"He doesn't understand how anyone can not understand."
My daughter and I were discussing why somebody would make a lousy teacher, and this was her observation. I realized that I have seen student teachers with this problem-- they do not understand how anybody can NOT understand the concept at hand, and so they have no idea how to teach it.
This is a smart person's problem. Some smart people never learn to be reflective, and they never look at their own process. Or they do look at their process, and to them, the process of building understanding goes kind of like this:
1) Look at something
2) Understand it
This leads to lousy teaching, the kind of teaching where a math teacher puts a problem on the board and a student asks a question about how to solve it and the teacher just says (with no small amount of exasperation), "Well, just look at it!" As any student who has ever been on the receiving end of this approach can tell you, this is not super-effective pedagogy.
The effects of this attitude are worse than simple bad teaching. Because if I believe that all learning requires is to just look at the stuff and just, you know, try to understand, and I have students who say they don't understand (and prove it on assessments), then I can only reach one conclusion-- the little buggers just aren't trying. I begin to resent them for withholding work and achievement (they could do it if they wanted to). I snap at them for asking questions, because they only ask questions because they are too lazy to understand. Some of them have stories about obstacles, like not having homework done because their father threw them out of the house last night. This is just excuse making, like the whole "I don't understand" thing. If they really wanted to try, they could tough it out (because we all know that it's not really that hard to understand stuff).
Sadly, most of us probably know at least one teacher like this, but even more sadly, we can recognize this complex of attitudes from some of the Reformsters. It's the whole attitude that schools are failing because students and teachers just aren't trying. Try, dammit. Try harder.
We've been asking for years now how such smart people can come up with so many dumb ideas about fixing schools, but I would submit that they come up with these dumb ideas precisely because they are smart people-- smart people who have no idea what it's like to not understand something.
In some cases, they don't even remember what it was ever like to not know certain things. The funny gaps in some CCSS materials might be there because smart people figure everybody "just knows" that. Directly teach six-year-olds how to set up addition of three-digit numbers? Not necessary-- they can just figure it out. Everybody just knows how you do that.
There is noise periodically about how not enough teachers come from the top percentages of college classes, and it may or may not be true, but why do we care-- do we not all remember the teacher who was really, really smart, but a terrible teacher because he couldn't explain anything?
Now, smart people can also be excellent teachers. One of their best tricks is to be able to see multiple paths to understanding, a hundred different sets of tracks to follow through the forest of confusion. And it is a great teaching gift to be able to see where exactly in those not-so-lovely but oh-so-dark-and-deep woods the student is lost. There's no reason that such gifts can't go hand in hand with smartness.
But people who do not understand what it's like not to understand, people who think you just try and you know, people who believe the only way to fail a test is to be too lazy and shiftless to have tried-- these people may be smart, but they make lousy teachers. They make even lousier education policy.
Sunday, May 11, 2014
Mixing With Politics
There's a great line, usually attributed to Rev Gene Carlson of Wichita, about religious getting involved in politics:
When you mix religion and politics, you get politics.
His point was that while you may think that political power gives you leverage you need to engineer the social changes you want (in Carlson's case, conservative Christian changes), politics always ends up in the driver's seat.
The first job, the primary imperative, of all political power is to collect and preserve political power. And that means wherever politics enters the picture, political considerations always rule. Politics is like a big ugly rude guest who comes to the party and demands that the celebration, whatever it is, be repurposed as a birthday party for him.
I thought of this this morning as I read Diane Ravitch's piece about the political reasons that we are stuck with No Child Left Behind hanging over our collective heads (a reaction to this piece brought to her attention by the indispensible Mercedes Schneider, because the blogosphere is cool that way). It boils downs to politics-- No Child Left Behind is such genius political rhetoric that it is impervious to all educational sense.
We have mixed education and politics, and we are getting politics.
I remember how genius it was. Even in the earliest days of NCLB you would sit in a training and some professor or trainer or DOE whiz would be explaining how all children were going to learn and casually slide by the requirement that 100% of our students would be above average in 2014 and some poor soul would ask, "But isn't that just impossible," and the response would come back, straight into the questioner's face, "Well, which children do YOU want to leave behind?" NCLB is terrible education policy, but brilliant politics.
The basic formula for applying bad political solutions is to mix one part good idea and one part fantasy. You make yourself champion of the good part, and when the ship of fantasy runs aground on the hard rocks of reality, you make that disaster the fault of your enemies.
In education this has been easy because who doesn't like the dream of every child-- their own child, their neighbor's child-- bright and happy and full of hope and going to college and becoming a brilliant scientist who is then elected President before retiring to run a bazillion-dollar corporation. All the politicians had to do was sell that dream and blame someone for its failure.
The pitfall for teachers has been that we were made the scapegoats, either so lazy or incompetent that we were killing the dream. The pitfall for politicians is less obvious, but now that they're standing at the bottom of that particular pit, perhaps they can see it.
They have to provide a plausible path to the dream. You garner political power by yelling to the crowd, "We're in terrible danger! Follow me and I will lead you to safety." And the crowd gathers and they acclaim your awesomeness and name you Grand High Poobah, and that's all great, but then you have to lead them somewhere.
The crowd is gathered, clamoring for politicians to lead us to the Golden Land of Education, and instead we're stuck in the Swamp of High Stakes Bad Tests and on the Cliffs of Collapsing Teaching Profession and the Cul de Sac of Crappy Common Core. And while Fearless Leader may want to tell his crowd, "Just wait a minute. Just a minute. I have to think--" he can't because, like a bad SF scientist, he created an NCLB monster to scare the crowd, and now he can't control it.
I don't know the answer to this mess. Should we still seek political solutions, to work with politicians? I expect it's a better alternative than letting them run loose, but we'd be foolish to ever imagine that politicians will set their political concerns aside to tend to our educational worries. I know that the US DOE will never be a help because it's a federal bureaucracy, and people will only thrive there by being good at politics, not by being good at education. And the problems are worse now than twenty years ago because there is one thing you can mix with politics that politics will bend to.
Money.
As long as we look to politics for help with education, we will get political solutions to educational problems. And as long as we live under Citizens United et al, our political solutions will be the ones favored by the folks holding the checkbook.
When you mix religion and politics, you get politics.
His point was that while you may think that political power gives you leverage you need to engineer the social changes you want (in Carlson's case, conservative Christian changes), politics always ends up in the driver's seat.
The first job, the primary imperative, of all political power is to collect and preserve political power. And that means wherever politics enters the picture, political considerations always rule. Politics is like a big ugly rude guest who comes to the party and demands that the celebration, whatever it is, be repurposed as a birthday party for him.
I thought of this this morning as I read Diane Ravitch's piece about the political reasons that we are stuck with No Child Left Behind hanging over our collective heads (a reaction to this piece brought to her attention by the indispensible Mercedes Schneider, because the blogosphere is cool that way). It boils downs to politics-- No Child Left Behind is such genius political rhetoric that it is impervious to all educational sense.
We have mixed education and politics, and we are getting politics.
I remember how genius it was. Even in the earliest days of NCLB you would sit in a training and some professor or trainer or DOE whiz would be explaining how all children were going to learn and casually slide by the requirement that 100% of our students would be above average in 2014 and some poor soul would ask, "But isn't that just impossible," and the response would come back, straight into the questioner's face, "Well, which children do YOU want to leave behind?" NCLB is terrible education policy, but brilliant politics.
The basic formula for applying bad political solutions is to mix one part good idea and one part fantasy. You make yourself champion of the good part, and when the ship of fantasy runs aground on the hard rocks of reality, you make that disaster the fault of your enemies.
In education this has been easy because who doesn't like the dream of every child-- their own child, their neighbor's child-- bright and happy and full of hope and going to college and becoming a brilliant scientist who is then elected President before retiring to run a bazillion-dollar corporation. All the politicians had to do was sell that dream and blame someone for its failure.
The pitfall for teachers has been that we were made the scapegoats, either so lazy or incompetent that we were killing the dream. The pitfall for politicians is less obvious, but now that they're standing at the bottom of that particular pit, perhaps they can see it.
They have to provide a plausible path to the dream. You garner political power by yelling to the crowd, "We're in terrible danger! Follow me and I will lead you to safety." And the crowd gathers and they acclaim your awesomeness and name you Grand High Poobah, and that's all great, but then you have to lead them somewhere.
The crowd is gathered, clamoring for politicians to lead us to the Golden Land of Education, and instead we're stuck in the Swamp of High Stakes Bad Tests and on the Cliffs of Collapsing Teaching Profession and the Cul de Sac of Crappy Common Core. And while Fearless Leader may want to tell his crowd, "Just wait a minute. Just a minute. I have to think--" he can't because, like a bad SF scientist, he created an NCLB monster to scare the crowd, and now he can't control it.
I don't know the answer to this mess. Should we still seek political solutions, to work with politicians? I expect it's a better alternative than letting them run loose, but we'd be foolish to ever imagine that politicians will set their political concerns aside to tend to our educational worries. I know that the US DOE will never be a help because it's a federal bureaucracy, and people will only thrive there by being good at politics, not by being good at education. And the problems are worse now than twenty years ago because there is one thing you can mix with politics that politics will bend to.
Money.
As long as we look to politics for help with education, we will get political solutions to educational problems. And as long as we live under Citizens United et al, our political solutions will be the ones favored by the folks holding the checkbook.
Saturday, May 10, 2014
Common Core Leads To Use of Food and Air
Okay, that headline may be a slight overstatement, but it was my first response when I stumbled upon this item on the engageNY blog.
In "Connecting Parents to the Classroom," we meet Michelle Labuski, a twenty-year teaching veteran currently teaching sixth grade in Smithtown. Apparently for all of those twenty years, Labuski has been wondering how to communicate with parents about what is happening in her math class. Boy, that is a stumper. If only, sometime during the last two decades, somebody had created a technology that facilitated quick, cheap communication over some sort of network of interconnected electronic devices. Or even, I don't know, paper and printing.
But never fear-- Labuski has found a solution!
The transition to the Common Core Standards presented the perfect opportunity to provide additional resources for parents so they can experience the lessons firsthand and better support their children at home. I did this by creating a math blog.
Yes, it's Common Core the rescue. Thanks to the Common Core, teachers can now blog. Before, you see, we couldn't because without CCSS magic electronic waves beamed into classrooms to allow teachers and students to use the internet, teacher blogging was impossible. IM-possible. Lordy, when I think back to all those nights I just sat staring at my computer screen, whacking away at my keyboard with rocks and trying to jam pop tarts into my floppy disc drive and--ARE YOU KIDDING ME, Michelle Labuski!!??! I have to believe that you are better than this; your blog concept is pretty solid, and I am going to assume you are a decent teacher and a nice human being. Why in heaven's name hand the credit over to CCSS?
Look Common Core supporters-- you can't have it both ways. If you are going to be typing with your one hand about how critics of the CCSS are off base to conflate all sorts of things with the Core and beating up the Core with all manner of wacky examples of things that aren't actually the core, you cannot, at the same time keep pumping out these breathless testimonials from teachers saying, "Yes, before Common Core I had to teach class in a barrel because I did not know how to dress myself. Often I would collapse during the day because, without Common Core, I could not feed myself."
You cannot keep claiming that Common Core is somehow related to every single thing that any sentient breathing teacher ever did. I will not be surprised when you trot someone out to claim that Common Core invented the internet and implemented the use of books, light and air in classrooms.
But you, Common Core shills, cannot keep asking why, oh why, do people hold CCSS responsible for everything in schools from greasy pizza to poor wax jobs in the gym. If you keep making these ridiculous claims, you cannot be upset that some people listen to you, although honestly I think I am more upset than you because, seriously, for Common Core to take credit for everything since the invention of the wheel, as if no teacher ever knew how to do anything ever, is its own special level of obnoxious.
In "Connecting Parents to the Classroom," we meet Michelle Labuski, a twenty-year teaching veteran currently teaching sixth grade in Smithtown. Apparently for all of those twenty years, Labuski has been wondering how to communicate with parents about what is happening in her math class. Boy, that is a stumper. If only, sometime during the last two decades, somebody had created a technology that facilitated quick, cheap communication over some sort of network of interconnected electronic devices. Or even, I don't know, paper and printing.
But never fear-- Labuski has found a solution!
The transition to the Common Core Standards presented the perfect opportunity to provide additional resources for parents so they can experience the lessons firsthand and better support their children at home. I did this by creating a math blog.
Yes, it's Common Core the rescue. Thanks to the Common Core, teachers can now blog. Before, you see, we couldn't because without CCSS magic electronic waves beamed into classrooms to allow teachers and students to use the internet, teacher blogging was impossible. IM-possible. Lordy, when I think back to all those nights I just sat staring at my computer screen, whacking away at my keyboard with rocks and trying to jam pop tarts into my floppy disc drive and--ARE YOU KIDDING ME, Michelle Labuski!!??! I have to believe that you are better than this; your blog concept is pretty solid, and I am going to assume you are a decent teacher and a nice human being. Why in heaven's name hand the credit over to CCSS?
Look Common Core supporters-- you can't have it both ways. If you are going to be typing with your one hand about how critics of the CCSS are off base to conflate all sorts of things with the Core and beating up the Core with all manner of wacky examples of things that aren't actually the core, you cannot, at the same time keep pumping out these breathless testimonials from teachers saying, "Yes, before Common Core I had to teach class in a barrel because I did not know how to dress myself. Often I would collapse during the day because, without Common Core, I could not feed myself."
You cannot keep claiming that Common Core is somehow related to every single thing that any sentient breathing teacher ever did. I will not be surprised when you trot someone out to claim that Common Core invented the internet and implemented the use of books, light and air in classrooms.
But you, Common Core shills, cannot keep asking why, oh why, do people hold CCSS responsible for everything in schools from greasy pizza to poor wax jobs in the gym. If you keep making these ridiculous claims, you cannot be upset that some people listen to you, although honestly I think I am more upset than you because, seriously, for Common Core to take credit for everything since the invention of the wheel, as if no teacher ever knew how to do anything ever, is its own special level of obnoxious.
Computerized Grit & Snake Oil
At last! Students can learn grit on their computers!!
EduGuide (Motto: One more company that figured out how to work "edu" into its name!) is proud to announce "The nonprofit, evidence-based online training program that strengthens core learning skills." So, with trembling, excited fingers, I am going to scroll down this very long page and see what the secret of teaching grit with a computer might be!
I google-learned that EduGuide is out of Lansing, MI, and "has been recognized for Distinguished Achievement by the School Public Relations Association." Their funders have included Kellogg, Ford and Google. In 2012 Lumina gave them 155K "to provide an online and mobile platform that enables college access programs to multyiply their reach, contact hours, manpower and collaborative impact in a measurable and scalable way." So these guys sound like loads of fun!
But how does the program work? Scrolling.... oh wait. Here we go! "How It Works!"
1) Engage. Students do on-line activities 15+ minutes weekly
2) Interact. Teachers and other partners interact with students on their activities
3) Grow. Attitudes shift; behavior changes. Students grow; achievement goes up.
4) Persist. Each year students tackle new activities, proactively preparing them for bigger challenges.
So, magic. Let's keep scrolling. Maybe there will be-- nope. Here's a quote from the founders of Grittology, the inscrutable Duckworth and Quinn. Now we're going to the research section. Says EduGuide, "EduGuide's activities are based on more than a decade of evidence on how to change students' mindsets and the passion they bring to challenging work and long term goals." So, our answer to the question "What research is behind this?" is "There is research behind this!"
OH NO MY EYES!! "Go deeper to reach students where they're at." As I've been known to tell my students, it sure is a good thing they included that "at" because if they had just said "reach students where they are" nobody would have had any idea what they were talking about. (And before you go running to the comments section, professional copy writers are totally subject to kibbitzing by grammar/usage nazis.)
Had enough vague advertising snake oily blather yet? But wait-- there's more. This as yet unnamed program will save you time two ways. 1) "EduGuide's ready-made activities mean you can put students right to work without a lot of preparation, knowing the innovative online system ensures fidelity to the research model." I have several resources like this. They're called "books," but okay. 2) "The activities do double duty by meeting core curriculum requirements for critical thinking and reflective writing with multimedia informational text." So, this stuff is infused with CCSS-ready magic, buzzword buzzword.
And it just keeps going. The mystery program is like strength training. And there are many quotes from satisfied customers. There's a list of features including "On-call support during business hours" and (my favorite) "Impact guarantee." EduGuide says your students will be noticeably improved within a year, or your money back. That is highlighted by a gold seal with spikey edges (like a picture of the sun) that says "100% satisfaction guarantee," and I'm convinced, because nobody would make a graphic like that if they weren't confident.
Finally, the FAQ (which I'm guessing don't include "Can you say offer even one actual specific about this program"). From the FAQ, we can gather that this is basically a collection of computer-delivered (because a worksheet on a computer is a technologically forward learning experience) fifteen minute lessons that you can do often or not, for longer than fifteen minute spans, or not. You can use them in middle, high or college schools. Your cloud basedworksheets software comes with a personal EduGuides Results Choice, who will come hang out and provide support in ways that are totes different from, say, a company sales rep.
How do they know it works?
The activities are based on more than a decade of research on exercises that have increased student GPA by .3 grade points, improved academic behaviors, increased degree completion and closed achievement gaps by as much as half.
Increased GPA by .3!!!! Wait! Wait!! I want to buy stock in this company! No wait-- I can't because it's a nonprofit. Regular folks think "nonprofit" means "We will never charge more for our product than it costs to make it, and if we accidentally make money, we will give it to some charity that buys puppies for orphans." Of course, "nonprofit" actually means, "I don't have to share this pile of money with stockholders or anybody else-- it's mine, mine, all mine!!" So someone at EduGuide is going to get rich because-- .3!!
So we're at the bottom of the page, and still not a hint about what the program actually does. Gee, can we at least have one last blast or corporate ad copy?
EduGuide’s system has been designed to deliver these activities with fidelity and to amplify their impact with the unique features of our online platform. Thanks to multiple national grants we’ve been able to research, design, develop and scale this model to deepen its impact.
Hey, nobody could possibly write that unless they knew the secret of grit. And yet, I can't help but admire how that exact copy could be used to sell pretty much anything. It will be handy when we've dropped grit and moved on to the next big thing-- these guys won't have to alter their ad copy at all. So I guess that's a practical display of grit, or testicle, or something profitable.
EduGuide (Motto: One more company that figured out how to work "edu" into its name!) is proud to announce "The nonprofit, evidence-based online training program that strengthens core learning skills." So, with trembling, excited fingers, I am going to scroll down this very long page and see what the secret of teaching grit with a computer might be!
I google-learned that EduGuide is out of Lansing, MI, and "has been recognized for Distinguished Achievement by the School Public Relations Association." Their funders have included Kellogg, Ford and Google. In 2012 Lumina gave them 155K "to provide an online and mobile platform that enables college access programs to multyiply their reach, contact hours, manpower and collaborative impact in a measurable and scalable way." So these guys sound like loads of fun!
But how does the program work? Scrolling.... oh wait. Here we go! "How It Works!"
1) Engage. Students do on-line activities 15+ minutes weekly
2) Interact. Teachers and other partners interact with students on their activities
3) Grow. Attitudes shift; behavior changes. Students grow; achievement goes up.
4) Persist. Each year students tackle new activities, proactively preparing them for bigger challenges.
So, magic. Let's keep scrolling. Maybe there will be-- nope. Here's a quote from the founders of Grittology, the inscrutable Duckworth and Quinn. Now we're going to the research section. Says EduGuide, "EduGuide's activities are based on more than a decade of evidence on how to change students' mindsets and the passion they bring to challenging work and long term goals." So, our answer to the question "What research is behind this?" is "There is research behind this!"
OH NO MY EYES!! "Go deeper to reach students where they're at." As I've been known to tell my students, it sure is a good thing they included that "at" because if they had just said "reach students where they are" nobody would have had any idea what they were talking about. (And before you go running to the comments section, professional copy writers are totally subject to kibbitzing by grammar/usage nazis.)
Had enough vague advertising snake oily blather yet? But wait-- there's more. This as yet unnamed program will save you time two ways. 1) "EduGuide's ready-made activities mean you can put students right to work without a lot of preparation, knowing the innovative online system ensures fidelity to the research model." I have several resources like this. They're called "books," but okay. 2) "The activities do double duty by meeting core curriculum requirements for critical thinking and reflective writing with multimedia informational text." So, this stuff is infused with CCSS-ready magic, buzzword buzzword.
And it just keeps going. The mystery program is like strength training. And there are many quotes from satisfied customers. There's a list of features including "On-call support during business hours" and (my favorite) "Impact guarantee." EduGuide says your students will be noticeably improved within a year, or your money back. That is highlighted by a gold seal with spikey edges (like a picture of the sun) that says "100% satisfaction guarantee," and I'm convinced, because nobody would make a graphic like that if they weren't confident.
Finally, the FAQ (which I'm guessing don't include "Can you say offer even one actual specific about this program"). From the FAQ, we can gather that this is basically a collection of computer-delivered (because a worksheet on a computer is a technologically forward learning experience) fifteen minute lessons that you can do often or not, for longer than fifteen minute spans, or not. You can use them in middle, high or college schools. Your cloud based
How do they know it works?
The activities are based on more than a decade of research on exercises that have increased student GPA by .3 grade points, improved academic behaviors, increased degree completion and closed achievement gaps by as much as half.
Increased GPA by .3!!!! Wait! Wait!! I want to buy stock in this company! No wait-- I can't because it's a nonprofit. Regular folks think "nonprofit" means "We will never charge more for our product than it costs to make it, and if we accidentally make money, we will give it to some charity that buys puppies for orphans." Of course, "nonprofit" actually means, "I don't have to share this pile of money with stockholders or anybody else-- it's mine, mine, all mine!!" So someone at EduGuide is going to get rich because-- .3!!
So we're at the bottom of the page, and still not a hint about what the program actually does. Gee, can we at least have one last blast or corporate ad copy?
EduGuide’s system has been designed to deliver these activities with fidelity and to amplify their impact with the unique features of our online platform. Thanks to multiple national grants we’ve been able to research, design, develop and scale this model to deepen its impact.
Hey, nobody could possibly write that unless they knew the secret of grit. And yet, I can't help but admire how that exact copy could be used to sell pretty much anything. It will be handy when we've dropped grit and moved on to the next big thing-- these guys won't have to alter their ad copy at all. So I guess that's a practical display of grit, or testicle, or something profitable.
To
provide an online and mobile platform that enables college access
programs to multiply their reach, contact hours, manpower and
collaborative impact in a measurable and scalable way. - See more at:
http://www.luminafoundation.org/luminagrants/eduguide_lansing_mi/#sthash.uDgeH5Og.dpuf
To
provide an online and mobile platform that enables college access
programs to multiply their reach, contact hours, manpower and
collaborative impact in a measurable and scalable way. - See more at:
http://www.luminafoundation.org/luminagrants/eduguide_lansing_mi/#sthash.uDgeH5Og.dpuf
To
provide an online and mobile platform that enables college access
programs to multiply their reach, contact hours, manpower and
collaborative impact in a measurable and scalable way. - See more at:
http://www.luminafoundation.org/luminagrants/eduguide_lansing_mi/#sthash.uDgeH5Og.dpuf
Friday, May 9, 2014
Duncan Blinks!!! Waivers Crumbling!
According to Alyson Klein at Politics K-12, the US Department of Education told states that it would consider NCLB waiver extension without requiring compliance on the matter of teacher evaluation (this apparently in an email from Deborah Delisle, assistant secretary of saying things Arne Duncan doesn't want to say).
The new plan calls for states' extensions to be judged based only on two out of three of the four big You Have To's-- standards, assessments, turnarounds. Teacher evaluation plans come under a different review sometime further down the road.
I am waiting to hear how this news goes over in Washington State, where the waiver was rescinded because they had no fed-approved teacher evaluation plan in sight. Does this mean the federal government no longer has to fire every teacher and take over every school in WA?
Okay, granted, right now it's an extension. They're going to give some more time for states to come up with something they like (and that is politically palatable in the state's legislature). But it still shows a recognition of some new political realities.
What does it mean? It means the US DOE blinked. It means that Washington State probably just struck a huge blow for teachers across the country. It means that Duncan has once again revealed that the "laws" imposed on states under the pretense of federal get-out-of-actual-laws-free waivers are in fact arbitrary and based on nothing except the calculus of political power. And it means that we've seen the first crack in the foundation of the whole waiver program.
Pardon me while I do a little happy dance!
The new plan calls for states' extensions to be judged based only on two out of three of the four big You Have To's-- standards, assessments, turnarounds. Teacher evaluation plans come under a different review sometime further down the road.
I am waiting to hear how this news goes over in Washington State, where the waiver was rescinded because they had no fed-approved teacher evaluation plan in sight. Does this mean the federal government no longer has to fire every teacher and take over every school in WA?
Okay, granted, right now it's an extension. They're going to give some more time for states to come up with something they like (and that is politically palatable in the state's legislature). But it still shows a recognition of some new political realities.
What does it mean? It means the US DOE blinked. It means that Washington State probably just struck a huge blow for teachers across the country. It means that Duncan has once again revealed that the "laws" imposed on states under the pretense of federal get-out-of-actual-laws-free waivers are in fact arbitrary and based on nothing except the calculus of political power. And it means that we've seen the first crack in the foundation of the whole waiver program.
Pardon me while I do a little happy dance!
Marc Tucker's Federalism
Marc Tucker is the author of the infamous "Dear Hillary" letter which has earned him a reputation in conservative circles as an architect of soviet-style centrally-controlled school systems. He's president and founder of the National Center on Education and the Economy, a group that helped create the New Standards Project in 1992 (the great grandaddy of current Reformy Status Quo). NCEE also has one of the creepiest pictures of Arne Duncan ever on its website.
NCEE's basic theory is that there are super-duper awesome education systems out there in the world, and the key to improving US education is to unlock the secret of powerhouses like Shanghai and Estonia. And what they seem to conclude is that it takes a heaping helping of federal involvement.
Recently Tucker took to his blogging platform to discuss the federal role in state education.
He opens with a bit of history. No Child Left Behind, he notes, was an "abrupt departure from more than two centuries of practice" that "had its origins in Congressional frustration." Congress had been throwing money at poor kids for decades and getting not so much as a whimper for its buck.
NCLB was an announcement that henceforth the Congress expected value for its money; it was going to hold the faculty of the public schools that received federal education funds accountable for doing whatever it took to improve the achievement of disadvantaged children.
The Big New Idea in NCLB was that states would face accountability that made the feds back-seat drivers on decisions about spending education money, and it introduced the big federal stick-- if you can't prove that you raised test scores for all your subgroups, we are going to fire your ass.
Having set the context, Tucker identifies the core issue-- the need to balance the federal government's interest in "making sure that the money it gives to schools produces results" with the states' interest in holding onto their constitutional right to determine their own educational policies.
Tucker has an idea about how to find that balance. Short answer: dump a ton of bricks on the federal side of the scale.
Okay-- I'm paraphrasing. Here's what Tucker actually argues.
Saying that the feds have a right/responsibility/interest in seeing how their money is spent is, in terms of arguing federalism, chump change. Tucker builds the foundation of his argument out of three big chunks of concrete:
1) The US has an interest in creating an education system that makes us economically internationally competitive
2) We only qualify as competitive if our ed system measures in the top 10%
3) That means the PISA test, because it's awesome
Having ante'd up, Tucker now goes all in:
...we can no longer say that the failure of any state to educate its students well is a problem only for that state. It is a problem for the United States, for all the states. The states have grown far too interdependent and personal mobility is far too great to pretend that what one state does about education does not matter to the people of the United States. If a state or region fails to educate its people well, there will be great costs to other states, in lost productivity and competitiveness and increased transfer payment costs. We are in that sense among others, one country. But there are many ways to successfully run a state education system. The idea of the states constituting a laboratory of democracy was a good one.
Got that? Letting states function independently was a fun experiment, but it's time to grow up and move past that whole thing.
Tucker's argument is breathtaking. I would challenge you to name any economic or social sector, private or public, that could not be subordinated to the federal government using Tucker's argument. Under Tucker's argument, states could be allowed some autonomy, such as picking their own state flag, state bird, state fungus. Everything else must be regulated and controlled by the federal government.
Against that staggeringly massive background of federal power, Tucker's specific proposal for education seems like small potatoes, but it's worth looking at.
Congress should set a cut score for states on the PISA (and it ought to be the top 10%, but Tucker allows the Congress might settle for less if they wanted to be stupid). States will take the PISA. As long as they make the cut score, they can have (some) control of their educational systems. If they fall below the cut score, the feds get to make all the rules for them.
So we "balance" state and federal interests. States can either serve federal interests voluntarily, or they can be forced to serve federal interests. When my son was a teenager, I used a similar system-- "You can do it my way, or you can do it my way." Didn't work all that well for me, either.
I don't know if this is how we turn US education into a winner; I suspect it is how we can turn moderates into libertarians.
NCEE's basic theory is that there are super-duper awesome education systems out there in the world, and the key to improving US education is to unlock the secret of powerhouses like Shanghai and Estonia. And what they seem to conclude is that it takes a heaping helping of federal involvement.
Recently Tucker took to his blogging platform to discuss the federal role in state education.
He opens with a bit of history. No Child Left Behind, he notes, was an "abrupt departure from more than two centuries of practice" that "had its origins in Congressional frustration." Congress had been throwing money at poor kids for decades and getting not so much as a whimper for its buck.
NCLB was an announcement that henceforth the Congress expected value for its money; it was going to hold the faculty of the public schools that received federal education funds accountable for doing whatever it took to improve the achievement of disadvantaged children.
The Big New Idea in NCLB was that states would face accountability that made the feds back-seat drivers on decisions about spending education money, and it introduced the big federal stick-- if you can't prove that you raised test scores for all your subgroups, we are going to fire your ass.
Having set the context, Tucker identifies the core issue-- the need to balance the federal government's interest in "making sure that the money it gives to schools produces results" with the states' interest in holding onto their constitutional right to determine their own educational policies.
Tucker has an idea about how to find that balance. Short answer: dump a ton of bricks on the federal side of the scale.
Okay-- I'm paraphrasing. Here's what Tucker actually argues.
Saying that the feds have a right/responsibility/interest in seeing how their money is spent is, in terms of arguing federalism, chump change. Tucker builds the foundation of his argument out of three big chunks of concrete:
1) The US has an interest in creating an education system that makes us economically internationally competitive
2) We only qualify as competitive if our ed system measures in the top 10%
3) That means the PISA test, because it's awesome
Having ante'd up, Tucker now goes all in:
...we can no longer say that the failure of any state to educate its students well is a problem only for that state. It is a problem for the United States, for all the states. The states have grown far too interdependent and personal mobility is far too great to pretend that what one state does about education does not matter to the people of the United States. If a state or region fails to educate its people well, there will be great costs to other states, in lost productivity and competitiveness and increased transfer payment costs. We are in that sense among others, one country. But there are many ways to successfully run a state education system. The idea of the states constituting a laboratory of democracy was a good one.
Got that? Letting states function independently was a fun experiment, but it's time to grow up and move past that whole thing.
Tucker's argument is breathtaking. I would challenge you to name any economic or social sector, private or public, that could not be subordinated to the federal government using Tucker's argument. Under Tucker's argument, states could be allowed some autonomy, such as picking their own state flag, state bird, state fungus. Everything else must be regulated and controlled by the federal government.
Against that staggeringly massive background of federal power, Tucker's specific proposal for education seems like small potatoes, but it's worth looking at.
Congress should set a cut score for states on the PISA (and it ought to be the top 10%, but Tucker allows the Congress might settle for less if they wanted to be stupid). States will take the PISA. As long as they make the cut score, they can have (some) control of their educational systems. If they fall below the cut score, the feds get to make all the rules for them.
So we "balance" state and federal interests. States can either serve federal interests voluntarily, or they can be forced to serve federal interests. When my son was a teenager, I used a similar system-- "You can do it my way, or you can do it my way." Didn't work all that well for me, either.
I don't know if this is how we turn US education into a winner; I suspect it is how we can turn moderates into libertarians.
Thursday, May 8, 2014
The Three Sides of the Battle for Public Schools
We have discussed the battle over American public education as if there are two sides. This is not correct, and people who don't grasp the truth are in for a rude and unpleasant shock further down the road.
I. Status Quo
I've called these guys everything from Purveyors of Reformy Nonsense to Reformsters. We don't call them reformers any more because 1) they aren't interested in reforming anything and 2) they've pretty much gotten everything they wanted. High stakes, top down, test driven, corporatized education is with us and has been the dominant feature of the American education landscape for a while.
The Reformy Status Quo supporters are not monolithic. Some are in it for the money. Some are in it for the power. Some truly believe that they know the secret to fixing the entire culture.
What they have in common is the lack of any real love for the public school system and the people who work there. Whether they think it's bloated and inefficient and lazy and moribund, or whether they see it as a big pile of gold waiting to be torn apart and cashed in, they are not interested in preserving or protecting it (except maybe as a holding pen for the students that nobody else can see a way to profit from). For them, teachers are a big part of the problem, an unruly, largely incompetent labor pool of workers who don't know their place, or who won't recognize the superior wisdom of the people trying to Fix Things.
This group also includes lots of people who mean well, but don't see where the policies they support are leading. These people are worth paying attention to, because they really do want American public education to thrive and survive.
II. Insurgents
If you're a reader of this blog, you know who these folks are. This is a somewhat raggedy group of individuals who have come together in various ways to fight for American public education.
They are also not monolithic. Some are BATs; some prefer not to be. Some are teachers; some are not. Some believe in the idea of national standards-- just not these-- and some do not. Some are most opposed to testing. Some oppose charters; some work in charters. Some would like better leadership at the US DOE; some would like the whole department to evaporate. They come from all across the political spectrum.
These folks would like to see education back in the hands of educators. They generally reject the tale of how badly schools are failing. They would like to see the promise of public schools for all restored and revitalized.
III. Nuclear Option
This group is not identical to the Tea Partiers, but there is certainly some overlap.They do not like Big Government, and they see Big Government's grubby paw prints all over the CCSS regime. They do not like the way CCSS was forcefed to the states, and they do not like the large-scale standardization that is coming stapled onto the standards.
They are strongly, vehemently opposed to all things Core (or "Obamacore") as they sometimes call it. In this respect they have much in common with group II. Group III has a good chunk of political clout, and they know how to use it. They are passionate, they are careful researchers, and they care a great deal about children.
Will you be surprised if I type "Group III is not monolithic"? Some are absolutely unswerving in their opposition to government and government schools. Some have a concern about government overreach that is not expressed in irrational tin hat ways. Some love American traditions-- including public schools. Some are teachers.
But while Group II sees Reformy Stuff as some sort of foreign fungus that has attached itself to public education, covering up and distorting its true nature, Group III sees Reformy Stuff as public education without its mask on, not a distortion of the nature of American public education, but an unvarnished revelation of it.
Groups II and III may be able to storm the battlements together, and in the early stages of battle they may seem like natural allies. But where II wants to chase out the occupying army and save the fort, III would like to rout the occupying army and then burn the fort down.You can read a great deal about this stance on the far right in this report from the Southern Poverty Law Center.
There are three sides to this fight, but do not imagine a triangle. Instead, picture a circle, divided into three separate zones, each gradually fading into the next. Many people on all three sides are jumping to conclusions about where to find their allies and their enemies, but this is a complicated issue with a complex set of players, all of whom are united by some values and separated by others. There are natural points of alliance and conflict between any two of these three groups. Each group contains a range of viewpoints, and some peoples' tolerance for a range of viewpoints is not so great.
The sloppiest kind of thinking is the thinking that says, "Well, we both like the same kind of cheese, so surely we agree about professional ice hockey and the International Monetary Fund." People are complicated, and you have to listen, and pay attention. You have to pay extra attention when you are deciding on allies and enemies.
I. Status Quo
I've called these guys everything from Purveyors of Reformy Nonsense to Reformsters. We don't call them reformers any more because 1) they aren't interested in reforming anything and 2) they've pretty much gotten everything they wanted. High stakes, top down, test driven, corporatized education is with us and has been the dominant feature of the American education landscape for a while.
The Reformy Status Quo supporters are not monolithic. Some are in it for the money. Some are in it for the power. Some truly believe that they know the secret to fixing the entire culture.
What they have in common is the lack of any real love for the public school system and the people who work there. Whether they think it's bloated and inefficient and lazy and moribund, or whether they see it as a big pile of gold waiting to be torn apart and cashed in, they are not interested in preserving or protecting it (except maybe as a holding pen for the students that nobody else can see a way to profit from). For them, teachers are a big part of the problem, an unruly, largely incompetent labor pool of workers who don't know their place, or who won't recognize the superior wisdom of the people trying to Fix Things.
This group also includes lots of people who mean well, but don't see where the policies they support are leading. These people are worth paying attention to, because they really do want American public education to thrive and survive.
II. Insurgents
If you're a reader of this blog, you know who these folks are. This is a somewhat raggedy group of individuals who have come together in various ways to fight for American public education.
They are also not monolithic. Some are BATs; some prefer not to be. Some are teachers; some are not. Some believe in the idea of national standards-- just not these-- and some do not. Some are most opposed to testing. Some oppose charters; some work in charters. Some would like better leadership at the US DOE; some would like the whole department to evaporate. They come from all across the political spectrum.
These folks would like to see education back in the hands of educators. They generally reject the tale of how badly schools are failing. They would like to see the promise of public schools for all restored and revitalized.
III. Nuclear Option
This group is not identical to the Tea Partiers, but there is certainly some overlap.They do not like Big Government, and they see Big Government's grubby paw prints all over the CCSS regime. They do not like the way CCSS was forcefed to the states, and they do not like the large-scale standardization that is coming stapled onto the standards.
They are strongly, vehemently opposed to all things Core (or "Obamacore") as they sometimes call it. In this respect they have much in common with group II. Group III has a good chunk of political clout, and they know how to use it. They are passionate, they are careful researchers, and they care a great deal about children.
Will you be surprised if I type "Group III is not monolithic"? Some are absolutely unswerving in their opposition to government and government schools. Some have a concern about government overreach that is not expressed in irrational tin hat ways. Some love American traditions-- including public schools. Some are teachers.
But while Group II sees Reformy Stuff as some sort of foreign fungus that has attached itself to public education, covering up and distorting its true nature, Group III sees Reformy Stuff as public education without its mask on, not a distortion of the nature of American public education, but an unvarnished revelation of it.
Groups II and III may be able to storm the battlements together, and in the early stages of battle they may seem like natural allies. But where II wants to chase out the occupying army and save the fort, III would like to rout the occupying army and then burn the fort down.You can read a great deal about this stance on the far right in this report from the Southern Poverty Law Center.
There are three sides to this fight, but do not imagine a triangle. Instead, picture a circle, divided into three separate zones, each gradually fading into the next. Many people on all three sides are jumping to conclusions about where to find their allies and their enemies, but this is a complicated issue with a complex set of players, all of whom are united by some values and separated by others. There are natural points of alliance and conflict between any two of these three groups. Each group contains a range of viewpoints, and some peoples' tolerance for a range of viewpoints is not so great.
The sloppiest kind of thinking is the thinking that says, "Well, we both like the same kind of cheese, so surely we agree about professional ice hockey and the International Monetary Fund." People are complicated, and you have to listen, and pay attention. You have to pay extra attention when you are deciding on allies and enemies.
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