June 2011 Archives

In July, the Save Our Schools March --which is now undeniably a national movement--is asking those who are marching on July 30 in Washington D.C., and those support, endorse and cheer this movement, to share their thoughts on why they're marching. I'm proud that David Greene is leading the pack, here at Teacher in a Strange Land.

David Greene is a former social studies teacher in New York, in Greenburgh, Scarsdale and the Bronx. He's an adjunct professor and field supervisor for Fordham University Graduate School of Ed, mentoring Teach For America corps members in the Bronx. He is on the staff of WISE Services, an organization that helps high schools create and run experiential learning programs for seniors. He advises the Foundation For Male Studies and The Boy Initiative, is a HS football coach, and a member of the Save Our Schools Call to Action Organizing Committee.

The only time I ever marched on Washington D.C. was the Moratorium to end the Vietnam War in November 1969. Hundreds of thousands marched through the cold streets of Washington D.C. while FBI agents took pictures of us as we shouted "Peace Now" and waved our flags and signs. My friend and I constructed a giant (we thought it novel) Peace Flag that was eventually used up on the speaker's platform. We were so proud. We slept on the gym floor of a local church. When it was time to leave, at first we couldn't find our bus to go back to NY, but eventually we did. Frankly, it's all a blur but a worthwhile one.

I was not a joiner, a marcher or a protester. I was not much of an activist, either. I had friends who were deeply involved in the movement but I was happy just to get involved in conversations, to do my little part to convince people, one at a time, that the War was wrong. However, when friends were deployed I felt it important to do more. So I marched.

Here we are 42 years later. I will march on Washington this July because again we must stop a war. This time it is the war against teachers, students, and education. Over the past 10 years what started as an intervention has become a full-scale assault. The parallels with Vietnam are astounding.

Now, as then, presidential decisions began with giving "assistance in the battlefield," but became congressional acts to fund, arm and send troops. Corporations were enlisted to fund and manufacture the goods to fight. Escalation became the operating word.

At first, I was content to argue against standardized testing, No Child Left Behind, and Race To The Top. This time, I pointed out how a new education-industrial complex (not the old military-industrial complex) had seized control of education policy, for their own profit.

What once seemed like a good idea, Teach for America, had morphed into a kind of 5th branch of the armed forces. At first it innocuously sent "advisors" in small numbers to educational "battlefields". But its power and numbers escalated.

Think of how the military recruits young men and women: "Join the Army- Be All You Can be!"--"Looking For A Few Good Men!"--"It's Not a Job, It's an Adventure!"--"Join the Air Force- Aim High!"

Or-- "Teach for America- This could be the best career decision you make!"

TFA recruits are thrust into a war zone, less prepared than my friends were 42 years ago. Often misled and naive twenty-somethings, they are unarmed when trying defeat the enemies of education: poverty, poor training, poor leadership, and a host of other saboteurs.

Forty-two years later, I'm going to Washington to march again. But this time I go as more than a marcher. I go as an organizer, presenter, and activist. I do all this because the Chief Executive, Congress, and an Industrial Complex--including TFA--threaten the vocation I have loved for 41 years.

I march because of the kids and programs I see threatened by this assault.

I march because of what this war on education is doing to my former teaching colleagues, and the new teachers with whom I work.

I march to share how good schools can be if we let professionals do the work.

I march to fix the training of new teachers, helping them fight the real battles they and our students face every day.

I march to get TFA to change: to work with traditional teacher training institutions, to stop vilifying veteran teachers and invite them to assist our novices; to recruit top talent to stay in teaching-- becoming teaching "lifers".

I march to get TFA to listen.

I march for change.
I march for reform.
I march for academic freedom.
I march for curricula and methodologies that will develop well-informed, problem-solving critical thinkers.

Most of all I march for our kids.
As Phil Ochs sang...

Posted by Nancy Flanagan at 8:16 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Watch this--it takes less than a minute: Bad Teacher @ Trailer Addiction.

Now, imagine that you are in one or several of these categories:
• Under the age of mature, informed reason--say, 17 or 18
• Not a public school parent
• Right-wing conservative / Tea Party enthusiast / Neo-Something Democrat Banker
• Temperamentally inclined to see the world as going to hell in a hand basket
• Not concerned with strict accuracy in media, preferring to consume "news" that reinforces opinion

What does this movie spot reveal to you, concerning our collective beliefs about education in America? We used to be number one--whatever that means--but now the immoral idiots who staff our schools have dragged us down to #17?

What does it say to the people in the captions above-- kids, cranky sorts, ideologues, average Joes who drive past public schools but haven't been in one since 1975? Is it different for those who actually work in schools or have solid first-hand information because their children attend them?

Do most people view this as an ordinary advertising hook for a low-rent comic farce? Is there a common understanding that what makes broad satire amusing--or a nuclear disaster movie terrifying--is planting its roots in reality? Are we generally savvy enough to make the distinction between mindless entertainment and using topical issues to enlighten? Does a movie like Bad Teacher start good discussions--or reinforce misconceptions?

Sorry. That's a whole lot of rhetorical questions.

But honestly--I am not convinced that people have good filters for what's true and what's distorted when it comes to the reality of public schooling. I worry, a lot, about discernment--the ability to figure out who's zoomin' who on complex education issues. I worry most about kids. What does it mean to a fifth grader when a two-minute movie trailer suggests that your school (not to put too fine a point on it) now sucks, compared to the rest of the world--and the reason is your lousy teachers?

Over at Straight Talk, Rick Hess considers (without a trace of irony) potential damage to merit pay initiatives that Bad Teacher could wreak-- a kind of funhouse-mirror image of my own angst over what the infamous Bad Teacher cover of Newsweek, a serious newsmagazine, did to the idea of professional teaching. Rick frets a bit about how Cameron Diaz's bad-teacher character pursues high test scores for crass personal gain, then decides that, whether fiction or reality, it's better for a teacher to ineptly teach to the test than show endless videos. As if those were the two most feasible choices.

Yeah, it's just a dumb movie. But lots of entertaining flicks have altered the national perception on single issues: The Godfather. Citizen Kane. Apocalypse Now. Dr. Strangelove. To Kill a Mockingbird. Gone With the Wind.

Reviewers have been lobbing tomatoes at Bad Teacher, but even stupid movies often linger in the public's vocabulary and consciousness. Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

Bad Teacher may sink rapidly into obscurity--but the faux "fact" that kicks off the advertising has the feel of science. Then there's the far more truthy-seeming Waiting for Superman which also played fast and loose with veracity. The line between hard-hitting journalism and astro-turf advocacy has blurred. Where does the exaggerated fiction version fit into the mix?

More questions. What happened to faith in the power of education to strengthen democratic equality and build citizenship? Are we done with all that, in the post-ironic age? Are we (as the late Neil Postman suggested) amusing ourselves to death?

Just wondering.

Posted by Nancy Flanagan at 3:39 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Full disclosure: It's been more than three and a half decades since I graduated college. Not much of a rah-rah alumna, I have never attended a Homecoming game or reunion. Earlier this month, however, I returned to ye olde campus to play in a musical "reading ensemble"--in other words, a pick-up band without sufficient time to meticulously rehearse. Eighty-odd former university music students spent an entire Saturday cruising through literature for an hour-long performance on Sunday-- Wagner, Shostakovich, Gershwin, light classic orchestral transcriptions, some circus marches, the score to West Side Story--a great program.

If spending a whole day practicing music with a bunch of people you haven't seen in 40 years doesn't sound like fun to you, you obviously never performed in an excellent high school or collegiate band, orchestra or choir. The gathering was organized to honor the late Norman Dietz, who was Director of Bands at Central Michigan University for more than thirty years--but quickly began to feel like an informal seminar on the necessity and current direction of the arts in public education.

The modal occupation of most participants was "teacher"--although there were doctors, CEOs, lawyers and professors in multiple disciplines, and lots of people who leveraged their starter career in a music classroom into school leadership. I spoke with one band-director-turned-principal who said that he had no real clear sense of how media and federal policy were re-shaping education until he moved to the front office. "At least I now know who's making us do this, who's taking away our great programs," he said.

The people at this event represented the lucky generation--post-war kids whose parents wanted everything for their neighborhood schools: spanking new buildings, rich and diverse offerings, a curriculum to train scientists who could send America to the moon. Opportunity. It didn't matter if your parents were working-class stiffs or took advantage of the GI bill and now lived in fancy new subdivisions carved out of farmland--they wanted their public schools to be great.

Our college educations took place against the backdrop of violence, assassination and sweeping national protest against a misguided war in southeast Asia. Political chaos and fretting over whether Johnny could read better than Ivan didn't tarnish the bedrock idea that a free, high-quality public education was a kind of American birthright. Every child deserved to take advantage of every educational opportunity--including pursuing music for the entire K-16 sequence.

The musicians who came together represented well over 1000 years of music teaching alone. Doing the math, millions of student musicians were influenced by these teachers over a half-century, part of a common pursuit of artistic excellence on the public's dime. The numbers were impressive to consider, and a little back-patting in order. But mostly, what we talked about was this: Who will be willing to go into teaching, these days?

Daniel Pink tells us motivation is comprised of three aspects-- purpose, mastery and autonomy. Back in the day, my band buddies arrived at CMU with a clear purpose--to use our talents for good and to share our passion for music. We honed our personal masteries, including artistic expression and discipline. And we went out into the world with agency, planning to be illustrious educators.

Virtually all of us succeeded. Often, our educational role models, like Norman Dietz, had similar humble beginnings but used music as a vehicle to achieve distinction. If what we experienced was the "status quo" in arts education for a generation, it was a pretty good deal--beneficial for a wide cross-section of students, and a wise use of public resources.

What is there to motivate would-be teachers in 2011?

Autonomy has been stripped from the profession, in favor of pre-set goals, carrots and sticks. Mastery is centered on limited competencies: Can you get kids to reach these "measurable" benchmarks? And the purpose of public education is no longer about finding joy and meaning in learning. It's basic job training--and for the smaller number of lucky students in this generation, obtaining the right credentials.

School music programs--where they still exist-- have morphed: competitive, focused on entertainment, supported by fund-raising and often exclusive. We consume music these days; it's no longer a common human experience. Studying it for pleasure or to understand culture is devalued: How can you make money as a music major?

It's a terrible loss. Brought to you by the lopsided economy, and power-grabbing policy-makers who think that the dream of a fully educated populace is a waste of resources.

I'm guessing that you'd never get eighty former Accounting majors together to celebrate the timeless and moving elegance of their work together as college students, however. I'm sure our performance sounded fine to the audience of spouses and community members--but everyone on stage was keenly feeling the loss of stamina, technique and musical radar that top-notch performing groups develop. We used to be contenders! Still, it was deeply rewarding to play good music together, again--to celebrate our success and our roots.

It's that access to excellence and that understanding--being part of superb communal performance--that we're losing in public education.

Where did that go--and why? Who's behind the shifting priorities in education?

Posted by Nancy Flanagan at 12:48 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

My EdWeek colleague, Walt Gardner, has a great post up this week on teacher evaluation using a peer assistance and review model. Walt and I agree that a muscular approach to teacher evaluation could go a long way toward improving teaching practice.

Not because better evaluations would correctly identify and lop off a bigger percentage of under-performing teachers; that could be accomplished far more efficiently by raising the bar for admission, productive field experiences and careful induction. But--because teacher evaluations could be used as a system for ongoing professional learning. We almost never hear about providing teachers with a set of viable, high-level self-evaluation tools. We assume (wrongly) that teachers either can't or won't invest significant intellectual effort in examining their own efficacy. They must be "managed" into highly effective, professional behavior.

One exception: National Board Certification, where teachers voluntarily submit a detailed analysis of their work to carefully trained, anonymous peers. Why hasn't board certification for teachers become the norm, as it has for accountants and pediatricians?

National Board Certification is built on credible, viable, detailed standards for accomplished practice--why aren't those tacked to every teacher's bulletin board? Why aren't the free NBPTS standards and evaluation lenses routinely woven into, or adapted by, all district and statewide teacher preparation and assessment systems? (For a good example of what that might look like, take a look at Accomplished CA Teacher's teacher-designed professional evaluation model.)

Other advantages of a board-certification approach to evaluation:

• The requirement that teachers examine and document their work outside the classroom: professional collaboration, communicating effectively with families, updating their skills.

• The use of actual student work, so teachers can provide credible evidence that their teaching led to student learning over time.

• An evaluation of a teacher's planning process: setting the right goals, designing different kinds of instruction to reach diverse students, creation of valid assessments tied to local curricula.

• An on-demand demonstration of the teacher's content knowledge mastery, via examination.

• A panel of independent outside reviewers--no going easy on the basketball coach or letting personal biases color the evaluation.

What about the coin of the realm--standardized test scores? National Board candidates have always been free to present appropriate standardized data as part of the package of evidence that students have learned from their teaching. But--and this is important--they are required to connect the numbers to verification that it's their instruction that is correlated to the learning, not what the kids bring to the table, or the efforts of skilled colleagues. That does two things: builds assessment literacy in practitioners, and uses standardized data in productive, non-punitive ways.

So, again: Why isn't this model the norm? A model based on National Board Certification would be--right now--as good as teacher evaluation gets.

Ideas to ponder:

Putting the responsibility for demonstrating that their practice is effective on teachers turns our hierarchy upside down. It positions teachers as capable, autonomous and responsible. In other words, fully professional. A full-range evaluation of teacher skills reinforces the belief that all of those things--and not just delivering tested content--are important and desirable.

Recently, an increasing number of jobs that should be teacher work have been shunted to "experts." Setting content standards, creating aligned assessments and curriculum have been taken out the teacher bailiwick and given to vendors and policy-makers. There's a lot of money to be made on teacher evaluation systems.

National Board Certification is currently regarded as an expensive, boutique process to identify the "best" teachers. But it wasn't designed that way. It was created to benchmark the requisite skills, knowledge and characteristics of good teaching, and transform the profession by putting increasing numbers of teachers through a journey of examining their own work.

Ask yourself: what would happen if all teachers were compelled to regularly and thoroughly demonstrate that their practice met a yardstick of efficacy?

Posted by Nancy Flanagan at 1:39 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Annette Romano is one of my most cherished teacher-leader buddies. Annette, a first-grade teacher and professional

development specialist, lives outside Albany, New York with her wonderful family, and does groundbreaking and dedicated work to elevate the practice--and the voices--of her
colleagues.

The hot issue in New York--and everywhere--is how to fairly evaluate teachers' effectiveness in the classroom. Recently, by a 14-3 vote, the NY Board of Regents established regulation that mandates the use of student test scores in assessing teachers. This did not go down well with New York teachers--including eight New York State Teachers of the Year, who wrote a powerful, thoughtful and widely publicized letter explaining the folly and probable unintended consequences when utilizing test data intended to measure to student learning as a gauge of teachers' value in the classroom.

Annette wrote a different letter--to Roger Tilles, one of the three Regents who did not support the change. The letter is heartbreaking--and I'm sharing it with the Romano family's permission:

Good Morning Regent Tilles,

Thank you again for your courage, advocacy, and persistence.

Annette forwarded the letter from Albany Medical, where Luke is once again undergoing chemotherapy--an all-too-familiar process that was put off for a few days, so he could attend the Junior Prom. She shared the beautiful photo--and these thoughts:

"I was thinking about what's behind the scores--about all the stories that aren't told, not just Luke's: poverty, divorce, obesity, poor health, special needs, social and emotional problems, family addictions, pregnancy, lack of home support, the athlete that's playing two sports, the student that's already working more than 20 hours a week."

Luke took the Regents exam because he wanted to--all juniors in New York take the Regents--and his parents wanted the information it provides, too. But test scores are just numbers.

Now you know the whole story. Courage, advocacy and persistence, indeed.

[Update: Sadly, Luke Romano lost his valiant, seven-year battle on the evening of August 29th. Our heartfelt thanks to his family for sharing his story, and our deepest condolences on their loss.]

Posted by Nancy Flanagan at 1:41 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

In a recent conversation with an education leader I very much admire, a man whose political leanings I know to be centrist-Democrat, I was surprised to hear that he had approached the Republican candidate for governor during the campaign and shared some of his ideas about education reform. Really? I said. Oh yeah, he said. You have to get in on the ground floor.

The candidate is now Governor--and so for the next four (or, alas, eight) years, my friend hopes that his campaign contribution and an early meet-up will give him a voice, a place at the proverbial table.

What I'm wondering is: What if he gets there and find himself on the payroll, so to speak, in the building of a leaky, dysfunctional reform ship? What if he's getting in on the ground floor of the Titanic of School Reform: showy, well-publicized, attractive to investors--but doomed to fail?

The great federal ed-reform shipped launched by the Faux Texas Miracle a decade ago appears to be headed for some research-based ice floes. Plenty of evidence (here, here, here and here, for starters) that the S.S. Accountability is not only sinkable--it's not even sea-worthy. Will the Captain overlook the incoming messages of trouble ahead? Will inherent flaws in the ship-building process be obscured by overenthusiastic rhetoric and arrogance?

Don't want to go full-bore nautical metaphor here--it's as irritating as constant sports analogies--but seriously: What if the reform vessel you invested a decade's worth of time and money into appeared to be ineffective, at best--or even downright useless in getting us where we wanted to go? Would you sail on, emphasizing the need to stay on schedule? Would you offer federal money to states who agree to sign on as passengers? Would you launch a slick advertising campaign to allay concerns?

Or would you change course--even rebuild the ship?

It strikes me that the tide in policy rhetoric is shifting. Messages from Secretary Duncan's Press Secretary seemed designed to look and feel more like the kinds of things teachers and parents say--a kinder, gentler message. Even if policy initiatives are moving forward as usual, the reassurances are more skillful.

But the conglomerate of policy-makers and super-funders--known as "The Reformers"--have been in since the ground floor. This is not a even a partisan war. It's about protecting their intellectual and economic investment in what they see as a grand voyage.

Why change your mind about school reform, when the facts change?

Because we know who's the first to go down with the ship, and who gets into the lifeboats.

"Oh, they built the ship Titanic..."

Posted by Nancy Flanagan at 12:45 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Bill Ferriter has a great piece up this morning, musing--as we all do, endlessly--about how our national love affair with standardized test data has bent and twisted the creative, purpose-driven art and science of teaching. Not to mention genuine student learning, school creation, rich curriculum, professional collaboration and a lot of careers and lives.

In what I hope is the phenomenon of great minds thinking alike, I had my own epiphany on this topic last weekend, in a homegrown think-tank retreat with some trusted educator friends. We've all worn various hats and worked for an array of edu-orgs, but at heart and core, we're teachers. Ten years ago, if you'd asked us what the future of teaching and teacher leadership looked like, we would have conjured up a rosy vision of an inexorable march toward true professionalism: a higher bar for admission, standards-based practice and evaluation, relentless pursuit of equity.

"None of the above" would not have been an option. All of us were National Board Certified Teachers (as is Ferriter); we were convinced we were looking toward a decade where teachers were--finally--going to rise to authentic leadership, controlling the heart of their work: curriculum, instruction, assessment. That was then, of course.

Ferriter now suggests that one of three models of teaching will eventually triumph (and I'm paraphrasing):

#1) The Brilliant Temp model, where public school teaching becomes a competitive short-term career for our best and brightest grads, who will last in the classroom as long as the job market for professional work keeps them there. Teacher training will be truncated and limited to "tools;"education will no longer be a scholarly, philosophical discipline. Simply a service, subject to efficiency testing.

#2) The Teacher as Technician model, where the person in front of the room (or, more likely, cost-effective virtual room) is following pre-set "protocols" to dump content into kids' heads, then testing for memorization.

#3) The Teacher as Skilled Professional model (see paragraph two)--which can only come about through serious investment and recreation of "teaching." A national paradigm shift.

Last weekend, fueled by a lot of wine, my edu-posse saw only two prospective models--a combination of #1 & #2, the Young, Smart, Enthusiastic & Compliant Technician model, and the increasingly unlikely Professional Teacher. Two roads, diverging.

So what happened, on the way to the promised land?

The Tempered Radical blames this reductionism on testing--and he's right. But he doesn't go far enough. Mandated Extreme Testing is just one super-tool--it isn't the only force pushing teaching into a corner. It's a complex mix of political power, fear of a rising public sector, and a desire to make money by converting a massive public service into a wide-open market place.

[Full disclosure: I am of the opinion that some things should not be for sale, but are human rights. This is why we have government, and public services. Justice, general welfare, domestic tranquility--you remember, the blessings of liberty?]

How could we turn the bus around and start taking the Professional Teacher path? And would it be worth doing so?

First--we can't buy and sell our way into a future of teacher professionalism. Genuine leadership isn't entrepreneurial, as much as we'd like to reward the dynamic and creative reform and practice ideas coming out of the teaching profession. Leadership comes from a desire to serve and a vision for productive change, not offering ideas, skills and tools on the educational market.

As it happens, Linda Darling-Hammond wrote a detailed record of how other nations have found their way to the teacher-professional path: "The Flat World and Education: How America's Commitment to Equity Will Determine Our Future." In this wonderful book, Darling-Hammond shares a wealth of information on how the paradigm shift toward professional teaching has yielded demonstrable results in student learning, around the globe. It's a great companion piece to Diane Ravitch's "The Death and Life of the Great American School System"--providing a road map for positively addressing some of the messes and causes Ravitch outlines.

Have you noticed that the scorn once heaped on Darling-Hammond is now aimed at Ravitch?

Have you noticed the mere mention of Finland as desirable educational model--a place where teachers are truly seen as nation-builders--now draws immediate negative commentary, ranging from "I'm so tired of hearing about Finland" to "What worked for Finland would never work here?"

Have you noticed the increasingly bitter and vitriolic debate over what research is clearly telling us?

What's the way out? Maybe it's time to take to the streets.

Posted by Nancy Flanagan at 10:58 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Back when the Internet was a baby, Facebook and Twitter were nonexistent and tech-savvy folks gathered at electronic bulletin boards and Compuserv forums, I started writing a monthly column for our local newspaper. This began unintentionally--I sent a well-written letter to the editor, signed with my name and my new title: Michigan Teacher of the Year. Invited to write regularly (in other words, provide free content) for the paper, I leapt at the chance.

It didn't last long. Although every column ended with a her-opinion-only disclaimer, and I was writing about innocuous things, The Superintendent emphatically did not like the idea of a teacher having a very public soapbox for expounding on ed-issues. I got a letter directing me to cease and desist, in so many words. Enthusiastic readers I met in the supermarket--parents, neighbors, former students--felt differently. So did my colleagues in the district, who were constantly sending laudatory you-go messages via the interoffice mail, often including a clipping of the column from the paper.

I learned a powerful lesson from that experience: She who has the megaphone gets heard.

It's hard to believe that was only 15 years ago. Today, you can select your favorite flavors of online opinion writing, reading only what aligns with your pre-established beliefs. Today, blog commenters are paid to interrupt and poison dialogue or promote a viewpoint. Today, billionaires can hire fresh-faced teachers to show up at legislative hearings to pose as "genuine, real people"--and Davis Guggenheim acts as national spokesperson, explaining teacher unions to the uninformed.

Today, this guy can write as somebody's daddy and diligent school board member, crafting disingenuous little morality plays, while actually "flacking" for much bigger fish.

Here's another example of Eduflack's thinking, this time on the 18th century British practice of sending convicted criminals to work on prison-farms in Australia:

The trouble was, by the time the trip from England to Australia was completed, nearly one third of the prisoners on the ship were dead, lost mid-voyage because of lack of care or concern from the boat captain and his crew. You see, those manning the British crafts were paid by the journey. Complete the trip to the Land Down Under and back, and collect your paycheck.

At the end of the 18th century some British leaders took great issue with the fatality rates on these prison ships. Ultimately, [they] came up with an intriguing idea. Instead of paying ship captains by the trip, they changed their contracts and paid them based on the number of prisoners that were ultimately delivered to Australia. By shifting pay determination from process (the trip) to outcomes (the number of living bodies delivered), a funny thing happened. Nearly 99 percent of those destined for Australia made it there alive, up from the previous 65 percent survival rate. Ship captains were paid well, and they were recognized for successfully completing the job at hand.

What if we took the same approach to teaching? What if, instead of being paid for standing in front of a classroom for an academic year, teachers were paid based on the number of students who score proficient or better on assessment measures? Would we see a change in outcomes?

When we talk teacher incentives, isn't the 18th century nautical analogy apropos? Ultimately, our teachers are the captains of their classrooms, in charge of charting the course and making sure all those on board make it to the final destination. Today, most of those teachers are rewarded for simply manning the ship, surviving the trip from September through June.

Can you pick this apart and find the casual, unchallenged assertions?

At present, teachers merely stand in front of a classroom for a year, with no further responsibility or accountability in place.

Our goal is kids who are "proficient or better"-- since we all understand what proficient means, don't we?

Teachers are fully in charge of their classroom ships--they and they alone control what happens on the journey, with no other inputs.

Teachers are "rewarded" for showing up and surviving-- every year we lavish money on people who do, essentially, the bare minimum.

What we're really looking for is data--we'll pay for test scores, because nothing will else convince us that students have learned.

As for Eduflack's question--would we see a change in outcomes by paying teachers for test scores?--I find it interesting that the meatiest and most convincing research report on merit pay in recent memory was released the same month as Eduflack shared his innocent question.

That study says no--performance pay doesn't raise test data. Unfortunately, there's no definitive study on how British ship captains kept prisoners alive, once incentivized to do so. Perhaps they fed them better, tended their wounds and treated them well, investing in their continued survival and potential as human beings. Just a guess. Eduflack's analogy is silent on that point. Ends, not means.

Has the explosion of free online content elevated the discourse on teaching, learning and school reform? The Superintendent feared the unfettered editorial voice of one teacher (who delivered consistently good teaching results in his district). I wonder how many other authentic teacher voices have been silenced, and how many of the voices speaking on reform today are coming from people who actually do the work.

Posted by Nancy Flanagan at 1:04 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend