March 2011 Archives

What is it about Michelle Rhee? Why does she get to run to Uncle Jay and get a public platform to re-spin the undeniably ugly scandal that happened on her watch? Under her merit-based policies, in fact? Carried out, in no small part, by teachers who were hired when she was Chancellor? Why is she still out there shamelessly raising a billion dollars "for the kids" --the notable exception to personal accountability in education?

And worse--why is this humiliation now coming down hard on D.C. teachers and administrators?

Hasn't anybody read Freakonomics?

The great irony: an increasing percentage of education policy now hinges on economic incentives. The United States Department of Education has based its entire ed-policy package on incentives: The Race to the Top, a funding competition. Merit Pay. Loosening caps on entrepreneurial charter start-ups. Evaluation based on test scores. Prizes and rewards. Carrots. And for a small, sad percentage, sticks.

Yesterday, in the NYT, Paul Krugman highlighted this quote from Alan Greenspan:

Today's competitive markets ...are driven by an international version of Adam Smith's "invisible hand" that is unredeemably opaque. With notably rare exceptions (2008, for example), the global "invisible hand" has created relatively stable exchange rates, interest rates, prices, and wage rates.

Notably rare? And speaking of unredeemably opaque--what about the process of attaching standardized test data to the value provided by classroom teachers? Another would-be-funny-if-not-horrifying example in Krugman's column: With notably rare exceptions, Japanese nuclear reactors have been secure from earthquakes.

The Invisible Hand of Education Policy-Making might say: With notably rare exceptions, Michelle Rhee did an amazing job of elevating student learning in D.C.

Sigh.

One of the great pleasures of social media for a veteran teacher is re-connecting with former students, now fully grown and astonishingly articulate. When I posted a link to the data-laden cheating story in USA Today on my Facebook page, one of my formers--whom I remember as a skinny, whip-smart 12-year old, Matt-- posted this comment:

On MN Public radio, Monty Neill referred to merit-based pay producing test prep-based schools. As a parent of two children in a merit-based experimental school district, I would have to agree with him. The classroom is geared towards taking the test rather than learning, and for children who learn differently, the focus is on exempting them from testing. I do not blame the teachers, their take-home and thus their very livelihood depends on the tests.

Thanks, Matt. Someone taught you well.

Posted by Nancy Flanagan at 9:59 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Maybe it's my natural inclination to be suspicious of anything "market-based." But I'm just not sure what good it will do for schools and kids to unleash a multitude of "teacherpreneurs" on America.

The predominant policy thrust right now is toward using public education as springboard for the realization of policy "innovations" connected to recognition and profit. Merit pay. Boutique schools in gritty urban settings. Competitive federal grants. Creation of value-added teacher evaluation models. Heavily promoted documentary films to sway public opinion. Are these ideas we want to nurture?

Think about the $125K teacherpreneurs Zeke Vanderhoek hired for the Equity Project charter, willing to take the risk of working without tenure, for the big bucks. Or the venture-capital project of Geoffrey Canada in the Harlem Children's Zone that led him to dismiss his entire first group of students because of their disappointing performance. Or the $8000 bonuses earned by teacherpreneurs in D.C. that turned out to be based on creatively erasing wrong answers on bubble-in test sheets. Or the windfall profits that enterprising educators will reap from creating new curricular materials and assessments based on the Common Core Standards.

As Whitney Tilson might say, there's some insane leveraging going on in public education--and your tax dollars are funding a lot of it.

When I think of what a prototypical teacherpreneur might look like, I think: Teach for America corps member. Great idea (bringing the best and brightest into our toughest classrooms). Good intention (dedicating two years of your life to making the world a better place). Guaranteed personal gain (admission to the grad school of your choice and plenty of career advancement). All on the backs of poor students in districts where caring, committed adults and stable programming are critical.

I can hear my friend Jose Vilson sputtering--you're misinterpreting the concept, Flanagan! You're thinking about educational entrepreneurs, not teacherpreneurs. Well. The idea of a teacherpreneur has been around for some time--introduced by Cool Cat Teacher, who labels herself a "businesswoman," back in 2006--and originally was associated with global collaboration through Web 2.0 tools. Here's how Cool Cat defined teacherpreneurs:

They are the people that movies are made about. They get "in trouble" with their renegade practices until people realize that they work. Then, they leave teaching and write books, and make movies. We need more of them!

We need more teachers leaving the unglamorous, complex--and often frustrating-- work of the classroom to market their great ideas globally? And this will help--how? If I don't get the advantages of entrepreneurism, specifically for teachers--I'm not sure your average Joe (or Bill or Arne) will be able to make the distinction between "accomplished teacher with good ideas" and "accomplished teacher whose good ideas can be exploited," either. Another--crowdsourced-- definition:

An entrepreneur is a person who has possession of a new enterprise or idea, and is accountable for the inherent risks and the outcome. Entrepreneurs emerge from the population on demand, and become leaders because they perceive opportunities available and are well-positioned to take advantage of them. An entrepreneur acts as a catalyst for economic change, and research indicates that entrepreneurs are highly creative individuals who imagine new solutions by generating opportunities for profit or reward.

Don't get me wrong. I'm all for productive change, for highly creative teachers sharing their dynamic ideas about practice and policy. And I think teachers should be paid well for their expertise. But I would call that "teacher leadership"--the principle that promising innovations should be elevated and distributed, for the benefit of all children and their learning. As Michael Fullan points out:

Teaching at its core is a moral profession. Scratch a good teacher and you will find a moral purpose.

An entrepreneur "acts as a catalyst for economic change." Plenty of systems in our political economy run on entrepreneurial, market-based models. During the national conversation on health care, people better-informed than me regularly noted that a "free-market ideology is wholly inappropriate to health care issues." There is plenty of evidence that justice can be bought--and sold. Our banking system nearly caused a global economic meltdown--and millions of Americans are suffering under the results of entrepreneurial lending and house-flipping.

Maybe there are some things that shouldn't be controlled by the markets and consumerism. Is good teaching a commodity--or a principle-driven aspiration for community good?

Posted by Nancy Flanagan at 3:09 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Unions. Distasteful mark of low class/culture--or representation of genuine American democracy?

On this moving centennial anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist disaster, I have been pondering why some teachers reject the idea of banding together to leverage greater control over their own work.

Some of those teachers are young and believe that "the man" will never come for them, because they're ambitious, smart and dedicated. Some teachers are dissatisfied with the power wielded by big-city union bosses, or leaders at the top of the union food chain. Some teachers live in the South--some of my best friends are Southern teachers!--where unions represent a different kind of worker than they aspire to be.

I took a couple of friendly knocks upside the consciousness after my previous blog, from ed-buddies who suggested that when it came to teacher unionism in the South, especially states where collective bargaining is forbidden by law, I just didn't get it. That's probably true.

I once naively assumed that teacher associations had a central role in education policy-making across the country, whether right-to-work state or not. The idea that teachers might see their unions as dangerous--or unprofessional and unnecessary--was foreign to me. Friends from the Carolinas disabused me of this notion, telling me the belief that unions were radical was carefully orchestrated and embedded in the middle class culture in the South. Unions, such as they were, were organizations for people like textile workers, who were lower class. A caste system. One sent me this story:

The "right to work" tradition is part of the culture of the South, imposed after the textile barons literally machine-gunned union workers in the 1930s. They were folks off the farms, there was no industrial union tradition, so a few murders, killer dogs, and bulls with bats sufficed to intimidate.

I saw a documentary about this a few weeks ago. They interviewed old folks who were young then, recalling how no one in their towns ever talked about this in the decades that followed for fear of losing their jobs in the textile plants, which were about the only jobs around. One friend 's mother never mentioned it even though her father was on that picket line in Honea Path, until her last illness, when she pulled out some old photos and news clippings and shared the family's dark secret.

I sent my friend a link to the glorious Diego Rivera murals at the Detroit Institute of Arts which illustrate progress through industry--crowing that "we celebrate working people in the north." Then, about fifteen minutes later, I read about Governor Paul LePage removing a 36-foot mural depicting the history of labor in Maine from the lobby of the Department of Labor building there. Unbelievable.

Then there's this, from Andrew Rice's article on Michelle Rhee in New York Magazine:

When, in the midst of Wisconsin's standoff, I ask Rhee whether she was supportive of the draconian anti-union bill, she says no. She believes that teachers should be able to collectively bargain salaries and benefits, though not issues surrounding in-class performance. But she adds that she sympathizes with the impulse behind the legislation. "There's frustration, and rightly so, with the way collective bargaining has played out over the last couple of decades."

Rhee's comment underlines her conviction that all unionized teachers care about is salary--which is disproven by the vast number of teachers who continue to pour their intellectual energy and personal resources into what amounts to a low-paying, low-status job.

Davis Guggenheim tried to pit good unions against bad unions: The good unions protect the intellectual property of the well-heeled--and the bad unions try to "create policy." Scott Walker tried to divide unions into good and evil, too--basing his dividing line on party preferences in the 2010 election--but the unions in Wisconsin weren't buying it.

Rhee (and hedge fund manager-types) lead off their reform arguments with paying some teachers--the good ones, in charter schools--more. Lots more. Because they (the worthy) deserve it--and aren't we all driven mostly by the benjamins?

Zeke Vanderhoek, founder of The Equity Project Charter (language matters!) paid his expert teachers --hand selected in a national search-- $125,000. Then he used his two-year depth of pedagogical expertise to watch them and their achievement data like a hawk. Finally, he fired a couple of them, just to show that he could.

So it's about power. But in the end, it's also about social class.

The idea that teachers should be able to bargain salaries, but have no control over the policies that impact their core intellectual work is an argument grounded in classism. It shows a profound disregard for teacher professionalism and public service. Michelle Rhee believes that experts (like her) should control what matters--curriculum, instruction, evaluation-- and if teachers align with her beliefs and perform well, she'll pay them handsomely.

Actually--now that I think of it--it's the same principle that drove the Race to the Top: The feds make the important policy decisions, and those who follow their goals most closely are rewarded with hundreds of millions. There is absolutely no reason (or data) to believe that novice Teach for America corps members will outperform well-trained teachers, either--but class-conscious administrators pay the premium to hire them, too.

They cost more. So they must be worth it. Right?

Posted by Nancy Flanagan at 6:07 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

True Story.

It's 1993, and the United States Department of Education is hosting the first of a series of eight National Teacher Forums (a wonderful initiative that disappeared when the Bush administration moved in). As Michigan Teacher of the Year, I am in D.C. representing my state, watching a presentation by four South Carolina state Teachers of the Year on how to create a statewide teacher forum. Three of the four SC TOYs--all earnest, articulate women--are wearing pink suits.

The SC teachers describe the essentials of creating a state forum: Secure outside funding from a business that supports education. Invite honored district TOYs to a day-long event with "business trappings"-- a hotel meeting room, meals and mileage provided, professional attire required. End up with an advocacy product--a pamphlet, white paper or videotape. This, evidently, was the formula for how to get the voices of the most accomplished teachers to the proverbial table, to "dialogue with key leaders and policy-makers" about educational issues.

I am sitting next to the Wisconsin Teacher of the Year. I murmur, "Wonder what their union thinks about the Teacher Forum?" So he asks the presenters.

The pink-suit teachers look at each other, shrugging. "The Association, you mean? I think some of our Forum teachers actually do belong to the association. You know, to get the insurance." But none of the presenters did. Their husbands already had insurance plans.

My take-away from this experience: Some teachers work in a parallel universe, where access to control over their own work and well-being is determined through winning over a succession of principals--a dicey business. If they're deemed outstanding instructors, they get to put on a pink suit and meet in a hotel once a year to "develop leadership" and "provide a voice" on the critical issues that shape their daily practice.

This model of teacher-as-compliant-servant (probably wearing high heels) resonates in the business community, where a malleable, dependable, economical workforce is always desirable. And if their husbands' employment provides benefits, so much the better. Convenient and cost-effective.

This is not the path to building a genuinely professional cadre of highly skilled teachers, however--or to invest in the creative human capital that we need to retrofit our aging approach to public education in America. Teachers need an active, ongoing presence in policy creation. Not a token "seat at the table" where their voice can be co-opted, but real influence over what matters most: classroom teaching.

I have been a union member since the first day I worked as a teacher. I didn't have anything to say about joining the teachers' union, in my agency-shop state-- but it didn't matter. My dad was a Teamster. At my house, the union was the bulwark between the little guy and those who would take advantage of him for unfair gain. An organization of workers, whose ultimate goal was equity. Within a few years of launching my teaching career, I took on leadership roles in my local union--because the association offered the most reliable way to have an authentic voice on my own professional concerns.

I came to view the union in the same way I regard my family: I participate fully, no matter what conflict arises. I may not appreciate every decision made, or agree with everyone whose voice gets heard--but we're in this together. Strength in numbers, growth through community.

Do I wish the union were more flexible and innovative? More responsive to novice teachers? Lighter on its feet, when it comes to policy analysis? Sometimes. But I remind myself that a union is only as reflective and imaginative as its membership. I am an integral part of union's work and mission--and if I don't speak up, I have only myself to blame.

Occasionally, I will hear teachers lament that labor tactics--demanding, marching, picketing, adversarial relationships with the public education hierarchy--are "unprofessional." Better we should meet over a chef salad and have a nice, civilized conversation. Perhaps the union label should be replaced by "guild" as we strive for more professional credibility. And so on.

I'm thinking that the Wisconsin Experience--the union politely conceding all the economic bargaining chips, and still getting shafted in a naked, thoroughly undemocratic, demoralizing power grab--might serve as lesson to those who believe that activist teachers are unprofessional. We organize, because without such allied strength, we have even less control over difficult work for which we must accept accountability.

For better or worse, I'm stickin' to the union.

This blog is part of a nationwide campaign: EDUSolidarity. Find more posts at http://www.edusolidarity.us/ or using the #edusolidarity hashtag on Twitter.

Posted by Nancy Flanagan at 11:37 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

I was pink-slipped six times in the first decade I taught--then once more, during the year I was MI Teacher of the Year. By then, I had learned to see a pink slip as ineffectual, contractually mandated paperwork only barely connected to the realities of staffing a school with quality teachers. I was called back in five of six pink-slippings, and spent one year substitute teaching while waiting to return to the classroom.

There were huge cuts sweeping the state during the time I served as MI-TOY. As usual, all the arts and non-core subjects were cut first. No sooner had the pink slip appeared in my mailbox than I got a call from the Detroit News, looking to interview the Teacher of the Year Who Got Cut--a juicy story, for sure.

From that experience, I learned that it's not smart to promote yourself as "the exceptional teacher who shouldn't get cut"--because that's what the Detroit News reporter asked: With all those bad teachers out there, why would they cut the Teacher of the Year? Initially flattering, but based on a dangerous misconception--that the best plan would be to select the "good" teachers and let the others go--who needs 'em?

These days, the dominant narrative is that test scores should be the benchmark for letting teachers go, achievement data being all we really have--despite huge methodological flaws--to evaluate teaching yada, yada, yada.

Let's cut to the chase. If school reformers really wanted the best possible teachers in every classroom, they'd select and prepare them carefully, support them diligently on the job and fight to retain them, given the high cost of replacing teachers. If we wanted a dynamic teaching force, we'd strategically invest in one.

Mass pink-slipping is a necessary tactic to alert teachers to the fact that the school is in deep budget distress. But it's also way to get rid of veteran teachers, especially those whose profiles and voices have risen. From an amazing, tech-whiz teacher in Kansas:

I received my first pink slip about 10 years ago when the first round of budget cuts came through my district. I was over a barrel because they didn't completely cut me--just enough so I didn't qualify for benefits and wouldn't be eligible for unemployment benefits either. It was such a shock because I had just been named Teacher of the Year one year earlier and now I was pink-slipped! Talk about a fall from grace. It was quite a plunge.

Best thing that ever happened to me. Because it made me see how inconsequential I was to everyone but me and my family. Great perspective re-adjuster. Probably the only thing that would ever get through this thick, stubborn perspective I have that makes me oblivious to all that goes on around me, and not good at political maneuvers.

The people who did this were only testing me to see if I'd fold. And what I learned was that it is MY district way more than theirs. Administrators come and administrators go. But teachers are there forever and so are our students.

I made my own way and convinced someone to let me have a job. In the worst building, in the worst grade level. It's taken 6 years, but there's been substantial change and progress. Much more than I could have made in any other building and much more than I would have ever personally made inside myself if I hadn't been cut.

Pink slipped but not dead in the water. I look back and tend to think my pink slip was really the universe shoving me.

It's easy to take pink-slipping personally. But it's not all about you. It's just a symptom of dysfunction in the larger realm of education policy. When we're serious about funding and staffing schools with the very best, pink-slipping will become an anachronism.

Ever been pink-slipped?

Posted by Nancy Flanagan at 1:13 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Love that quote--although obviously, truth is a relative concept. Let's presume that truth looks something like this:

Our educational system is not very good. Its greatest flaw is its inherent inequity. There is a dangerous and growing gap between the pretty-good education children of privilege access--and the shabby leftovers we give children in poverty. We can dress those leftovers up in plaid jumpers and polo shirts, tinker with non-unionized teacher compensation, send in two-year adventure teachers from Yale--but the fact remains: children in poverty are disregarded in the land of the free, home of the brave. And it's catching up with us in some terrible ways.

We have passed through stage one, the rising tide of mediocrity, the market-based solutions and the finger-pointing. We are now entering stage two-- a cataclysmic upheaval. Pay attention. Because what happens next sets the template for the way American schools will look for a long time--as the new truth emerges.

In her wonderful new blog, Deborah Meier asks: "Do we really want schools to undo our class divisions?" Trust Meier to cut right to the heart of the issue.

The violent opposition emerging state by state, across the nation, is not about tenure, LIFO, critical pedagogy, teacher quality, charters, merit pay, class size, pink-slipping--or even unions. They're symptoms, even distractions.

Violently opposing--or vigorously supporting--a single solution to the ugly truth misses the point: we're teetering on the brink of losing one of America's best ideas-- a free, high-quality public education for all children in America, once considered a cornerstone of democratic equality and economic progress. We can't "superman" our way out of the truth.

I'm picking up my virtual picket sign and joining the glass-half-full club. It's time stand up for the core democratic values--the ones we teach in seventh grade social studies.

Beginning with next Tuesday's EDUSolidarity blog sweep. Join me.

Posted by Nancy Flanagan at 9:12 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Big stuff going on in education right now--teachers marching, billionaires sneering, Sixty Minutes fantasizing and Obama suggesting that we'd better pass his update on a truly destructive law, or 82% of schools everywhere will sink into a black hole.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, kids are risking their lives by taking Band class. That's right, bacteria and fungi are endangering our music students. Research done on thirteen scummy band instruments proves this must be true; therefore, the article suggests, kids are now justified in quitting band, immediately. Sigh.

As a middle school band teacher, I was the resident Saliva Queen. Contact with bodily fluids is inevitable in the band room; I kept soap, disinfectant and bleach handy next to the sink. Note: these items are not available in the school supply room, and must be purchased by a teacher. The first thing a kid learned when he got his hands on that shiny euphonium was how to keep it sanitary.

Keeping things clean in the band room is the equivalent of showering in gym class: it should be a given. The bigger issue is personal contact.

I'm a touchy-feely kind of person. As a middle school teacher, I used a hand-on-shoulder gesture to calm down angry boys, and gentle one-finger contact to indicate "let's get moving, guys"--or "cool hoodie!" A principal once requested that I refrain from hugging students at the annual awards night, because it embarrassed the other teachers and made the program too long.

In my college music methods class, we were instructed never to touch a child's fingers, when demonstrating a drumstick grip or clarinet fingering, but to use a pencil instead, to avoid any appearance of impropriety. I don't remember anyone ever telling me not to touch the kids because they were agents of infection, however.

After decades of teaching in secondary environments, I moved to a position teaching elementary music--a kind of touchy-feely banquet. Almost 500 children (with their attendant secretions and incubating viruses) passed through my classroom every week, and most of them wanted a hug, right now.

The teacher I replaced had words of wisdom for me, as she was moving her stuff out of the room: Don't let the children touch you. As I helped put the last plastic crates in her trunk, she added that anti-bacterial hand gel would become my best friend.

In my year at the elementary, I was sick enough to be out of school five times, sometimes for multiple-day stretches. It's often easier to come to school when you don't feel tiptop--these were days where I simply could not gut it out. I had symptoms you wouldn't mention at a dinner party, the Bronchitis That Wouldn't Leave, and a full-blown asthma attack requiring a trip to the emergency room.

I was in a rundown portable classroom, with two dusty window units supplying heat (lots of heat) in the winter. The air flow system was comprised of two features--the quarter-inch crack between the two halves of the portable (which I covered up with posters) and a broken vent, through which snow drifted. I spent most of my music budget on a large circular carpet (cut from a remnant) because the floor was disgusting--covered with duct tape and who knows what else. There was no water source (or phone or computer). But I liked this classroom. It had a funky, casual ambiance that matched my improvisatory teaching style.

It wasn't the room that caused illness, however. It was the centerpiece of my work--the adorable children, rocketing through the slush up the splintery steps ready to sing, move and play instruments. Little kids want to sit next to their teacher, hold her hand in the circle dance, and breathe heavily and moistly in her immediate vicinity. I was clutched everywhere, but always with the best intentions.

Teaching music is a very people-oriented occupation. Making music is what we're meant to do, as human beings. Cooties and all.

Posted by Nancy Flanagan at 10:36 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

I had to snort gently when I heard Ravitch say this--the "bad teacher" has become a stock villain in the shock-doctrine narrative about how our schools are responsible for pretty much every terrible thing that's happened to the American economy. Suppose we could, in fact, pluck these crappy teachers out of the second-hand, 1970s furniture in the teachers' lounge and replace them with dynamic, fresh recruits. Just how many bad teachers are we talking about?

In Bad Teachers: the Essential Guide for Concerned Parents, Guy Strickland (an uber-critic who endorses swift and decisive action when parents decide their child's teacher is inadequate) says that approximately 5 to 15% of teachers are bad enough that they need a new career. I have no idea where Strickland gets this number (and there is nary an equation-with-sigmas to be found), but assuming his figure is roughly believable--somewhere between 85 and 95% of practicing teachers are doing work on a spectrum from "good enough" to "outstanding."

I have no doubt that many principals could cheerfully pick out a handful of their staff for the boot, although the duds they select may not be the bad teachers identified by parents or colleagues--or standardized test data. Teachers are perceived as good or bad in context, and one principal's creative teaching virtuoso might be another parent's poetry-writing space cadet who lost little Tyler's diorama.

Even teachers of subjects where standardized tests make some sense as an indicator of teaching effectiveness aren't easy to quantify. I am thinking about a high school math teacher I know, whose two AP classes have near-perfect pass rates, but also has a reputation for failing upwards of half his Algebra I students. A brilliant mathematician, but disastrous at teaching goofy, unfocused freshmen. Good teacher or a bad teacher? His students' standardized achievement data would give you distinctly bifurcated results.

There are really only a couple of critical questions here: What do we do when teaching practice is identifiably substandard? Can a teacher be "fixed?" The market-based "reformers" would have us believe that the gene pool for teachers is shallow--that traditional teachers come into the profession as dim bulbs looking for a light load, generous vacations and job security. No smarts, little effort and eventually, malfeasance toward students. A lot of blog-jockeys would lay the entire problem of bad teachers at the feet of the teachers' unions.

But --the entire system is set up to turn a blind eye toward teachers who can't sustain consistently good teaching practice. Few schools provide quality induction, mentoring or early, intensive professional development--or regular constructive critical assessments of practice. The kinds of 360/comprehensive evaluations other organizations use to sharpen work--with feedback from above and below--are unheard of in schools.

Some principals hope a mediocre teacher will get better, and grant tenure. Why? There is considerable evidence that high-needs schools recruit and hire haphazardly, making keeping a marginal but reliable teacher a better solution than using scarce resources to roll the dice again. And unions provide due process for egregiously bad teachers for the same reason defense attorneys represent the accused: because they paid their dues and are entitled to the assistance.

What we need is a different approach to this problem: Rather than spending energy trying to ferret out the inadequate teachers, we might focus on producing, and retaining, genuinely excellent educators, creating a culture of teaching expertise. This would impact many teachers, the rising tide lifting second-rate boats.

That's not as disingenuous as it sounds. Our teacher recruitment, training, induction and ongoing learning protocols were created to put warm bodies in classrooms during the baby boom years. We can't afford run of the mill teachers any more, nor can we afford to waste time trying to draw a bright line between still-useful and bad teachers. Let's go for the gold.

Posted by Nancy Flanagan at 8:01 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

I really detest the phrase "merit pay," in any of its multiple incarnations, mostly because genuine merit has nothing to do with the dangling-carrot incentivizing attached to education policy these days. Merit is a useful word: boy scout badges, outstanding performance and doing the right thing. Merit pay is generally about test scores.

But not always. Once the concept of merit pay is accepted, you just never know who's going to get excited about monetary inducements for teachers--or what goals will be achievable now that they're connected to financial rewards.

For example, take the "miracle" that the Mackinac Center for Public Policy (a conservative think tank) is now touting, in little Oscoda, Michigan. It took only $25,000 --an average of a mere $294.12 per for each of Oscoda's 82 teachers-- to whip those educators into shape, on three key indicators: teacher absences, professional development and parent-teacher conferences.

According to the school figures, the district saved $41,100 in 2009-10 by not having to pay substitute teachers. That's because teachers have missed fewer school days, going from 7.51 absences per teacher in 2007-08 to 7.08 in 2008-09 and 7.47 in 2009-10. Teachers have also reduced the number of absences from professional development days, from a total of 52 absences in 2007-08 to 33 in 2008-09, and then to just 21 in 2009-10.

But the most startling results were found in parental attendance at parent-teacher meetings. In 2007-08, only 38 percent of the high school students were represented at parent-teacher conferences. That number jumped to 89 percent in 2010-11.

I'd like to take a moment to thank the Mackinac Center for sharing these dramatic results, and proving, once again, that education policy-making and analysis ought to be left to those who have actually worked in schools.

If 82 teachers took an average of 7.51 absences in 2007-08, that's 616 absences total. In the best year, teachers reduced that total to 581 absences. If a reduction of 35 teacher absences saved the district $41,000, they're paying substitutes $1171/day in Oscoda. Spread the word, unemployed teachers!

A reduction of 35 annual absences in a small school might represent nothing more than a year when colds and flu were less ferocious. I'm fairly certain that Mackinac was tallying teachers' per diem salaries to come up the $41,000--but that's not an accurate way to calculate actual costs to the district, as they're paying those salaries whether teachers are absent or not. Is the Mackinac Center seriously suggesting this 7th grade math problem is rigorous data analysis?

As for the other two miracles, getting teachers to attend PD days by paying them is hardly innovative. The key question here is: why were teachers ditching out of the PD days in the first place? Once you answer that, you'll have a key to genuinely improving teaching practice.

And--I'm not sure it's the individual teachers' job to motivate parents to attend conferences. It may be the school's responsibility to make parent conferences convenient and useful. How did the Oscoda high school teachers increase parent attendance at conferences? The article doesn't say. But if they were offering extra credit to students whose parents showed up, isn't that confusing parent compliance with actual student learning? Not good.

As for real experiments with merit pay, here's a great piece explaining why $75 million, administered by Famous Researchers at Harvard, doesn't work, either.

Merit, schmerit.

Where's Oscoda? Hold up your left hand. Oscoda is just below the knuckle of your first finger. On my hand, anyway.

Posted by Nancy Flanagan at 1:10 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

This has probably happened to you: Somehow, you find yourself on an e-mail list receiving unwanted forwards--anything from dancing babies to earnest exhortations about boycotting Exxon stations. You don't want this junk cluttering up your mailbox, but you have a connection to the person sending the messages. So you simply hit delete unless the annoying sender delivers something you're interested in, or...

something repugnant. Which is what the man in charge of the group list for my high school class has been doing with some regularity. In addition to announcements about the 40th class reunion, and photos of the old gang having breakfast together, he was sharing "must reads" about the evils of gun control, immigration law and Our Muslim President.

I tried asking him--off-list--to send me only stuff about the Class of 1969. Which inspired him to send more even more links, which usually ended with personally crafted warnings for the Lib-tards on the list ("you know who you are"). He crossed a line last week, however, in sharing some truly ugly suggestions for how to get Muslims to commit suicide. (Gotta read this! It's hilarious!)

I took a deep breath and reminded myself that I used to coach students to stand up to bullies. I thought about all the townspeople who walked past the "labor camp" in Dachau on their way to market, and the angry mob who yelled obscenities at the Little Rock Nine. Then I posted a brief, polite message to the whole group saying that I found his message of bigotry unacceptable--and while it would be easier to say nothing, such silence might lead him to believe that others felt as he did.

His counter was a disgusting message that labeled injured AZ Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords a [expletive] idiot, followed by more anti-Islam rubbish. My posting motivated a half-dozen high school classmates to send me nasty personal messages telling me I was full of excrement or blind to the realities of life in 2011. Also--treasonous. So much for Martin Niemoller.

I've had a couple of days to think it over, however. And while I obviously can never attend another class reunion (laughing), I'm not sorry at all for what I did. What good am I, as a teacher and a human being, unless I can stand up for justice?

In Fareed Zakaria's powerful piece in Time--Are America's Best Days Behind Us?--he writes about the depressing tone of the national conversation on critical issues, the "shallow triumphalism purveyed by politicians now."

We have let our fears and pessimism control the discourse, rather than inspiring us to be our better, more creative selves. We live in a nation where the best and most trustworthy news coverage is satire, and skillful advertising paid for by clandestine funders persuades vulnerable people to speak and vote against their own economic interests and their communities.

It's all about the faux outrage, the feisty personality and the snarky soundbite.

And that's where education comes in. Real education, not achievement-data education: Whose viewpoint is this, and what are their goals? How have these issues been handled--successfully or with terrible results-- throughout history? What is the evidence, and can we trust it? What are the alternatives--what other choices do we have?

Posted by Nancy Flanagan at 5:37 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Take a look at this brief clip of Davis Guggenheim, speaking to what must have been one of hundreds of audiences about the heartbreaking failure of public schools, and oh, coincidentally, some film he's flacking. A woman in his audience asks how we can get rid of teacher unions--a logical question, since the theoretical framework of "Waiting for Superman" is that Unions Protect Bad Teachers Who Ruin Children's Lives.

Guggenheim hesitates--then says that not all unions are bad. His union, for example, the Directors Guild, protects his important creative rights and his compensation. Growing more enthusiastic, he declares that the reason that teachers' unions are bad is because they "make policy." End of clip.

Perfect. Unions that protect the creative rights of rich people (through contractual policy), justified. Unions that protect the due process rights of teachers and aim to improve working conditions in those failing schools--greedy and damaging. And who says so? That well-known expert on labor and education policy, Davis Guggenheim.

Two days ago, another well-known expert on education policy, Bill Gates, was interviewed by NPR (also one of hundreds of media audiences eager for his wisdom) on the subject of class size. The interviewer asks Gates about schools where classrooms are packed with 35 to 40 children--how can that be acceptable? Gates says 40 is too many. But putting 30+ kids in front of a "excellent teacher?" Well, that could be one way to save money and improve education at the same time. Problem solved!

What makes Bill Gates an expert on education policy? Money, evidently. Every nonprofit, university--and union--in the country that needs Gates Foundation money is now willing say that he's an expert. What I would like to do here is raise my hand and offer Mr. Gates my own considerable and real expertise on the issue of class size. What makes me an expert?

Well--in addition to 30 years of classroom experience, two degrees, National Board Certification and an array of teaching awards, I am certainly the only Education Week Teacher blogger whose average class size hovered around 65 kids. Middle school kids, no less.

As an instrumental music teacher, I commonly handled 70+ students per hour, and one year (a year I do not remember fondly), had 93 students in my first hour Symphonic Band. That's right, 93 8th graders, all holding noisemakers, at 7:25 a.m.. When it comes to class size, I am a credible, expert witness--the ultimate cost-effective teacher. And here's what I'd like Mr. Gates to know:

• The size of individual classes matters far less than total student load. It is more "efficient" for a teacher to lecture to large groups of students. But good teachers lecture infrequently, because students actually absorb knowledge through action and interaction. Simply listening to content is wildly inefficient, unless the student is able to apply the new knowledge--through discussion, re-framing, deconstructing concepts, answering questions, receiving feedback, producing documents or performance assessments.

• Therefore, relationships matter a great deal in learning. If learning were as simple as pouring knowledge into someone's head, like the infamous cartoon figure in "Waiting for Superman," then class sizes could balloon with no ill effect. But learning a complex skill-- like reading or equation-solving--hinges on small group interaction and guided practice. Students must be willing to try and fail, repeatedly, before approaching competence and mastery. Which also involves trust. Considering these facts, it's no wonder that the research overwhelmingly indicates that small classes are most critical for very young children, and students who lack adequate attention from caring, competent adults.

• Many people assume that small classes mean fewer discipline problems for teachers. This is patently untrue. Every veteran teacher has had a small class that drove them to distraction--usually due to the mix of kids--and classes where there was barely room to move, but produced a reliable, dynamic learning buzz. The problem is not raw numbers--it's the energy needed to build the human relationships that lead to lasting growth.

• There is no magic around the number 30, or 18 or 40, when it comes to class size (although I found it interesting that Gates stuck to numbers commonly found in schools and union contracts). Bumping class size limits up from 25 to 30, or 30 to 35--even if every single teacher were "effective" or "excellent" or whatever Bill Gates is calling them, and given a bonus--may save money, but would have little impact on actual learning. Good teachers would re-think their instructional strategies, further subdivide their attention and energy--and decide, in increasing numbers, that no amount of extra money is worth eroding their beliefs and their practice.

• In fact, insistence on standardized numbers is at the heart of what's wrong in the class size debate. Gates is correct when he says parents would rather have their child in a class of 30 with a terrific teacher than in a class of 18 with a bad teacher (or novice, I would add, given the unequivocal data about the efficacy of first-year teachers). When union contracts prescribe one-size-fits-all numbers, they're not taking into account teacher experience, student needs, or pedagogical and subject discipline considerations. They're building walls against putting teachers and students in untenable situations. We can do better.

The class-size solution Bill Gates proposed for improving education is all about cash flow rather than investment in human capital. It does not address the most pressing need of education reform--the dangerous gap between the appalling schools we now have for kids who have no resources and the good schools we have for other children.

Just one more expert viewpoint.

Posted by Nancy Flanagan at 2:08 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend