November 2011 Archives

California, with more public school students than any other state, has surprised many by declining to apply for waivers to No Child Left Behind. The implications of this decision are far-reaching, and so in the coming weeks I am going to be asking a variety of educational leaders for their thoughts. Today, I am sharing the thoughts of education historian Diane Ravitch.

What do you think of the decision by elected leaders in California to forgo the opportunity to apply for waivers to NCLB?

I was very pleased when California decided to turn down the waivers for California. I think it took a lot of courage by Governor Brown and Superintendent Torlakson.

What do you think the down side of applying for these waivers would have been?

One of the many problems with NCLB is that it came packaged with unrealistic, expensive and heavy-handed federal mandates. It put too much emphasis on testing and punishment for failure to reach impossible goals. The waivers now offered by the US Department of Education require the states to comply with other mandates, still tied to the NCLB-style accountability framework. The emphasis on testing under the waiver plan is as heavy-handed as it has been under NCLB. Many schools with high numbers of low-scoring students will be subject to firings and closings. They need help, not punishment. One of the lessons of NCLB is that the federal government does not know how to improve schools.

What do you think will be the result of this decision? How will schools in the state cope with NCLB if it remains in effect?

NCLB is a terrible, punitive, ineffective law. The law mandates that 100% of all students must be proficient in math and reading by 2014. No state is even close to that goal. More than 80% of public schools in the United States are currently "failing," by the law's requirements. Congress should scrap the accountability provisions and start over. The waivers ease the pressure for change. Every citizen in every community, town, and citizen should be calling their Congressman and Senators and urging them to get rid of this crazy law. No other nation in the world ever created a system that was guaranteed to label almost every school in the nation a failure.

Many states and districts made big promises to get Race to the Top grants. How is that working out for them?

To get Race to the Top money, states had to promise to open more privately managed charter schools and to tie teacher evaluation to student test scores, among other things. Research consistently shows that charters vary widely in quality; some are very good, some are mediocre, some are bad. Teacher evaluation by test scores is very controversial, and there is no evidence as yet that it leads to higher test scores. For sure, it will raise the stakes on testing. Since most teachers don't teach tested subjects, some states are creating more tests, and others are still trying to figure out how to evaluate those teachers without standardized scores. In New York, several hundred principals signed a petition against the state's new evaluation system, on grounds that it was untried and would demoralize their staff.

Assuming California now charts a new path for school reform, what do you think that should look like?

California is in the midst of the worst fiscal situation in modern times. The state must change the way it finances schools and universities, so that resources are available to restore what was once of the best education systems in the nation. The leadership for school reform should come from Sacramento and from local communities, from people who understand local problems. Washington should send federal dollars to help educate the students with the greatest needs--those with disabilities, those who are poor, and those who are English language learners. That is the proper role of the federal government.

How do you think this stance might influence other states across the country?

If California could send a message to other states, it should be this: There are no easy answers, no quick fixes, no solutions that can be supplied by Washington. We are all involved in the job of school improvement--parents, students, teachers, administrators, the local community. We must work together to raise up the next generation, to make sure they are healthy and prepared for good lives as citizens of our society. Our public schools are and will continue to be a vital part of our democratic society. We must improve the schools by making sure that every child in every community has a full and balanced curriculum. We must require that every school has an arts program and physical education. Our future as a state and nation depends on the education we provide today.

On January 20, the Sacramento Coalition to Save Public Education is sponsoring An Evening with Diane Ravitch, who will be joined onstage by Superintendent Tom Torlakson, Linda Darling-Hammond and myself. Please join us!

What do you think of Diane Ravitch's viewpoint? Should other states follow California's lead and leave the NCLB waivers behind?

Follow me on Twitter at @AnthonyCody
image of Diane Ravitch used by permission.

Posted by Anthony Cody at 11:53 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

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We are seeing our First Amendment right to free speech redefined by the practices being carried out by our government. In Kansas, high school student Emma Sullivan, 18 years of age, has been ordered to write letters of apology by her school after sending out a tweet to her then-sixty in number followers that read "Just made mean comments at gov brownback and told him he sucked, in person #heblowsalot." The governor has someone on his staff monitoring Twitter for references to him, and this staffer informed the school about the negative tweet, whereupon the school took action.

A school district spokesperson responded when questioned about this:

In general, students on school-sponsored field trips, in which they are representing the school, would be expected to conduct themselves in accordance with school district policies, including use of electronic devices. Students may express their personal beliefs, views, and opinions, as long as they do so appropriately and in accordance with school policies.

This is the latest instance of government officials taking it upon themselves to determine what is appropriate when it comes to allowed speech.

At UC Berkeley, Chancellor Birgeneau sent a message to the campus community after UC police attacked peaceful protesters with batons. He wrote:

It is unfortunate that some protesters chose to obstruct the police by linking arms and forming a human chain to prevent the police from gaining access to the tents. This is not non-violent civil disobedience. By contrast, some of the protesters chose to be arrested peacefully; they were told to leave their tents, informed that they would be arrested if they did not, and indicated their intention to be arrested. They did not resist arrest or try physically to obstruct the police officers' efforts to remove the tent. These protesters were acting in the tradition of peaceful civil disobedience, and we honor them.

Amazing! So now we have the government telling us precisely how we ought to present ourselves to be arrested, and willing to crack our skulls if we deviate from the approved method.

For those with short memories, the Free Speech Movement, enshrined in hallowed memory on the Mario Savio steps of Sproul Plaza, reached its most dramatic apex when thousands of student protesters surrounded a police car that was attempting to remove someone who had been arrested. Students did not simply present themselves to be arrested.

At UC Davis, the pepper spray assault on students was so outrageous that the administration is now having to backpedal and apologize. On Monday at UC Berkeley, the Faculty Association will debate a proposed "no confidence" motion directed at Chancellor Birgeneau due to the violent response to peaceful protests.

As Robert Reich has noted, free speech has been turned on its head. Money is the currency that can buy speech in the public arena, and the public's right to speak is being confined and required to be "appropriate." Even peaceful demonstrators are being punished with beatings and chemical agents.

Our rights exist only to the degree that we exercise them. As Glenn Greenwald wrote,

If a population becomes bullied or intimidated out of exercising rights offered on paper, those rights effectively cease to exist. Every time the citizenry watches peaceful protesters getting pepper-sprayed -- or hears that an Occupy protester suffered brain damage and almost died after being shot in the skull with a rubber bullet -- many become increasingly fearful of participating in this citizen movement, and also become fearful in general of exercising their rights in a way that is bothersome or threatening to those in power.

The only response I can think of to this is to take a vocal stand every time this occurs. We must speak out in as many inconvenient and even inappropriate ways as we can think of. Attempts to suppress speech should lead to an expansion of speech in response.

Back in Kansas, public response to the heavy-handed treatment of high school senior Emma Sullivan seems to have caught the governor and school officials by surprise. School officials promise they will look into the incident on Monday. Meanwhile, Emma Sullivan has picked up about two thousand followers on Twitter, and a Facebook page in her support is booming as well.

Update: Last night Emma announced to her now more than 7000 followers on Twitter that she would not be apologizing to the Governor after all. She wrote: "I've decided not to write the letter but I hope this opens the door for average citizens to voice their opinion & to be heard! #goingstrong."

Update #2: Governor Brownback has apologized, saying his staff overreacted. Read more here. Congratulations to Emma for standing firm!

Update #3: Here is a local news interview with Emma, taped a couple of days ago:

What do you think? Should government and school officials make sure speech is appropriate? How should we respond when those speaking out are attacked?

Photo of Emma Sullivan used by her permission.

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Yesterday I joined my 19-year-old son, a sophomore at UC Davis, and about 10,000 other people, for a demonstration on the Quad at his school. This was the location of Friday's infamous incident, when peacefully protesting students were sprayed in the face with military-grade pepper spray. But on this day, no police were to be seen. That made the place feel much safer.

We heard first from the students who had been sprayed. They related their experiences one after the other, in shocking detail.

Here is some of what student David Buscho shared with us.

Someone yelled 'pepper spray,' and I closed my eyes. My arm was around my girlfriend and I kissed her on the cheek. My friends buried their faces into their chests. And then it happened. At that point I entered a world of pain. It felt like hot glass was entering my eyes. I couldn't see anything. I wanted to open my eyes but every time I did the pain got worse. I wanted to breathe but I couldn't because my face was covered in pepper spray and every time I breathed I was nauseous. I couldn't see anything. I could feel my friends and my girlfriend writhing in pain. I wanted to cover her face but I couldn't because my hands were covered in pepper spray. I didn't know where the police were. I didn't want to stand up because I thought I would be arrested. I was afraid. I was no longer a protester. I was an object. And that's what the police officer wanted to turn us into.

One of the most disturbing things about this incident is the image of Lt. John Pike seeming to stroll by the row of seated students, spraying them as if they were bugs on the floor. The students were treated as less than human, and as David Buscho observed, the agony from the pepper spray left them as inert objects, incapable of movement or thought other than pain. It is ironic, then, that this officer has himself been turned into an object, as the image of him strolling along, spray can spraying, has been reapplied to dozens of other cultural reference points. I have seen Lt. Pike spraying Dorothy's dog Toto, the baby Jesus in his crèche, the founding fathers as they sign the declaration of independence, and a Google image search for John Pike pepper spray" turns up dozens more.

There is something a bit gleefully vicious about all this. It is as if this officer has become a frozen statue, representing police brutality. I certainly hope that he, his superiors, and Chancellor Katehi are held responsible for the decisions they made here. But this makes we wish we had a process like South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commissions, which were created after the fall of the apartheid regime. In these hearings, the victims of police abuse confronted those who had done them wrong. But there was space for the accused to share their perspective as well, and the goal was to really understand what had occurred, and achieve some kind of reconciliation. I would really like to better understand Chancellor Katehi's thought process, and that of Lt. Pike. And perhaps if they joined us in reflecting on this, we might build some bridges. If we are to conquer violence, this is the sort of process we must pursue. Unfortunately, the South African people had to overthrow the apartheid regime before they could initiate such a process, so we may need some dramatic changes here as well before this will become possible. The Chancellor is meeting with students tonight to discuss what occurred, and we will soon hear how satisfactory that has been.

Then UC Davis associate professor Nathan Brown addressed the crowd. His detailed open letter calling for the resignation of Chancellor Katehi was the basis for this petition, which has gathered more than 83,000 signatures. At this point the crowd had grown to such a size that those at the edge could not hear the speakers - thus the "human mic" was used, in which the words of the person speaking are repeated by the crowd. He stated "There is no place on our campus for administrators who order the use of force against peaceful protesters."

The crowd was obviously angry with Chancellor Katehi, and when it was announced that she was in line to speak, there were occasional chants calling for her resignation, along with others who chanted "Let her speak." But the emcee on the stage told us the Chancellor was in line, and could speak when it was her turn. After a number of other speakers, Chancellor Katehi addressed the crowd briefly, and apologized for what had occurred.

The sense I had of the crowd there was that Katehi had so badly damaged their trust that there remained strong sentiment in favor of her resignation. I also think it is important that other leaders across the country witness some consequences for this sort of brutality, so that they feel some sense of restraint before they unleash this sort of assault.

Tonight, the Chancellor is holding a meeting to discuss the situation with students. There is news this afternoon that the California State Legislature will hold hearings on the use of force by UC police in recent weeks.

Then the quality of the event shifted. This was no longer simply a gathering for the purpose of hearing speakers and demonstrating our concern. It was a General Assembly of the Occupy UC Davis. If you have not participated in such a meeting, you should find out what you are missing. Across the country, gatherings such as this are developing new ways to communicate, discuss proposals, and arrive at consensus. The first proposal to be considered was for a campus-wide strike this coming Monday, Nov. 28. The focus is on a planned meeting by the UC Regents, who have on the table a proposal that could result in an increase of student fees by as much as 81% over the next four years. Six years ago, tuition at University of California was $5,357. Now it is $12,192. If this proposal is enacted, UC fees could rise to $22,068 by the year 2015.

Students at UC Davis are coordinating with those at other campuses, so this may be a system-wide action. In the "modified consensus" process being used, 90% of the group must agree for a proposal to be approved. There was a vote at the General Assembly yesterday, and 99.5% of those present supported the proposal to strike.

As I have mentioned, I was a student activist at UC Berkeley in the 1980s. There was always a core group of us activists, and we would hold meetings to plan events, forums and demonstrations. We would try to get other students active and engaged, but what I saw yesterday was different. The way the entire crowd is drawn into participating, discussing, and deciding on the steps to be taken creates a powerful democratic foundation for this movement. Can you imagine -- standing in a crowd of several thousand people, and finding that everyone has a chance to be heard, and a process is able to unfold that allows different perspectives to be heard, leading to a decision that truly represents the will of the overwhelming majority of those present. Remarkable!

The students took yesterday to focus on the violence that shook their campus, and soon will shift back to the bigger challenges they face in preserving the university as a public institution, with access for not only the wealthy among us. On the evening news last night, there were images of a 30 foot high geodesic dome students had constructed on the Quad as a meeting place, and numerous tents had been pitched anew.

Uodate 1: Duke professor Cathy N. Davidson has offered a powerful commentary at the Chronicle for Higher Education, entitled "A Plea to College Presidents: Exercise your Moral Leadership."

Update 2: Angus Johnston has posted "Ten Things you Should Know about Friday's UC Davis Police Violence" here, providing some specifics about what happened.

Update 3: Below is a video I shot of Chancellor Katehi's speech. The video is lousy if you actually want to see her. But it is longer than the version above, and gives you a much better sense of the mood of the crowd.

Update #4: Statements from students addressing a hearing with Chancellor Katehi, taped this evening, Nov. 22nd.

Update #5: This article in the UC Davis Aggie newspaper reports on the forum Chancellor Katehi held last night, and indicates that the University intends to cover the medical expenses of the students that its police assaulted.

What do you think of the events at UC Davis? Have you participated in any Occupation general assemblies?

Thanks to Keith Bradnam and AggieTV for sharing the clips via Youtube. All other images are by Anthony Cody.

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Today the Los Angeles Times, the largest circulation newspaper in the largest metropolis in the most populous state in the nation, came out in support of the decision by Governor Jerry Brown and Superintendent Tom Torlakson to ignore the Department of Education's invitation to file for a waiver of No Child Left Behind.

The newspaper's editorial board wrote:

The U.S. Department of Education is wrongly attempting to impose its view of how states should improve education instead of just requiring them to show evidence of higher achievement. Test scores probably have some value in the rating of teachers, but that has yet to be proved. It's important for schools to do this thoughtfully -- in ways that are valid, backed by research and that work for individual districts -- rather than through rushed nationwide mandates.

This is a prudent stance, and it is greatly appreciated. I wrote a few weeks ago about the conditions Secretary Duncan is setting as prerequisites for a waiver. States must put in place teacher and principal evaluation systems that include student test scores. They also must create new standards for college and career readiness, and embrace the new national Common Core Standards. The state of California has estimated that fulfilling these requirements would cost more than $3 billion.

It is of special note that this viewpoint is coming from a newspaper that has seen fit to entrust the reputations of 11,500 teachers to a couple of reporters and economists, who came up with "value-added" scores for them, based on standardized test scores alone. The newspaper published the names and "effectiveness" ratings of all these teachers, including one by the name of Rigoberto Ruelas, who committed suicide last fall. His family said he was thrown into depression as a result of his "less effective" rating.

I appeared on a panel with one of the reporters responsible for this project, Jason Felch, and shared the experience here.

I am happy the Los Angeles Times has taken this stance. I hope that this, and the recent article they carried on the negative effects of the high pressure being placed on standardized test scores, cause them to take stock of their own role in this situation. If their own editorial board states "Test scores probably have some value in the rating of teachers, but that has yet to be proved," does not this call into question their own value-added system, by which teachers are publicly labeled more or less effective based solely on test scores?

What do you think? Is the state of California on the right track in rejecting NCLB waivers? Can the Los Angeles Times be a legitimate critic of evaluations based on test scores while it publishes its own set of test-based teacher ratings?

Posted by Anthony Cody at 8:51 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Students occupying the central quad at the University of California at Davis were pepper sprayed in the face as they sat peacefully on the ground yesterday afternoon. One of my two sons attends this school. I would like you to watch the entire eight minutes of this video.

I attended UC Berkeley in the 1980s. We protested President Reagan's funding of death squads in Central America. We protested UC investments in apartheid South Africa. In fact, the Divestment movement created an encampment on the steps of Sproul Plaza that lasted for months. I spent several nights sleeping there with hundreds of other students. There was very little violence. The operation of the University, though occasionally inconvenienced, continued. In 1986, as a result of this pressure, the UC Regents decided to withdraw $3 billion in investments from companies doing business in South Africa, and some months later, the apartheid regime in South Africa fell. I went to the Oakland Coliseum and heard Nelson Mandela acknowledge this movement as one of the factors contributing to the downfall of the apartheid regime in South Africa.

I am very proud of these students. I am proud of them for taking a stand for what they believe in. When you watch the video, you will see the students sitting on the ground. A police officer, Lt. John Pike, then deliberately sprays pepper spray directly in their faces. What happens next is inspiring. The students chant "Shame on you!" and "Our University" as the police officers back up. At the edge of the quad, the students tell the officers that they have a peaceful opportunity to leave. They chant "You can go now." The officers leave and the students reclaim the public space from those who have committed violence within it. There is a more thorough accounting and additional videos posted here.

I cannot believe that police felt it necessary to use pepper spray under these circumstances. The reason given was that students had refused to remove tents. What has changed since 1986, when student protesters were able to camp for weeks on end at a UC campus without being violently evicted? These students are non-violent. They are not even disrupting campus activities. They are simply taking up public space with an ongoing, visible protest of the status quo. This has apparently become intolerable.

The first amendment of the Constitution gives us the right to assemble peacefully, and to petition the government for redress of grievances. This right has been violently breached.

The Chancellor, Linda Katehi, has issued a statement on the incident. She states:

We deeply regret that many of the protestors today chose not to work with our campus staff and police to remove the encampment as requested. We are even more saddened by the events that subsequently transpired to facilitate their removal.

Chancellor Katehi can be contacted here. I believe the action by the police was completely unwarranted and should be investigated and prevented from happening in the future.

A petition calling on Chancellor Katehi to resign has been posted here. Nathan Brown, an assistant professor at UC Davis, writes:

I am writing to tell you in no uncertain terms that there must be space for protest on our campus. There must be space for political dissent on our campus. There must be space for civil disobedience on our campus. There must be space for students to assert their right to decide on the form of their protest, their dissent, and their civil disobedience--including the simple act of setting up tents in solidarity with other students who have done so. There must be space for protest and dissent, especially, when the object of protest and dissent is police brutality itself. You may not order police to forcefully disperse student protesters peacefully protesting police brutality. You may not do so. It is not an option available to you as the Chancellor of a UC campus. That is why I am calling for your immediate resignation.

I am deeply troubled by this turn of events. At the end of the video I heard the students calling for a campus strike on Monday and a rally at noon on the quad. I will be there to support the students who were assaulted.

Update: The Faculty Association of UC Davis has called for the resignation of Chancellor Katehi.

Update 2: Chancellor Katehi has released a statement indicating that she will launch a task force to investigate yesterday's incident.

Update #3: Last night Chancellor Katehi shared her decision to form a task force. Students surrounded the building. When she left, they sat in silence along the path as she walked to leave. Something about this is very powerful, as they bore witness to injustice.

Update #4: An interview with a student who was one of those pepper-sprayed, filmed last night. She has not been contacted by the police or the chancellor or anyone from the administration.

Update #5: Chancellor Katehi is accepting comments regarding the Task Force investigation here: chancellorkatehi@ucdavis.edu.

Update #6: CNN is reporting that two officers have been placed on administrative leave pending an investigation. They also have an interview with Chancellor Katehi posted here, taped last night. She says that the primary reason for the action was concern over health and safety. Several students were sent to the hospital as a result of this action.

Update #7: Here are some photos of the tents that Chancellor Katehi determined were such a threat to the health of students.

Update #8: Here is an important analysis of the health effect of pepper spray.

Update #9: UC President Mark Yudof has announced there will be an urgent review of police procedures. The use of billy clubs on peaceful demonstrators at UC Berkeley, including poet Robert Haas, has also drawn criticism, including this New York Times column today.

Update #10: An account from the woman, the Reverend Kristin Stoneking, who walked Chancellor Katehi to her car through the silent students Saturday evening.

Update #11: Interview with Chancellor Katehi taped this morning: "Police followed protocol but protocol is not always appropriate."

Update #12: A petition has been launched asking President Obama to condemn the use of pepper spray and other chemical weapons on peaceful protestors. It says:

The use of violence in response to peaceful protest is an affront to our civil rights as American citizens.

President Obama has already eloquently spoken out against the use of violence on peaceful protesters during the Arab Spring. He continues to condemn various governments for the same. We call on the President to condemn the use of physical violence and intimidation, including the use of pepper spray, tear gas and the LRAD here in the United States.

Currently, these and other military techniques are being used around the country on peaceful citizens who are exercising their constitutional right to assemble as part of the Occupy movement.

The President and his office have remained silent regarding the violence perpetrated at this events, including Oakland, UC Davis and elsewhere.

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In the past few weeks, Philip Kovacs has taken a public stance in Huntsville, Alabama, raising questions about the school district's decision to invest significant resources in bringing Teach For America interns to that city. This is a guest post by him, describing his concerns.

Guest post by Philip Kovacs.

When I first heard about Teach for America, I thought it sounded like a good program. Given a hard to staff school in a poverty stricken city, why not let enthusiastic college graduates with some training go in and put their hearts and souls into classrooms that would otherwise be staffed with less-prepared or unprepared individuals?

That line of thinking began to change as I read column after column problematizing the venture.
Over the past two years, my city (Huntsville, AL) laid of over 300 certified teachers, many of them graduates of my program. Then I found out our city had signed a $1.7 million deal for at least 170 TFA members. That figure is not firm, as the contract stipulates "at least" 170 TFAers over the next four years. Recent reports suggested it was $1.9 million.

When I learned that TFA members...They are not teachers, any more than a recent undergraduate with 5 weeks of medical training is a doctor, or a lawyer, or a police officer. (Given the choice between someone with 5 weeks of training in any of those 3, or someone trained via an extensive program, which would you choose?)

...when I learned that TFA members were coming to my city, that they were going to cost the District an additional $5,000 per year more than other new teachers cost, I became very interested in the research supporting the program. I bought and read Learning on Other People's Kids, a book written by a former TFA trainer and a respected scholar. Have you read that book? It is dedicated to TFA members, and it is eye-popping to say the least.

Regarding the research supporting TFA, what I found was, well, nothing.
There is no peer-reviewed research that supports the program.

There are two paid-for studies, one which acknowledges its own flaw re: sample not reflective of population. The other was identified by the Department of Education as flawed for misidentifying causation. You can learn more about both by reading this excellent post, "Good" vs. "Poor" Studies of Teach For America. (In fact, please visit the site and tell Russell hello. I am in his debt for his help preparing me for the school board meeting this past Thursday.)

I have, however, seen two, peer reviewed pieces, one of which can be downloaded here: Teach for America: A Review of the Evidence (the other is forthcoming in the rather conservative Kansas Law Review) suggesting that TFA members are worse for elementary students in both reading and math, as determined by test scores. NOW, I don't think test scores are the best indicator of teacher or student performance, so I'd be more than wiling to judge the success of both teachers and students using other data points. But test scores are the gods of the current educational reformers, and if their gods don't support what they are doing, there is some sort of problem in the temple.

At best the empirical evidence is mixed, at worst, it is damning. Given that the organization has been around for 20 years, if it was so good, why aren't there dozens of peer-reviewed reports proving it?

Furthermore, if I were a high level Teach for America employee or the founder (who makes the paltry sum of $350,000 a year heading her non-profit), I would commission study after study to prove the program's success.

Goodness, I would probably go and buy a study from the Manhattan Institute or the Heritage Foundation, or Cato or any other report-producing think tank that hates teacher's colleges and the teachers that come through our doors.

There are dozens of these organizations, if there weren't, we wouldn't be living in the most anti-teacher moment in history, save the early1600s when there was an active effort in the colonies to keep all people illiterate, not just the slaves.

Here is something else to consider. Market based reformers claim that competition works and that the market should determine success. If this was the case with TFA, the organization would not need $25,000,000 from the federal government or another $25,000,000 from the Broad Foundation to stay afloat. Its overwhelming success would earn enough dollars from the cities who use its graduates. In reality the "free" market can be ignored when you have enough money to buy yourself out of it.

If my city could not find qualified, certified teachers, I might support TFA recruits entering classrooms as part of a rigorous scientific study, if and only if parents were notified and given the choice to opt out, as is required by law.

The fact is Huntsville laid off 300 teachers over the past two years, many of whom were graduates of my university, and there is no teacher shortage in our city. In fact, competition for jobs is extreme with one principal telling me that she has 50 applications for every position...50!

I am also disturbed by the cronyism involved in all of this. Our new superintendent graduated from the Broad Foundation's super-prep center. The Broad Foundation supports TFA. it doesn't take an architect to connect these dots. Importantly, there are other non-traditional programs that prepare individuals for teaching. I went through one! There is an excellent program in North Carolina that has an amazing retention rate, so why not go with them given the overwhelming research that shows experience matters?

(For research challenging the argument that experience does not matter, see from the left leaning EPAA: Does Teacher Preparation Matter? Evidence about Teacher Certification, Teach for America, and Teacher Effectiveness. . See also, from the very right-of-center: Eric A. Hanushek & Steven G. Rivkin, Pay, Working Conditions, and Teacher Quality, 17 FUTURE CHILD. 69, 7778 (2007).

After consideration for my untenured self and the futures of my students, I decided to go and ask our Board of Education a few questions. They are included below in case you want to ask them to your board members, and I encourage you to do so. I suggest you practice them more than I did, so you can look up more often in order to make eye contact with the Board. I was, in fact, pretty nervous, which is silly because 1) they work for me and 2) there is not a more incredulous audience than 25 high school juniors!

Update: Here is Philip Kovacs' analysis of the 12 studies TFA lists on its page of "research."

Update 2: Here is the third post from Philip Kovacs: Teach For America Research Fails the Test.

Philip Kovacs is a former high school English teacher who teaches teachers at the University of Alabama, Huntsville. He is the editor of The Gates Foundation and The Future of U.S. Public Schools, priced to move at Amazon.com... His research interests includes education in and for democracy and critiques of neoliberal think tanks, institutes and foundations. You can follow him on twitter @philipkovacs.

Here's a link to the YouTube clip of Philip talking to the school board, note the camera in the back, as he called the news and convinced them to come to the meeting.

Here are the questions he asked the school board:
1. You've claimed there is "overwhelmingly positive research" in support of Teach for America (TFA). This is demonstrably false. Why are you making this claim when there are only two, non-peer reviewed reports on TFA, both of which have been discredited by scholars?

Furthermore, given that TFA has been around for over 21 years, if they were so successful, shouldn't there be dozens of peer-reviewed studies showing that success?

As there is no peer reviewed research on TFA, this is in fact an experiment, as such, will you give notice to parents whose children will take place in your experiment, as is required by law?

If your answer is "no," are you in fact demanding that all families participate in your experiment, or will parents be allowed to place their children in classrooms with professional teachers?

2. Will you guarantee that TFA members will be equitably distributed across the district and not only placed in Title I schools, which would be in direct violation of the ongoing federal desegregation order re: Hereford v. Huntsville?

Furthermore, will you provide the media with the percentage of black teachers laid off and the percentage of white "new faces" replacing them, or will the media need to use the Freedom of Information Act to determine those figures?

3. I am aware of several alternative programs that have better retention rates than TFA (see, for example, North Carolina). Did you solicit competing bids from these other organizations? If so, where are those bids, if not, why not?

4. Dr. Robinson claims the $5,000 per year is for professional development, but TFA claims the money must be used towards paying off college loans. Who is incorrect on this point?

Are my tax dollars going to professional development, or am I paying off other people's college debt because, quite frankly, I have plenty of my own college debt.

5. If, in two years, your $1.9 million experiment on Huntsville's children has not produced "overwhelmingly positive results," will you hold yourselves accountable and resign?

For the record, what is your metric for determining "overwhelmingly positive results?"

6. Will you provide members of the media with the exact amount of money you have given to the Broad Foundation since Dr. Wardinksy arrived, or will you make them use the Freedom of Information Act to determine to that figure?

7. Will you agree to stop outsourcing public education and to immediately end outside-of-district spending until the media has had time to determine, exactly, how much of our tax dollars you have given away?

What do you think of Philip Kovacs' approach and the questions he has raised? Is Teach For America present in your schools? What do you think of their role?

Posted by Anthony Cody at 10:59 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

There is an ugly reality that many of us are spared from, but which is omnipresent in the lives of many of our students.

Latino journalists last week confronted President Obama with the news that immigration enforcement is breaking up families. A yearlong investigation by the Applied Research Center revealed that at least 5,100 children are currently stuck in foster care because their parents have been detained or deported by immigration officials.

A report in Colorlines highlighted a typical case:

Ricardo's children were removed from his custody because a babysitter left them alone for less than an hour and a neighbor called the police. Ricardo, whose name has been changed, and his wife, a U.S. citizen, were arrested and convicted on misdemeanor child endangerment charges. But because he is an undocumented immigrant, rather than being released and quickly moving to regain custody of his children, his information was run through a federal database and ICE moved him to detention. His wife suffers from seizures and the county child welfare department refused to place their babies with her unless Ricardo was present to parent as well.

But Ricardo was not present because ICE had detained him and, despite the child welfare system's mandate toward family reunification, his children have now been in foster care for close to a year. Ricardo has been fully excluded from family court proceedings because he is detained. His parental rights will soon be terminated, according to an immigration advocate familiar with the case.

Once in detention, parents may languish for months.

A report from National Public Radio last year revealed where some of the new laws have originated:

NPR's Laura Sullivan reports that SB 1070, which makes it a crime to be an undocumented immigrant in the state and requires racial profiling, was largely conceived and drafted by a conservative business lobbying group in Washington, D.C. The group, called the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, includes board members from state and federal elected officials as well as representatives of major companies including the Corrections Corporation of America, the country's largest private prison company. Russell Pearce, the Arizona state legislator who claims responsibility for SB 1070, is one of the state legislators on ALEC's board.

According to the NPR report, which was based on extensive culling of campaign finance reports and lobbying and corporate records, ALEC, and particularly CCA, played a pivotal role in conceiving, writing and naming the law that would become SB 1070.

In a sign that there may be a different wind blowing, Arizona voters last week recalled Russell Pearce.

President Obama acknowledged last week that kids being stuck in foster care as a result of government detentions or deportations is a "real problem," and said he would ask agencies to review and improve their practices. But his administration is pursuing an aggressive deportation policy, and deported 396,000 immigrants last year - more than a million since he took office.

Their illegal status makes these immigrants less than human in the eyes of the law, and subjects them to exploitation by employers, and profiteering prison corporations. A few years ago when house construction was booming, they were welcomed as a cheap labor force. Even today, most farm work and many service sector jobs are done by immigrant labor. Their willingness to work at cheap pay is a hidden subsidy to all of us who indirectly benefit from this labor.

In California, very nearly half of the students in our public schools are Latino, and of this group, approximately one in four have undocumented parents. Our students may not share their fears with us in the classroom. Unfortunately, in places like Alabama, politicians have even turned schools into tools to enforce immigration laws, and fear breeds secrecy. These students have been told their very existence is against the law.

I believe this fear affects the psyche of these students, and damages their capacity to learn. The goal of being prepared for college may not take hold within students who are unsure they will even be allowed to attend. To the degree the school is identified with governmental authority, even teachers may be feared. And the insecurity of not knowing if your family will be there when you get home, after rumors spread of the latest ICE raids, is likely to distract even the strongest students.

We teach our students about the crime of slavery in the 19th century. How do we deal with injustices that arise in our times? And how can we respond to the very real undercurrent of fear that courses through many of our students' lives?

Posted by Anthony Cody at 9:23 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Guest post by Steve Silvius and Stephen Danley.

Consider us optimists, but we think the high-stakes test movement has reached its apex and started its decline. It won't happen quickly given the powerful political forces aligned to promote the testing regime, but the test obsessed "accountability" package for education reform won't continue indefinitely. There are too many bad policies (NCLB, Race to the Top), bad performance reports (NAEP, CREDO, last week's Mathematica study), and corruption/cheating/score inflation scandals (ATL, DC, NY, and more). If you need hope, look back at how Diane Ravitch drove an intellectual stake into the heart of the education reform movement on the Daily Show. She asked the audience how they felt about tests. When the crowd booed, Jon Stewart complained that it couldn't be that simple. Tell that to Michelle Rhee now that her reforms have faced the scrutiny of the voting public (in the DC Mayoral race but again this past Tuesday). In a democracy, eventually, the people have their say.

So excuse the optimism; we don't see how this compulsive need to measure something can continue indefinitely when even scrutiny funded by its biggest supporters reveals the intrinsic weaknesses that are all too obvious to those living with the "go test or go home" culture.

The real questions, for the increasing number of us skeptical of reform, is who can we stand with and what can we stand for? It's a problem--one that reform advocates are starting to highlight. In a recent discussion a TFA alumna argued that even if the tests themselves were not ideal, the reform movement was successful in attracting massive amounts of private dollars into education. Who else is going to do that? We are encountering these kinds of conversations more and more often. It isn't hard to convince people that the tests themselves and the testing regime are problematic, but pretty quickly they point out that the system has many problems and ask who is going to fix them. Answering this question is difficult given that the studies outlining these problems are typically funded by organizations that are promoting the testing/accountability approach (See Brian Williams' comments introducing the Gates Foundation with, "it's their facts we're going to be referring to" [our emphasis]).

And here is the crux of the problem. If we don't stand with education reform, with whom do we stand? We never thought we'd see the day when we'd bemoan bipartisanship, but both political parties have adopted the reform agenda leaving teachers unions as the only major political force in opposition. And let's face it--unions have an image problem. Teachers unions exist to protect the working rights of teachers, but the problems around evaluation and dismissal exposed over the past several years are serious. It will take a lot of effort for the unions to re-orient themselves to address these problems and take a proactive role in evaluation without giving into the pressures of the "tests count most" advocates. The unions are starting to respond to this challenge, but in many of the worst districts the history of district/union relations has seriously poisoned the well.

The pattern we're seeing is undeniable. We argue against simplistic measurements of "learning," point out the problems with behaviorist models of teaching, and reject a "transmission" model of education in which students are passive absorbers of information. We do it until we're blue in the face. But our criticisms are either: A) accepted but treated as if they have no implications; B) glossed over, or C) accepted but with the caveat that things are bad so its ok to attempt to fix them even through faulty approaches especially if those approaches bring in money. We are dismissed as obstructionist trouble-makers far outside of the mainstream.

Increasingly, we've found our conversations drifting away from the education reform narrative and towards the thorny issue of creating a cultural counterpoint to reform in which criticisms aren't easily dismissed. Ironically, we are considering taking a page out of the reform movement's book. Counter-reform could use an investment fund aimed at supporting schools rather than controlling schools and conducting holistic research rather than superficial, narrow research; we could use someone sexy to stand with.

Imagine the following scenario: a group of wealthy donors (perhaps consisting of alumni from urban schools who have first-hand experience with the weaknesses of the testing movement), match Zuckerberg's $100+ million fund. Except instead of using the money to "incentivize" further test-driven ideology, the fund focuses on giving freedom to teachers, emphasizing student power and engagement, and providing schools with the resources to offer a well-rounded curriculum without the need to focus exclusively on what will be tested.

It's not hard to see educators rallying around such a fund. Teachers would be glad to finally be treated as professionals rather than demonized. Students would welcome having some control in a school system that too-often takes them for granted. And administration would be thankful to leave the test-prep business to Kaplan and The Princeton Review and get back to the business of educating our children. Evaluations would stop playing year-to-year shenanigans with test score numbers and look at a broader and more meaningful spectrum of outcomes.

Such a fund is just a dream today, but it's already helped us start to clarify our counter reform principles and policy proposals. More importantly, we've identified what we see as a critical issue in reform: a culture of dismissing counter-reform points by calling them out of the mainstream. Even if it doesn't happen, the fund idea is a way to point that out to reform disciples. And if it does happen, when the TFA, Gates, et. al. policy cult produces the next round of demeaning Race to the Top demands, counter reformers won't have to stand individually and say, "We're against that." We'll be able to say, "We're with them".

Now, anyone have any ideas where we can find that $100 million dollars?

Stephen Silvius was born and raised in San Bernardino, CA where at the age of 17, he took his first stab at teaching when, with some friends, he developed an affordable SAT prep course for younger students at his high school. He attended Georgetown University where he studied mathematics and history. He has taught all ages of high school mathematics in Los Angeles California and received a Marshall Scholarship to study educational research methodology at Oxford University. His thesis investigated the role of authority in the discourses of secondary mathematics classrooms. He is a co-founder of orangebook.

Stephen Danley is currently a doctoral candidate at Oxford University, where he completed a Master's of Science in Comparative Social Policy, and an adjunct lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania, where he completed a Bachelor's of Arts in Philosophy, Political Science and Economics. His research specializes in local knowledge and neighborhood organizations, particularly in Post-Katrina New Orleans. Stephen worked as a Philly Fellow for the Neighborhood Interfaith Movement, is the recipient of the Marshall Scholarship, spent a summer working at the White House, and freelances for the New York Times.

They met on a Marshall Scholarship and ran an education policy discussion group together at Oxford University. You can find them on twitter at @DrStephenDanley and @SteveSilvius and sometimes posting on this erstwhile blog.

Posted by Anthony Cody at 7:13 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Efforts to improve our schools have always been spurred on by comparisons between our nation and others, which usually find us somewhere in the middle of the pack. In the 1950s the Russians were winning the space race because Ivan studied 12 hours a day, while his American counterpart goofed off at the soda parlor. In 1983, once again, the nation was "at risk" because we had allowed our standards to fall so low.

More recently we have heard the alarm sounded as a result of our performance on the PISA, where we once again find ourselves in the middle of the pack.

But as I shared a few weeks ago, we are at the very bottom of international rankings when it comes to child poverty and wealth inequality. And when our test scores are analyzed taking this into account, our schools are doing fairly well.

Walt Gardner's latest post raises some interesting questions about what goes into these rankings in the first place. One recent comparison focused entirely on math scores, because this skill is supposedly the one best correlated with economic growth. Gardner writes:

...that assertion alone is arguable. Successful corporate leadership does not depend on math expertise alone. It also involves other wherewithal, such as the ability to inspire others. If this were not true, then only certified public accountants would be heading up megacorporations.

Gardner points us to another analysis, that looks at the actual characteristics required for the highest level of success in today's corporate world. This essay by George Monblot in The Guardian lays out some interesting facts.

The findings of the psychologist Daniel Kahneman, winner of a Nobel economics prize, are devastating to the beliefs that financial high-fliers entertain about themselves. He discovered that their apparent success is a cognitive illusion. For example, he studied the results achieved by 25 wealth advisers across eight years. He found that the consistency of their performance was zero. "The results resembled what you would expect from a dice-rolling contest, not a game of skill." Those who received the biggest bonuses had simply got lucky.

In their book Snakes in Suits, Paul Babiak and Robert Hare point out that as the old corporate bureaucracies have been replaced by flexible, ever-changing structures, and as team players are deemed less valuable than competitive risk-takers, psychopathic traits are more likely to be selected and rewarded. Reading their work, it seems to me that if you have psychopathic tendencies and are born to a poor family, you're likely to go to prison. If you have psychopathic tendencies and are born to a rich family, you're likely to go to business school.

This is not to suggest that all executives are psychopaths. It is to suggest that the economy has been rewarding the wrong skills. As the bosses have shaken off the trade unions and captured both regulators and tax authorities, the distinction between the productive and rentier upper classes has broken down. Chief executives now behave like dukes, extracting from their financial estates sums out of all proportion to the work they do or the value they generate, sums that sometimes exhaust the businesses they parasitise. They are no more deserving of the share of wealth they've captured than oil sheikhs.

To bring this back to the educational arena, if we wish the ultimate success at winning the international competition for wealth, perhaps we should be figuring out our rankings not only in math, but also in ruthlessness. And many of our policies, such as the more and more explicit systems we have of ranking students by test scores, seem to take us in this direction.

But I wonder if we were to turn these rankings around a bit, and shake up the values systems embedded in them, perhaps we might find some new goals to which we might aspire? For me, the values that lie under my metrics revolve around happiness, connection to nature, sustainability, and democracy.

Here are some international rankings where I wish we would excel:

Wealth distribution. You cannot have a real democracy when wealth and power become ever more concentrated in the hands of the few. As Richard Wilkinson described in this TED talk, the less equal a society is, the greater is our collective misery.

The Happy Planet Index, which ranks the nations of the world based on how well we are living in harmony with nature and a sustainable future for our grandchildren.

A Creativity Index: How well are we able to think beyond the constraints imposed upon us by our circumstances and societal norms? How does society respond to those who think outside of conventions? Can we even question the way things are? These are the skills that will allow us to shift, to change, to innovate, and to make new choices that will allow us to move into the future with aliveness and grace.

A Compassion Index: Caring about others is perhaps the deepest root of every wisdom that has come down through the ages. How is this manifested in our society? How well do we care for those in need?

I believe our schools are only a minor factor in determining our economic competitiveness. As Yong Zhao has rather thoroughly documented, a nation's placement on international test score comparisons has usually had an inverse relationship to one's subsequent success in the global arena.

Our future will depend much less on whether we can graduate more engineers than China or India, and much more on how we confront the tremendous inequalities that characterize our society. Our ability to thrive on the planet will depend much more on our compassion for others, our concern for the environment, and our willingness to make different choices - not always based on self-interest. And we must begin with the most creative act of all, which is to realize that international comparisons embody hidden values, and values represent choices we make. It is time for a different set of indexes, driven by deeper values. And on this, I finally may find some common ground with the alarmists. By the indexes I have offered above, our society is in trouble.

What do you think? How should we be comparing ourselves to other nations? What would YOU like to see us aspire to?

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

The trajectory of our nation's schools from the train wreck of No Child Left Behind to a new and fresh set of calamitous policies has been checked by the ways in which these so-called reforms are playing out across the country.

First, what is happening with student achievement? The latest results are in from the National Assessment of Educational Progress and they reveal that in spite of a decade of No Child Left Behind, growth in student achievement remains essentially flat. Lisa Guisbond of FairTest wrote here:

Overall, growth was more rapid before and flattened after NCLB took effect. For example, 4th grade math scores jumped 11 points from 224 to 235 between 1996 and 2003, but increased only 3 points between 2005 and 2011. Grade 8 math scores went from 273 to 278 between 2000 and 2003, but increased only 1 point, from 283 to 284, between 2009 and 2011.

Reading scores have not improved in the post-NCLB era. They remained at 221 in 4th grade from 2007 to 2011. In 8th grade there was a meager 2-point increase, from 263 and 265, in that same period.

As has been widely reported, black-white achievement gaps remain large, at 25 points, and have not budged, despite the hope that NCLB's bright light would expose these gaps and motivate targeted, successful responses to close them. In fact, gaps have remained mostly stagnant for most groups of students at both grade levels in both subjects. Thus, NCLB has failed to produce independent test score gains overall or for low-scoring groups

Remember that this law set itself the goal of making every child in the nation proficient by 2014, and eliminating the achievement gap between ethnic groups. So NCLB, perhaps the least popular law ever to blight our schools, has been a dramatic failure by its own chosen indicators.

Secretary Duncan has been using the very disaster this law has become to coerce states into applying for waivers. Since Congress has not changed the law, it continues its cruel machinations on autopilot, and soon will label more than three fourths of the schools in the nation as failures. So Secretary Duncan has offered states the next generation of sure-fire reforms cooked up by his hothouse experts. These reforms have been the core to Race to the Top, so fortunately we have had a chance to see them in practice.

Forty states have indicated they intend to apply for NCLB waivers, and 14 of them have indicated they will meet the first possible deadline, applying by Nov. 14. More than a dozen states, however, are hesitating before making this leap of faith. And these include California, the most populous state in the nation. As far as I am concerned, this is very good news, because it means people are beginning to take a critical look at what they must do in order to be granted what Secretary Duncan is attempting to paint as "flexibility."

Secretary Duncan has suggested that the NCLB waivers will fix the problems with No Child Left Behind. Gone will be the automatic labeling of most schools as failures because they did not meet unattainable goals. Instead we will only label the bottom 15% of our schools. But the waivers create a whole new set of inflexible requirements, micromanaging from the federal level how principals must evaluate teachers, and requiring states to adopt new national Common Core standards.

To get a waiver, a state must comply with several key conditions. They must put in place teacher and principal evaluation systems that include student test scores. They also must create new standards for college and career readiness, and embrace the new national Common Core Standards. Tennessee has been an early leader in the teacher evaluation arena, and received half a billion dollars in Race to the Top money to buy the most advanced value-added teacher evaluation system in the nation. A report by Michael Winerip in this week's New York Times reports that principals and teachers are finding the new system cumbersome and arbitrary. Teachers of subjects or grade levels not tested are required to choose some other grade level test on which their evaluation will be based. Principals are required to conduct endless observations, and complete reams of paperwork. Educators are speaking up, and demanding a return to common sense.

Those who designed the Tennessee system insist it is based on the latest research, and it was praised by Secretary Duncan. This is the sort of system that the NCLB waivers demand, and many states seem ready to shrug their shoulders and comply. But there is a new spirit of resistance wafting over the land.

In Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Times, the newspaper that published teachers names and rated their effectiveness according to their test scores, has discovered that, just as many of us have been warning, an tremendous pressure to raise test scores results in poor practices, including cheating. Some in the media are paying attention and raising some red flags.

The Orange County Register, located in perhaps the state of California's most conservative county, reported that fulfilling the requirements of the NCLB waivers would cost the state $3.1 billion. This money would need to be spent on the teacher and principal evaluation system, a new college and career readiness program, and supporting the new Common Core standards. This does not even include the cost of the next generation of tests which the big publishers are working on to go with the Common Core. California's State Superintendent Tom Torlakson has expressed doubts about the wisdom of this expenditure, given the state's precarious fiscal position. Furthermore, Governor Jerry Brown has been one of the most prescient voices speaking out against our obsession with testing, and has shown a willingness to buck the testing mania.

I believe states have a great deal more power than they realize. This reminds me of times as a teacher, when I wanted my students to do something they did not want to do. If a few students grumble but go along, no problem. If my best students stand up and rebel, I may need to rethink my lesson plan. If some of the nation's largest states defy the Department of Education, the team in Washington has got to pay attention. More than ten percent of the nation's students are in California's schools, and Californians pay more than 13% of all federal taxes. Will the Federal government continue to punish our students with a law that has become, in the words of Arne Duncan himself, "a trainwreck"? And if other states are paying attention to what is happening down in Tennessee, and start to tally the real costs associated with the waivers, California may have some more company soon.

What do you think? Will this week's news have an impact on the move towards NCLB waivers? What is the news in your state?

Posted by Anthony Cody at 11:53 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

A slightly abbreviated version of this post ran as an op-ed column in yesterday's Sacramento Bee.

No Child Left Behind has put the schools of California in a vise. Next year, the vast majority of our schools will be declared "failing" based on our inability to make every child in the state proficient on standardized tests. As of last year, there were already almost 1,300 schools in year five of program improvement, meaning they will need to be radically restructured to satisfy the law. The Department of Education has created a waiver process however, which would allow our schools to continue to receive funding, which some Californians support.

Unfortunately, the new mandates being demanded in exchange for a waiver from NCLB simply trade one set of poor policies for another. In a time when the number of districts at risk of insolvency has tripled, the conditions for waivers will impose new expenses on our schools. And all based on the convenient fiction that tests and accountability can make up for the damage caused by poverty.

We will need to invest billions in a new teacher and principal evaluation system, one which will unwisely tie ratings to student test scores. This will result in even more emphasis on narrow test preparation at the expense of deeper learning. We will need to travel further down the path of adopting national Common Core standards, which Edsource estimates will cost the state $1.6 billion, and lead to a whole new round of tests. And the state will be required to continue to label a significant number of our schools in poverty as failures based on their test scores, and implement harsh reforms from a narrow range of Federally approved options.

Educators and parents have realized what policymakers are just now beginning to discover. Standards and tests alone do not improve our schools. The independent National Assessment of Educational Progress indicates that student achievement gains have been virtually nil for the past decade.

There is another way. What if instead of trying to force schools to improve, we built on their strengths? Schools that give teachers time to engage in meaningful collaboration have found sustained improvements. Our students need to be challenged to be creative thinkers, and these skills are stifled by the narrow emphasis on test scores. We should not subject them to more and more tests, with ever higher stakes attached to them.

Scarce funds should be used to provide basic services now being cut across the state. Instead of more reading tests, how about school libraries staffed by skilled librarians? Instead of standards for career and college readiness, how about funds for high school counselors, who are being laid off in droves? Instead of focusing on firing teachers to improve schools, how about focusing on making their schools places where the best teachers want to stay?

No Child Left Behind has been, as Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said, "a train wreck." This law is beyond unwise - it has become unworkable. But rather than trade one wrecked policy for another, California should turn down the waivers and seek a return to the original intent of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which was to provide resources to correct the gap between rich and poor schools. By rejecting these waivers, California will be leading us towards real reform, and away from the train wreck of NCLB.

What do you think? Will your state be applying for NCLB waivers? Do you think this is wise?

Posted by Anthony Cody at 10:00 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

What would happen if one of the wealthiest men in the world decided to remake the institution of public education in America? What if that man believed he understood the secrets to success, and sought to align the nation's schools to his vision and methods? What if he decided to devote all his time and considerable money to this objective? Could he succeed? We are in the process of finding out just how far money and a sharply defined agenda can take you.

Bill Gates' first challenge was to define a vision. After experimenting with small schools, he discovered that this approach did not lead to consistently higher student performance. So he stepped back and said, OK, let's figure out just what IS going to increase those test scores? This was the crucial decision that has determined all other steps that have followed. The purpose of schooling has been determined by the measurement that tells us if we have succeeded. Although Bill Gates would perceive this as a neutral objective, in fact it has created a driving agenda for school change. The agenda is this: To recraft the system so that it is just as relentlessly focused on test score improvement as any business is focused on making money.

How does one go about making your own agenda everyone else's?

Bill Gates had a huge head start, in that No Child Left Behind had already set the wheels in motion. The idea that test scores are all that matter was already encoded into federal law and funding policies. The trouble is that law is punitive, cumbersome, illogical and bound to fail, by its own set of indicators. So we had to move beyond NCLB, and create a sustainable trajectory for test-driven reforms. This has been done in several ways.

First, acknowledge that current tests are of limited value. We cannot abandon them because they are all we have, and we cannot ignore the data they give us, even though it is not all we might wish for. Develop a plan for a new generation of tests that will be clearly superior to existing tests. These new tests will be richer, and incorporate technology, and based on new quasi-national standards that are likewise superior. The Gates Foundation has been a huge supporter of the Common Core Standards, and is partnering with the Pearson Foundation to develop online reading and math courses aligned with the standards.

It can't hurt to have your high-level staff transfer over to working for the US Department of Education. And if lobbying rules would block this due to ethical considerations, simply get waivers.

Bill Gates recently asserted:

It may surprise you--it was certainly surprising to us--but the field of education doesn't know very much at all about effective teaching.

It does surprise me, because I am familiar with the amazing work done over the past two decades by educators who created the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. The National Board defined the highest level of teaching in line with all the things we value in a classroom. The standards include creating a strong classroom community that nurtures and supports all students. They include how well we meet the diverse needs of students from different cultures and linguistic backgrounds. The portfolios teachers assemble need to provide strong evidence that students are learning, including work samples that show how the teacher has challenged and guided the student. Now we see that the National Board faces tremendous pressure to include test score data as an important indicator of teacher quality.

Research can lead the way. The Gates Foundation is going after its goals by investing in research that implicitly defines "effectiveness" as the ability to increase test scores. The studies have been in the works for years, and are now being released one after another. The way the research questions are posed, and the data is interpreted, allows you to control a great deal of the debate. For example, a recent study of charter schools came out, funded by the Gates Foundation, in which the key question posed focused on the "impact...on student outcomes," as measured by test scores. Similarly, a huge project called Measures of Effective Teaching appears to define effectiveness primarily by looking at test score gains.

Since the accountability devices in NCLB were clumsy and punitive, invent a host of new mechanisms to reward success as well as punish failure. As much a possible, target these interventions down to the level of the individual teacher and student, to ensure compliance. Redefine professionalism for teachers so that it no longer means you have autonomy and responsibility for your work. Instead, being professional means you get paid for your results, and are subject to termination if you fail to help your students achieve what the predictive models project they ought to. Since teachers have been firmly opposed to this, do not make test scores the only means by which their performance is measured. Call this one of "multiple measures." But make sure other elements that are measured also align with growth in test scores.

Get non-profit advocacy groups on your side. If you hand out multi-million dollar grants to organizations that are piecing together their existence on much smaller sources, all of a sudden you can become their biggest sponsor. Pump money into advocacy groups like Teach Plus, and discover they are willing to lobby on behalf of things you value. Help sponsor the creation of new advocacy groups like Students First and they can help as well.

Influence the media: Sponsor coverage of education in the media, including major television news events such as NBC's Education Nation. Last year's Education Nation was tied into the release of Waiting For Superman, which had a $2 million publicity effort sponsored by the Gates Foundation.

This sponsorship will earn you prominent placement and glowing comments from the news hosts, such as during this year's teacher town hall, when Brian Williams said:

The Gates Foundation, one of the sponsors of this event, and the largest single funder of education anywhere in the world. It's their facts that we're going to be referring to often to help along our conversation.

This shows how media sponsorship and research can fit together to define the very facts that are discussed in the public arena. These definitions are rarely challenged, as they are the implicit conditions one must accept in order to gain sponsorship. This influence is rarely even acknowledged or discussed critically, such is its power and pervasiveness.

Advocacy headed in a different direction has to fight uphill, and faces constant pressure to compromise or capitulate. If you want grant money for some teacher quality project, you will do much better if you agree to "multiple measures," including test scores. Individual teachers face intimidation, and fear speaking out publicly. The Save Our Schools March last summer was an exceptional event, in that it allowed teachers and parents to raise our voices together. The Occupation Movement now has given a public voice to those who question the corporate values permeating society, and this is likely to affect the debate in education as well. But the fate of our public schools is still very much in question.

Will the power and influence Bill Gates has developed succeed in transforming our schools according to his vision? Or will grassroots efforts and teacher wisdom sustain a different vision?

[Editorial note: Education Week Teacher is not affiliated with the Save Our Schools event; the views expressed in this opinion blog do not reflect the endorsement of Education Week or Editorial Projects in Education, which take no editorial positions]

Posted by Anthony Cody at 11:39 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

I spent yesterday back in Oakland, participating in the Occupy Oakland general strike. Several hundred Oakland teachers were there as well, part of a crowd that swelled to around ten thousand in the afternoon. Below are photos and a video that capture some of the spirit of the day. And some thoughts about how the Occupation Movement is shifting the debate, and creating space for some new questions to be asked about how our schools are working.

Oakland became notorious last week after city officials carried out a poorly conceived pre-dawn eviction of the downtown occupation. The operation was military-style, complete with pepper spray and flash grenades. This cost the city in excess of a million dollars, and resulted in the serious injury to Iraq war veteran Scott Olsen, who remains hospitalized with a fractured skull.

But yesterday the police were scarcely to be seen as a festive and peaceful crowd gathered at the heart of downtown Oakland. Broadway was crammed with people of all ages. A children's tent with toys had children scrambling around, and children were busy painting signs and expressing themselves in interviews with local media. Several hundred members of my union local, the Oakland Education Association, marched by Oakland District headquarters to protest school closures before coming to the main rally downtown. In the late afternoon, marchers headed over to the Port of Oakland, and managed to block the entrances, effectively shutting the facility down for the day.

The energy was high, as people reveled in their ability to convert public space normally dominated by traffic and commerce into a place where the norm is to challenge the way things are.

I wrote about my support for Occupy Wall Street almost a month ago. The signs at the event were diverse and creative. Many made reference to schools, to student loans, to teacher layoffs and budget cuts. There was a very clear sense of outrage at the concentration of wealth, and the way our political system has been captured by those with the money to buy influence. The alternatives were less clear, which perhaps reflects the newness of this movement. People know they want a far greater degree of what might be termed economic and social justice. They are clearly against corporate "personhood," but as has been pointed out, there is not a common platform of demands.

And I think that is just fine. For the past decade educators have been largely on the defensive, responding to one attack after another -- on our profession, our right to collectively bargain, our schools and the students we serve. Perhaps the Occupation Movement will allow us to ask some questions that have been largely shoved aside up until now. Here are some I would like to start with:

• How can we collectively be "broke" as many politicians and media representatives insist, when some are continuing to rake in -- and sit high atop -- huge piles of money? How can the wealthiest not afford a small increase in their taxes to support much needed services, such as our schools?

• How can we continue to waste money and lives on wars overseas, when our own country is crumbling? How can we hope to inspire democracy abroad when our own system has become corrupted by legalized bribery?

• A new report has come out that shows the ranks of the poorest Americans at ever higher levels. And poverty is spreading to the suburbs, and to previously comfortable neighborhoods. Can we continue to pretend that we can, as a society, ignore this, and expect education to magically solve this problem?
• Student loan debt will exceed a trillion dollars this year, surpassing what Americans owe on their credit cards! Many students are graduating tens of thousands of dollars in debt. Can we continue to pretend that a college education is some kind of ticket to future employability and security?
• What is the degree of corporate influence over the ever-more powerful education non-profit organizations? Groups that were grassroots a few years ago suddenly have their staffs growing, budgets swelled by large corporate donations. How does this influence their advocacy?
• How are our Latino and other immigrant children being affected by laws and policies that target immigrants, such as has been implemented recently in Alabama?

• What is the role of more direct corporate involvement in the drafting of education "reform" legislation, through organizations like the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)?
• How is the largely corporate media covering education issues across the country? How are teachers and our unions portrayed? Are grassroots groups that raise critical questions given any airtime at all to present their perspectives?

The latest NAEP data tells us once again that a decade of No Child Left Behind has done little to close the achievement gap. The Department of Education has flogged this horse past exhaustion. It is time for us to recognize the challenge history has placed before us. The corporations that have brought us our current economic and ecological crises are not going to be the sources for answers. Corporations are by law and nature the epitome of selfishness. We need to look to one another and to ourselves for solutions. And the solutions will only come when the right questions have been asked.

What questions do YOU think should be asked?

Posted by Anthony Cody at 1:58 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend