Casie Jones is concerned, maybe even upset. Over at Bluff City Education, she would like to explain why Tennessee cannot, should not, abandon the Common Core now.
I'm a student of the Teachers Says We Must Support The Core narrative in its many not-very-varied forms, and Jones follows most of the standard bullet points., starting with her title: "Sabotaging Common Core Sabotages Teachers, Students." "Sabotaging" is a great word choice, because it assumes that the Core is a Great Thing that is Actually Working.
Tennessee schools were sucking hard enough to hoover the chrome off a trailer hitch. Furthermore, they were coping with No Child Left Behind Adequate Yearly Progress demands with the nationally-favored technique of "gaming the numbers," also known as "cheating."
So thank goodness the Core came along to fix all of that. Which of course takes us to the classic Teacher Core Booster line-- previously I couldn't do my job, but once I adopted the Core, my classroom came alive, my students prospered and grew wings, and well, here you go. You may say it's mean for me to pick on Jones for previously being incompetent, that it is a personal and unwarranted attack. But the implication of these personal reformation stories is, "Hey, you don't know how to do your job, either, so you need the Core." Which is also a personal and unwarranted attack on every other teacher in the country.
What I find bizarre about these Giant Core Revelation stories is that they are unnecessary for a sales job. I'm always looking for ways to grow and develop, and I'll look at anything that might help. But don't tell me, "You suck. You need to change everything" and don't tell me, "You should really use this new technique called Reading Books."
There are two interesting moments in Jones's testimonial. One is her protest against the people waging the "war against Common Core."
After testifying several times before Tennessee legislators, I realized that those who are making these decisions for “our students” are not people who have taught in a classroom. They are not people who spend time in schools and they have never worked with the standards themselves. They are politicians, business leaders, and social representatives who have been easily swayed by the outcry against the standard...
Where, I wonder, does she think the Core and the impetus for enshrining it in the nation's schools came from? Has she met David "I'm an educational amateur and proud of it" Coleman? Or the US Chamber of Commerce? Or Arne Duncan? Hell, she is in Tennessee, where the entire ed department is run by a TFA grad who has spent less time in a classroom than a devoted PTA room mother!! The people who made the decision that "our students" need the Core in the first place were politicians, business leaders, and a coalition of rich and powerful amateurs. I understand her frustration that political considerations are now starting to force the Core out-- but it was political considerations that forced the Core in in the first place! Live by the sword, and all that.
The other moment comes in her Tale of How Common Core Saved Tennessee.
Modifications to the math and English/language arts standards made their way into the classroom, followed by the talk of a new rigorous assessment that would finally push us to the next level.
Correct. At its heart, the Common Core is test driven. Jones is seriously arguing that standardized testing should be used to drive Tennessee's curriculum, that the way to get to a high quality education is by giving harder standardized tests. Which is just one more reason why people like me, people who are teachers and do work in a classroom are arguing against Common Core and the assorted crappy reform ideas stapled to it.
You don't write strong, powerful, useful curricula with tests. You don't drive-- or measure-- excellence with a bubble sheet (and if you're clicking answers on a screen, it's still a bubble test). A new rigorous test will not take you to the next level of anything except the next level of standardized testing.
After a stirring final graf exhorting other teachers to speak up of their Core love and listing some specific Core benefits that are all Things Good Teachers Already Know To Do, Jones winds up with this sentence-
We owe it to our students to demonstrate commitment to a plan that took guts to implement and will bring glory if we do not give up!
Well, it didn't take guts implement it. It took money and political connections and some back room power brokering, and there is no glory to be found in pursuing this unproven, failing slab of education malpractice.
Thursday, November 6, 2014
Churning Those $125K Teachers
The Atlantic asks the question, "What Happens To Test Scores When Teachers Are Paid $125,000 a Year?"
They're taking a look at the Equity Project Chart School in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan, and what they found are two things-- neither of which are surprising.
The basic concept of the school, one we've heard batted about many times, is get rid of administrative positions and create a high base salary for teachers. We don't talk much about the threat to administrators in charter models, but when you think about it, what does a modern charter operation need a real principal for? Policies and procedures are set by the main office, and educational programs come in a can. Mostly we just need someone in the front office to shuffle papers. Meanwhile, let's make all the teachers do their own disciplinary work and other administrative chores. If we're giving them the former Assistant Principal's salary, they can go ahead and do his job, too. Double the salary is perhaps less impressive when it comes with double the work.
The progress of the school was studied by Mathematica, a research-for-hire favorite of the Gates Foundation, so you know the results will be as totally dependable as research on tobacco health effects sponsored by the Tobacco Institute. They measured the impact in years of learning (a thing that can't actually be done-- imagine trying to measure student heighgt in "years of growing") and discovered that after a couple of years, Equity was doing AWESOME-- particularly when it comes to math. 46% of their eighth graders passed the city math test, which is better than most schools. I'm sure that the Equity student population is totally reflective of the city-wide student population. I'm also sure that they don't just spend most of their time doing test prep.
"Hey," you say. "Results are results. And how about those massive teacher salaries?"
Glad you asked. You might wonder how a school could afford to pump so much money into a base salary. And beyond that, there are supposed to be bonuses after two years of successful work! How will we keep from going broke?
Did I mention there's also no tenure? Does that suggest a solution to you?
That's right. You avoid having to pay those two year bonuses by just firing everybody before they can get them.
Mind you, by reformsters own test-passing standards, Equity is somewhat successful, which means we're going to give teachers the credit for that, right? But no-- somehow Equity achieved great results with what was apparently a crappy staff. Over four years, 20 out of 43 teachers did not return for a second year.
Some quit before they could be fired, but sixteen of those were not rehired after their first year. I bet they feature these numbers prominently in their pitch to recruit new teachers.
There's your charter model-- more churn than a fast food restaurant, less job security than a grocery store bagger.
Note: For another, somewhat more grown up, look at the Equity Project, check out this post at the Shanker Blog.
They're taking a look at the Equity Project Chart School in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan, and what they found are two things-- neither of which are surprising.
The basic concept of the school, one we've heard batted about many times, is get rid of administrative positions and create a high base salary for teachers. We don't talk much about the threat to administrators in charter models, but when you think about it, what does a modern charter operation need a real principal for? Policies and procedures are set by the main office, and educational programs come in a can. Mostly we just need someone in the front office to shuffle papers. Meanwhile, let's make all the teachers do their own disciplinary work and other administrative chores. If we're giving them the former Assistant Principal's salary, they can go ahead and do his job, too. Double the salary is perhaps less impressive when it comes with double the work.
The progress of the school was studied by Mathematica, a research-for-hire favorite of the Gates Foundation, so you know the results will be as totally dependable as research on tobacco health effects sponsored by the Tobacco Institute. They measured the impact in years of learning (a thing that can't actually be done-- imagine trying to measure student heighgt in "years of growing") and discovered that after a couple of years, Equity was doing AWESOME-- particularly when it comes to math. 46% of their eighth graders passed the city math test, which is better than most schools. I'm sure that the Equity student population is totally reflective of the city-wide student population. I'm also sure that they don't just spend most of their time doing test prep.
"Hey," you say. "Results are results. And how about those massive teacher salaries?"
Glad you asked. You might wonder how a school could afford to pump so much money into a base salary. And beyond that, there are supposed to be bonuses after two years of successful work! How will we keep from going broke?
Did I mention there's also no tenure? Does that suggest a solution to you?
That's right. You avoid having to pay those two year bonuses by just firing everybody before they can get them.
Mind you, by reformsters own test-passing standards, Equity is somewhat successful, which means we're going to give teachers the credit for that, right? But no-- somehow Equity achieved great results with what was apparently a crappy staff. Over four years, 20 out of 43 teachers did not return for a second year.
Some quit before they could be fired, but sixteen of those were not rehired after their first year. I bet they feature these numbers prominently in their pitch to recruit new teachers.
There's your charter model-- more churn than a fast food restaurant, less job security than a grocery store bagger.
Note: For another, somewhat more grown up, look at the Equity Project, check out this post at the Shanker Blog.
Wednesday, November 5, 2014
So, About That Election
Apparently there's a law requiring all bloggers and commentators to write election wrap-up pieces within twenty-four hours, and the clock is ticking on me here.
So what does the election mean to the Reformsters and the Resistance?
Decoupling Could Happen
Not of Common Core and High Stakes Testing, silly. That's never going to happen.
Nobody ran on support of Common Core, and lots of people ran against it. Ted Cruz felt emboldened enough by results to call for a repeal of Common Core, a gesture has no real meaning other than as a signal that the windsock that is Cruz has a sense of which way the CCSS wind is blowing.
But you know what nobody ran against successfully (almost-- but we'll get there in a moment)? Charter schools. Several privatization fans noted immediately that election results were good news for charter school vultures and privateers (they might not have phrased it quite like that).
Point is, we're seeing repeatedly that you can be pro-charter and pro-reform and simultaneously anti-Core and anti-reform. This has been coming for a while. Initially, privateers needed the Core and its attendant testing to "prove" that public schools were failing and needed to be "rescued" by charters. But even as Common Core has turned into political poison, privateers have learned that starving public schools of resources (Philly) or simply changing to charters because, hey, you have the power and you want to do it (Chicago, Cleveland, New York City) are effective all by themselves.
Not only can conservative-labeled politicians safely jettison the Core while keeping their support for everything else, they pretty much need to. It will be more true than ever that you can't assume that someone's opposition to the Core goes hand in hand with support for public schools. I think we're actually going to see a period of shuffling, because Dem-GOP-charter fan-Core supporter-etc-etc don't necessarily help us tell the sides apart. Stay tuned for Bush 2016.
The Democratic Party Still Has Its Head Way Up Its Butt
Over at Slate, John Dickerson argues that the Republicans won by running against Obama. While that undoubtedly helped drive plenty of GOP voting, he doesn't note that it probably drove Democrat voting (and non-voting) as well. This administration has been relentlessly anti-public education and anti-teacher, and if they were figuring that the Big Teacher Unions would deliver the votes of millions of shat-upon teachers anyway, they had simply failed to note that the union leaders have firmly aligned themselves with the power elite, and not the members they allegedly represent.
It was positively painful to watch Randi Weingarten help torpedo Zephyr Teachout's candidacy. When Time magazine put up an ugly cover, she could muster some fight and zip, including a piece of sidewalk kabuki. But when Andrew Cuomo directed as direct and unambiguous threat against teachers and public education-- certainly as clear and vicious as anything that ever came from a GOP politician-- the crickets chirped. Okay, she wrote a strongly worded letter. While crickets chirped.
The Democratic party is currently clueless and spineless. I could respect them a little if they were blatant, unapologetic sell-outs, instead of trying to pretend that they have some feelings for the 99%. I could respect them a lot if they actually stood up for the people whose votes they take for granted. I'm angry that they have reduced the national unions to puppet extensions of the party, robbing the leadership of any right to command respect in or outside the profession. The Democratic Party has tried selling off seats at the table, but it turns out that it's the kids table. Now the party just runs on a platform of, "You know you're never going to cast your ballot for that other guy, so shut up and give us your vote, already."
The Democrats deserved to lose last night (even the ones who won by polishing their 1% credentials). I do hope they'll figure out why.
The Cavalry Is Not Coming
My favorite thing about the end of an election is that I can stop listening to people who think that once we elect Chris Pootwaddle to office, Everything Will Be Great. It's not that political solutions don't matter. It's not that politicians can't make things better-- or worse. But this idea that the Right Person in office will help is self-defeating and foolish.
At the very best, when Pootwaddle gets into office, the newly-elected office-holder will not be able to accomplish anything without a ton of ground support. At the worst, Pootwaddle won't be able to get anything done. Well, actually, the worst is when Pootwaddle turns out to be just as bad as the last one.
Which brings me to Pennsylvania.
Commonwealth Lessons
There are several things to note about my state.
One is that Corbett largely lost by having screwed with education too much. And not in abstract ways-- what killed him was that everybody in PA knows a school that's been downsized, a college that cut programs and got more expensive. And they have heard, from a chorus of people who wouldn't shut up about it, how all the blame for that lay at Corbett's door. Kudos to the many actual grassroots organizations that appeared in the Keystone State.
That's an extraordinary accomplishment, particularly when you consider that when Corbett repeatedly argued that he did not cut $1 billion from education, he was kind of telling the truth. Democrat Ed Rendell did that, covering it by using stimulus money exactly they way he wasn't supposed to-- to fill the regular operating budget gap. Corbett inherited the gap, and decided not to plug it, and to screw with the funding program to the detriment of poor districts, and to let cyber charters drain public schools dry. Corbett was terrible at PR, and he could never overcome the umpty gabillion Pennsylvanians who saw the real effects of his slash and privatize ways.
Corbett's fall (the first involuntary one-term governor in PA history) was a direct result of his reformy education ways. He is a cautionary tale for every reformster politician out there. (Starting with, I hope, Tom Wolf, who before he got electoral religion and smelled Corbett's blood, liked the charter school movement just fine. So, we'll see.)
Other Stuff
I suspect that most of the real election stories are local, and that's where a lot of the good coverage is. Believing that we can sort out the effect of education policy in all that is kind of-- well, it's like believing that you can take a student's test scores and correct for all other influences so that you can create a reliable Value Added Measure of the teacher's influence. So, baloney.
I think it was not a great night for the Core, an opportunity for soul-searching and navel-gazing among Democrats and union leaders, and really really bad news in some states for fans of public education and actual trained and qualified teaching staffs.
I have no cheery spin to put on that. In some places in this country, it sucks to be a teacher these days. But the good news from PA is that there are limits to what the public will put up with, particularly if they become well-educated about the source of their dismay. The reformsters may have had a good election this year, but they didn't win a free pass.
So what does the election mean to the Reformsters and the Resistance?
Decoupling Could Happen
Not of Common Core and High Stakes Testing, silly. That's never going to happen.
Nobody ran on support of Common Core, and lots of people ran against it. Ted Cruz felt emboldened enough by results to call for a repeal of Common Core, a gesture has no real meaning other than as a signal that the windsock that is Cruz has a sense of which way the CCSS wind is blowing.
But you know what nobody ran against successfully (almost-- but we'll get there in a moment)? Charter schools. Several privatization fans noted immediately that election results were good news for charter school vultures and privateers (they might not have phrased it quite like that).
Point is, we're seeing repeatedly that you can be pro-charter and pro-reform and simultaneously anti-Core and anti-reform. This has been coming for a while. Initially, privateers needed the Core and its attendant testing to "prove" that public schools were failing and needed to be "rescued" by charters. But even as Common Core has turned into political poison, privateers have learned that starving public schools of resources (Philly) or simply changing to charters because, hey, you have the power and you want to do it (Chicago, Cleveland, New York City) are effective all by themselves.
Not only can conservative-labeled politicians safely jettison the Core while keeping their support for everything else, they pretty much need to. It will be more true than ever that you can't assume that someone's opposition to the Core goes hand in hand with support for public schools. I think we're actually going to see a period of shuffling, because Dem-GOP-charter fan-Core supporter-etc-etc don't necessarily help us tell the sides apart. Stay tuned for Bush 2016.
The Democratic Party Still Has Its Head Way Up Its Butt
Over at Slate, John Dickerson argues that the Republicans won by running against Obama. While that undoubtedly helped drive plenty of GOP voting, he doesn't note that it probably drove Democrat voting (and non-voting) as well. This administration has been relentlessly anti-public education and anti-teacher, and if they were figuring that the Big Teacher Unions would deliver the votes of millions of shat-upon teachers anyway, they had simply failed to note that the union leaders have firmly aligned themselves with the power elite, and not the members they allegedly represent.
It was positively painful to watch Randi Weingarten help torpedo Zephyr Teachout's candidacy. When Time magazine put up an ugly cover, she could muster some fight and zip, including a piece of sidewalk kabuki. But when Andrew Cuomo directed as direct and unambiguous threat against teachers and public education-- certainly as clear and vicious as anything that ever came from a GOP politician-- the crickets chirped. Okay, she wrote a strongly worded letter. While crickets chirped.
The Democratic party is currently clueless and spineless. I could respect them a little if they were blatant, unapologetic sell-outs, instead of trying to pretend that they have some feelings for the 99%. I could respect them a lot if they actually stood up for the people whose votes they take for granted. I'm angry that they have reduced the national unions to puppet extensions of the party, robbing the leadership of any right to command respect in or outside the profession. The Democratic Party has tried selling off seats at the table, but it turns out that it's the kids table. Now the party just runs on a platform of, "You know you're never going to cast your ballot for that other guy, so shut up and give us your vote, already."
The Democrats deserved to lose last night (even the ones who won by polishing their 1% credentials). I do hope they'll figure out why.
The Cavalry Is Not Coming
My favorite thing about the end of an election is that I can stop listening to people who think that once we elect Chris Pootwaddle to office, Everything Will Be Great. It's not that political solutions don't matter. It's not that politicians can't make things better-- or worse. But this idea that the Right Person in office will help is self-defeating and foolish.
At the very best, when Pootwaddle gets into office, the newly-elected office-holder will not be able to accomplish anything without a ton of ground support. At the worst, Pootwaddle won't be able to get anything done. Well, actually, the worst is when Pootwaddle turns out to be just as bad as the last one.
Which brings me to Pennsylvania.
Commonwealth Lessons
There are several things to note about my state.
One is that Corbett largely lost by having screwed with education too much. And not in abstract ways-- what killed him was that everybody in PA knows a school that's been downsized, a college that cut programs and got more expensive. And they have heard, from a chorus of people who wouldn't shut up about it, how all the blame for that lay at Corbett's door. Kudos to the many actual grassroots organizations that appeared in the Keystone State.
That's an extraordinary accomplishment, particularly when you consider that when Corbett repeatedly argued that he did not cut $1 billion from education, he was kind of telling the truth. Democrat Ed Rendell did that, covering it by using stimulus money exactly they way he wasn't supposed to-- to fill the regular operating budget gap. Corbett inherited the gap, and decided not to plug it, and to screw with the funding program to the detriment of poor districts, and to let cyber charters drain public schools dry. Corbett was terrible at PR, and he could never overcome the umpty gabillion Pennsylvanians who saw the real effects of his slash and privatize ways.
Corbett's fall (the first involuntary one-term governor in PA history) was a direct result of his reformy education ways. He is a cautionary tale for every reformster politician out there. (Starting with, I hope, Tom Wolf, who before he got electoral religion and smelled Corbett's blood, liked the charter school movement just fine. So, we'll see.)
Other Stuff
I suspect that most of the real election stories are local, and that's where a lot of the good coverage is. Believing that we can sort out the effect of education policy in all that is kind of-- well, it's like believing that you can take a student's test scores and correct for all other influences so that you can create a reliable Value Added Measure of the teacher's influence. So, baloney.
I think it was not a great night for the Core, an opportunity for soul-searching and navel-gazing among Democrats and union leaders, and really really bad news in some states for fans of public education and actual trained and qualified teaching staffs.
I have no cheery spin to put on that. In some places in this country, it sucks to be a teacher these days. But the good news from PA is that there are limits to what the public will put up with, particularly if they become well-educated about the source of their dismay. The reformsters may have had a good election this year, but they didn't win a free pass.
Tuesday, November 4, 2014
Speak Friction
What do you do when it's election day and you know you're on the losing side before you even enter the ballot box (or tube or data input station)?
I'm a big believer in speaking your truth, even if it's the smallest speak in the room. I think we minimize that action at times because we don't see how it can turn the whole ship around-- and very often it's true that it just won't make an enormous difference.
But I like Thoreau's image--
Let your life be a counter friction to stop the machine. What I have to do is to see, at any rate, that I do not lend myself to the wrong which I condemn.
Thoreau may overstate his case a bit (I know-- shocking from Thoreau) but I like the idea of friction. Friction doesn't necessarily stop the machine, but it always affects the way the machine runs. And sometimes that's good enough.
Smart money says that by midnight tonight, Andrew Cuomo will still be governor. But just as with the primary election, there is a huge difference between a Cuomo who's swept into office and one who just barely squeaks through the door as crowds holler at him (a huge difference in particular for Cuomo 2016's Presidential dreams).
It's the same way you may not be able to flat-out stop your school district from doing Something Stupid, but you can keep it from being an easy, unanimous Stupid. You can't always prevent people from achieving a bad goal. Sometimes the best you can do is make people work for it, and that affects the energy they have to implement it, which in turn sets the stage for failure, which may one day lead to a bunch of people coming to you to say, "Hey, tell me again about why this was a dumb idea."
Sometimes you're friction. Sometimes you're playing a long game.
And sometimes you just want to sleep at night. You want to be able to say, "I did what I could. I said what I had to say. I didn't sit silent in the face of Something Wrong." And sometimes that's as good as it gets.
Yes, voting in elections in this country sucks these days, with a full buffet of bought-and-paid-for tools. But as long as it all runs smoothly, they can tell themselves, "Hey, this is going great! No problems at all." So be a friction. Speak your piece. Get out there, hold your nose, and vote.
I'm a big believer in speaking your truth, even if it's the smallest speak in the room. I think we minimize that action at times because we don't see how it can turn the whole ship around-- and very often it's true that it just won't make an enormous difference.
But I like Thoreau's image--
Let your life be a counter friction to stop the machine. What I have to do is to see, at any rate, that I do not lend myself to the wrong which I condemn.
Thoreau may overstate his case a bit (I know-- shocking from Thoreau) but I like the idea of friction. Friction doesn't necessarily stop the machine, but it always affects the way the machine runs. And sometimes that's good enough.
Smart money says that by midnight tonight, Andrew Cuomo will still be governor. But just as with the primary election, there is a huge difference between a Cuomo who's swept into office and one who just barely squeaks through the door as crowds holler at him (a huge difference in particular for Cuomo 2016's Presidential dreams).
It's the same way you may not be able to flat-out stop your school district from doing Something Stupid, but you can keep it from being an easy, unanimous Stupid. You can't always prevent people from achieving a bad goal. Sometimes the best you can do is make people work for it, and that affects the energy they have to implement it, which in turn sets the stage for failure, which may one day lead to a bunch of people coming to you to say, "Hey, tell me again about why this was a dumb idea."
Sometimes you're friction. Sometimes you're playing a long game.
And sometimes you just want to sleep at night. You want to be able to say, "I did what I could. I said what I had to say. I didn't sit silent in the face of Something Wrong." And sometimes that's as good as it gets.
Yes, voting in elections in this country sucks these days, with a full buffet of bought-and-paid-for tools. But as long as it all runs smoothly, they can tell themselves, "Hey, this is going great! No problems at all." So be a friction. Speak your piece. Get out there, hold your nose, and vote.
Monday, November 3, 2014
Can TFA Be Reinvented
I am a fan of blogger and education professor Jack Schneider. He occupies what I think of as the Very Reasonable Wing of the Resistance with other writers like Peter DeWitt and John Thompson. In the great ongoing debate about the fate of US public education, it's a Good Thing to have some smart folks who are always looking for ways to open lines of communication and dialogue.
In his latest post, Schneider wonders aloud (well, in print-- well, in words rendered on computer screens) if TFA could be reinvented as something less awful.
So to all the TFA critics out there, here's my pitch: TFA isn't going away. Not in our lifetime. Why not, then, pressure them to do something like this—a reinvention that would convert their power and influence more productive?
That's the conclusion. His ideas are multi-layered.
Plan A is for TFA to retool their rhetoric to match the things they say internally to each other, which Schneider believes are far more realistic and reasonable than the blustering TFA public persona.
But Schneider doesn't think he can get Plan A, so he has another plan ready for consideration.
To put it as simply as possible: I'd like to see TFA set a goal of recruiting all of its teachers from the alumni rolls of the elementary and high schools where it places teachers.
He argues that this would A) really cement their commitment to recruiting teachers of color and B) would make them confront what it took to get students from high-poverty schools ready to enter and succeed in college.
It is a really interesting idea, but I think it's a non-starter. I think the problem is that Schneider mis-reads the purpose of TFA. At this point, I don't think TFA's missoin is providing teachers for high needs schools. I don't think that's their vision. I don't think that's their brand.
Like many people, I'll give TFA credit for starting out with the best of intentions. But as I argue here, their stated purpose shifts don't resemble the mission creep of a service organization, but the product marketing shifts of a corporation.
And TFA's product is not education for high-poverty students. TFA now deal in money, power, training and networking. They can't forsake the ivy leaguers who use their service, because those folks are their customers. Check out this Business Insider article about how TFA is a great way to angle for a job at Google (where, insiders say, only products of select universities need apply). Look at the massive network of well-placed Masters of the Universe TFA has produced.
At this point, high needs schools are being used as training facilities for TFA's true customers-- the resume boosters who are just passing through. TFA's customers are also the charter operators who depend on TFA for front line shock troops (but troops with a limited life span, because short-term employees are far better for ROI). And to best serve these customers, TFA must maintain its connections and profile, which means power and prestige are part of its business plan, and not something it can easily turn its back on.
I have no doubt that the TFA ranks include some people with a sincere interest in teaching and social judgment. TFA needs these people top maintain an appearance of legitimacy, a way for donors and backers to feel good about the fresh-scrubbed young folks who Really Want To Make a Difference. But as Schneider notes, TFA already knows the things they ought to be doing to better support those fresh-faced recruits and better insure their success. TFA knows what it needs to do for those folks-- and so far, it simply isn't doing them. Because as long as TFA can generate the numbers that make the enterprise look good, they've done enough. Because creating pockets of educational success in high needs schools isn't really their primary mission.
If it were, Schneider's idea would make sense. But his ideas will not help TFA improve its profile, maintain its political clout, or generate more contributions. And his ideas especially won't serve TFA's customer base of resume builders, charter operators, and power players who want to look good doing good.
TFA has already reinvented itself several times, and each time the reinvention was about maintaining TFA's standing as a Major Player in the Ed Reform Biz as well as an extension of the high status school networking network. It will continue to reinvent itself to meet those goals. I would love to believe that at some point it might decide to turn back to its roots and the people in power would really, sincerely redirect their resources and attention to achieving the goals of helping to improve education in the poor corners of the country. But their original attempts to do so were misguided, and they've only wandered further away from that place.
Jack Schneider thinks they could still do good work. It's pretty to think so, but I don't see it happening any time soon.
In his latest post, Schneider wonders aloud (well, in print-- well, in words rendered on computer screens) if TFA could be reinvented as something less awful.
So to all the TFA critics out there, here's my pitch: TFA isn't going away. Not in our lifetime. Why not, then, pressure them to do something like this—a reinvention that would convert their power and influence more productive?
That's the conclusion. His ideas are multi-layered.
Plan A is for TFA to retool their rhetoric to match the things they say internally to each other, which Schneider believes are far more realistic and reasonable than the blustering TFA public persona.
But Schneider doesn't think he can get Plan A, so he has another plan ready for consideration.
To put it as simply as possible: I'd like to see TFA set a goal of recruiting all of its teachers from the alumni rolls of the elementary and high schools where it places teachers.
He argues that this would A) really cement their commitment to recruiting teachers of color and B) would make them confront what it took to get students from high-poverty schools ready to enter and succeed in college.
It is a really interesting idea, but I think it's a non-starter. I think the problem is that Schneider mis-reads the purpose of TFA. At this point, I don't think TFA's missoin is providing teachers for high needs schools. I don't think that's their vision. I don't think that's their brand.
Like many people, I'll give TFA credit for starting out with the best of intentions. But as I argue here, their stated purpose shifts don't resemble the mission creep of a service organization, but the product marketing shifts of a corporation.
And TFA's product is not education for high-poverty students. TFA now deal in money, power, training and networking. They can't forsake the ivy leaguers who use their service, because those folks are their customers. Check out this Business Insider article about how TFA is a great way to angle for a job at Google (where, insiders say, only products of select universities need apply). Look at the massive network of well-placed Masters of the Universe TFA has produced.
At this point, high needs schools are being used as training facilities for TFA's true customers-- the resume boosters who are just passing through. TFA's customers are also the charter operators who depend on TFA for front line shock troops (but troops with a limited life span, because short-term employees are far better for ROI). And to best serve these customers, TFA must maintain its connections and profile, which means power and prestige are part of its business plan, and not something it can easily turn its back on.
I have no doubt that the TFA ranks include some people with a sincere interest in teaching and social judgment. TFA needs these people top maintain an appearance of legitimacy, a way for donors and backers to feel good about the fresh-scrubbed young folks who Really Want To Make a Difference. But as Schneider notes, TFA already knows the things they ought to be doing to better support those fresh-faced recruits and better insure their success. TFA knows what it needs to do for those folks-- and so far, it simply isn't doing them. Because as long as TFA can generate the numbers that make the enterprise look good, they've done enough. Because creating pockets of educational success in high needs schools isn't really their primary mission.
If it were, Schneider's idea would make sense. But his ideas will not help TFA improve its profile, maintain its political clout, or generate more contributions. And his ideas especially won't serve TFA's customer base of resume builders, charter operators, and power players who want to look good doing good.
TFA has already reinvented itself several times, and each time the reinvention was about maintaining TFA's standing as a Major Player in the Ed Reform Biz as well as an extension of the high status school networking network. It will continue to reinvent itself to meet those goals. I would love to believe that at some point it might decide to turn back to its roots and the people in power would really, sincerely redirect their resources and attention to achieving the goals of helping to improve education in the poor corners of the country. But their original attempts to do so were misguided, and they've only wandered further away from that place.
Jack Schneider thinks they could still do good work. It's pretty to think so, but I don't see it happening any time soon.
Is Ed Reform Addicted To "New"?
I have followed with interest the continuing blogoddysey of Andy Smarick (partner at Bellwether Education and Fordham Institute BFF) as he considers some of the places where the reformster movement and classic conservatism don't quite fit. I'm interested because 1) I think Smarick's an intelligent, articulate guy and 2) I've been saying for a while that classic conservatism and modern education reform have enough compatibility issues that I don't think eHarmony would send them on a date.
So installation six of Smarick's journey considers the addiction to "new," particular the automatic overriding of the old with anything labeled "new" or "revolutionary" (he might also have thrown in "game changing"). Is this deep devotion to "new" leading reformsters to throw out and/or ignore perfectly good school system features that are already in place?
As a thirty-five year classroom veteran, I can answer that question with a comparison that I can attest to because in my neighborhood we do have bears and we do have woods, and yes, the two go together.
This is not a new development, however. Or rather, it's not unique to the current wave of reformistas.
Politicians and hucksters, both trying to make some cheap hay, have been crying "educational crisis" since, at a minimum, the appearance of A Nation At Risk. And nobody who is hoping to capitalize on a crisis does it by saying, "OMGZ!! Education is in terrible crisis! Quick-- identify the parts worth preserving and whatever you do, don't hire/elect/pay me to fix them!"
No, for almost as long as I've been teaching, schools have been beset with experts trumpeting The Next Big Thing, because, Good Lord, man, the educational sky is falling and you must do something-- anything -- different right away (preferably like hiring me to consult or buying this new program in a box).
Teachers barely looked up or paid attention when Common Core first appear precisely because it looked, at first, like the 5,723,933rd Next Big Thing To Save Education to appear at the school house door.
There are districts out there (thank heaven I don't teach at one, but there are at least two within a stone's throw of me) that adopt new programs, new materials, new methods, complete with new consultants every single year. And there are vendors out there more than willing to sell you a New Savior, no matter how ridiculous. My district did bring in consultants and pay thousands of dollars to implement a special program that was special because A) writing types that every teacher learns about in teacher school were given a proprietary numbering system, B) the writings were store in special proprietary file folders and C) all writing was to be done by skipping every other line on the paper. And for that we paid, I kid you not, thousands of dollars.
And every new program requires something to be thrown out, either as an act of policy or of necessity. One of the things non-teachers just don't get is that we are working with a finite number of instructional hours. If you tell me that I must spend fifty hours a year on a new program, fifty hours of something else must come out of my instruction. You can leave that up to my best judgment, or you can tell me what I have to cut, but either way, something is going away.
This has been a recurring annual process in most schools for as long as probably 99% of current working teachers have been in a classroom. And no part of this process ever involves sitting down to say, "Okay, what part of what we're doing should we absolutely hold onto and support." This is just one part of why teachers despair of having their voices heard. Stand up at your own staff meeting and try to express an professional opinion, and you're lucky to be heard. But leave teaching, start a consulting firm, and charge a few thousand, and suddenly you get to be the guy running the meeting (suddenly, I have an idea for my retirement career).
So this using the New to steamroll the old without concern for the value of the old-- this is not new to current reformerdom. It's just that CCSS and its related movements have in this, as in so many things, brought us the same old routine hoppped up on steroids.
In our earnestness to improve the lives of America’s kids, especially the most disadvantaged boys and girls, our field has become terribly unbalanced. We have consistently picked the progressive path (with its pitfalls) and ignored the virtues of conservatism and the benefits of preservation.
But the question remains: Is it possible to combine the two? Can the strengths of both left and right be leveraged in a single bold reform effort?
Well, yes and no. As soon as you start using words like "bold" my internal alarm goes off, because that goes with the usual call for some New Revolutionary Super Program That Will Change Everything. Though I suppose in the ongoing climate of manufactured overhyped crisis, it's bold to just sit still and refuse to be stampeded.
Well, let's not split vocabularial hairs. My revolutionary idea is that we pick and choose directions for education based on what works, whether it is old or new. Now, I realize we're are going to have (and are currently having) huge HUGE arguments about how to decide what works. For instance, I believe that standardized tests tell us absolutely zip zero nothing about what does or doesn't work in schools.
I confess an inclination to the old that comes with a proven track record-- but I'm drawn to the track record, not the mere fact of oldness. And I'm always willing to consider the new, provided it doesn't violate my own professional sense of what's sound and it isn't just a new, more expensive way to do what I can already do. But I bet we could mostly agree on this-- let's not consider either newness or oldness a virtue in and of itself. I'm looking forward to Smarick's seventh installment to see how close our answers are.
So installation six of Smarick's journey considers the addiction to "new," particular the automatic overriding of the old with anything labeled "new" or "revolutionary" (he might also have thrown in "game changing"). Is this deep devotion to "new" leading reformsters to throw out and/or ignore perfectly good school system features that are already in place?
As a thirty-five year classroom veteran, I can answer that question with a comparison that I can attest to because in my neighborhood we do have bears and we do have woods, and yes, the two go together.
This is not a new development, however. Or rather, it's not unique to the current wave of reformistas.
Politicians and hucksters, both trying to make some cheap hay, have been crying "educational crisis" since, at a minimum, the appearance of A Nation At Risk. And nobody who is hoping to capitalize on a crisis does it by saying, "OMGZ!! Education is in terrible crisis! Quick-- identify the parts worth preserving and whatever you do, don't hire/elect/pay me to fix them!"
No, for almost as long as I've been teaching, schools have been beset with experts trumpeting The Next Big Thing, because, Good Lord, man, the educational sky is falling and you must do something-- anything -- different right away (preferably like hiring me to consult or buying this new program in a box).
Teachers barely looked up or paid attention when Common Core first appear precisely because it looked, at first, like the 5,723,933rd Next Big Thing To Save Education to appear at the school house door.
There are districts out there (thank heaven I don't teach at one, but there are at least two within a stone's throw of me) that adopt new programs, new materials, new methods, complete with new consultants every single year. And there are vendors out there more than willing to sell you a New Savior, no matter how ridiculous. My district did bring in consultants and pay thousands of dollars to implement a special program that was special because A) writing types that every teacher learns about in teacher school were given a proprietary numbering system, B) the writings were store in special proprietary file folders and C) all writing was to be done by skipping every other line on the paper. And for that we paid, I kid you not, thousands of dollars.
And every new program requires something to be thrown out, either as an act of policy or of necessity. One of the things non-teachers just don't get is that we are working with a finite number of instructional hours. If you tell me that I must spend fifty hours a year on a new program, fifty hours of something else must come out of my instruction. You can leave that up to my best judgment, or you can tell me what I have to cut, but either way, something is going away.
This has been a recurring annual process in most schools for as long as probably 99% of current working teachers have been in a classroom. And no part of this process ever involves sitting down to say, "Okay, what part of what we're doing should we absolutely hold onto and support." This is just one part of why teachers despair of having their voices heard. Stand up at your own staff meeting and try to express an professional opinion, and you're lucky to be heard. But leave teaching, start a consulting firm, and charge a few thousand, and suddenly you get to be the guy running the meeting (suddenly, I have an idea for my retirement career).
So this using the New to steamroll the old without concern for the value of the old-- this is not new to current reformerdom. It's just that CCSS and its related movements have in this, as in so many things, brought us the same old routine hoppped up on steroids.
In our earnestness to improve the lives of America’s kids, especially the most disadvantaged boys and girls, our field has become terribly unbalanced. We have consistently picked the progressive path (with its pitfalls) and ignored the virtues of conservatism and the benefits of preservation.
But the question remains: Is it possible to combine the two? Can the strengths of both left and right be leveraged in a single bold reform effort?
Well, yes and no. As soon as you start using words like "bold" my internal alarm goes off, because that goes with the usual call for some New Revolutionary Super Program That Will Change Everything. Though I suppose in the ongoing climate of manufactured overhyped crisis, it's bold to just sit still and refuse to be stampeded.
Well, let's not split vocabularial hairs. My revolutionary idea is that we pick and choose directions for education based on what works, whether it is old or new. Now, I realize we're are going to have (and are currently having) huge HUGE arguments about how to decide what works. For instance, I believe that standardized tests tell us absolutely zip zero nothing about what does or doesn't work in schools.
I confess an inclination to the old that comes with a proven track record-- but I'm drawn to the track record, not the mere fact of oldness. And I'm always willing to consider the new, provided it doesn't violate my own professional sense of what's sound and it isn't just a new, more expensive way to do what I can already do. But I bet we could mostly agree on this-- let's not consider either newness or oldness a virtue in and of itself. I'm looking forward to Smarick's seventh installment to see how close our answers are.
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