Duncan who he mistrusts more. Why does he want to fire the players without first questioning his own flawed playbook? Why is he more skeptical of the professional judgments of educators and social scientists than the theories of non-educators? Why does he doubt us more than he doubts the statistical engineering that has such a long history of failure? For more than a generation, his "imperfect" metrics have been saying that up is flat, and flat is up. Why do Duncan and Obama continue to demonstrate more respect for number crunchers who can't estimate straight than he does educators?

What do you think? Am I being naïve in hoping that the Secretary of Education's reading and discussion of research could influence his policies? If Duncan would back off from his support of standardized testing, would his other policies be salvageable? If so, how could we persuade him to reconsider that issue?

John Thompson was an award winning historian, with a doctorate from Rutgers, and a legislative lobbyist when crack and gangs hit his neighborhood, and he became an inner city teacher. He blogs for This Week in Education, the Huffington Post and other sites. After 18 years in the classroom, he is writing his book, Getting Schooled: Battles Inside and Outside the Urban Classroom.

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

A few days ago I posted this: Civil Rights Groups Press for Truly Qualified Teachers. I have hit a nerve, because the piece has gotten a number of comments. Last night some sharp questions arrived from a reader named Mike Hailey. I am interested in highlighting this dialogue, so I am going to post his questions and my answers here, and invite him to respond below.

Mike Hailey writes:

I have a couple of questions: First; Is the objection that TFA and other alternatively credentialed teachers are teaching in the classroom at all or that they have been designated as "Highly Qualified" teachers? Second; Who teaches these students if you successfully bare the above from the classroom? I will hold my comments pursuant to your answers. Thank you for a very thought provoking article

Mike,
These are tough issues and I appreciate the questions. It is worth digging in to see if we can find answers that do not just paper over the problems.

Here is my objection. We have a problem in Oakland filling classrooms with teachers in the fall, because we have challenging working conditions for teachers and the lowest pay in the area. We have "solved" this problem by placing poorly trained interns in the classrooms, who turn over at even higher rates than teachers from traditional pathways. As I wrote in my earlier post, three years after they start, 75% of these interns are gone from Oakland. In my view this is a bandaid that fails to address the underlying reasons we have these unfillable vacancies in the first place. I can understand why the District has chosen this solution, but I think the high turnover has essentially been institutionalized as a constant condition in these schools, and I think that has very bad effects. In some of the low performing schools 40% to 60% of the teachers may turn over between one year and the next. This makes it very difficult to build a solid basis for improvement.

I have great respect for the Teach For America teachers I have worked with in Oakland. This is not meant as an indictment of them. I especially appreciate those who have stayed beyond two or three years, and joined in the professional community of educators at their schools and at the District level. I spent the past four years leading a program devoted to bringing experienced science teachers together with novices, including TFA interns, to support them and help them be successful. We made a dent in the turnover rate, but many of these interns never intended to stay in the classroom in the first place. This recent study indicates that fully 57% of TFA interns enter the classroom intending to leave after fulfilling their two-year commitment. And even among those who stay in education, many leave Oakland after getting their credentials. To me, it does not make sense to bring people into our classrooms who have no intention of doing more than two or three years of work there. We must invest a huge amount of time and energy in helping them with the basics of class management and curriculum, and just as they are becoming competent, they leave.

I think there are valid reasons for alternative certification programs to exist, as has been pointed out in the comments above. But I do not think we should demean the profession by calling people with six weeks of training "highly qualified." And I think, on the basis of equity and the civil rights of these students, Congress and the State of California needs to dig deeper to find ways to support Districts like Oakland so they can stabilize and build a more long term solution to the problems we face in retaining and developing strong teachers.

I want to be sure to directly respond to your questions. You ask:

Is the objection that TFA and other alternatively credentialed teachers are teaching in the classroom at all or that they have been designated as "Highly Qualified" teachers?

I object to the high numbers of alternatively credentialed teachers concentrated in high poverty schools for all the reasons above. In the context of the reauthorization of ESEA, which is intended to redress inequities in education, I object to Congress encouraging this practice by allowing these teachers to be designated as "highly qualified."

Then you ask:

Who teaches these students if you successfully bare the above from the classroom?

I believe Congress and the State of California need to take a hard look at the challenges that high poverty districts like Oakland face, because our District is hardly unique. We need a greater degree of support for the large number of special education students, English Language learners, and high poverty students. These students require a greater level of support than is currently provided. If such support were forthcoming, perhaps Oakland would not be among the lowest paid districts in the Bay Area. If pay were competitive, as it was a decade ago, experience shows us that turnover would drop and much of this problem would go away.

So the answer to your question is that we need to work to create schools that are capable of retaining teachers, through the combination of decent pay, good working conditions, strong collegial support, solid leadership and sound educational policies. If we have done this, we will build a profession, and not be relying on people recruited to be short term heroes in a flawed system. Instead we will have people who actually want to be teachers as their career filling our classrooms. The schools attended by the wealthy and even the middle class demand this. I do not believe we should accept anything less for schools attended by children in poverty.

Current education policy does not seem concerned about the issue of stability and retention, especially at our low performing schools. There is an attitude of disrespect towards teachers who work there, as if they are the reason for the low performance of their students, and thus we are better off with a situation that churns the staff. Many of the "solutions" the Department of Education mandates for chronically low performing schools require at least half of the staff to be fired or transferred. And most of the emphasis of our policies focuses on test scores. As I suggested in my post, there are many qualities of a good teacher that are not reflected in tests, that take years to develop. Designating interns with little training or experience as "highly qualified" seems to fit this pattern of disregarding the need to build stability at low performing schools as one of the conditions for improvement. And defenses of these practices that are based on the test scores these teachers achieve fail to recognize the other dimensions of good teaching that are not measured by these scores.

In my view, it is our job to seek the best possible solution for our students. I do not believe we have that with the status quo of high turnover, and the band-aid offered by Teach For America and other programs playing this role.

What do you think? Should stability and teacher retention be a higher priority? Should poorly trained interns be designated as "highly qualified teachers" and be placed hard-to-fill urban classrooms?

Posted by Anthony Cody at 11:20 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

As Congress wrestles with the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), they have a chance to address the issue of teacher quality once again. The Coalition for Teaching Quality -- 82 organizations representing civil rights, parent, community, disability, and education advocates -- have come together to demand that Congress re-commit to the objective that all children should have a well-prepared teacher.

No Child Left Behind brought us a Federal mandate for "Highly Qualified Teachers" for all students. But after that law was passed, groups like Teach For America pushed for exceptions to be made, so that their recruits, with five or six weeks of summer training, could be considered "highly qualified." Now, Congress has a chance to revisit this issue. Will they choose a definition that has some meaning this time? A letter released yesterday from the Coalition for Teaching Quality yesterday states:

Although the proposal appears to retain NCLB's "highly qualified teacher" requirements, the new definition of "highly qualified" weakens the standard so much as to make the phrase virtually meaningless and its protections for at-risk students nearly nonexistent. In this proposal, teachers are defined as "highly qualified" if they have just enrolled in an alternative certification program, even if they have completed little or no training and have met no standard of competence.

This is an area where I have direct experience. In Oakland, where I worked for the past 24 years, our student population is diverse and challenging, and deserves the attention of the most experienced and expert teachers possible. However, due to sometimes difficult conditions and low pay, we have a very high turnover rate for our teachers. Although turnover greatly diminished when teacher pay was increased a decade ago, the high costs of an urban district did not allow that pay level to persist. Pay was cut, and the shortages and high turnover returned. At that time the District turned to Teach For America and other organizations that recruit and prepare new teachers. The District enters contracts with these groups, setting aside positions that will be filled by them, and paying them in the neighborhood of $4000 per teacher, to offset the cost of recruitment and training. In exchange, these groups guarantee there will be teachers for these classrooms, which might otherwise be empty.

This solution solves a major headache for the District. Classrooms lacking a teacher are a nightmare in the fall. They must be taught by substitutes, and are often out of control. Students and parents are very unhappy, and the District gets a lot of flak. These interns are also at the bottom of the pay scale, so the District can save money.

Unfortunately, although Congress has declared such teachers "Highly Qualified," common sense tells us they are not. A six week summer training does not a teacher make. These novices are hardworking and well-intentioned, but they are not very effective their first year. By the end of their second year they are getting their feet on the ground. But this brings us to the second major flaw with this approach. After their second year, half of these teachers have left Oakland. Three years after they begin, 75% of them are gone. That means many of our students, year after year, are served by teachers who lack the depth of experience needed to be fully effective.

And I have to add in one key issue that is related to this. In 2005, Linda Darling-Hammond released a study that found that student achievement was better for teachers with more formal preparation. Teachers who were in alternative certification programs, who had not gone through teacher training, had poorer student performance, on average. The problem with this study, from my point of view, was that it used test scores as its means of measuring the differences between teachers. Test scores are subject to gaming, meaning intense focus on test preparation, which robs the scores of real value as an indicator of good teaching.

There was a quick and decisive reaction to this research from Teach For America and other alternative certification programs. Enter the classroom of a TFA intern teacher, and you are likely to find a large poster that says "Our Big Goal, 80% mastery." You are likely to find student test scores posted on the wall. TFA coaches began focusing almost entirely on data with the teachers they were supporting. This translated into an intense focus on test preparation. I had a TFA director ask me if I could provide her with all the questions to the District's science benchmark exams, so their teachers could focus their instruction on the right concepts (a request I declined). Clearly, Teach For America had decided that their interns would have the best test scores possible, so they could no longer be faulted for being "ineffective" by that all-important set of indicators.

I had one mentee who was teaching Biology a couple of years ago. Her students were not doing very well on her weekly tests, and she was worried they would likewise do poorly on the state exams in the Spring. Her TFA coach advised her to shift her instruction so that every classroom assignment would resemble a test. Every day for a while, her students got worksheets with multiple choice and short answer questions. Their test scores went up, but they were bored, and after a few months of this, she shifted to a more project-based approach.

So when I say these interns are "ineffective," I am not simply speaking of test scores. I am speaking of a broader range of teaching abilities, many of which take several years of training and experience to develop. The most disturbing thing to me about the dependence of many of our high poverty schools on poorly trained interns is the level of turnover, which means students may get novice teachers year after year, and there may not be that critically valuable reservoir of experienced teachers available at the school to nurture, support and serve as role models for these beginners.

This is most certainly an issue of equity. The schools of Berkeley and Piedmont, more affluent communities bordering Oakland, do not find it necessary to hire interns like this. Parents there would not tolerate it. Oakland is largely poor, with high numbers of African American, Latino and Asian immigrants and special education students. We should have the most highly qualified teachers to respond to the needs of these students. Instead, we have had Congress creating strange definitions of "Highly Qualified" teachers, so as to allow us to continue to use poorly trained high-turnover interns, almost entirely in schools of high poverty.

Senator Bernie Sanders is preparing to introduce amendments to the ESEA proposal, which would create a more sensible definition of "highly qualified". Please encourage your representatives to support this in the reauthorization of ESEA.

What do you think? Should intern teachers with six weeks of training be called "highly qualified"? Is this an issue of equity?

Posted by Anthony Cody at 11:38 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

In his September 28 reflection on Education Nation, John Merrow has provided us with a distillation of the solution being offered to improve learning in our low-achieving schools. Copy KIPP.

For those who have not reviewed the methods at KIPP, Merrow describes them for us.

KIPP kindergarten teachers explain to their kids why they are going to walk in a line and why they are expected to be quiet in the halls. Lots of regular teachers just tell the kids to line up and be quiet. The first way is respectful and creates shared responsibility, while the second seems likely to create behavior problems down the road.

Hmmm. This does not sound too revolutionary. I do not know very many experienced teachers who resemble the "regular teacher" Merrow describes.

But there is a bigger picture here. John Merrow tells us that teachers need a new story.

I suggest a narrative that is tougher on schools but also closer to reality. It's this: "For as long as anyone can remember, there has been close to a 1:1 correlation between parental income and educational outcomes, whether the parents were rich, poor or somewhere in between. On one level, that seems to mean that schools basically do not matter. Only money talks.

"However, we know that's not true because we have in front of our eyes hundreds of examples of schools and teachers that do change lives."

"So do not be mad about schooling's failure to dramatically improve the lives of all 15 million children living in poverty. Instead, imitate the successful places, people and practices. Find out what's keeping educators from imitating success. Eliminate the obstacles and -- here's where you should get mad -- get rid of the educators who refuse to be copy-cats."

First, we have an argument known as "reductio ad absurdum." He takes the fact that indeed socioeconomic status and family support have been found over and over again to be by far the biggest determinants of educational success, and exaggerates it so he can dismiss it. Arne Duncan is fond of a similar trope, accusing those who speak of the significance of socioeconomic status of saying that "poverty is destiny." In fact, nobody actually says that there is a 1:1 correlation between income and outcomes.

Merrow and Duncan would have us choose between two extremes. Either we must believe poverty is destiny and schools make no difference, or schools are capable of overcoming all obstacles (if only they are willing to get tough on those who fail to copy KIPP).

Can't our brains work better than this? Is it not possible that schools matter, and that teachers can make a difference, but schools alone are not, in most cases, able to make up for the effects of poverty? Poverty does not have to be absolute destiny in order to have a pervasive and persistent effect on student outcomes. Apparently, Merrow finds it necessary to dismiss the impact of poverty in order to "hold these schools accountable."

Merrow seems to believe that the fact that exceptional schools exist somehow wipes out all that we have learned about the negative impact poverty has on students. Some schools have good results in spite of the poverty of their students, therefore any school can have similar results if they simply follow the example set by these role models.

Richard Rothstein has addressed this argument rather well:

It seems plausible that if some children can defy the demographic odds, all children can, but that belief reflects a reasoning whose naiveté we easily recognize in other policy areas. In human affairs where multiple causation is typical, causes are not disproved by exceptions. Tobacco firms once claimed that smoking does not cause cancer because some people smoke without getting cancer. We now consider such reasoning specious. We do not suggest that alcoholism does not cause child or spousal abuse because not all alcoholics are abusers. We understand that because no single cause is rigidly deterministic, some people can smoke or drink to excess without harm. But we also understand that, on average, these behaviors are dangerous. Yet despite such understanding, quite sophisticated people often proclaim that the success of some poor children proves that social disadvantage does not cause low achievement.

Then we have the only actionable part of his recommendation. Get rid of teachers who refuse to copy the wonders of KIPP. Is instilling the fear of getting fired truly the best way Merrow can think of to spread these practices? In taking this approach Merrow joins people like Michelle Rhee who find it necessary to fire people in order to show how serious they are. "Getting rid" of a significant number of teachers has not been shown viable method of improving classroom practices, especially when our most challenging schools already suffer from atrocious levels of turnover.

To be fair, there is something to be said for emulating others. Good collaboration is all about sharing what works, and teachers are fond of "stealing" good ideas from one another. I created a web site years ago to share my lesson ideas, and certainly do not object to people copying whatever they like. The sorts of things that Merrow cites as worthy of copying seem to focus on classroom procedures. This is an area where KIPP excels.

But to suggest that we will eliminate the gap between privileged and poor when we have rid our schools of anyone unwilling to copy these techniques? I do not think so. I know John Merrow has spent a lot of time in schools, but I rather doubt that this level of explicitness is the key to success in KIPP schools. I think it might have more to do with their longer school day, their insistence on parental involvement, and the fact that they recruit students willing to "work hard and be nice." The middle school where I worked for 18 years could not insist on these things, nor could we exit students who did not go along with the program. In fact, we had to enroll the students who were bounced out of KIPP and other charter schools in the area.

I have a different standard for excellent teaching. The best teaching emerges from a thousand acts of improvisation. But like the most powerful jazz, great teaching is built on a practice of sound fundamentals. A good teacher does need to learn how to line children up to walk in the hall, how to distribute and collect papers, call on students and orchestrate the work of cooperative groups. But once we have mastered these basics, which certainly can and should be copied from those who are proficient, that is when we begin to improvise and inspire.

Classroom improvisation is not some individualistic act of rebellion. Neither is it a solo performance. It is all about understanding our students, and taking advantage of opportunities to catch and engage their interest. It is about being willing to deviate from the formal curriculum to delve into themes and topics that emerge from the students themselves. The best teaching is an investigation into the big question which never has the same answer twice, "What will excite and engage my students?" What caught fire last year may not be so great the second time around, but every time we succeed, we have a riff to remember. Even then the key is not our great idea, it is the way we are able to excite our students to think for themselves and generate ideas. Our students know when we are teaching THEM, as individuals. We show this when we respond to their interests and concerns, and build on THEIR genius.

The most advanced professional growth for teachers comes from the all-too-rare chances we have to share our successful - and failed - attempts to engage our students, and help them grasp challenging concepts. This becomes systematic when we collaborate with others through processes like teacher action research or Lesson Study. The aliveness this gives our classrooms makes them exciting places for both students and teachers. Teachers who engage their students this way, and who continually investigate and collaborate to find new approaches are never bored, and are far less likely to suffer from the burnout that makes teacher turnover so high at many schools (including charters like KIPP).

I am not against teachers mastering techniques to line children up to walk in the hall, or any of the other things that allow us to focus on learning in the classroom. I am disappointed, however, that someone with as much knowledge as John Merrow has would mistake this for some sort of systemic solution to inequities in our schools.

Contrary to Merrow's suggestion, we will not eliminate the achievement gap by firing those who refuse to be KIPP copycats. We must, of course, demand competence in the basics of good instruction, procedures and class management. But the educators who have the greatest success in our most challenging schools are those who actively investigate what will work best with their students, and are willing not just to copy, but to improvise. And we should not diminish the challenges these teachers face by suggesting that mastery of KIPP's handbook of techniques will be enough to overcome the effects of rising levels of poverty.

What do you think? Does Merrow's narrative offer anything new? Will firing those who refuse to copy KIPP close the achievement gap?

Posted by Anthony Cody at 6:54 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Over the past two decades living and working in Oakland, I became well acquainted with Dr. Anna Richert. This professor of education at Mills College has built a powerful network of teachers engaged in systematically reflecting on their teaching practice. I have served as a member of the advisory board for the Mills Teacher Scholars for several years. I wrote about their work last May in this post. As we look for ways to improve our classrooms for our students, teacher research ought to be very high on the list. I asked Anna to share some of her expertise in this interview.

Anthony: What is teacher action research?

Dr. Richert:
Different people have different ideas about what constitutes teacher action research. Common to all is the idea of teachers studying their practice--typically their students' learning and their own teaching--in a systematic way. Whereas all good teachers reflect on their practice to make sense of their work, those who engage in teacher research do this reflection in a deep and intentional manner. Three core practices that are part of the research process of the Mills Teacher Scholars Project that I have been leading at Mills College for the last decade or so are aimed at supporting this kind of systematic reflection. They include the need: 1) to carefully formulate a research question; 2) to conceptualize and enact a systematic and intentional plan for gathering and analyzing classroom and school-based data to answer that question, and 3) to articulate and enact a plan for changed classroom practice that reflects the teacher's learning from the research process.

Anthony: How do teachers organize themselves to do this?

Dr. Richert:
Teachers have various ways of organizing themselves to engage in action research. Some, who have had the opportunity to learn about how to do action research, do it on their own. Most teachers I know prefer to do their research with others--that is in a research group like the Mills Teacher Scholars, where the teachers can support one another as the work moves along. There is a real advantage to doing teacher research as a part of a group because it offer validation that doing research matters, a factor of accountability to one's colleagues that a research group provides, and also possibility of having others look at your "data" and your findings. The happenings of teaching and learning are inordinately complex. Having multiple perspectives on what one is observing/finding enriches the process many fold.

Anthony: How have you seen it affect teachers that you have worked with?

Dr. Richert:
In my experience (including my own experience as a teacher researcher) the process of engaging in teacher research is transformative. Looking in a systematic and careful way at students learning and one's teaching brings agency to the work of teaching and allows the teacher to act with intent. It is a relief to name the uncertainty of teaching, which is inherent to the research process that begins by framing a question about one's work and thus undo the myth of certainty that pervades our field these days. The teacher researchers I have spoken with about this report that it is liberating to know what you know and what you need to know more about so you can continuously improve your practice. Teacher research allows you to do just that. The teacher often finds herself assuming a new sense of professional authority as she becomes the author of her professional understandings. It is she who becomes the expert rather than outsiders who tell her how to think and what to do.

Anthony: What is the role of collaboration in this sort of research?

Dr. Richert:
Collaboration is an essential part of the process. This is even more so in settings where the student population is diverse. Understanding student learning (or other classroom- based phenomena) is difficult work made more possible and effective if considered from multiple perspectives. We know from current learning theory that knowledge is socially constructed. Having colleagues with whom to share the different stages of the research process greatly enhances every aspect of doing teacher research.

Anthony: How has it affected the teacher researcher's teaching practice?

Dr. Richert:
The teachers in the Mills Teacher Scholars program report changing their practice as a result of doing their research and getting smarter about what their students know and don't know. Interestingly, their teaching practice is changed not only from what they learn about their students' learning, which is primary, but also from the inquiry stance that leads them to ask questions about what is happening in their classes as a regular part of every day's work. They report teaching with an inquiry stance is different from teaching without one as the process keeps their own professional learning alive. Additionally, many report that their relationships with their students change as they engage their students as collaborators in the research process. Everyone learns-teachers and students alike--in a classroom led by an inquiring teacher researcher.

Anthony: How have you seen this impact student learning?

Dr. Richert:
In the Mills Teacher Scholars we are tracking student learning outcomes in the classrooms of the teacher researchers with whom we work. The teachers routinely report findings of student learning as measures by benchmark assessments and daily classroom student work that systematically gathered to mark progress (or no progress) in learning outcomes. This year we have collected the standardized test score data of the focal students who were part of the prior year's study. Though not all of those data are in, what we see thus far shows important gains for the focal students who were part of the teacher's research project. This is promising indeed.

Anthony: What sort of support do teachers need to do this kind of work?

Dr. Richert:
Given the structure of schools as we know it, finding time and support for doing this kind of careful thinking about one's teaching is difficult to say the least. There are exceptions, of course--and in those settings the support for teacher research can come from the culture of the school where all teachers are encouraged (and provided time) for this inquiry work. But even in those settings, support for the work is essential. Teachers simply have so many things pulling at them always. Unless it is an expectation that they will step back and reflect on their practice, it is not likely that this will happen--at least not in the systematic way I believe is at the heart of teacher research.

My sense is that there is a misconception about school by those outside them that teachers are provided the time and opportunity to think about their students' learning with colleagues and grow in their professional knowledge as a result. We find that this is rarely the case. Not only do teachers not have the time to collaborate with their colleagues and learn about their teaching in the process, they don't have the knowledge and skills about how to engage in this kind of work, since it is not typically thought of as a necessary component of teaching. My experience leads me to believe that having support for teacher research is essential. Even for experienced teacher researchers having support in terms of time, colleagues, and guidance is important.

Anthony: Where is teacher research taking place?

Dr. Richert:
There are teacher research groups happening all across the country, plus there are networks of teacher researchers that, if interested, teachers can seek out on line. Some school districts support teacher research groups such as the partnership we have with Oakland Unified School District. Our Oakland partnership underscores district's commitment to teacher-led professional development. County offices of education often support teacher research groups as well such as the TARI project of the Alameda County Office of Education. Mills Teacher Scholars program is excited about growing community of teacher researchers and would welcome news of similar projects that support teachers to study their practice in these ways and in so doing, build a knowledge base for the profession by the teachers who are "on the ground" doing the work.

Anna Richert is a Professor of Education and Faculty Director of the MIlls Teacher Scholars Project at Mills College in Oakland CA. She has a 20+ year history directing teacher research projects for teachers in urban schools. Her research focuses on teacher learning and teacher leadership with an emphasis on the role professional inquiry and ethics play in both. She was a Teacher Education Scholar at the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and and a recent recipient of a Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Fellowship. Her work in both settings focused on teacher research Richert has a book forthcoming titled "What Should I Do? Managing the Ethical Dilemmas of Teaching," which will be published by Teachers College Press this coming spring.

What do you think of the sort of teacher collaboration Dr. Richert describes? Have you seen this work in your school?

Posted by Anthony Cody at 10:42 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Guest post by John Thompson.

Atul Gawande says that surgery is not like teaching where your best work is behind you by the age of thirty. Just kidding! In fact, Gawande's New Yorker article, "Personal Best" explains the value of programs for coaching teachers in order to show its potential in transforming doctors' practice.

In medicine, as in education, the temptation is to look for transformative changes rather than teaching professionals to be more effective. The most famous example was the discovery that simple checklists and reminding doctors to wash their hands were able to improve health as much as sophisticated technological systems. But Gawande also explains that "coaching" is just a fancy term for "teaching" and its most effective technique is "just conversation." Wouldn't it be ironic if the best way to improve teaching was through teaching, talking, and listening?

Gawande writes, "The concept of a coach is slippery. Coaches are not teachers, but they teach. They're not your boss --in professional tennis, golf, and skating, the athlete hires and fires the coach-- but they can be bossy. They don't even have to be good at the sport. ... Mainly, they observe, they judge, and they guide."

Gawande describes how a tennis coach provided another set of eyes that improved his footwork, thus improving the best part of his game. Also, Gawande's surgery coach saw that his elbow was out of place, indicating that other aspects of the team process of performing operations was out of kilter. He listened to musical coaches who proclaimed the benefits of "outside ears." Gawande also compared professional coaching to editing. The best coaches and editors build confidence.

In a man bites dog twist, Gawande describes the coaching of teachers as a model for improving medicine. He reviews evidence that teachers only use ten per cent of the information they gain in professional development workshops. "But when coaching was introduced --when a colleague watched them try the new skills in their own classroom and provided suggestions-- adoption rates passed ninety per cent."

Even better, coaches learn from the professionals who they teach. Gawande describes an excellent teaching performance. The math teacher was urged to help her students verbalize concepts better. None of the observers knew how to do that,however, so they brainstormed for solutions.

And better still, coaching can be an antidote to teacher "burnout." This excellent teacher had being feeling isolated, and that had increased her stress. The shared experience of learning from each other reenergized that teacher.

Gawande concludes that "coaching done well may be the most effective intervention designed for human performance." And with new tools like videotaping and value-added technologies, the coaching of teaching could become a transformational change.

Coaching cultivates, "'deliberate practice'--sustained, mindful efforts to develop the full range of abilities that success requires." It enables professionals to work at what they're not good at. But this means that highly-effective professionals must expose themselves to scrutiny and fault-finding. In fact, Gawande describes his feelings about a coaching session where he made a surgical error.

Consequently, there are some non-negotiables for effectively coaching professionals. Firstly, coaches must understand why it will always be difficult for experienced professionals to be open about their mistakes and weaknesses. Consequently, coaches must let the teachers choose the direction of the coaching, and listen more than talk.

Above all, coaches owe their allegiance to the professional they are helping. As usually is the case in sports, there must be a firewall (my word, not Gawande's) between the teaching coach and the accountability regime. Personally, I always taught with my door open, and I would have loved a collaborative relationship with a teacher coach. On the other hand, I would have never opened up to an evaluation system such as Michelle Rhee's IMPACT.

I would welcome the opportunity to share videotapes of my lessons with peers, as in the case of National Board Certification, but a video camera solely in the hands of management is just "Big Brother." I have always loved data, and would welcome value-added tools for assessing my effectiveness, if those statistics were interpreted by a peer review committee, but teachers owe it to the profession to "monkey wrench" those models if they are just in the hands of the central office.

But Gawande's article was hopeful, and we also must be. Combine new tools with a coach who works with teachers to help students, and there is no telling what could be accomplished.

What do you think? Would you welcome a teaching coach? Would your colleagues? Does there need to be a clear distinction between coaching and high-stakes evaluations?

John Thompson was an award winning historian, with a doctorate from Rutgers, and a legislative lobbyist when crack and gangs hit his neighborhood, and he became an inner city teacher. He blogs for This Week in Education, the Huffington Post and other sites. After 18 years in the classroom, he is writing his book, Getting Schooled: Battles Inside and Outside the Urban Classroom.

Posted by Anthony Cody at 10:52 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Jerry Brown is perhaps the most powerful leader in our country who actually understands what has happened to our schools as a result of standards-based data-driven reform. In a move that signals exactly what should be done with the moribund No Child Left Behind in Congress, Brown has issued a veto of a California law, SB 547, that revamped the state's similarly flawed accountability system.

Governor Brown first made waves regarding education when, as State Attorney General, he wrote a scathing letter to Arne Duncan in response to Race to the Top.

He sent another strong signal this spring, when his May Budget Outline made it clear he feels testing is out of control. He wrote then:

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.

In vetoing SB 547, Brown has taken the strongest stance yet. His entire statement is available here, at the Answer Sheet blog. The proposed law,Senate Bill 547 was drafted to mitigate some of the more onerous aspects of the state's Academic Performance Index (API) system, replacing it with something called the Education Quality Index. It appears that this index would score schools based not only on test scores, but also graduation rates, college preparedness and career readiness. Governor Brown asserted, however, that these changes did not go nearly far enough. He wrote,

SB547 nowhere mentions good character or love of learning. It does allude to student excitement and creativity, but does not take these qualities seriously because they can't be placed in a data stream. Lost in the bill's turgid mandates is any recognition that quality is fundamentally different from quantity.

Brown made it clear where his concerns lie:

...while SB547 attempts to improve the API, it relies on the same quantitative and standardized paradigm at the heart of the current system. The criticism of the API is that it has led schools to focus too narrowly on tested subjects and ignore other subjects and matters that are vital to a well-rounded education. SB547 certainly would add more things to measure, but it is doubtful that it would actually improve our schools. Adding more speedometers to a broken car won't turn it into a high-performance machine.

Over the last 50 years, academic "experts" have subjected California to unceasing pedagogical change and experimentation. The current fashion is to collect endless quantitative data to populate ever-changing indicators of performance to distinguish the educational "good" from the education "bad." Instead of recognizing that perhaps we have reached testing nirvana, editorialists and academics alike call for ever more measurement "visions and revisions."

But Brown went farther still. He concluded his statement by challenging lawmakers to look at school quality in a whole new light.

There are other ways to improve our schools --- to indeed focus on quality. What about a system that relies on locally convened panels to visit schools, observe teachers, interview students, and examine student work? Such a system wouldn't produce an API number, but it could improve the quality of our schools.

This last recommendation shows Brown has been paying close attention to other models of accountability such as those advanced by the Forum on Educational Accountability,

In this veto, Governor Brown has set a powerful example that should be followed by our representatives in Congress. No Child Left Behind, just like California's API system, is deeply flawed and manifestly unworkable. The Department of Education and Congress appear prepared to make superficial changes that leave the essential character of the law intact. In California we have a governor who is showing there is a very different approach. Let's hope members of Congress are paying attention.

What do you think of Governor Brown's veto of Senate Bill 547? Does this show how we should respond to the reauthorization of NCLB?

Posted by Anthony Cody at 6:44 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

A high school in La Palma, California, is coming under fire for a system that publicly identifies and treats students differently according to their scores on the state standardized tests. Students who perform at the highest levels in all subjects receive a black or platinum ID card, while those who score a mix of proficient and advanced receive a gold card. Students who score "basic" or below receive a white ID card. Students with black or gold cards get certain privileges, such as free entrance to sporting events and discounts at local business events. Those with white ID cards get no such privileges, and have a designated line in the cafeteria, while the elite black and gold cardholders have a different line. The majority of students at the school have white cards, so guess which line is longer?

A school administrator reportedly advised female students at an assembly to go to dances with boys with black cards rather than white cards.

Parents have complained that this is akin to bullying, and that low performing and learning disabled students feel stigmatized by the program.

Reporter Scott Martindale at the Orange County Register broke this story Tuesday, and followed up yesterday by speaking with a motivational expert who raised concerns about the program. But the principal, Ben Carpenter, defended the program vigorously, asserting that it has helped the school raise its API score from 880 to 895.

Principal Carpenter pointed out that prior to the program, many students did not care about their test scores. He said,

There was nothing in it for them, other than an intrinsic motivation they may or may not have. The intent of the gold card program was to provide an incentive for all students, to say, "Hey, there is something in this for me. I can get something out of performing on this exam."

This program addresses a genuine problem. Many of our students do not see a connection between their performance on standardized tests and their own lives. They are not motivated to even try. I have seen students put their heads on the desk during testing, or fill in bubbles in random patterns. As we attach ever higher stakes to these tests this behavior can have very harsh consequences for the schools and individual teachers as well.

The trouble with this approach is that it intensifies the damage our obsession with testing is doing. It essentially "brands" students according to their academic performance on this one set of tests, and then rewards or humiliates them accordingly. Test performance has become literally the basis on which these students are identified. This means the majority of students at this school belong to a subclass, and they are being trained to think of themselves as unworthy of the good things in life due to their inferior performance. Of course, school leaders are hoping this will encourage everyone to try harder, but for many students, this is not a viable strategy. The English language learners, the learning disabled, these students struggle to succeed. Even First Lady Michelle Obama has described herself as being "never a great standardized test taker." Defining the worth of students based on standardized test scores is not likely to result in many magical turnarounds.

The quality of a student's work should not be reduced to a few test scores. Learning should be so much richer and more complex than these scores can ever indicate. And all of our students should be treated with equal respect, and not discriminated against based on their test scores. Test scores are not useless, but making them central to the mission of a school, and even worse, central to the identity of individual students, is a big mistake. Some parents are responding to the testing craze by going so far as to opt out of standardized tests altogether. Programs such as this one make that an understandable choice.

UPDATE: The Orange County Register this morning reported that the Anaheim Union High School District has discontinued the most controversial aspects of this program. The District released a statement which reads, in part:

Students will no longer carry color-coded binders. Cypress High School and Kennedy High School will provide uniform binders and uniform school ID cards for all students, at no cost to them. ... The privileges that are of a public nature, such as faster lunch lines, will no longer be in place.

They plan to create a new, apparently less public, incentive system.

Update 2: From Donovan Wheeler comes this cartoon, drawn a week ago, reproduced here by permission.

What do you think? Is this program a wise way to motivate students to perform well on tests?

Posted by Anthony Cody at 7:53 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Over the past nineteen days we have witnessed a remarkable movement emerge. First in New York City, on Wall Street, and now in cities across the country, young people have taken to the streets to protest the way their futures have been hijacked by decisions made far beyond them. I am with them 100%.

I am with them because I have two sons, now in college, who have a very unclear future. Some 85% of 2011's college graduates are now back home living with their parents, with substantial debt. Every time I see my older son, Alex, we discuss his concern for the environment. Last week he shared a paper he was writing for a college English class he is taking. Like many of those protesting, he is asking tough questions about his own education and life path. He wrote,

Most of the time I think that the learning which most students do for the purpose of getting a degree to get a job in order to survive, is a wasteful, destructive path that most people are brainwashed into walking. As the expression goes, monkey see monkey do, and most people only base their actions on what they have seen or heard other people do; instead of trying new things. When we have the largest most powerful countries in the world not abiding by all ethical codes of conduct; we see huge problems of poverty, war, and destruction to the environment....

When I look at the images and read about these protestors, I see not only my sons, but our students. What world are they inheriting? What values are guiding the decisions that are made? How can it be that we, as a society, bailed out the banks yet left millions of individual homeowners completely underwater on their mortgages? How can it be that as the top one percent accumulates ever more wealth, we are told we are "broke" when it comes time to fund our schools, and the pensions of those of us who work there? How can we continue to pay billions of dollars for endless wars, when we cannot fund the education of the next generation?

The core question the protestors raise is one of values. What do we, as a society, prize above all? This is also at the core of the deepening battle over the future of our schools. We have told a generation of students that if they pass their tests and graduate from college, they will find prosperity and meaning for their lives. But as they graduate and try to live out this promise, they find it empty. Now, as our students graduate with little to show for their work beyond a scrap of sheepskin and a pile of debt, society's bluff has been called.

Our public schools are endangered by the policies and laws that are being enacted across the nation. Within the past year, we have seen teachers lose the right to collectively bargain in Wisconsin, and in many states we are seeing laws enacted tying teacher pay and evaluations to test scores. Laws that expand vouchers and charter schools are likewise being passed, and on the national level, many elements of Race to the Top are being introduced as Congress moves to reauthorize No Child Left Behind. As this guest post explained earlier this week, corporations have an oversized influence on these laws. Solid research and expertise of classroom teachers and parents has been pushed aside. Our political system has been fundamentally corrupted by the power of money, made even more extreme by the Citizens United case, which defines corporations as people with free speech rights.

When our political system is broken, direct action, even civil disobedience is called for. The protests in New York and cities around the country are raising fundamental questions about our priorities and the way decisions have been made in recent years. I say it is about time.

What do you think about the movement spawned by the occupation of Wall Street?

All photos used through Creative Commons license:

• Protest march photo by Carwil Bjork-James


• They Made us Hate ourselves photo by Francesca Fiondella.


• No Bank Left Behind photo by Michael Dolan.

Posted by Anthony Cody at 6:45 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Guest post by the administrative team of United Opt Out: Shaun Johnson, Morna McDermott, Laurie Murphy, Peg Robertson, Tim Slekar and Ceresta Smith (a website dedicated to ending punitive high stakes testing in public education).

In the past year, a number of states have introduced laws that "reform" education in similar ways. In state after state, teacher seniority and due process has been undermined, and the use of standardized tests to pay and evaluate teachers been expanded. In recent months, reports have emerged of a shadowy group that has developed tremendous influence over legislation in states across the country. This group is the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). And, according to ALEC Exposed,

Through the corporate-funded American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), global corporations and state politicians vote behind closed doors to try to rewrite state laws that govern your rights. These so-called "model bills" reach into almost every area of American life and often directly benefit huge corporations. Through ALEC, corporations have "a VOICE and a VOTE" on specific changes to the law that are then proposed in your state."

In the context of public education policy in America, ALEC has sponsored legislation that, 1) advocates simple standardized testing as an accountability gauge, 2) calls for rigid accountability systems that ignores substantial research on teaching and learning, 3) supports taxpayer-subsidized vouchers, 4) releases private schools that receive tax dollars from state accountability systems, 5) pushes charter schools as alternatives to community based public schools, and 6) supports the elimination of locally elected school boards. These reforms have been enacted in states such as Wisconsin and Ohio and New York. Also Pennsylvania, Indiana, Michigan, and Florida are all considering similar legislative actions.

This legislation embodies the central tenets of corporatized education reform-- standardized testing, choice, accountability, and standardized curricula. Each of these tenets has been thoroughly examined over the last decade or more. What else can be said about the validity of these programs other than the fact that the empirical evidence consistently points out that each of these corporate ideas continually fails to deliver positive change to our system of public education in America.

In fact, as near as we can tell, the current debates in education reform are not about empirical evidence--this fight is largely about ideology. What does it mean to be an educated person? How do we define success and what does it mean to be accountable for it? Arguments and methods that do not adhere to a particular ideology about education are summarily shut out, and it just so happens that the concerns of a vast majority of teachers, parents, higher education faculty members, and even students are being ignored.

Again, how is it that ALEC can exert so much influence on public education? You would expect that citizens within a democracy can, so to speak, hire and fire those who represent them. You would expect that elected officials were being informed by those most closely associated with public education. As evidenced above this is not the case. Wealth and power as opposed to wisdom and evidence are the new masters driving the corporate reform agenda. Therefore, we at United Opt Out have been pushed to advocate what may seem like an extreme action -- the boycotting of state standardized tests.

The machine that is corporate reform needs to have a wrench thrown into it. It must be brought to a screeching halt. A substantial discussion of the evidence must be part of the ideological discussion. Parents, teachers, students, and "experts" in education must regain prominence in the discussion concerning the future of public education in America. For us, opting out of standardized testing (defined by inclusive actions) and denying the corporate reformers the data they so covet is an act of civil disobedience justified by ALEC's intent to subvert traditional democratic processes.

What do you think of the education reforms emerging as a result of the work of the American Legislative Exchange Council? Is this the way our laws should be shaped?

Posted by Anthony Cody at 12:22 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Headlines from Alabama tell us that the latest "education reform" there is making sure we know exactly how much the state is spending to educate the children of "illegal" immigrants. According to a new law, parents are required to present documentation when registering their children to attend school. While the law does not require school officials to turn in the names of "illegals," it has sparked widespread fear among immigrant parents, and many have withdrawn their children from school. Meanwhile, Texas governor Rick Perry's poll numbers in the Republican primary have fallen after he said that members of his party who do not support free education for students who are undocumented "have no heart."

Why is it that in times of economic hardship, some people take aim at those who have the least power and wealth?

This morning I caught a ten minute trailer for the documentary, Nickel and Dimed, based on journalist Barbara Ehrenreich's experiment several years ago, when she sought to survive for a year at a variety of minimum wage jobs. She worked as a housekeeper, a Walmart greeter, a waitress, and lived in the lowest rent housing she could find. But in spite of no major catastrophes, and no children to raise, she fell behind, and found herself repeatedly not able to make ends meet.

In one scene in Nickel and Dimed, Ehrenreich is discussing the issue of poverty with a young Yale graduate, clearly raised in the realm of privilege. He says, "What about philanthropy? Public service? A lot of those (wealthy) people devote millions and millions and millions of dollars to building houses in poor communities."

Ehrenreich responds:

Don't tell me about philanthropy. The real philanthropists in our society are the people who work for less than they can actually live on. Because they are giving of their time, and their energy, and their talents, all the time, so that people like you can be dressed well and fed cheaply and so on. They are giving to YOU.

But public services for poor people, and those of us who work as public employees, have become big targets as some conservatives seek to "shrink government," and provide even more tax relief for the wealthy.

One of the reasons for some people to oppose funding for public schools, at least in my state of California, is the fact that almost fifty percent of the students enrolled are Latino. Judging from hostile comments posted on newspaper articles about education, and from Rick Perry's recent troubles, a certain portion of the population believes we are coddling people who have no right to be here.

According to these folks, the greatest social parasites are low-paid immigrants, and government employees. It's a wonder, isn't it? Two groups of people who work the hardest, and contribute the most to society, find ourselves with targets on our backs when times get tough.

It has been a long time since we have had social unrest on a wide scale. When people are pushed into a corner, when their sense of a future is taken away, and they lack even a chance at success, they eventually will rebel. Our public schools have been one vehicle by which one generation can hope that the next will do better. In Alabama, we are seeing that taken away for many students. And Rick Perry's chance to be the Republican nominee may founder on his political error of defending education for immigrants, making me wonder how far conservatives may take us down this path.

We are reminded in Nickel and Dimed of a quote from Voltaire: "The comfort of the rich depends upon the abundance of the poor." But events on Wall Street and across the country are reminding us that the poor must acquiesce, because in their very abundance, they have a latent power that lacks only the will to act cohesively to be made real. And as teachers, police officers, fire fighters and other public servants find our pensions diminished, our pay cut, and our due process rights removed, we may have much more in common with the poor than the wealthy.

What do you think of the Alabama law requiring schools to inquire about the immigration status of students? How should our schools respond to the needs of immigrants?

Posted by Anthony Cody at 10:44 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend