OH: Raking in Consultant Money

Education reform has spawned a variety of new money-making opportunities, including a burgeoning field of education consultants.

That's because one of the new steady drumbeats is that superintendents, principals, and most especially teachers-- in short, all the people who have devoted their professional lives to education-- don't know what they're doing and possess no expertise in education whatsoever. No, for real expertise, we must call in the High Priests of Reformsterdom.

That takes us to Cleveland, Ohio. I love Cleveland; I did my student teacher at a Cleveland Heights middle school while living in an apartment at the corner of East 9th and Superior, and those, indeed, were the days. But Cleveland schools have a long history of difficulty. Back in the day, Ohio schools had to submit all tax increases to voter referendum; Cleveland voters routinely said no, and Cleveland schools repeatedly shut down around October when they ran out of money.

Now, in the reform era, Cleveland schools have embraced charters and privatization with a plan that stops just short of saying, "We don't know what the hell we're doing or how to run a school district, so we're just going to open it up to anybody who thinks they can run a school or has an opinion about how to run a school. Except for teachers and professional educators-- they can continue to shut the hell up." This is Ohio, a state that has developed a reputation the charter school wild west, where even people who make their living in the charter biz say, "Oh, come on. You've got to regulate something here!"

Given this climate, it seems only likely that Cleveland schools would call on a consulting firm like SchoolWorks. If the mashed-together name makes you think of other reformy all-stars like StudentsFirst and TeachPlus, you can go with the feeling. SchoolWorks started out helping charter schools get up and running and had a close relationship with KIPP schools. Their CEO's bio starts with this:

Spencer Blasdale considers himself a “teacher by nature,” but found early on in his career that his passion was having an impact beyond the four walls of one school.

And may I just pause to note how well that captures the reformy attitude about teaching-- you are just born with a teachery nature, and you don't need training or experience and you certainly don't need to prove yourself to any of those fancy-pants teacher colleges or other professional educators. The entry to the teaching profession is by revelation, and once you "consider yourself" a teacher, well then, what else do you need?

You will be unsurprised to learn that Blasdale's "career" consists being a charter founding teacher, rising to charter administration, and then deciding to jump to charter policy. His LinkedIn profile indicates that he did teach a couple of years at a private day school back in the nineties. He has never taught in a public school. He's a product of the Harvard Ed grad school. Based on all that, he and his company are prepared to come tell you what you're doing wrong at your school; you can sign up for just an evaluation, or they will provide coaching as well.

Which brings us back to Cleveland.

The Cleveland Plain Dealer reports that SchoolWorks has already been to the district. They visited ten schools. They visited each school for three days. Based on three whole days at the school, they evaluated the school in nine areas.

For this they were paid $ 219,000. Seriously.

The reports were not pretty. "Not all educators convey shared commitments and mutual responsibility," they said (which strikes me as a pretty incredible insight to glean in just three days). Another school was slammed for "rarely -– only 11 percent of the time –- letting students know what the goals were for class." This would be more troubling if there were, in fact, a shred of evidence that sharing the goals had any educational benefits. Security officers were careless and the schools were messy and unclean. Good thing they hired a consultant-- I bet nobody in the district is qualified to tell if a school is messy or not.

The whole SchoolWorks package is like that. They come in to give one of four ratings on nine questions.

1. Do classroom interactions and organization ensure a supportive, highly structured learning climate?
2. Is classroom instruction intentional, engaging, and challenging for all students?
3. Has the school created a performance-driven culture, where the teachers effectively use data to make decisions about instruction and the organization of students?
4. Does the school identify and support special education students, English language learners, and students who are struggling or at risk?
5. Does the school's culture reflect high levels of both academic expectation and support?
6. Does the school design professional development and collaborative supports to sustain a focus on instructional improvement?
7. Does the school's culture indicate high levels of collective responsibility, trust and efficacy?
8. Do school leaders guide instructional staff in the central processes of improving teaching and learning?
9. Does the principal effectively orchestrate the school's operations?

Now, some of these are crap, like #3's focus on data-driven instruction and decision-making. And many of them are really good goals in general, but it's going to come down to, for instance, exactly what we think "intentional, engaging and challenging" instruction looks like.

But on what planet are any of these-- even the iffy ones-- better checked by strangers with no public education expertise in the course of a three-day drive-by then by your own in-house experts? Do your superintendents and principals check none of this? We can take care of item #7 before the consultants even get to the school. Does the school's culture indicate high levels of collective responsibility, trust and efficacy? If you have just paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to come look at what your own people can see with their own eyes, the answer is "no," or maybe "hell, no."

But Cleveland schools say, "May we have some more." SchoolWorks will be driving by twenty-five more schools for a price tag of $667,000. Which-- wait a minute. Ten schools for $219,000 is $21,900 per school. And twenty-five times $21,900 is $547,500. Apparently the additional cost is so that SchoolWorks will provide a "toolbox of solutions."

If this seems pricey, SchoolWorks also offered Cleveland a one-day drive-by package which would have covered the thirty-five schools for $219,000.

If there's a bright spot anywhere in this picture, it's that Cleveland school leaders recognize that simply soaking test scores in VAM sauce won't give them a picture of their schools' effectiveness. But if I were a Cleveland taxpayer, I'd be wondering why I was forking over a million dollars so that some out-of-town consultants could come do the job I thought I was already paying educational professionals in my district to do.

Picking Your Fights

"It's easy for the AFT to tell teachers not to shop at Staples. It would take guts to tell teachers, 'Don't give the tests!' How can you condemn the tests--and continue giving them? Wasn't 'just following orders' soundly discredited long ago? "
—Susan Ohanian, Hemlock on the Rocks, July 14, 2014

This quote has been bouncing around the eduwebs for almost a week, and it has engendered quite a discussion, and it's a discussion worth having.

Susan Ohanian is someone who deserves to be taken seriously, if for no other reason than she started ringing the alarm bell on the modern era of school reform well before most other people were even paying attention. It has been over a decade since she won the National Council of Teachers of English Orwell Award for Distinguished Contribution to Honesty and Clarity in Public Language, and she is still crystal clear when she writes. Her site should be on your list.

Simply put, I have huge respect for Ohanian and what she has to say. But this time, I disagree.

I don't disagree with the notion that AFT and NEA have failed to provide strong and courageous leadership in these challenging times. From Van Roekel's 2013 "Well, if you don't like Common Core, what should we do instead" to Weingarten's 2014 "Well, then, just rewrite the Core yourself to show them how the standards should look," the national unions have not been champions of American public school teachers.

But this advice would be irresponsible. Worse, in some places, it would be useless to teachers and helpful to their opponents.

For instance, in Cleveland, where the district is already trying to get rid of teachers to make room for racks of TFA temps, a direct refusal to administer tests would have reformsters cheering. The teachers could all be fired for insubordination, and the replacement process greatly simplified and accelerated. The teachers would lose their jobs, and their replacements would gladly continue with the testing before the seats were cold.

One of the challenges we face  on the national level is that different districts are in different stages and present different climates. What is a bold and important stand in one district is a foolish way to shoot yourself in the foot in another. What might engender public support in one location might draw public scorn in another.

One of the things we're fighting against is One Size Fits All Schooling. Does it not make sense that we will not best oppose it with One Size Fits All protesting?

I am not suggesting that we all sit fat and happy and comfortable. If you aren't doing something at least a little bit uncomfortable in this struggle, you probably aren't helping. If your technique de resistance is to sit at home and wait for the day when the people in power wise up and make everything okay again, you are part of the problem.

But for most of us who are not in the big marquee districts like NYC or LA or Philly, the national unions are not going to be our salvation. Yes, it sure would be nice if they were supportive and helpful, but we're all going to have to develop our own strategy on the local level.

Yes, refusing to give the test is a great, great move-- IF you are in district where you will not immediately be fired for insubordination. You may have an administration that is allied with the foes of public ed, some TFA stooge who wouldn't know pedagogical idea if it bit him on the butt. Or you may have an administration that is just as frustrated and angry with the high-stakes test-driven status quo as you are. Your parents may be clueless and unaware of anything that's going on ("So what's that Common Core thingy?") or they may be fully educated and ready to fight. It makes a difference.

In a way, I can see an up side to the utter uselessness of the national unions at this point. If they were involved and leading, I suspect many locals and teachers would be sitting comfortably, waiting for the national to save the day. But we know that Superman not only isn't coming, but might well not be on our own side if he did show up. So we need to depend on ourselves, and our allies and resources, and we need to fight wisely and pick the battles that would do the most good where we are. And we need to pay particular attention to marshaling, saving and preserving those resources, because this is a marathon, not a sprint, so we need to stay tough for the long haul, and not flame out in the first mile.