Well, we knew this was coming.
Launching in winter of 2014, EdReports, a new non-partisan non-profit, will provide "Consumer Reports-style reviews will highlight those instructional
materials that are aligned to the higher standards states have adopted
so that teachers, principals and district and state officials charged
with purchasing materials can make more informed choices."
Politico calls it a "Consumer Reports for the Common Core." The organization will bring in some teachers and other educationistas to rate materials from various publishers. They'll be starting with "Pearson’s enVision Math, McGraw-Hill’s Everyday Math, Houghton Mifflin’s
Go Math and more than a dozen other widely used curricula."
If you are thinking, "Oh, good. Some independent experts will rate these materials and give us an impartial view of which materials are the best," then I have a bridge I'd like to sell you. EdReports.org is brought to you by the usual suspects.
Per Politico, a cool three mill in funding is coming from the Gates Foundation and the Helmsley Trust. Education First, a thinky tank/consulting firm that has teamed up with the Fordham Institute to promote the Core, is "incubating" them. The executive director is Eric Hirsch, previously a big wig at the New Teacher Center (they sell teacher induction) and the Center for Teaching Quality (spoiler alert-- quality comes with the Core). The board chair of EdReports is Dr. Maria Klawe. Dr. Klawe's day job is mathematician and president of Harvey Mudd College, a sort of high-powered STEM school. You might also be interested in one of her side gigs-- one of ten members of the board of Microsoft Corporation.
So what's happening here? My guess is two things-- one obvious, and one not quite so.
First, it's just good marketing.
Common Core has always been in large part about branding and marketing. A nationalized education system where textbook companies don't have to market fifty different flavors of the same product, but can just hawk the same material coast-to-coast --- that kind large scale sales had to get Pearson et al salivating from day one.
But an unregulated CCSS marketplace meant that just anybody could slap a sticker on a book and start cashing in on the new wave. That's not good. For one thing, competition is a Good Thing if only the Right People are allowed to compete. Little fish have to be squeezed out. For another thing, what good are standards if you don't have standards for standardizing the standards. Folks like the Brookings guys have been saying all along that we have the need, the need to weed, as in weeding out the crap that is CCSS is cover sticker only.
An independent-looking verifier of your product's excellence is super-duper marketing.
Second, the mystification factor.
Here's a quote from Thomas Newkirk, from "Speaking Back to the Common Core."
We are already seeing at work a process I call “mystification”—taking
a practice that was once viewed as within the normal competence of a
teacher and making it seem so technical and advanced that a new
commercial product (or form of consultation) is necessary.
In other words, in the brave new Common Core world, teachers are not capable of choosing textbooks on their own. Their professional judgment is not sufficient to the task-- we need an entire non-profit organization of consultants and experts to truly discern if this math series or those language textbooks are okay to use.
In the old days, a committee of teachers could work as a committee, look through various texts, hear the pitch from salespeople, and make a choice based on what they thought would work best for their program in their schools. Now here comes EdReports to say, "Step aside, little ladies. We wouldn't want you to hurt your pretty little heads doing all this hard pedagogical thinky stuff. Let us just tell you what you want to pick."
Teachers used to be educational experts. Now, apparently, we're not.
Bonus factor: Common Core boosting
One of the things teachers would probably get wrong is considering textbooks and materials based on what would, in their professional opinions, provide the best education for their particular student population while fitting the strengths of their building and district. They might look at all sorts of technical things like the sequencing of concepts and the examples and exercises used to support instruction.
EdReports is here to remind you that what most matters when selecting a textbook is how well it lines up with the Common Core. All those myriad of questions that you ask your self when reflecting on your practices and instruction-- you should only be asking one question. Does this line up with the Core. Because nothing else matters except how well you and your students adapt yourselves to the one size that all must fit.
As I mentioned above, this delightful service doesn't launch for a few months yet (just in time for textbook shopping season). Be sure to alert your district administration so that you can avoid the mistake of letting teachers make up their own minds about materials.
Friday, August 15, 2014
Teachers in South Korea
Remember a few years ago there was a repeated talking point about how teachers are treated in other countries? Heck, the 2011 State of the Union address included this bit of cheerleading-
Let’s also remember that after parents, the biggest impact on a child’s success comes from the man or woman at the front of the classroom. In South Korea, teachers are known as “nation builders.” Here in America, it’s time we treated the people who educate our children with the same level of respect.
Well, maybe not.
On the one hand, South Korean teachers are paid well compared to the US-- extremely well as their career continues. Turns out that teachers in South Korea are free to be treated with respect as long as they stay in place and behave themselves.
Korea's top teacher association, the Korean Federation of Teachers' Associations, traces its routes back to 1947; however, nobody seems to think of them as an actual union. But in 1989, teachers formed a new, feistier union, the Korean Teachers and Education Workers Union (KTU). The government didn't much like the idea then, and they've kept right on not liking it ever since. The union has spoken out on educational issues, including a call to end standardized testing. In response, the government has looked for reasons to shut the union down.
There are about 360,000 teachers in South Korea. About 94,000 of those belonged to this union at one point, but in recent years membership has dropped considerably. Government has kept up pressure, taking actions such as occasionally publishing the list of all the union-affiliated teachers.
The South Korean government has found a variety of creative ways to squeeze the union, including demanding that the full time staffers of the union all get back to the classroom. Union offices were raided and the KTU was accused of making anti-government statements (yes, if you imagine that South Korea is some sort of free and open democratic paradise, I have more bad news for you). And last fall the labor Ministry made a more aggressive move. South Korean law says that trade union membership is restricted to workers actually working in the workplace. The KTU was found to include nine fired members still on their logs.
KTU leadership points to their opposition as politically motivated.
“When she [President Park Geun-hye-- yes, South Korea's president is a woman] was a lawmaker seven or eight years ago she said one harmful insect makes the Korean Peninsula red. It is exactly what she has in mind about the teacher’s union,” says Hwang Hyun-Su, the KTU international secretary. “She thinks that the teacher’s union members are just followers of North Korea or something. It is very old fashioned thinking that exists among Korean conservatives.”
In other words, the union is just a bunch of North Korea-loving commies. Korea's teachers are supposed to be politically neutral. It's not hard to see why the KTU might not be beloved by conservatives.
In the KTU manifesto it says that they believe the Korean education system “cultivates students who are selfish and obedient; we do not teach them to be independent human beings who live collaborating and fulfilling lives.” It also calls for teachers to develop students that can “carry out democratization and destroy all vestiges of the decades of military dictatorships, and who can achieve the reunification of Korea.”
The KTU was still protesting its illegitimate states this summer, and they have successfully overturned a government-imposed shutdown in the past. In the meantime, the nation builders of South Korea are being encouraged to sit down, shut up, and do as they're told.
Let’s also remember that after parents, the biggest impact on a child’s success comes from the man or woman at the front of the classroom. In South Korea, teachers are known as “nation builders.” Here in America, it’s time we treated the people who educate our children with the same level of respect.
Well, maybe not.
On the one hand, South Korean teachers are paid well compared to the US-- extremely well as their career continues. Turns out that teachers in South Korea are free to be treated with respect as long as they stay in place and behave themselves.
Korea's top teacher association, the Korean Federation of Teachers' Associations, traces its routes back to 1947; however, nobody seems to think of them as an actual union. But in 1989, teachers formed a new, feistier union, the Korean Teachers and Education Workers Union (KTU). The government didn't much like the idea then, and they've kept right on not liking it ever since. The union has spoken out on educational issues, including a call to end standardized testing. In response, the government has looked for reasons to shut the union down.
There are about 360,000 teachers in South Korea. About 94,000 of those belonged to this union at one point, but in recent years membership has dropped considerably. Government has kept up pressure, taking actions such as occasionally publishing the list of all the union-affiliated teachers.
The South Korean government has found a variety of creative ways to squeeze the union, including demanding that the full time staffers of the union all get back to the classroom. Union offices were raided and the KTU was accused of making anti-government statements (yes, if you imagine that South Korea is some sort of free and open democratic paradise, I have more bad news for you). And last fall the labor Ministry made a more aggressive move. South Korean law says that trade union membership is restricted to workers actually working in the workplace. The KTU was found to include nine fired members still on their logs.
KTU leadership points to their opposition as politically motivated.
“When she [President Park Geun-hye-- yes, South Korea's president is a woman] was a lawmaker seven or eight years ago she said one harmful insect makes the Korean Peninsula red. It is exactly what she has in mind about the teacher’s union,” says Hwang Hyun-Su, the KTU international secretary. “She thinks that the teacher’s union members are just followers of North Korea or something. It is very old fashioned thinking that exists among Korean conservatives.”
In other words, the union is just a bunch of North Korea-loving commies. Korea's teachers are supposed to be politically neutral. It's not hard to see why the KTU might not be beloved by conservatives.
In the KTU manifesto it says that they believe the Korean education system “cultivates students who are selfish and obedient; we do not teach them to be independent human beings who live collaborating and fulfilling lives.” It also calls for teachers to develop students that can “carry out democratization and destroy all vestiges of the decades of military dictatorships, and who can achieve the reunification of Korea.”
The KTU was still protesting its illegitimate states this summer, and they have successfully overturned a government-imposed shutdown in the past. In the meantime, the nation builders of South Korea are being encouraged to sit down, shut up, and do as they're told.
Classroom Lessons for Cops
Are the Saint Louis County police feeling stupid this morning? I hope so. They should be. The difference between Wednesday and Thursday nights in Ferguson was the difference between chaos and community, between war and peace.The difference certainly wasn't in the crowd; Ferguson's population didn't change over night and they had, if anything, more reason to be enraged after Wednesday's mess.
Some of the press has framed this contrast in terms of different behavior from the crowd or a different attitude or behavior from the crowd, but that's baloney. There is one clear and obvious difference between the two evenings that easily accounts for the different outcomes. This is not rocket surgery-- if you send police determined to preserve and protect, you get a different result than if you send an army to control and command.
Any good classroom teacher can see the lessons of exercising authority (what we usually file under the heading of "classroom management") in the last few days of chaos and unrest in Ferguson.
Own your mistakes. We can hope that the focus on the unrest and subsequent return to peace in Ferguson does not distract people from the event that sparked all of this-- a police officer shot down an unarmed teenager. I have no doubt that as the story continues to unroll, we'll find additional details, conflicting stories, much more information about both Michael Brown and the man who killed him. Like much of America, I'll pay attention to all of that.
But here's the thing. Nothing you can tell me could possibly change the fact that Michael Brown's death should not have happened. Nothing you could possibly tell me would make me go, "Okay, well, I can now see that maybe the police officer did the right thing." Nothing. Michael Brown has been implicated in a "strongarm" robbery. So what. The penalty in this country for boosting baby cigars is not death.
Classroom teachers know-- when you make an inexcusable, obvious mistake, you don't try to stonewall and exert your authority to demand that your students view Something Clearly Wrong as Something Right. I know the impulse-- if I admit I screwed up, it will lessen my standing as an authority figure. But the opposite is true. By insisting that up is down, blue is red, and hot is cold, you only make yourself look ridiculous and, worse, untrustworthy.
All authority is earned. You don't earn authority by being untrustworthy. "I messed up. That never should have happened," may feel very vulnerable, but you can't say anything else and maintain integrity or leadership.
And most importantly-- owning it is the first step in fixing it. And when something is way out of whack (like, say, shooting down an unarmed black teen), then it desperately needs to be addressed, and the causes need to be changed.
Don't bring a tank to a tennis match. Over-reaction is deadly to authority. If I ask a student to sit down and scold him when he balks, that's a proportional response, and he'll feel like he received a just response to his action. If I ask him to sit down and two seconds later start screaming at him and write him up for twelve detentions and tear up his test paper, he no longer sees any connection between his behavior and mine. He will simply see me as an attacker.
When you bring a SWAT team, armored vehicles, and a sniper rifle to a peaceful demonstration, that's not a response. It's an attack.
Don't confuse your enemies and your purpose. One of the striking difference between the police stances of Wednesday and Thursday was that Thursday's police were there to make sure the protesters could exercise their rights.
The assault of the journalists in the McDonalds contains a detail that may seem minor, but I think it's right on point. One of the journalists reported that he was directed first to one door and then to another, and then assaulted when he couldn't quickly sort out the confusing directions. This is exactly what happens when you are not trying to help the person succeed, but have already assumed that he is failing.
We've all met teachers at the point in their career where they haven't worked this out. They complain about a class, complain "How am I supposed to teach that bunch of ignorant barbarians?" Most go on to figure out the answer which is, of course, that you must first stop treating them like ignorant barbarians.
As a person with authority, you have a group of people who are your charges, your responsibility. Your whole purpose is to help them. When you start to view them as your enemy, an obstacle to your work, then you have lost sight of your purpose and you need to check yourself.
It is true that some of our clients are less than ideal. Doesn't matter. You will always deal with people who are different, who have different values, different ways of expressing themselves, different cultural background, different families of origin, and most of all, different levels of ease in dealing with those who wield authority. The job is still the job, and a good wielder of authority recognizes that a person in trouble is a person who needs help.
In short, the Saint Louis County police could have upped their game simply by consulting any experienced first grade teacher. Here's hoping more capable heads prevail in the time ahead.
Some of the press has framed this contrast in terms of different behavior from the crowd or a different attitude or behavior from the crowd, but that's baloney. There is one clear and obvious difference between the two evenings that easily accounts for the different outcomes. This is not rocket surgery-- if you send police determined to preserve and protect, you get a different result than if you send an army to control and command.
Any good classroom teacher can see the lessons of exercising authority (what we usually file under the heading of "classroom management") in the last few days of chaos and unrest in Ferguson.
Own your mistakes. We can hope that the focus on the unrest and subsequent return to peace in Ferguson does not distract people from the event that sparked all of this-- a police officer shot down an unarmed teenager. I have no doubt that as the story continues to unroll, we'll find additional details, conflicting stories, much more information about both Michael Brown and the man who killed him. Like much of America, I'll pay attention to all of that.
But here's the thing. Nothing you can tell me could possibly change the fact that Michael Brown's death should not have happened. Nothing you could possibly tell me would make me go, "Okay, well, I can now see that maybe the police officer did the right thing." Nothing. Michael Brown has been implicated in a "strongarm" robbery. So what. The penalty in this country for boosting baby cigars is not death.
Classroom teachers know-- when you make an inexcusable, obvious mistake, you don't try to stonewall and exert your authority to demand that your students view Something Clearly Wrong as Something Right. I know the impulse-- if I admit I screwed up, it will lessen my standing as an authority figure. But the opposite is true. By insisting that up is down, blue is red, and hot is cold, you only make yourself look ridiculous and, worse, untrustworthy.
All authority is earned. You don't earn authority by being untrustworthy. "I messed up. That never should have happened," may feel very vulnerable, but you can't say anything else and maintain integrity or leadership.
And most importantly-- owning it is the first step in fixing it. And when something is way out of whack (like, say, shooting down an unarmed black teen), then it desperately needs to be addressed, and the causes need to be changed.
Don't bring a tank to a tennis match. Over-reaction is deadly to authority. If I ask a student to sit down and scold him when he balks, that's a proportional response, and he'll feel like he received a just response to his action. If I ask him to sit down and two seconds later start screaming at him and write him up for twelve detentions and tear up his test paper, he no longer sees any connection between his behavior and mine. He will simply see me as an attacker.
When you bring a SWAT team, armored vehicles, and a sniper rifle to a peaceful demonstration, that's not a response. It's an attack.
Don't confuse your enemies and your purpose. One of the striking difference between the police stances of Wednesday and Thursday was that Thursday's police were there to make sure the protesters could exercise their rights.
The assault of the journalists in the McDonalds contains a detail that may seem minor, but I think it's right on point. One of the journalists reported that he was directed first to one door and then to another, and then assaulted when he couldn't quickly sort out the confusing directions. This is exactly what happens when you are not trying to help the person succeed, but have already assumed that he is failing.
We've all met teachers at the point in their career where they haven't worked this out. They complain about a class, complain "How am I supposed to teach that bunch of ignorant barbarians?" Most go on to figure out the answer which is, of course, that you must first stop treating them like ignorant barbarians.
As a person with authority, you have a group of people who are your charges, your responsibility. Your whole purpose is to help them. When you start to view them as your enemy, an obstacle to your work, then you have lost sight of your purpose and you need to check yourself.
It is true that some of our clients are less than ideal. Doesn't matter. You will always deal with people who are different, who have different values, different ways of expressing themselves, different cultural background, different families of origin, and most of all, different levels of ease in dealing with those who wield authority. The job is still the job, and a good wielder of authority recognizes that a person in trouble is a person who needs help.
In short, the Saint Louis County police could have upped their game simply by consulting any experienced first grade teacher. Here's hoping more capable heads prevail in the time ahead.
Thursday, August 14, 2014
A Big Problem with Ed Research
I've always taken a skeptical view of education research. I was in college in the seventies, and I have memories of repeatedly discovering that the Gortshwingle study of How Students Learn was actually a study of how twenty male college sophomores at a small Midwestern college performed a particular task. Educational research seemed to suffer a experimental subject of opportunity problem. And like much research involving human beings and the psychological and intellectual intangibles that drive them, educational research also seemed prone to bias. "I was completely surprised by what the data revealed" seemed not to come up very often. On top of that, designing an experiment that really captures life as it happens in an actual classroom (or, in some cases, on planet earth). Put it all together and I've always found plenty of reasons to view educational research with a very critical eye.
A recently released study suggests that educational research has another huge problem. In "Facts Are More Important Than Novelty: Replication in the Educational Sciences," Matthew A. Makel (Duke University) and Jonathan A. Plucker (University of Connecticut) suggest that there is gaping hole in educational research through which one could drive a fleet of school buses.*
The authors open with a Carl Sagan quote, and then get straight to the central problem:
The desire to differentiate "truth from nonsense" has been a constant struggle within science, and the education sciences are no exception.
Makel and Plucker show us the newly raised stakes-- the US DOE's Institution of Educational Sciences (IES) has been set up as a central clearing house for "real" scientific education research, disseminated through avenues such as the What Works Clearinghouse and the Doing What Works website. But is that research truth or nonsense?
Makel and Plucker walk us through the various ways in which the Randomized Control Trials and Meta-Analyses that make up much of this research can be less-than-solid. Bias, bad design, dumb ideas, poor execution, stupid bosses-- they have a whole list of sourced Ways Things Can Go Wrong in research. The authors are working us around to the major manner in which Real Science corrects for those problems.
Replication.
Since the first primitive lab assistant said, "Woah, that was cool! Can you make it do that again? Can I make it do that again?" or the first proto-scientist said, "Hey, take a look at this and tell me what you see," the backbone of science has replicatable results. Turns out that educational science is more of a spineless jellyfish.
The authors' pored over five years worth of 100 journals to see how often replication had actually happened (they explain their technique in the paper; feel free to check it out yourself). The results were not stunning.
The present study analyzed the complete publication history of the current top 100 education journals ranked by 5-year impact factor and found that only 0.13% of education articles were replications.
It gets worse. The majority of replicants did in fact confirm the original research. Well, at least, they did that if the replication involved one or more of the researchers who did the original work. If the replication was done by actual third parties who had no stake in proving the original research correct, successful replication was "significantly less likely." The success rate for the original authors in the original journal was 87%. For completely different authors in a new journal, the success rate was 54%.
Not that I'd pay too much attention to that portion, because the sampling is small. The authors looked at a total of 164,589 articles published in the journals. Of those, 461 claimed to be replicants, but the authors determined that only 221 actually were.
So what does this mean? It means that very likely a great deal of what's passed off as research-based knowledge is information that has never been checked, the result of just one piece of research. Imagine if you were seriously ill and your doctor said, "Well, there's this one treatment that only one guy did only this one time, and he thought it turned out well." Would you consider that a hopworthy bandwagon?
The authors maintain a scientific tone as they say "Well, we guess the good news is, hey-- lots of room for improvement." There are lots of ways to address "the rampant problem of underpowered studies in the social studies that allow underpowered studies in the social sciences that allow large, but imprecise, effects sizes to be reported." So this is Not Good, but it is also Not That Hard To Fix.
In the meantime, when confronted with education research, remember to ask a few simple questions. In addition to my own personal favorites ("If this involved studying live humans, what live humans were used? What was the research design?") we should also add "Has anyone ever replicated this research, and can we get a look at that, please?"
In short, just because someone flings the words "science" and "research" at you, don't assume that you're about to be hit with The Truth.
*Hat tip to Joy Resmovits from HuffPo for pulling this obscure little piece of wonkery into the cold light of twitter.
A recently released study suggests that educational research has another huge problem. In "Facts Are More Important Than Novelty: Replication in the Educational Sciences," Matthew A. Makel (Duke University) and Jonathan A. Plucker (University of Connecticut) suggest that there is gaping hole in educational research through which one could drive a fleet of school buses.*
The authors open with a Carl Sagan quote, and then get straight to the central problem:
The desire to differentiate "truth from nonsense" has been a constant struggle within science, and the education sciences are no exception.
Makel and Plucker show us the newly raised stakes-- the US DOE's Institution of Educational Sciences (IES) has been set up as a central clearing house for "real" scientific education research, disseminated through avenues such as the What Works Clearinghouse and the Doing What Works website. But is that research truth or nonsense?
Makel and Plucker walk us through the various ways in which the Randomized Control Trials and Meta-Analyses that make up much of this research can be less-than-solid. Bias, bad design, dumb ideas, poor execution, stupid bosses-- they have a whole list of sourced Ways Things Can Go Wrong in research. The authors are working us around to the major manner in which Real Science corrects for those problems.
Replication.
Since the first primitive lab assistant said, "Woah, that was cool! Can you make it do that again? Can I make it do that again?" or the first proto-scientist said, "Hey, take a look at this and tell me what you see," the backbone of science has replicatable results. Turns out that educational science is more of a spineless jellyfish.
The authors' pored over five years worth of 100 journals to see how often replication had actually happened (they explain their technique in the paper; feel free to check it out yourself). The results were not stunning.
The present study analyzed the complete publication history of the current top 100 education journals ranked by 5-year impact factor and found that only 0.13% of education articles were replications.
It gets worse. The majority of replicants did in fact confirm the original research. Well, at least, they did that if the replication involved one or more of the researchers who did the original work. If the replication was done by actual third parties who had no stake in proving the original research correct, successful replication was "significantly less likely." The success rate for the original authors in the original journal was 87%. For completely different authors in a new journal, the success rate was 54%.
Not that I'd pay too much attention to that portion, because the sampling is small. The authors looked at a total of 164,589 articles published in the journals. Of those, 461 claimed to be replicants, but the authors determined that only 221 actually were.
So what does this mean? It means that very likely a great deal of what's passed off as research-based knowledge is information that has never been checked, the result of just one piece of research. Imagine if you were seriously ill and your doctor said, "Well, there's this one treatment that only one guy did only this one time, and he thought it turned out well." Would you consider that a hopworthy bandwagon?
The authors maintain a scientific tone as they say "Well, we guess the good news is, hey-- lots of room for improvement." There are lots of ways to address "the rampant problem of underpowered studies in the social studies that allow underpowered studies in the social sciences that allow large, but imprecise, effects sizes to be reported." So this is Not Good, but it is also Not That Hard To Fix.
In the meantime, when confronted with education research, remember to ask a few simple questions. In addition to my own personal favorites ("If this involved studying live humans, what live humans were used? What was the research design?") we should also add "Has anyone ever replicated this research, and can we get a look at that, please?"
In short, just because someone flings the words "science" and "research" at you, don't assume that you're about to be hit with The Truth.
*Hat tip to Joy Resmovits from HuffPo for pulling this obscure little piece of wonkery into the cold light of twitter.
For (Some of) the Children
Children are the photo prop of choice for conflicts in war zones around the world. Photographic coverage of the Iraqi refugees trapped by Isis activity has been heavy on photographs of children in the camp. Shocking images from Syria have centered on children (upsetting enough that I'm not going to link). And current warfare in Gaza opened with children-centric coverage, to the point that some coverage made it look as if the conflict was primarily about whether Hamas or Israel were the greater offender in the treatment of children.
It's understandable. People have a strong visceral reaction to the sight of children in trouble. If you want to evoke the strongest possible emotional reaction from people, show them a child in trouble. Children are vulnerable, and if a person possesses any basic human decency at all, that person wants to protect children.
Media get that. Doing coverage in a war zone? Get some pictures of children.
Unless, of course, we're talking about American children of color.
18-year-old Michael Brown was quickly upgraded in the media to adult status, referred to repeatedly as a man (and not even a young man at that). He was a recent high school graduate, a promising college freshman-- in short, a young person who could be described in many ways far more sympathetic than the version we've been handed. As twitter was pointing out last night, even crazy James Holmes, the 24-year-old man who shot up a Denver movie theater, was a "brilliant science student" in his coverage (and not just in random coverage-- google his headline and watch it come up all across the continent).
And as any high school teacher would immediately recognize, Michael Brown was undoubtedly still part of his high school community. He would have still been known, been the guy who younger teens knew as one of the "big kids." Any death of a recent high school grad resonates through the students who are still there and about to start the new year. Of course, I have to conjecture about how those specifics play out here, because nobody is covering this.
If Michael Brown had been killed by soldiers in a foreign land, reporters would be looking for the most fresh-faced young underclassman from Brown's school, showing us groups of apprehensive but attractive youngsters and asking, "How can these children cope with a world in which something like this can happen? How will they grow up living with the knowledge of such mortal danger in their own neighborhood streets?" And politicians and leaders would soon appear in the coverage demanding that we take action For The Children.
But Michael Brown was a person of color, a teenager in America, and so, somehow, the coverage of his killing and its aftermath is devoid of any For The Children notes.
That includes, of course, reaction from the reformsters who have been banging the For The Children drum all along. Those who have launched a high profile lawsuit For The Children because they are so concerned that a student might face a bad teacher have not been equally vocal about the possibility that a student might face a bad cop. Those who have repeatedly touted school reform and Common Core as the "civil rights issue of today" have not yet spoken up to note that yesterday's civil rights issues are apparently not entirely settled. They have at least not spoken up to suggest that what Michael Brown and the other children of Ferguson really need is more rigor and grit and high stakes testing.
I don't mean to let the rest of us off the hook. It would be equally wrong to suggest that what the children of Ferguson mostly need is to be freed from the oppression of CCSS. It is tempting to say nothing because I'm aware that, for the most part, I literally would not know what I was talking about. In so many ways, I live a million miles away from Ferguson (though it should be noted that Ferguson is a working class neighborhood, not an urban slum).
But I can't say nothing. What happened in Ferguson, what is still happening in Ferguson, is so obviously effed up. It may be more complicated and complex than we can tell out here through the filter of main stream and social media, but I don't need to know that when an unarmed young man is shot to death, that's effed up. When children grow up in a setting, in America, where it's just good practical common sense daily survival behavior to approach police modifying your own behavior to minimize their threat, that's effed up. When children need to be taught how to properly raise their hands and act non-threatening when approached by the policemen who are paid to protect those children, that's effed up. And when police act like a small army facing a real war with a real opposing army, that's effed up.
I will go back to writing about education stuff, because that's what I know and that's what I do. But I do so remembering and reminding myself that our children and our schools in some communities face some huge issues that dwarf the latest stupid press release from comfortably wealthy high-income folks.
We all, on all the sides of the education debates, like to say we're in this for the children. But if we are going to be for the children, we have to look at the challenges that the children have to face, not just the child-related issues that we prefer to focus on. There are other Fergusons out there, each one with its own schools and children. There's a lot of work to do.
It's understandable. People have a strong visceral reaction to the sight of children in trouble. If you want to evoke the strongest possible emotional reaction from people, show them a child in trouble. Children are vulnerable, and if a person possesses any basic human decency at all, that person wants to protect children.
Media get that. Doing coverage in a war zone? Get some pictures of children.
Unless, of course, we're talking about American children of color.
18-year-old Michael Brown was quickly upgraded in the media to adult status, referred to repeatedly as a man (and not even a young man at that). He was a recent high school graduate, a promising college freshman-- in short, a young person who could be described in many ways far more sympathetic than the version we've been handed. As twitter was pointing out last night, even crazy James Holmes, the 24-year-old man who shot up a Denver movie theater, was a "brilliant science student" in his coverage (and not just in random coverage-- google his headline and watch it come up all across the continent).
And as any high school teacher would immediately recognize, Michael Brown was undoubtedly still part of his high school community. He would have still been known, been the guy who younger teens knew as one of the "big kids." Any death of a recent high school grad resonates through the students who are still there and about to start the new year. Of course, I have to conjecture about how those specifics play out here, because nobody is covering this.
If Michael Brown had been killed by soldiers in a foreign land, reporters would be looking for the most fresh-faced young underclassman from Brown's school, showing us groups of apprehensive but attractive youngsters and asking, "How can these children cope with a world in which something like this can happen? How will they grow up living with the knowledge of such mortal danger in their own neighborhood streets?" And politicians and leaders would soon appear in the coverage demanding that we take action For The Children.
But Michael Brown was a person of color, a teenager in America, and so, somehow, the coverage of his killing and its aftermath is devoid of any For The Children notes.
That includes, of course, reaction from the reformsters who have been banging the For The Children drum all along. Those who have launched a high profile lawsuit For The Children because they are so concerned that a student might face a bad teacher have not been equally vocal about the possibility that a student might face a bad cop. Those who have repeatedly touted school reform and Common Core as the "civil rights issue of today" have not yet spoken up to note that yesterday's civil rights issues are apparently not entirely settled. They have at least not spoken up to suggest that what Michael Brown and the other children of Ferguson really need is more rigor and grit and high stakes testing.
I don't mean to let the rest of us off the hook. It would be equally wrong to suggest that what the children of Ferguson mostly need is to be freed from the oppression of CCSS. It is tempting to say nothing because I'm aware that, for the most part, I literally would not know what I was talking about. In so many ways, I live a million miles away from Ferguson (though it should be noted that Ferguson is a working class neighborhood, not an urban slum).
But I can't say nothing. What happened in Ferguson, what is still happening in Ferguson, is so obviously effed up. It may be more complicated and complex than we can tell out here through the filter of main stream and social media, but I don't need to know that when an unarmed young man is shot to death, that's effed up. When children grow up in a setting, in America, where it's just good practical common sense daily survival behavior to approach police modifying your own behavior to minimize their threat, that's effed up. When children need to be taught how to properly raise their hands and act non-threatening when approached by the policemen who are paid to protect those children, that's effed up. And when police act like a small army facing a real war with a real opposing army, that's effed up.
I will go back to writing about education stuff, because that's what I know and that's what I do. But I do so remembering and reminding myself that our children and our schools in some communities face some huge issues that dwarf the latest stupid press release from comfortably wealthy high-income folks.
We all, on all the sides of the education debates, like to say we're in this for the children. But if we are going to be for the children, we have to look at the challenges that the children have to face, not just the child-related issues that we prefer to focus on. There are other Fergusons out there, each one with its own schools and children. There's a lot of work to do.
Wednesday, August 13, 2014
Dear Campbell Brown:
Today you made an appearance in Valerie Strauss's blog to respond to your many critics. I want to take a moment to respond to some of your questions.
First, let me applaud you for taking the dialogue directly to your critics, rather than simply trashing or dismissing them elsewhere. Direct dialogue between the various sides of the ed debates (there are more than two) is rare and needed. I'm going to treat your post as written in good faith and respond in kind.
We want a system that supports, protects and properly pays good teachers and makes it possible, in a responsible, fair and timely way, to remove teachers judged to be incompetent.
I don't think anybody disagrees with that goal. Certainly not anybody in the teaching profession. The devil, as I'm sure you realize, is in the details.
So was that ruling an attack on all teachers? Of course not. Was it a new way to help ensure that substandard teaching is never sanctioned in California schools? Yes.
I disagree on both questions. The ruling did not remove tenure laws for bad teachers. It removed them for all teachers. And the irony is that it won't insure that a bad teacher never darkens the door of a California classroom. Enforcement of teacher standards will still be up to administrators-- the same people who don't take the necessary steps to remove the worst teachers under tenure rules (and of course those policies existed, because tenure was never, ever, a "job for life") will continue to not take those steps under the new set of rules.
But awarding added tenure protection to someone with no record of improving student achievement “doesn’t respect the craft of teaching, and it doesn’t serve children well.” The idea of connecting quality on the job to whether teachers essentially get to keep their jobs indefinitely is hardly radical.
Here is another crux of the problem. Connecting quality on the job to teacher employment might be great-- if we knew how to measure quality on the job. We don't.
Secretary Duncan glibly defines it as "improving student achievement"-- in other words, test scores. Do we really agree, as a nation, that student test scores are the ultimate measure of teacher quality? When we adults think back on our favorite teachers, our best teachers, the teachers who shaped us as people-- do we think about how we did better on standardized tests because of them?
Do we really want to set the bar so incredibly low? Do we want to say, "I don't care what else you do in that classroom as long as the standardized test scores are good."
If not (and how could it be otherwise) how will we measure all the rest? Teachers are not opposed to evaluations or feedback, but every evaluative measure on the table right now is, to be blunt, crap. VAM and all of its variations have been debunked repeatedly. We welcome meaningful, helpful evaluation, but we do not welcome having our careers linked to instruments no more precise and valid than tea leaves or a roll of the dice.
The parents who put their names and reputations on this suit know their schools have caring, dependable, inspiring teachers – and that is not their worry.
It should be. Because without tenure, those caring, dependable, inspiring teachers (all qualities, incidentally, that are not measured by looking at "improving student achievement) can be fired. More importantly, they can be threatened with firing. When their caring leads them to say things like "You are treating this student unfairly" or "that policy will hurt my kids" or "I will not implement a program that is so damaging to my the students in my care," they may have to deal with the reply, "Shut up, or lose your job."
I've written plenty about this. Firing is not nearly as damaging to a school as the threat of firing. And tenure helps teachers avoid the problems of having a hundred different bosses with different ideas of success. I'm not going to go into those at length here.
So here is the question for critics: What would you do if your child had those teachers [the ones who don't do their jobs] in class? Nothing? Attack the motives of people trying to do something? Cast the effort as anti-teacher when in fact it is designed to get more good teachers?
None of the above. I would contact the teacher, the principal, the superintendent, in that order. I would talk to other parents (because I may or may not be the only person who thinks the teacher isn't doing her job). I would raise a stink if I thought I needed to. Because here's the thing-- under a tenure system like the system in New York, that teacher can absolutely be fired. I would not walk through the halls of that building, knock on each teacher's door and say, "Excuse me, but I need to be able to take away your job so that I can get rid of Mrs. McSuxalot."
One of the things that is maddening from my side of this issue is the repeated assurance that the Vergara lawsuit, and now yours, will help get more good teachers in the classroom. How? How will that work? I understand the "We'll fire Mrs. Suxalot quickly and easily" part. But how will you replace her? Who will you entice with a come-on of "We'd like you to do this job for now, but we reserve the right to fire you any time we feel like it for whatever reason occurs to us, including finding someone younger and prettier." That recruiting technique doesn't get any better if you switch to "Your employment will be based strictly on student test scores."
How will your law result in more good teachers in classrooms? This question has not yet been answered. Not even a little. If you want to build some credibility, come up with a credible answer for it.
Actually, no one is playing a card. No one is playing a game. This is for real. And if you are going to take a stand, perhaps the best one possible is the one good for the child.
I agree. You can probably assume that those of us who have decided to devote our entire adult lives to teaching as a career are also not playing games. It will help the dialogue if you understand that we are, in fact, taking a stand based on the good of the children (there's not just one, but many, with many needs and strengths and weaknesses).
Removing employment protection removes our ability to advocate for children, to speak up against the system when we see it doing the wrong thing, to make decisions based on the best interests of the students-- and nothing else. Removing these protections makes it harder still to recruit the best people to the classroom. Teachers want to remove people from the classroom who should not be there (and quickly), as well as helping those who could improve to do so.
But nothing in your lawsuit suggests a way that your legal case would help that. And while these issues are far bigger than the individuals who are involved, the fact that your suit is backed by people who have a huge stake in dismantling public education in order to replace it with a more profitable charter system does not makes us feel better about it.
You've disseminated your talking points pretty clearly at this point, and those of us out in the cheap seats have pointed out repeatedly where the gaps in your argument lie. Simple repetition will not move the conversation forward. You need to fill in those gaps if your claims to concern about students and education are to be taken seriously.
First, let me applaud you for taking the dialogue directly to your critics, rather than simply trashing or dismissing them elsewhere. Direct dialogue between the various sides of the ed debates (there are more than two) is rare and needed. I'm going to treat your post as written in good faith and respond in kind.
We want a system that supports, protects and properly pays good teachers and makes it possible, in a responsible, fair and timely way, to remove teachers judged to be incompetent.
I don't think anybody disagrees with that goal. Certainly not anybody in the teaching profession. The devil, as I'm sure you realize, is in the details.
So was that ruling an attack on all teachers? Of course not. Was it a new way to help ensure that substandard teaching is never sanctioned in California schools? Yes.
I disagree on both questions. The ruling did not remove tenure laws for bad teachers. It removed them for all teachers. And the irony is that it won't insure that a bad teacher never darkens the door of a California classroom. Enforcement of teacher standards will still be up to administrators-- the same people who don't take the necessary steps to remove the worst teachers under tenure rules (and of course those policies existed, because tenure was never, ever, a "job for life") will continue to not take those steps under the new set of rules.
But awarding added tenure protection to someone with no record of improving student achievement “doesn’t respect the craft of teaching, and it doesn’t serve children well.” The idea of connecting quality on the job to whether teachers essentially get to keep their jobs indefinitely is hardly radical.
Here is another crux of the problem. Connecting quality on the job to teacher employment might be great-- if we knew how to measure quality on the job. We don't.
Secretary Duncan glibly defines it as "improving student achievement"-- in other words, test scores. Do we really agree, as a nation, that student test scores are the ultimate measure of teacher quality? When we adults think back on our favorite teachers, our best teachers, the teachers who shaped us as people-- do we think about how we did better on standardized tests because of them?
Do we really want to set the bar so incredibly low? Do we want to say, "I don't care what else you do in that classroom as long as the standardized test scores are good."
If not (and how could it be otherwise) how will we measure all the rest? Teachers are not opposed to evaluations or feedback, but every evaluative measure on the table right now is, to be blunt, crap. VAM and all of its variations have been debunked repeatedly. We welcome meaningful, helpful evaluation, but we do not welcome having our careers linked to instruments no more precise and valid than tea leaves or a roll of the dice.
The parents who put their names and reputations on this suit know their schools have caring, dependable, inspiring teachers – and that is not their worry.
It should be. Because without tenure, those caring, dependable, inspiring teachers (all qualities, incidentally, that are not measured by looking at "improving student achievement) can be fired. More importantly, they can be threatened with firing. When their caring leads them to say things like "You are treating this student unfairly" or "that policy will hurt my kids" or "I will not implement a program that is so damaging to my the students in my care," they may have to deal with the reply, "Shut up, or lose your job."
I've written plenty about this. Firing is not nearly as damaging to a school as the threat of firing. And tenure helps teachers avoid the problems of having a hundred different bosses with different ideas of success. I'm not going to go into those at length here.
So here is the question for critics: What would you do if your child had those teachers [the ones who don't do their jobs] in class? Nothing? Attack the motives of people trying to do something? Cast the effort as anti-teacher when in fact it is designed to get more good teachers?
None of the above. I would contact the teacher, the principal, the superintendent, in that order. I would talk to other parents (because I may or may not be the only person who thinks the teacher isn't doing her job). I would raise a stink if I thought I needed to. Because here's the thing-- under a tenure system like the system in New York, that teacher can absolutely be fired. I would not walk through the halls of that building, knock on each teacher's door and say, "Excuse me, but I need to be able to take away your job so that I can get rid of Mrs. McSuxalot."
One of the things that is maddening from my side of this issue is the repeated assurance that the Vergara lawsuit, and now yours, will help get more good teachers in the classroom. How? How will that work? I understand the "We'll fire Mrs. Suxalot quickly and easily" part. But how will you replace her? Who will you entice with a come-on of "We'd like you to do this job for now, but we reserve the right to fire you any time we feel like it for whatever reason occurs to us, including finding someone younger and prettier." That recruiting technique doesn't get any better if you switch to "Your employment will be based strictly on student test scores."
How will your law result in more good teachers in classrooms? This question has not yet been answered. Not even a little. If you want to build some credibility, come up with a credible answer for it.
Actually, no one is playing a card. No one is playing a game. This is for real. And if you are going to take a stand, perhaps the best one possible is the one good for the child.
I agree. You can probably assume that those of us who have decided to devote our entire adult lives to teaching as a career are also not playing games. It will help the dialogue if you understand that we are, in fact, taking a stand based on the good of the children (there's not just one, but many, with many needs and strengths and weaknesses).
Removing employment protection removes our ability to advocate for children, to speak up against the system when we see it doing the wrong thing, to make decisions based on the best interests of the students-- and nothing else. Removing these protections makes it harder still to recruit the best people to the classroom. Teachers want to remove people from the classroom who should not be there (and quickly), as well as helping those who could improve to do so.
But nothing in your lawsuit suggests a way that your legal case would help that. And while these issues are far bigger than the individuals who are involved, the fact that your suit is backed by people who have a huge stake in dismantling public education in order to replace it with a more profitable charter system does not makes us feel better about it.
You've disseminated your talking points pretty clearly at this point, and those of us out in the cheap seats have pointed out repeatedly where the gaps in your argument lie. Simple repetition will not move the conversation forward. You need to fill in those gaps if your claims to concern about students and education are to be taken seriously.
Duncan Funnels Millions to College Board
This is how it works in our current form of government.
Suppose you make left-handed widgets. You are a major player in the market, but you do have competitors. You would like to both cement your role in the market while growing your share of the revenue. What do you do? Well, you could work on marketing, product development, basically making your case to the potential left-handed widget market.
Or you could get the feds involved.
You could use focused marketing, gamesmanship, or plain old cronyism to convince the feds to say, "We are going to address the shameful left-handed widget gap in this country by helping citizens purchase left-handed widgets from WidgetCorp." The feds aren't going to just buy the widgets direct from WidgetCorps and hand them out-- that would be socialism or corporate welfare or something Very Naughty to do with tax dollars. So instead the feds will launder the money through a grant program run by the states, and it won't be obvious that the federal government just handed WidgetCorps a giant windfall.
That's the cushy gig that's been set up for the College Board.
Tuesday, the Department of Education proudly announced its AP Test grant program. Forty states, DC and the Virgin Islands will be handing over $28.4 million to the College Board so that low-income students can take the AP test.
I will remind everyone, as I always do, that the College Board (home of the AP test and the SATs) is not a philanthropic organization, administering these tests as some sort of public service. They are a business, one of several similar ones, selling a product. This program is the equivalent of the feds saying, "Students really need to be able to drive a Ford to school, so we we're going to finance the purchase of Fords for some students."
What does the College Board get out of this program?
Huge product placement. David Coleman's College Board has been working hard to market the AP test as the go-to proof that a student is on the college path. Some states (PA is one) give extra points to school evaluation scores based on the number of AP courses offered. The new PSAT will become an AP-recommendation generator. This program is one more tap-tap-tap in the drumbeat that if you want to go to college, you must hit the AP. The program can also be directed toward IB tests or "other approved advanced placement tests," but it's the AP brand that is on the marquee.
The product placement represents a savvy marketing end run. The AP biz has previously depended on the kindness of colleges to push their product. But colleges and universities weren't really working all that hard to market the College Board's product for them. Now, with the help of state and federal governments and their own PSAT test, the College Board is marketing directly to parents and students, tapping into that same must-go-to-college gut-level terror that makes the SAT test the must-take test.
$28.4 million.
What do low-income students get out of this?
A chance to take an AP test. Not, mind you, more resources to get ready for it, nor do they get help with actually going to a college after taking the test (which may or may not give them any help once they get in).
"These grants eliminate some of the financial roadblocks for low-income students taking Advanced Placement courses, letting them take tests with the potential of earning college credit while in high school," said U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.
"Potential" is the key word. Check with your chosen college; benefits for getting a high score on an AP test may range from dollar savings all the way down to no benefit whatsoever. And note that the grant program doesn't foot the whole bill.
Here are some things the DOE did not announce.
Arne did not announce that the government of the United States of America went to a private corporation and said, "Look, we'll give your product a little boost here, but in return, you are going to give up 65% of your profit margin on your product." Damn, guys. If you come buy $28 million worth of widgets from me, I will give you a bulk discount. Do not try to tell me that the price of an AP test is set strictly by the cost of producing it and not by what the market will bear.
Arne did not announce that the federal government will be cutting low-income students the same kind of loan deals for college tuition that they cut the big banks. Want to eliminate a financial roadblock for low-income students looking at college? Lowering the interest rate on student and parent plus loans to, say, 2.5% would be a huge financial help.
In fact, if we go back to last year's stories about the money that the feds made from college loans, we find that this new program basically takes about 6% of the DOE's college loan profits and hands it over to the testing companies (at, apparently, retail prices, no less). In return, low-income students get to take a test that may or may not help them with college.
There are other imponderables here. California is getting almost a third ($10 million) of the total funds while Montana makes do with $4K.
Helping low income students get into college (and succeed there) is a noble and worthwhile goal. But if you had $28 million to spend to make that happen, I doubt that this is the program you'd come up with. On the other hand, if you were trying to find a way to pump up the College Board's AP business, this would be a dandy idea.
Suppose you make left-handed widgets. You are a major player in the market, but you do have competitors. You would like to both cement your role in the market while growing your share of the revenue. What do you do? Well, you could work on marketing, product development, basically making your case to the potential left-handed widget market.
Or you could get the feds involved.
You could use focused marketing, gamesmanship, or plain old cronyism to convince the feds to say, "We are going to address the shameful left-handed widget gap in this country by helping citizens purchase left-handed widgets from WidgetCorp." The feds aren't going to just buy the widgets direct from WidgetCorps and hand them out-- that would be socialism or corporate welfare or something Very Naughty to do with tax dollars. So instead the feds will launder the money through a grant program run by the states, and it won't be obvious that the federal government just handed WidgetCorps a giant windfall.
That's the cushy gig that's been set up for the College Board.
Tuesday, the Department of Education proudly announced its AP Test grant program. Forty states, DC and the Virgin Islands will be handing over $28.4 million to the College Board so that low-income students can take the AP test.
I will remind everyone, as I always do, that the College Board (home of the AP test and the SATs) is not a philanthropic organization, administering these tests as some sort of public service. They are a business, one of several similar ones, selling a product. This program is the equivalent of the feds saying, "Students really need to be able to drive a Ford to school, so we we're going to finance the purchase of Fords for some students."
What does the College Board get out of this program?
Huge product placement. David Coleman's College Board has been working hard to market the AP test as the go-to proof that a student is on the college path. Some states (PA is one) give extra points to school evaluation scores based on the number of AP courses offered. The new PSAT will become an AP-recommendation generator. This program is one more tap-tap-tap in the drumbeat that if you want to go to college, you must hit the AP. The program can also be directed toward IB tests or "other approved advanced placement tests," but it's the AP brand that is on the marquee.
The product placement represents a savvy marketing end run. The AP biz has previously depended on the kindness of colleges to push their product. But colleges and universities weren't really working all that hard to market the College Board's product for them. Now, with the help of state and federal governments and their own PSAT test, the College Board is marketing directly to parents and students, tapping into that same must-go-to-college gut-level terror that makes the SAT test the must-take test.
$28.4 million.
What do low-income students get out of this?
A chance to take an AP test. Not, mind you, more resources to get ready for it, nor do they get help with actually going to a college after taking the test (which may or may not give them any help once they get in).
"These grants eliminate some of the financial roadblocks for low-income students taking Advanced Placement courses, letting them take tests with the potential of earning college credit while in high school," said U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.
"Potential" is the key word. Check with your chosen college; benefits for getting a high score on an AP test may range from dollar savings all the way down to no benefit whatsoever. And note that the grant program doesn't foot the whole bill.
Here are some things the DOE did not announce.
Arne did not announce that the government of the United States of America went to a private corporation and said, "Look, we'll give your product a little boost here, but in return, you are going to give up 65% of your profit margin on your product." Damn, guys. If you come buy $28 million worth of widgets from me, I will give you a bulk discount. Do not try to tell me that the price of an AP test is set strictly by the cost of producing it and not by what the market will bear.
Arne did not announce that the federal government will be cutting low-income students the same kind of loan deals for college tuition that they cut the big banks. Want to eliminate a financial roadblock for low-income students looking at college? Lowering the interest rate on student and parent plus loans to, say, 2.5% would be a huge financial help.
In fact, if we go back to last year's stories about the money that the feds made from college loans, we find that this new program basically takes about 6% of the DOE's college loan profits and hands it over to the testing companies (at, apparently, retail prices, no less). In return, low-income students get to take a test that may or may not help them with college.
There are other imponderables here. California is getting almost a third ($10 million) of the total funds while Montana makes do with $4K.
Helping low income students get into college (and succeed there) is a noble and worthwhile goal. But if you had $28 million to spend to make that happen, I doubt that this is the program you'd come up with. On the other hand, if you were trying to find a way to pump up the College Board's AP business, this would be a dandy idea.
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