Money has poisoned many of the conversations in this country, shaping the debates about everything from wars in foreign lands to the future of American public education. Money has an unprecedented power to control the public discussion simply by taking control of the major media (which are, after all, contained within just six corporations).
Ironically, today there is also unprecedented power for ordinary citizens to circumvent the major media. And if you're reading me, you've seen it in action.
I produce this blog with a budget of $0.00, and yet every day, there are several thousand reads on these pages. And I'm not one of the big dogs in the education conversations. Diane Ravitch, Mercedes Schneider, Anthony Cody, Jose Luis Vilson, and I would go on and on but there are so many names I would break my blog-- so many people who have energized and informed the discussion of public education on a budget somewhere between slim and none.
Meanwhile, the Big Guns of Reformsterdom can whip up $12 million to start yet another in a long line of astro-turf faux activist reform-shilling websites in Education Post, claiming that they just want to renew the conversation. In just a few years, Common Core and its attendant circus of reform clown cars has gone from a sure thing and done deal to a subject so contentious and toxic that politicians who want a national profile can't back away from it fast enough (sorry, ex-next-President Jeb Bush). And the amazing part of that shift is that it represents a battle between heavily financed forces and a bunch of citizens with computers.
That's the one cool thing about this debate-- we don't have to raise money; we just have to raise awareness.
There are challenges. The folks standing up for public education represent a broad, broad, broad group, and it's no small challenge to represent every viewpoint within that wide band. While that can be a point of contention, it also, to me, represents the strength of pluralism which stands in contrast to the sometimes-BORGlike appearance of the reformsters. Add in the people who stand against the reform movement, but not necessarily in favor of public education, and you're talking about a large and varied group of viewpoints.
But the beauty and terror of the internet is that all these voices cannot be silenced. Not even as, time and time again, the major media fail to give them a voice.
The Resistance depends on us, all of us, to amplify each others' voices and to spread the word. It also depends on us to keep talking and growing and building toward newer and better understandings, even when we have disagreements, missteps, mistakes, and people in our corner that we wish would go away. It's much harder to do that than to simply pick up and pass along the latest think tank talking point. We have to keep talking, sharing, amplifying, and bringing the conversation back to what matters, even if the Big Bucks Media aren't with us. And with that in mind, here comes something special.
On Saturday, October 11, the Network for Public Education will present a live, on line event, featuring many of the prominent voices in the education debates speaking on many of the toughest issues of the field. See and hear many of the faces and voices that have not been included in education "conversations" in places like NBC's Education Nation.
This is not the change in conversation that many reformsters are asking for (though I believe that many reformster-minded folks will tune in and watch, with interest). But it will further the conversation. And it won't take $12 million dollars to make it happen, and even $120 million dollars couldn't keep it from happening. I encourage you to check out the details, make a contribution if you're so inclined, and plan to keep at least part of October 11 open to click in and watch and listen to people who aren't being paid huge amounts of money to talk about what they believe.
Sunday, September 14, 2014
Education Next Plugs Research Proving Not Much of Anything
This week Education Next ran an article entitled "The First Hard Evidence on Virtual Education." It turns out that the only word in that title which comes close to being accurate is "first" (more about that shortly). What actually runs in the article is a remarkable stretch by anybody's standards.
The study is a 'working paper" by Guido Schwert of the University of Konstanz (it's German, and legit) and Matt Chingos of Brooking (motto "Just Because We're Economists, That Doesn't Mean We Can't Act Like Education Experts"). It looks at students in the Florida Virtual School, the largest cyber-school system in Florida (how it got to be that way, and whether or not it's good, is a question for another day because it has nothing to do with the matter at hand). What we're really interested in here is how far we can lower the bar for what deserves to be reported.
The researchers report two findings. The first is that when students can take on-line AP courses that aren't offered at their brick and mortal schools, some of them will do so. I know. Quelle suprise! But wait-- we can lower the bar further!
Second finding? The researchers checked out English and Algebra I test scores for the cyber-schoolers and determined that their tenth grade test results for those subjects were about the same as brick-and-mortar students. Author Martin West adds "or perhaps a bit better" but come on-- if you could say "better" you would have. This is just damning with faint praise-by-weasel-words.
West also characterizes this finding "as the first credible evidence on the effects of online courses on student achievement in K-12 schools" and you know what? It's not. First, you're talking about testing a thin slice of tenth graders. Second, and more hugely, the study did not look at student achievement. It looked at student standardized test scores in two subjects.
I know I've said this before. I'm going to keep saying this just as often as reformsters keep trying to peddle the false assertion used to launch a thousand reformy dinghies.
"Standardized test scores" are not the same thing as "student achievement."
"Standardized test scores" are not the same thing as "student achievement."
When you write "the mugwump program clearly increases student achievement" when you mean "the mugwump program raised some test scores in year X," you are deliberately obscuring the truth. When you write "teachers should be judged by their ability to improve student achievement" when you mean "teachers should be judged by students' standardized test scores," you are saying something that is at best disingenuous, and perhaps a bit of a flat out lie.
But wait-- there's less. In fact, there's so much less that even West has to admit it, though he shares that only with diligent readers who stick around to the next-to-last paragraph.
The study is based on data from 2008-2009. Yes, I typed that correctly. West acknowledges that there may be a bit of an "early adopter syndrome" in play here, and that things might have changed a tad over the past five years, so that then conditions under which this perhaps a bit useless data was generated are completely unlike those currently in play. (Quick-- what operating system were you using in 2008? And what did your smartphone look like?)
Could we possibly reveal this research to be less useful? Why, yes-- yes, we could. In the last sentence of that penultimate graf, West admits "And, of course, the study is also not a randomized experiment, the gold standard in education research." By "gold standard," of course, we mean "valid in any meaningful way."
So there you have it. Education Next has rocked the world with an account of research on six-year-old data that, if it proves anything at all, proves that you can do passable test prep on a computer. And that is how we lower the bar all the way to the floor.
The study is a 'working paper" by Guido Schwert of the University of Konstanz (it's German, and legit) and Matt Chingos of Brooking (motto "Just Because We're Economists, That Doesn't Mean We Can't Act Like Education Experts"). It looks at students in the Florida Virtual School, the largest cyber-school system in Florida (how it got to be that way, and whether or not it's good, is a question for another day because it has nothing to do with the matter at hand). What we're really interested in here is how far we can lower the bar for what deserves to be reported.
The researchers report two findings. The first is that when students can take on-line AP courses that aren't offered at their brick and mortal schools, some of them will do so. I know. Quelle suprise! But wait-- we can lower the bar further!
Second finding? The researchers checked out English and Algebra I test scores for the cyber-schoolers and determined that their tenth grade test results for those subjects were about the same as brick-and-mortar students. Author Martin West adds "or perhaps a bit better" but come on-- if you could say "better" you would have. This is just damning with faint praise-by-weasel-words.
West also characterizes this finding "as the first credible evidence on the effects of online courses on student achievement in K-12 schools" and you know what? It's not. First, you're talking about testing a thin slice of tenth graders. Second, and more hugely, the study did not look at student achievement. It looked at student standardized test scores in two subjects.
I know I've said this before. I'm going to keep saying this just as often as reformsters keep trying to peddle the false assertion used to launch a thousand reformy dinghies.
"Standardized test scores" are not the same thing as "student achievement."
"Standardized test scores" are not the same thing as "student achievement."
When you write "the mugwump program clearly increases student achievement" when you mean "the mugwump program raised some test scores in year X," you are deliberately obscuring the truth. When you write "teachers should be judged by their ability to improve student achievement" when you mean "teachers should be judged by students' standardized test scores," you are saying something that is at best disingenuous, and perhaps a bit of a flat out lie.
But wait-- there's less. In fact, there's so much less that even West has to admit it, though he shares that only with diligent readers who stick around to the next-to-last paragraph.
The study is based on data from 2008-2009. Yes, I typed that correctly. West acknowledges that there may be a bit of an "early adopter syndrome" in play here, and that things might have changed a tad over the past five years, so that then conditions under which this perhaps a bit useless data was generated are completely unlike those currently in play. (Quick-- what operating system were you using in 2008? And what did your smartphone look like?)
Could we possibly reveal this research to be less useful? Why, yes-- yes, we could. In the last sentence of that penultimate graf, West admits "And, of course, the study is also not a randomized experiment, the gold standard in education research." By "gold standard," of course, we mean "valid in any meaningful way."
So there you have it. Education Next has rocked the world with an account of research on six-year-old data that, if it proves anything at all, proves that you can do passable test prep on a computer. And that is how we lower the bar all the way to the floor.
Saturday, September 13, 2014
Why So Politicized?!
Education Post is beginning to look like an organization dedicated to the proposition that it takes an entire village to replace She Who Will Not Be Named. Though they have not yet announced plans to run a large urban school district into the ground, they are laboring mightily to make themselves a clearinghouse for all the top talking points for the Core and its attendant reformy barnacles.
They have taken to repeating an old favorite that has been coming back strong lately.
"Gosh," says the reformsters, shaking their heads ruefully. "Why is this discussion of the standards so politicized?" Why, they wonder, aren't we just focusing on the educational merits or, you know, the kids?
As it turns out, I think I have an answer for this one. Asking why the Common Core are wrapped up in politics is like asking why human beings are so involved with blood.
The Common Core were birthed in politics. They were weaned on politics. And every time they have looked tired and in trouble, they have been revived with a fresh transfusion of politics.
When David Coleman and Gene Wilhoit decided they wanted to standardize American education, they did not come up with a plan to sell such a program on its education merits. They called on Bill Gates to use his money and power to convince state governments to legislate systemic changes to education.
The states signed on to a Memo of Understanding (a political tool for out-politicking politics) and many of them did it before there were even any standards to look at. This was a political move, using the political power of legislatures and governors' offices to impose rules on educational systems-- in many cases, before educators in particular states even knew that such a systemic overhaul was being considered.
Common Core's Pappy, No Child Left Behind, was a creature of politics, right down to its spin-ready title. It was created to put a glossy shine on bipartisan action for the kids. Educators (and other people with rudimentary math skills) pointed out early on that the NCLB end game of 100% above average was ridiculously improbable, but the political shininess plus the political notion that future politicians would find a political solution drowned out good sense. Because, politics.
President Obama tried to use the need to re-authorize (aka rewrite) ESEA as leverage to get Congress to adopt some of his fave reformy ideas including Common Core, and when Congress was politically unable and unwilling to yield to White House political pressure, the President and Arne Duncan used a political rules trick to do a political end run around the political power of Congress to twist the arms of state legislatures.
And that arm twisting hasn't stopped. The political leverage has been brought to bear against states like Washington for not agreeing to judge teachers the way the federal politicians want them to. And every time waiver renewal season rolls around, we wait to see what local political modifications the national politicians will let go.
Meanwhile, on the state level, we see political gamesmanship in places like New Jersey and Louisiana, where the discussion is not about the educational efficacy of the reformster ideas, but the political power struggles involved. And that's before we even start talking about political power being used to crush teacher pay and job security, trash school funding, and gut districts so that political friends of the politically powerful can cash in on the charter bubble.
At no point in all this reformy baloney have we seen the spectacle of bottom-up reform, a reform movement driven by teachers and other educators saying, "Hey, we have some ideas that are so revolutionary and so great that they are spreading like wildfire strictly on their educational merits!"
No-- Common Core and its attendant test-driven high stakes data-glomming VAMboozling baloney have come from the top down, by politicians using political power to impose educational solutions through the political tools applied to the political structure of government. Why do people get the idea that all these reformy ideas are linked? Because they all come from the same place-- the linkage is the political power that imposed them all on the American public education system.
Look. We live in the real world and politics play a part in many things. But for some reformsters to offer wide eyes and shocked dismay and clutched pearls as they cry, "Oh, but why does it have to be so political!" is the height of hypocrisy. It's political because you folks made it political, every step of the way, and it's not humanly possible for you to be too dumb to know that (particularly at a site like Education Post that is larded with career political operatives). So if you want to have a serious conversation about any of this, Step One is to stop lying, badly, directly to our faces. I can't hear you when my bullshit detector alarm is screaming in my ear.
They have taken to repeating an old favorite that has been coming back strong lately.
"Gosh," says the reformsters, shaking their heads ruefully. "Why is this discussion of the standards so politicized?" Why, they wonder, aren't we just focusing on the educational merits or, you know, the kids?
As it turns out, I think I have an answer for this one. Asking why the Common Core are wrapped up in politics is like asking why human beings are so involved with blood.
The Common Core were birthed in politics. They were weaned on politics. And every time they have looked tired and in trouble, they have been revived with a fresh transfusion of politics.
When David Coleman and Gene Wilhoit decided they wanted to standardize American education, they did not come up with a plan to sell such a program on its education merits. They called on Bill Gates to use his money and power to convince state governments to legislate systemic changes to education.
The states signed on to a Memo of Understanding (a political tool for out-politicking politics) and many of them did it before there were even any standards to look at. This was a political move, using the political power of legislatures and governors' offices to impose rules on educational systems-- in many cases, before educators in particular states even knew that such a systemic overhaul was being considered.
Common Core's Pappy, No Child Left Behind, was a creature of politics, right down to its spin-ready title. It was created to put a glossy shine on bipartisan action for the kids. Educators (and other people with rudimentary math skills) pointed out early on that the NCLB end game of 100% above average was ridiculously improbable, but the political shininess plus the political notion that future politicians would find a political solution drowned out good sense. Because, politics.
President Obama tried to use the need to re-authorize (aka rewrite) ESEA as leverage to get Congress to adopt some of his fave reformy ideas including Common Core, and when Congress was politically unable and unwilling to yield to White House political pressure, the President and Arne Duncan used a political rules trick to do a political end run around the political power of Congress to twist the arms of state legislatures.
And that arm twisting hasn't stopped. The political leverage has been brought to bear against states like Washington for not agreeing to judge teachers the way the federal politicians want them to. And every time waiver renewal season rolls around, we wait to see what local political modifications the national politicians will let go.
Meanwhile, on the state level, we see political gamesmanship in places like New Jersey and Louisiana, where the discussion is not about the educational efficacy of the reformster ideas, but the political power struggles involved. And that's before we even start talking about political power being used to crush teacher pay and job security, trash school funding, and gut districts so that political friends of the politically powerful can cash in on the charter bubble.
At no point in all this reformy baloney have we seen the spectacle of bottom-up reform, a reform movement driven by teachers and other educators saying, "Hey, we have some ideas that are so revolutionary and so great that they are spreading like wildfire strictly on their educational merits!"
No-- Common Core and its attendant test-driven high stakes data-glomming VAMboozling baloney have come from the top down, by politicians using political power to impose educational solutions through the political tools applied to the political structure of government. Why do people get the idea that all these reformy ideas are linked? Because they all come from the same place-- the linkage is the political power that imposed them all on the American public education system.
Look. We live in the real world and politics play a part in many things. But for some reformsters to offer wide eyes and shocked dismay and clutched pearls as they cry, "Oh, but why does it have to be so political!" is the height of hypocrisy. It's political because you folks made it political, every step of the way, and it's not humanly possible for you to be too dumb to know that (particularly at a site like Education Post that is larded with career political operatives). So if you want to have a serious conversation about any of this, Step One is to stop lying, badly, directly to our faces. I can't hear you when my bullshit detector alarm is screaming in my ear.
Friday, September 12, 2014
TNTP Proposes New Tenure Plan
TNTP, the Reimagine Teaching people and generators of plenty of fancy-looking reformy nonsense, have some more ideas for the post-Vergara world. They have decided to stake out a middle ground on the tenure wars, claiming that we don't need to eliminate it-- just fix it. And to that end, they have eight proposals to create "a more balanced system." It's all in this very fancy "paper," which I am now going to "respond to" in this "blog post."
1. Lengthen the Tryout Period
Awarding tenure after two years is too fast, say the reformsters. Let's make it five years.
Well, let me blunt. If your administrator can't tell whether someone's a keeper or not after two years, your administrator is a dope.
But why five years? Could it be because that will guarantee a more steady turnover, allowing us to pursue our goal of fewer (or none) career teachers, thereby reducing the costs of our school business (goodbye pay raises, and goodbye pension costs). As always, I'm really waiting for fans of the longer tryout period to wrap up their argument with, "...and that's why nobody should hire TFA short-timers ever."
2. Link Tenure to Strong Performance
Today, the only performance requirement for earning tenure is not being fired. In most districts, any teacher who remains on the payroll for a given amount of time is automatically tenure.
First of, depending on what you think constitutes being fired, this is basically saying that the only way to not get tenure is by not getting tenure, which is either very zen or very dumb. At any rate, I can tell you that my own small district has let teachers go prior to awarding tenure. But look-- there's a hugely weird hole in this argument. If your problem is that your district doesn't get rid of teachers during the years they don't have tenure, what possible good will it do to have more years of teachers not having tenure. If your administrators are too dopey to let poor tenureless teachers go, how will you fix that with more tenureless teachers??
Teachers should earn tenure only after showing they can consistently help their students make significant academic progress.
How dopey is this statement? Let me count the ways
1) Do you seriously want to claim that when it comes to your seven-year-old child, the only thing you want out of her teacher is to drag better test scores out of your offspring? That's it? Are you saying that when parents, particularly parents of small children, use the phrase "great teacher" that has no meaning beyond "teacher who got my child to score higher on those tests."
2) You have no idea how to tell if a teacher consistently helped students make significant academic progress. What you mean is, "teacher got standardized test scores to generate, via some invalid disproven VAM method, numbers that look good."
3. Make Tenure Revocable
"Teachers who earn poor evaluation ratings for two years in a row should not be allowed to keep tenure." So this suggestion means either A) tenure should not actually be tenure, which is absurd, or B) teachers with tenure should still be fireable, which is already the case. Next?
4. Focus Hearings on Students' Interests
This one starts out rather bizarrely. The argument is that while "just cause" hearings say they mean the district has to prove a good cause for dismissal, in practice, "districts have been held to a much higher standard." You would think a fancy thinky tank style paper might offer some support for that assertion, but you would be wrong.
TNTP claims that arbitrators often consider the possibility of remediation as a factor, and TNTP says that's like requiring courts to convict only if they think the defendant is both guilty and likely to repeat. It's an odd complaint, given that the justice system is just riddled with places where punishment and rehabilitation wrestle for the upper hand. From the juvenile justice system (predicated strictly on rehab) up to three strikes laws (too many repeats and the punishment increases), the justice system is absolutely loaded with considerations of both rehab potential and recidivism. But TNTP is in a hurry to draw a line between not raising student standardized test scores and becoming a convicted criminal, so there we are.
TNTP wants the hearing to focus on the potential harm to students if the teacher went back to the classroom. So, um, wait-- the arbitrator should consider how likely it is that the teacher will do a bad job again? As the argument ouroboros disappears into its own mouth, TNTP does note that superintendents should come down hard on any principal abusing the process through incompetence or bad intent.
5. Make Hearings More Efficient
Quicker is what we're looking for here. I don't think anybody at all disagrees with the notion of speedy hearings. "I'm so happy that I get to wait even longer to find out what's going to happen to my entire professional career," said no teacher ever. TNTP wants hearings to take a day, because screw complicated situations or a need for either side to present all of their information. But keep the proceedings aimed at producing speedy results? I think we can all get on board with that in principle.
6. Hire Independent Arbitrators
Arbitrators depend on school districts and teachers' unions for their employment, and so might be inclined to keep everybody happy. TNTP suggests using hearing officers such a judges to hear cases, because those guys never come with any biases, and because the court system is bored and empty with hardly any other work to do.
TNTP's complaint is not without merit, but as with much of the tenure argument, it assumes that unions have a real interest in preserving the jobs of bad teachers. That's generally not true. Teachers' unions have an interest in preserving the process, in making sure that there's no precedent by which a district can fire a teacher just because, you know, everybody knows he ought to be fired. The union's interest is in making sure that the district does its homework. That's all. It's not unheard of for unions to be quietly happy that they lost one and that Mr. McAwfulteach is out of there. But the process must be preserved, because contrary to reformster lore, there are not a gazillion bad teachers clogging schools nationwide.
7. Stop Tolerating Abuse and Sexual Misconduct
Well, other than framing this as a "When did you stop beating your wife" fallacy, there's nothing to argue with here.
8. Lower the Professional Stakes for Struggling Teachers
We should be able to fire teachers without taking away their licenses. That way, presumably, principals won't be so reluctant to fire teachers, and they will do it more often because they won't be "concerned about ending the careers of teachers who might perform well in other circumstances."
Which is an odd phrase to throw in there. I'm just trying to imagine a situation in which a tenured teacher deserves to be fired from one school, but would be a great addition at some other school. I'm having trouble.
Unless what we're hypothetically fixing here is the problem of high-poverty schools being career-enders under the reformster system. Because if you teach in a high-poverty school, you will have students whose standardized test scores are low, which means you will be judged to be ineffective, which means you will not get tenure or, perhaps, you will be fired for being ineffective. Given all that, nobody who understood the system would ever take a job in a high-poverty school ever. But if they knew that after they were inevitably fired, they could still get a job somewhere else, that would make it more appealing, maybe?
While TNTP's proposal has some worthwhile components, it still contains the basic outline of a system that throws out tenure and replaces it with a teacher employment system based on test results. That serves the interests of nobody (not teachers, students, taxpayers, citizens, or parents) except for folks who want to reimagine teaching as the sort of job that never becomes a lifetime career.
1. Lengthen the Tryout Period
Awarding tenure after two years is too fast, say the reformsters. Let's make it five years.
Well, let me blunt. If your administrator can't tell whether someone's a keeper or not after two years, your administrator is a dope.
But why five years? Could it be because that will guarantee a more steady turnover, allowing us to pursue our goal of fewer (or none) career teachers, thereby reducing the costs of our school business (goodbye pay raises, and goodbye pension costs). As always, I'm really waiting for fans of the longer tryout period to wrap up their argument with, "...and that's why nobody should hire TFA short-timers ever."
2. Link Tenure to Strong Performance
Today, the only performance requirement for earning tenure is not being fired. In most districts, any teacher who remains on the payroll for a given amount of time is automatically tenure.
First of, depending on what you think constitutes being fired, this is basically saying that the only way to not get tenure is by not getting tenure, which is either very zen or very dumb. At any rate, I can tell you that my own small district has let teachers go prior to awarding tenure. But look-- there's a hugely weird hole in this argument. If your problem is that your district doesn't get rid of teachers during the years they don't have tenure, what possible good will it do to have more years of teachers not having tenure. If your administrators are too dopey to let poor tenureless teachers go, how will you fix that with more tenureless teachers??
Teachers should earn tenure only after showing they can consistently help their students make significant academic progress.
How dopey is this statement? Let me count the ways
1) Do you seriously want to claim that when it comes to your seven-year-old child, the only thing you want out of her teacher is to drag better test scores out of your offspring? That's it? Are you saying that when parents, particularly parents of small children, use the phrase "great teacher" that has no meaning beyond "teacher who got my child to score higher on those tests."
2) You have no idea how to tell if a teacher consistently helped students make significant academic progress. What you mean is, "teacher got standardized test scores to generate, via some invalid disproven VAM method, numbers that look good."
3. Make Tenure Revocable
"Teachers who earn poor evaluation ratings for two years in a row should not be allowed to keep tenure." So this suggestion means either A) tenure should not actually be tenure, which is absurd, or B) teachers with tenure should still be fireable, which is already the case. Next?
4. Focus Hearings on Students' Interests
This one starts out rather bizarrely. The argument is that while "just cause" hearings say they mean the district has to prove a good cause for dismissal, in practice, "districts have been held to a much higher standard." You would think a fancy thinky tank style paper might offer some support for that assertion, but you would be wrong.
TNTP claims that arbitrators often consider the possibility of remediation as a factor, and TNTP says that's like requiring courts to convict only if they think the defendant is both guilty and likely to repeat. It's an odd complaint, given that the justice system is just riddled with places where punishment and rehabilitation wrestle for the upper hand. From the juvenile justice system (predicated strictly on rehab) up to three strikes laws (too many repeats and the punishment increases), the justice system is absolutely loaded with considerations of both rehab potential and recidivism. But TNTP is in a hurry to draw a line between not raising student standardized test scores and becoming a convicted criminal, so there we are.
TNTP wants the hearing to focus on the potential harm to students if the teacher went back to the classroom. So, um, wait-- the arbitrator should consider how likely it is that the teacher will do a bad job again? As the argument ouroboros disappears into its own mouth, TNTP does note that superintendents should come down hard on any principal abusing the process through incompetence or bad intent.
5. Make Hearings More Efficient
Quicker is what we're looking for here. I don't think anybody at all disagrees with the notion of speedy hearings. "I'm so happy that I get to wait even longer to find out what's going to happen to my entire professional career," said no teacher ever. TNTP wants hearings to take a day, because screw complicated situations or a need for either side to present all of their information. But keep the proceedings aimed at producing speedy results? I think we can all get on board with that in principle.
6. Hire Independent Arbitrators
Arbitrators depend on school districts and teachers' unions for their employment, and so might be inclined to keep everybody happy. TNTP suggests using hearing officers such a judges to hear cases, because those guys never come with any biases, and because the court system is bored and empty with hardly any other work to do.
TNTP's complaint is not without merit, but as with much of the tenure argument, it assumes that unions have a real interest in preserving the jobs of bad teachers. That's generally not true. Teachers' unions have an interest in preserving the process, in making sure that there's no precedent by which a district can fire a teacher just because, you know, everybody knows he ought to be fired. The union's interest is in making sure that the district does its homework. That's all. It's not unheard of for unions to be quietly happy that they lost one and that Mr. McAwfulteach is out of there. But the process must be preserved, because contrary to reformster lore, there are not a gazillion bad teachers clogging schools nationwide.
7. Stop Tolerating Abuse and Sexual Misconduct
Well, other than framing this as a "When did you stop beating your wife" fallacy, there's nothing to argue with here.
8. Lower the Professional Stakes for Struggling Teachers
We should be able to fire teachers without taking away their licenses. That way, presumably, principals won't be so reluctant to fire teachers, and they will do it more often because they won't be "concerned about ending the careers of teachers who might perform well in other circumstances."
Which is an odd phrase to throw in there. I'm just trying to imagine a situation in which a tenured teacher deserves to be fired from one school, but would be a great addition at some other school. I'm having trouble.
Unless what we're hypothetically fixing here is the problem of high-poverty schools being career-enders under the reformster system. Because if you teach in a high-poverty school, you will have students whose standardized test scores are low, which means you will be judged to be ineffective, which means you will not get tenure or, perhaps, you will be fired for being ineffective. Given all that, nobody who understood the system would ever take a job in a high-poverty school ever. But if they knew that after they were inevitably fired, they could still get a job somewhere else, that would make it more appealing, maybe?
While TNTP's proposal has some worthwhile components, it still contains the basic outline of a system that throws out tenure and replaces it with a teacher employment system based on test results. That serves the interests of nobody (not teachers, students, taxpayers, citizens, or parents) except for folks who want to reimagine teaching as the sort of job that never becomes a lifetime career.
Magical CCSS Teachers
Over at EdWeek, the Teaching Ahead roundtable is having a little debate about the Core's burgeoning image problem. I've made my own entry in the argument (feel free to check it out and like it as a way to register your CCSS love).
Tucked in among the various points of view, you'll find this piece by Jessica Keigan. "Abandoning the Common Core Would Be a Disservice to Students" belongs to that special category of Teacher Core Evangelism that I never cease to find weirdly fascinating.
Keigan, who is also a teacher leader with the Center for Teacher Quality, comes from the "How CCSS Changed My Classroom Life" school of Core boosting.
I used to have to teach novel-based units. Now, I have the freedom to choose what literature and non-fiction I want to use to teach students the skills that they will need to approach any complex texts that they will come across.
I'm not really sure that's a plus. Removing novels from the classroom is certainly an important part of test prep under the current version of Core-based reform and high stakes test heaven, but I haven't seen a thing to suggest that it's actually a good idea.
I used to have to ask my students to write papers that only required them to use basic thinking skills. Now I get to ask them to write arguments that utilize textual support to back up their claims and analysis.
I used to have to teach a laundry list of terms and ideas, but never had to ask my students to utilize their knowledge in a practical way. Now, I show them to how to tackle vocabulary in a variety of contexts and help them to apply their knowledge to a variety of contexts.
I never know what to make of these kind of praises for the Core. Does Keigan mean to say that she previously did not know how to do these things, or that she never bothered, or that her administration somehow forbid it? Before she's done in her essay and in the comments, she gives CCSS credit for skills mastery, metacognition, critical thinking, and skill. What exactly was keeping her from teaching these things before?
There's a bit more elaboration in the comments, where she responds to my usual "What couldn't you do before? What would you have to stop if CCSS went away? questions.
...my teaching prior to the implementation of Common Core wasn't that different. However, it was hindered by a set of standards ill equipped to inspire the professional dialogue, vertically aligned curriculum design and personal growth that I have experienced with the implementation of Common Core.
Okay. So her teaching hasn't been changed by the Core? The vertical alignment comes up again in her response, and I'm starting to wonder if there isn't another factor driving some of the Common Core love-- a factor of "We can use the Core as leverage for moving the other slackers in my department." In particular, I note her response to the second question which is "what I fear would be lost if Common Core was gone tomorrow is the trajectory of progress that I've seen with my students."
Is she saying that Common Core standards are useful because they put pressure on administration to fix problems in the district? In which case, do we really need or want national standards to fix local problems?
Keigan seems to have an odd idea of where Core opposition is coming from. She notes at the beginning that the conversation has been politicized (I can explain that-- the CCSS were created, promoted and adopted by political means) and notes that, "Strangely, I've yet to hear teachers called to offer their perspective." She observes that teacher are too busy "to philosophize about reform initiatives." (I would like to introduce her to some teachers).
Then, as she finishes, she says , "I am sad that so many people-- people who haven't been in a classroom since they were students-- are trying to shut down this kind of learning." Well, those are the kind of people who created this reformy baloney in the first place, but as far as opposition goes, I think she's missed a huge piece of the picture. There may be a conversation to be had here, but she'll need to better understand to whom and about what she is speaking.
I am sure there are Core supporters out there with whom a reasonable conversation can be had, but it's very difficult as long as they insist on imbuing the Core with magical properties and giving CCSS credit for everything any decent teacher ever did in a classroom.
Tucked in among the various points of view, you'll find this piece by Jessica Keigan. "Abandoning the Common Core Would Be a Disservice to Students" belongs to that special category of Teacher Core Evangelism that I never cease to find weirdly fascinating.
Keigan, who is also a teacher leader with the Center for Teacher Quality, comes from the "How CCSS Changed My Classroom Life" school of Core boosting.
I used to have to teach novel-based units. Now, I have the freedom to choose what literature and non-fiction I want to use to teach students the skills that they will need to approach any complex texts that they will come across.
I'm not really sure that's a plus. Removing novels from the classroom is certainly an important part of test prep under the current version of Core-based reform and high stakes test heaven, but I haven't seen a thing to suggest that it's actually a good idea.
I used to have to ask my students to write papers that only required them to use basic thinking skills. Now I get to ask them to write arguments that utilize textual support to back up their claims and analysis.
I used to have to teach a laundry list of terms and ideas, but never had to ask my students to utilize their knowledge in a practical way. Now, I show them to how to tackle vocabulary in a variety of contexts and help them to apply their knowledge to a variety of contexts.
I never know what to make of these kind of praises for the Core. Does Keigan mean to say that she previously did not know how to do these things, or that she never bothered, or that her administration somehow forbid it? Before she's done in her essay and in the comments, she gives CCSS credit for skills mastery, metacognition, critical thinking, and skill. What exactly was keeping her from teaching these things before?
There's a bit more elaboration in the comments, where she responds to my usual "What couldn't you do before? What would you have to stop if CCSS went away? questions.
...my teaching prior to the implementation of Common Core wasn't that different. However, it was hindered by a set of standards ill equipped to inspire the professional dialogue, vertically aligned curriculum design and personal growth that I have experienced with the implementation of Common Core.
Okay. So her teaching hasn't been changed by the Core? The vertical alignment comes up again in her response, and I'm starting to wonder if there isn't another factor driving some of the Common Core love-- a factor of "We can use the Core as leverage for moving the other slackers in my department." In particular, I note her response to the second question which is "what I fear would be lost if Common Core was gone tomorrow is the trajectory of progress that I've seen with my students."
Is she saying that Common Core standards are useful because they put pressure on administration to fix problems in the district? In which case, do we really need or want national standards to fix local problems?
Keigan seems to have an odd idea of where Core opposition is coming from. She notes at the beginning that the conversation has been politicized (I can explain that-- the CCSS were created, promoted and adopted by political means) and notes that, "Strangely, I've yet to hear teachers called to offer their perspective." She observes that teacher are too busy "to philosophize about reform initiatives." (I would like to introduce her to some teachers).
Then, as she finishes, she says , "I am sad that so many people-- people who haven't been in a classroom since they were students-- are trying to shut down this kind of learning." Well, those are the kind of people who created this reformy baloney in the first place, but as far as opposition goes, I think she's missed a huge piece of the picture. There may be a conversation to be had here, but she'll need to better understand to whom and about what she is speaking.
I am sure there are Core supporters out there with whom a reasonable conversation can be had, but it's very difficult as long as they insist on imbuing the Core with magical properties and giving CCSS credit for everything any decent teacher ever did in a classroom.
Thursday, September 11, 2014
Forever Less Than, Frederick Douglass, and No Excuses
My esteemed colleague and exceptional citizen journalist over at Edushyster has an interview up that is well worth your time to read.
She talks to Joan Goodman, director of the TFA program at U Penn, about the no excuse charters of Philadelphia (among other things, the piece is a reminder that we can not knee-jerkingly sort good guys and bad guys based simply on their affiliations). The interview is depressing.
Goodman: To reach these objectives, these schools have developed very elaborate behavioral regimes that they insist all children follow, starting in kindergarten. Submission, obedience, and self-control are very large values. They want kids to submit. You can’t really do this kind of instruction if you don’t have very submissive children who are capable of high levels of inhibition and do whatever they’re told.
You should read this piece. Go ahead. I'll wait right here until you get back...
Much about the article jumps out at me, but nothing quite so much as this.
But if you get them early, you develop their sense of self that accords with those of the authority. The adults know everything, they know nothing. Here’s what’s good, here’s what’s right. You’ll be successful and happy if you take on these characteristics. Without these rules you’ll be bad or impulsive and you’ll destroy your future. You may not be having fun but you’re doing what’s important. We know best. And the kids come to believe that. As the social psychologists have shown, in totalizing environments, that’s often the result. They call it “identification with the oppressor.” Here oppressor should be changed to authority. There is very, very strong authority in these schools. The teachers are novice teachers, so they get molded too. I don’t think you could take highly experienced teachers—20 years of running a classroom—and put them into these schools and have the same kind of experience. It’s a really interesting study to see how both the teachers and the kids get acculturated.
This sent my mind leaping back to this excerpt from My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass. Douglass has spoken previously in the book about his mistress Mrs. Auld, a woman whose first impulse when he is a child is to treat him as a worthwhile, human person. He finds her at first to be a warm-hearted woman, who even begins to teach him to read. But that is quickly put to a stop as she is taught to be a proper slave owner. Later he reflects on their altered relationship and on the nature of slavery itself.
I had been cheated. I saw through the attempt to keep me in ignorance; I saw that slaveholders would have gladly made me believe that they were merely acting under the authority of God in making a slave of me and in making slaves of others.... The smiles of my mistress could not remove the deep sorrow that dwelt in my young bosom. Indeed these, in time, came only to deepen my sorrow. She had changed, and the reader will see that I had changed too. We were both victims to the same overshadowing evil-- she as mistress, I as slave.
This was one of Douglass's genius insights-- slavery and the treatment of people as being Less Than was not only bad for the people so treated, but also bad for those who deliver the treatment. Mrs. Auld had to become less human, less decent, less Christian, in order to treat her slaves as less worthy, just plain less than.
So in reading the Edushyster interview, it's heartbreaking to see not just the students being treated as if they are Less Than, but the entire new generation of young teachers being taught to do it.
Dammit. Life is just too short, way too short, to make such a large, concerted effort to crush every bit of young independence under institutional heels. Yes, with Goodman I share a certain affection for order and stability, and I know how helpful and powerful that atmosphere or order and stability can be in a classroom. But this goes way beyond that.
This is demanding that the students give in, that they submit to those who are More Than they are-- more wise, more powerful, more important, more worthy of independence. This is not about learning self-control-- it's about learning to surrender all control of self to those who are More Than. And you cannot learn any of that without also absorbing the message that you are Less Than.
What earthly good is that? What remotely justifiable goal is furthered by taking a bunch of children and beating them down, of forcing them to base every moment of their day around the understanding that they are Less Than, that their impulses, ideas, goals, desires are unworthy of being a basis on which they make decisions for themselves-- even decisions as small and simple as when to sharpen a pencil or where to put their hands?
This is not just bad education policy. This is morally indefensible. And I cannot even imagine how it must warp the professional and personal ethics of teachers in this building to justify their actions to themselves. Not even "we are just following orders" would be enough to keep this behavior from cramping and twisting a soul.
There's only one possible way to self-justify the no-excuses approach, and that is to accept the Less Than narrative. These children aren't capable of more civilized behavior. We must keep them under our thumbs because otherwise they will just succumb to savage impulses. The only way they can achieve higher order thinking and development is if we guide and control them every step of the way. These are, of course, arguments that were used to justify slavery. Because when we institutionalize the idea that certain people are Less Than, there are very few limits to how low we will stoop.
She talks to Joan Goodman, director of the TFA program at U Penn, about the no excuse charters of Philadelphia (among other things, the piece is a reminder that we can not knee-jerkingly sort good guys and bad guys based simply on their affiliations). The interview is depressing.
Goodman: To reach these objectives, these schools have developed very elaborate behavioral regimes that they insist all children follow, starting in kindergarten. Submission, obedience, and self-control are very large values. They want kids to submit. You can’t really do this kind of instruction if you don’t have very submissive children who are capable of high levels of inhibition and do whatever they’re told.
You should read this piece. Go ahead. I'll wait right here until you get back...
Much about the article jumps out at me, but nothing quite so much as this.
But if you get them early, you develop their sense of self that accords with those of the authority. The adults know everything, they know nothing. Here’s what’s good, here’s what’s right. You’ll be successful and happy if you take on these characteristics. Without these rules you’ll be bad or impulsive and you’ll destroy your future. You may not be having fun but you’re doing what’s important. We know best. And the kids come to believe that. As the social psychologists have shown, in totalizing environments, that’s often the result. They call it “identification with the oppressor.” Here oppressor should be changed to authority. There is very, very strong authority in these schools. The teachers are novice teachers, so they get molded too. I don’t think you could take highly experienced teachers—20 years of running a classroom—and put them into these schools and have the same kind of experience. It’s a really interesting study to see how both the teachers and the kids get acculturated.
This sent my mind leaping back to this excerpt from My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass. Douglass has spoken previously in the book about his mistress Mrs. Auld, a woman whose first impulse when he is a child is to treat him as a worthwhile, human person. He finds her at first to be a warm-hearted woman, who even begins to teach him to read. But that is quickly put to a stop as she is taught to be a proper slave owner. Later he reflects on their altered relationship and on the nature of slavery itself.
I had been cheated. I saw through the attempt to keep me in ignorance; I saw that slaveholders would have gladly made me believe that they were merely acting under the authority of God in making a slave of me and in making slaves of others.... The smiles of my mistress could not remove the deep sorrow that dwelt in my young bosom. Indeed these, in time, came only to deepen my sorrow. She had changed, and the reader will see that I had changed too. We were both victims to the same overshadowing evil-- she as mistress, I as slave.
This was one of Douglass's genius insights-- slavery and the treatment of people as being Less Than was not only bad for the people so treated, but also bad for those who deliver the treatment. Mrs. Auld had to become less human, less decent, less Christian, in order to treat her slaves as less worthy, just plain less than.
So in reading the Edushyster interview, it's heartbreaking to see not just the students being treated as if they are Less Than, but the entire new generation of young teachers being taught to do it.
Dammit. Life is just too short, way too short, to make such a large, concerted effort to crush every bit of young independence under institutional heels. Yes, with Goodman I share a certain affection for order and stability, and I know how helpful and powerful that atmosphere or order and stability can be in a classroom. But this goes way beyond that.
This is demanding that the students give in, that they submit to those who are More Than they are-- more wise, more powerful, more important, more worthy of independence. This is not about learning self-control-- it's about learning to surrender all control of self to those who are More Than. And you cannot learn any of that without also absorbing the message that you are Less Than.
What earthly good is that? What remotely justifiable goal is furthered by taking a bunch of children and beating them down, of forcing them to base every moment of their day around the understanding that they are Less Than, that their impulses, ideas, goals, desires are unworthy of being a basis on which they make decisions for themselves-- even decisions as small and simple as when to sharpen a pencil or where to put their hands?
This is not just bad education policy. This is morally indefensible. And I cannot even imagine how it must warp the professional and personal ethics of teachers in this building to justify their actions to themselves. Not even "we are just following orders" would be enough to keep this behavior from cramping and twisting a soul.
There's only one possible way to self-justify the no-excuses approach, and that is to accept the Less Than narrative. These children aren't capable of more civilized behavior. We must keep them under our thumbs because otherwise they will just succumb to savage impulses. The only way they can achieve higher order thinking and development is if we guide and control them every step of the way. These are, of course, arguments that were used to justify slavery. Because when we institutionalize the idea that certain people are Less Than, there are very few limits to how low we will stoop.
Wednesday, September 10, 2014
What Should Arne Do?
Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has taken plenty of grief.
He has been criticized by folks on the right who believe he is, at the very least, a hood ornament on the Great Studebaker of Federal Intrusion into education. He has been criticized by folks on the left for being the faceplate on the great machine that is dismantling the US public school system.
Arne is easy to pick apart (I should know-- I've done it here, here, here and here, to give just a few examples), and he invites it with such fumbling footinmouthery like his classic slam on white suburban moms. He buddied up with reformsters like John White and Kevin Huffman, cheered for the winners of the Vergara anti-tenure lawsuit, and called Hurrican Katrina a great step forward for New Orleans.
And so the pile gets bigger and bigger. The NEA called for his resignation. The AFT voted that he be sent to his room to think about what he's done. Conservative CCSS boosters blame his intervention for damaging the Common Core brand. A soon-to-be-published Vanderbilt Law Review article asserts that the signature NCLB waiver program is illegal. NEA president-elect Lily E. Garcia characterized him as well-meaning, sincere, and dead wrong about just about everything. And that's about the nicest thing anyone has had to say about him in a while.
We've hammered Duncan for what he's gotten wrong. But as teachers, we know that you don't foster improvement by focusing on the negatives. Can we come up with some suggestions for what Duncan should do? Let me give it a shot with the following suggestions.
Meditate in Pursuit of Personal Integration
I'm not kidding. There has to be a serious discontinuity somewhere inside Duncan's head, because one of his defining characteristics as Secretary of Education is that the words that come out of his mouth and the policies that come out of his office don't match.
It has been that way since Day One. Take this quote from his confirmation hearing:
I think the more our schools become community centers, the more they become centers of community and family life, the better our children can do.
There is more in a similar vein. And an admirable vein it is, too, but Duncan's office has been a huge booster of the charter school movement, including the kind of charter-on-steroid action we're seeing places like New Orleans and Newark, the kind of chartery "save kids from their zip code" systems that actively oppose neighborhood and community schools.
Duncan's entire tenure has been more of the same. He uses rhetoric about how teachers deserve more respect and better pay, but he also applauds the death of tenure in California and suggests that educational mediocrity is enabled by the rampant lying of educators. He speaks about the importance of listening to teachers, but he rarely encounters a teacher who hasn't been vetted and screened. Then we have his recent discovery that tests are being over-emphasized in schools across America, a shocking development that he deplores without any recognition that such test reverence is a direct result of his own policies.
When I look at the huge Antarctic-sized gulf between Duncan's words and his actions, I can only conclude one of the following is true
1) He is dissembling in the political style
2) He doesn't understand the effects of administration policies
3) He has in his head a powerful barrier against cognitive dissonance
4) He is privately wracked with existential angst
5) He is full of bovine-issued fertilizer
I'll admit that some of these are more likely than others. But whatever the case, Duncan needs to align his words and his policies, because either his policies are a betrayal of his principles, or his words are lies. Either way, he needs to check himself. As a nation, we need to have an honest conversation about the policies the government is actually pursuing, not a pleasing word-massage that has no connection to reality. The honest conversation might not be fun or pleasant, but we still need to have it.
Do the Right Thing
The best positive steps for Duncan to take would be to actually reverse the destructive policies that he has been pursuing. I know high government officials rarely write their own speeches, so let me offer a rough draft that Duncan can feel free to use:
Four years ago, with the best of intentions, we embarked on an attempt to rescue American education from the flawed policies of No Child Left Behind and renew our commitment to our children's education. In pursuing those worthy goals, we made mistakes. I stand before you today to announce that we are prepared to admit those errors and correct our course.
We believed in the promise of charter schools, but we have seen that, unregulated and unmonitored, charters have become a means of bilking taxpayers and destroying communities. We will require all states to return to tight caps on charter creation until we can develop policies that will allow charters to be developed responsibly, and not as get rich quick schemes for educational amateurs.
We believed that the development of national standards would bring consistency to our schools and economies of scale to the educational marketplace, which would in turn make our nation's school system more efficient and economical. We can now see that no such thing occured. One size does not fit all, and the profit motive has no place in the classroom. As of today, we are withdrawing our support for any sort of national standards movement that does not come from the nation's schools themselves.
We believed in the value of testing as a way of measuring educational progress. We have come to understand that tests provide a poor measure of the rich educational experiences we desire for all our children, and that our demand that tests be central to all aspects of education has simply warped and twisted the fabric of American schools. As of today, we will remove all federal standardized testing requirements, and we will ensure that such tests will never be used to evaluate students, teachers or schools ever again.
We recognize at last that the problems of poverty-strained schools cannot be solved by tests, attempts to shuffle teachers around, additional bureaucracy, and an infusion of untrained teacher temps. The solution for these schools is to work for long-term solutions to the problems of poverty, and, in the short term, blunt those effects by making sure that economic and educational resources are directed to those schools that cannot secure such resources on their own.
Finally, we pledge to take a step back and to trust the people of states and local school districts to make wise and well-informed decisions about their own education. We will listen to teachers and local officials.In the coming year, we will not issue a single educational edict from DC except to implement the changes that I have just described. And we will not take a single meeting with corporate executives from any education-based businesses. If they want your business, if they want to exert influence over you, they must come to you-- not to us. We are here to help you. We are going to stop telling you what to do.
See how easy that is? Duncan could be a hero tomorrow. If he needs a quiet place to think it over and get in touch with his better side, I have a spare bedroom and I live right next to a river. He's welcome any time, and I promise not to say a single mean thing to him while he's here.
Originally posted at View from the Cheap Seats
He has been criticized by folks on the right who believe he is, at the very least, a hood ornament on the Great Studebaker of Federal Intrusion into education. He has been criticized by folks on the left for being the faceplate on the great machine that is dismantling the US public school system.
Arne is easy to pick apart (I should know-- I've done it here, here, here and here, to give just a few examples), and he invites it with such fumbling footinmouthery like his classic slam on white suburban moms. He buddied up with reformsters like John White and Kevin Huffman, cheered for the winners of the Vergara anti-tenure lawsuit, and called Hurrican Katrina a great step forward for New Orleans.
And so the pile gets bigger and bigger. The NEA called for his resignation. The AFT voted that he be sent to his room to think about what he's done. Conservative CCSS boosters blame his intervention for damaging the Common Core brand. A soon-to-be-published Vanderbilt Law Review article asserts that the signature NCLB waiver program is illegal. NEA president-elect Lily E. Garcia characterized him as well-meaning, sincere, and dead wrong about just about everything. And that's about the nicest thing anyone has had to say about him in a while.
We've hammered Duncan for what he's gotten wrong. But as teachers, we know that you don't foster improvement by focusing on the negatives. Can we come up with some suggestions for what Duncan should do? Let me give it a shot with the following suggestions.
Meditate in Pursuit of Personal Integration
I'm not kidding. There has to be a serious discontinuity somewhere inside Duncan's head, because one of his defining characteristics as Secretary of Education is that the words that come out of his mouth and the policies that come out of his office don't match.
It has been that way since Day One. Take this quote from his confirmation hearing:
I think the more our schools become community centers, the more they become centers of community and family life, the better our children can do.
There is more in a similar vein. And an admirable vein it is, too, but Duncan's office has been a huge booster of the charter school movement, including the kind of charter-on-steroid action we're seeing places like New Orleans and Newark, the kind of chartery "save kids from their zip code" systems that actively oppose neighborhood and community schools.
Duncan's entire tenure has been more of the same. He uses rhetoric about how teachers deserve more respect and better pay, but he also applauds the death of tenure in California and suggests that educational mediocrity is enabled by the rampant lying of educators. He speaks about the importance of listening to teachers, but he rarely encounters a teacher who hasn't been vetted and screened. Then we have his recent discovery that tests are being over-emphasized in schools across America, a shocking development that he deplores without any recognition that such test reverence is a direct result of his own policies.
When I look at the huge Antarctic-sized gulf between Duncan's words and his actions, I can only conclude one of the following is true
1) He is dissembling in the political style
2) He doesn't understand the effects of administration policies
3) He has in his head a powerful barrier against cognitive dissonance
4) He is privately wracked with existential angst
5) He is full of bovine-issued fertilizer
I'll admit that some of these are more likely than others. But whatever the case, Duncan needs to align his words and his policies, because either his policies are a betrayal of his principles, or his words are lies. Either way, he needs to check himself. As a nation, we need to have an honest conversation about the policies the government is actually pursuing, not a pleasing word-massage that has no connection to reality. The honest conversation might not be fun or pleasant, but we still need to have it.
Do the Right Thing
The best positive steps for Duncan to take would be to actually reverse the destructive policies that he has been pursuing. I know high government officials rarely write their own speeches, so let me offer a rough draft that Duncan can feel free to use:
Four years ago, with the best of intentions, we embarked on an attempt to rescue American education from the flawed policies of No Child Left Behind and renew our commitment to our children's education. In pursuing those worthy goals, we made mistakes. I stand before you today to announce that we are prepared to admit those errors and correct our course.
We believed in the promise of charter schools, but we have seen that, unregulated and unmonitored, charters have become a means of bilking taxpayers and destroying communities. We will require all states to return to tight caps on charter creation until we can develop policies that will allow charters to be developed responsibly, and not as get rich quick schemes for educational amateurs.
We believed that the development of national standards would bring consistency to our schools and economies of scale to the educational marketplace, which would in turn make our nation's school system more efficient and economical. We can now see that no such thing occured. One size does not fit all, and the profit motive has no place in the classroom. As of today, we are withdrawing our support for any sort of national standards movement that does not come from the nation's schools themselves.
We believed in the value of testing as a way of measuring educational progress. We have come to understand that tests provide a poor measure of the rich educational experiences we desire for all our children, and that our demand that tests be central to all aspects of education has simply warped and twisted the fabric of American schools. As of today, we will remove all federal standardized testing requirements, and we will ensure that such tests will never be used to evaluate students, teachers or schools ever again.
We recognize at last that the problems of poverty-strained schools cannot be solved by tests, attempts to shuffle teachers around, additional bureaucracy, and an infusion of untrained teacher temps. The solution for these schools is to work for long-term solutions to the problems of poverty, and, in the short term, blunt those effects by making sure that economic and educational resources are directed to those schools that cannot secure such resources on their own.
Finally, we pledge to take a step back and to trust the people of states and local school districts to make wise and well-informed decisions about their own education. We will listen to teachers and local officials.In the coming year, we will not issue a single educational edict from DC except to implement the changes that I have just described. And we will not take a single meeting with corporate executives from any education-based businesses. If they want your business, if they want to exert influence over you, they must come to you-- not to us. We are here to help you. We are going to stop telling you what to do.
See how easy that is? Duncan could be a hero tomorrow. If he needs a quiet place to think it over and get in touch with his better side, I have a spare bedroom and I live right next to a river. He's welcome any time, and I promise not to say a single mean thing to him while he's here.
Originally posted at View from the Cheap Seats
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)