So my wife and I are watching an old episode of Restaurant Impossible on Netflix. It's the one where the host takes on a special mission for the First Lady herself-- fixing up a neighborhood center in one of DC's poor neighborhoods (what is sometimes called a "food desert"-- a neighborhood where there is no real source of decent groceries and fresh food).
It's a heartwarming feel-good episode, and it includes a big plug for Michelle Obama's gardening program. The children at the center created and started working in their own neighborhood garden, which along with the Let's Move initiative, and as the show continued to plug how great it was to grow food and get a connection to where food comes from and to harvest your own food and eat it makes you better connected and this is how we beat back childhood obesity and my wife is becoming increasingly agitated on the couch next to me.
Until finally she says something along the lines of, "Yes. Right. Because it makes sense to put the burden of fixing all this on these people who barely have the resources to get through their regular lives every day. Yes, it makes way more sense to put the burden on them than on the multi-billion dollar corporations that control the food supply and the politicians who help them do it."
It's not that the Let's Move and Eat Good Things From Your Garden and Make Better Eating Choices movements are wrong. I am not one of those people who is going to twist myself into a brain pretzel by trying to find a way to mock the idea that kids should eat less crap; there is nothing remotely objectionable about that idea itself. But to the cynical eye, it can certainly look like these are convenient distractors that let much more powerful players off the hook. It's like visiting somebody who lives next door to a giant, stinking, unregulated pig feces processing plant and telling them they should really use deodorant and buy some of those christmas tree air freshener things. It's not that those aren't good ideas. It's not that they won't help. But there's a much bigger problem, and we're carefully not talking about it.
The neighborhood is labeled a food desert because there's only a corner store, and that store offers not-very-healthy cheap processed food. That is not some quirky accident, and it's not a twist of the free market. The federal government has made it a good business plan to raise corn and turn it into processed crap. Fast food is cheap because our government, directly and indirectly, subsidizes it, and the government subsidies of bad food might just be related to the revolving door between the offices of the major food conglomerates and the halls of Congress. (Read Fast Food Nation or watch Food Inc)
If we wanted healthy vegetables to be more readily available and cheaper than crappy fattening overprocessed crap, we could do that. But that would come with political (as in "lose a lot of money used to get re-elected") consequences. So it's easier to tell poor kids to grow a garden and exercise more. On the one hand we have a poor kid in DC; on the other hand we have CEO of Monsanto. Which one do you think is in a position to influence the eating patterns of the poor in America?
Let's keep punching a kid in the face, and when he falls down, tell him to get up, plant his feet, and take a strong stance. The advice is not wrong-- it's a good thing to do. But maybe WE COULD STOP PUNCHING HIM IN THE FACE!
We are currently confronting an enormous problem with poverty in this country, a problem that is complicated because it lives at the confluence of many large, powerful forces in our country. Some of those factors can be influenced by the people who are most directly affected; some of those factors are influenced by people who are far removed from the effects of poverty; and some of those factors are influenced by who-the-hell-knows-what. But instead of having the big difficult conversation, we've got a whole bunch of powerful people saying, "Well, let's tell kids to show some grit and get a good education."
It is not not NOT that individual human beings do not have responsibility for their own choices and their own actions. But their power is limited by the choices that are available and the power that they have. Those of us who have more available choices and more power should be likewise considering our responsibilities and choices. That includes me, it includes the CEO's of mega-corporations, and it includes the President of the US along with the bozos in Congress. Perhaps all of us powerful grownups should show some grit and stop sluffing responsibilities off on children.
Friday, November 7, 2014
Thursday, November 6, 2014
Gilt by Association
Much of what's passed off as ed reform these days involves a tricky logic chain with some wobbly connections and oddball sleight of hand. Let me try, as is my way, to create an analogy. Here's how we get from creating more effective education for all Americans down to stupid multiple choice questions on a bad bubble test.
Let's start with our vision. It will be a golden city. Seriously-- a city all shining gold.
Well, actually, an all-gold city would be unsustainable, so what we'll shoot for is a city with gold leaf surfaces worked over a framework of high-grade super-strong lightweight aluminum.
Now, there are hundreds of details and features and infrastructures that will be needed to build that city, but let's focus (just for a moment, you understand) on the girder frameworks that will be built for medium-sized buildings.
Now, those frameworks will have several dozen structural elements to hold them together properly, and none of us really know how to attach that much gold leaf to that much external surface, but let's focus on the techniques we're going to use to tie the girders together.
Those connections will include bolts and rivets and welds, but let's just focus on the rivets. To create the rivets we're going to need-- well, there are several steps to the process of creating rivets and several different ways we could make them, but we'll focus on the supply of steel cable that will be cut to size for individual rivet bodies.
That steel comes from many different suppliers, but we're going to look at the suppliers in the northeast. Those supplier operations are influenced by dozens of different factors, but the quality of the steel is the one we'll focus on.
The supply chain for the steel is long and involved, but let's focus on finding the right patch of ground to mine for iron ore. Let's determine what the qualities of dirt are that are mostly likely to lead us to the iron ore.
And that is how we end up staring intently at soil, judging it and testing it to determine whether it will lead directly to a shining city of gold.
We have traveled this road backwards, cheerfully ignoring and discarding thousands of crossroads and turns because we were traveling backwards. We never made a competely senseless jump, or a connection that wasn't really there. We just kept pruning away a forest of "distractors."
But now that we have to go the other way, the progression that made so much sense leaves us lost and confused. When someone hands us a bucket of earth and says, "I want a shining city of gold by next Wednesday" we just don't-- I mean, man, it seemed so clear when we were headed this way and the guy was explaining his vision and we could just see the city in our mind and it was so clear that this dirt was a critical first step to creating that city, but now that we're turned around the other way, we're just lost. How do I make a city of gold out of this bucket of gold?
In this same way, we've been walked backwards from a vision of every child in America getting a top-notch education that leads to a good job. And as we've walked backwards we've ignored, walked past, tossed out (because they were inconvenient), glossed over (because we didn't know) a thousand thousand branches and alleys and factors and features, until we find ourselves sitting in front of a set of bubble test questions and talking about them as if they have a real, strong link to the vision we started with. We have gone from a great complete education to standards that only address two content areas while strolling past every single factor that could affect student learning that isn't a teacher, wandered past all the possible ways to assess learning, and landed on standardized bubble test.
If I handed you the bucket of dirt and said, "Okay, so what can you use this to make," your first answer will probably not be "A shining city of gold."
Likewise, if I showed you this question:
What does the phrase "talking to itself" mean about the water?
A) It is noisy
B) It may be dangerous
C) It is moving swiftly
D) It would be fun for swimming
Yes, there is a reading that goes with this actual sample test question. But if I showed you this question, told you we were going to ask third graders to answer it, and then asked, "What do you think that will tell us?" do you suppose that your answer would be, "Why it will tell me whether this child is on the way to successfully attending college and ultimately starting a well-paying career."
Standardized tests are so tenuously connected to the stated reformster goal of well-educated college-and-career-ready students that it just makes my head hurt to talk to people who really think their bucket of dirt takes them directly to the city of gold.
But really-- we're not crazy. The standardized tests really don't point us in the direction of anything except the tests themselves. It's just a bucket of dirt. Don't let anybody convince you otherwise.
Let's start with our vision. It will be a golden city. Seriously-- a city all shining gold.
Well, actually, an all-gold city would be unsustainable, so what we'll shoot for is a city with gold leaf surfaces worked over a framework of high-grade super-strong lightweight aluminum.
Now, there are hundreds of details and features and infrastructures that will be needed to build that city, but let's focus (just for a moment, you understand) on the girder frameworks that will be built for medium-sized buildings.
Now, those frameworks will have several dozen structural elements to hold them together properly, and none of us really know how to attach that much gold leaf to that much external surface, but let's focus on the techniques we're going to use to tie the girders together.
Those connections will include bolts and rivets and welds, but let's just focus on the rivets. To create the rivets we're going to need-- well, there are several steps to the process of creating rivets and several different ways we could make them, but we'll focus on the supply of steel cable that will be cut to size for individual rivet bodies.
That steel comes from many different suppliers, but we're going to look at the suppliers in the northeast. Those supplier operations are influenced by dozens of different factors, but the quality of the steel is the one we'll focus on.
The supply chain for the steel is long and involved, but let's focus on finding the right patch of ground to mine for iron ore. Let's determine what the qualities of dirt are that are mostly likely to lead us to the iron ore.
And that is how we end up staring intently at soil, judging it and testing it to determine whether it will lead directly to a shining city of gold.
We have traveled this road backwards, cheerfully ignoring and discarding thousands of crossroads and turns because we were traveling backwards. We never made a competely senseless jump, or a connection that wasn't really there. We just kept pruning away a forest of "distractors."
But now that we have to go the other way, the progression that made so much sense leaves us lost and confused. When someone hands us a bucket of earth and says, "I want a shining city of gold by next Wednesday" we just don't-- I mean, man, it seemed so clear when we were headed this way and the guy was explaining his vision and we could just see the city in our mind and it was so clear that this dirt was a critical first step to creating that city, but now that we're turned around the other way, we're just lost. How do I make a city of gold out of this bucket of gold?
In this same way, we've been walked backwards from a vision of every child in America getting a top-notch education that leads to a good job. And as we've walked backwards we've ignored, walked past, tossed out (because they were inconvenient), glossed over (because we didn't know) a thousand thousand branches and alleys and factors and features, until we find ourselves sitting in front of a set of bubble test questions and talking about them as if they have a real, strong link to the vision we started with. We have gone from a great complete education to standards that only address two content areas while strolling past every single factor that could affect student learning that isn't a teacher, wandered past all the possible ways to assess learning, and landed on standardized bubble test.
If I handed you the bucket of dirt and said, "Okay, so what can you use this to make," your first answer will probably not be "A shining city of gold."
Likewise, if I showed you this question:
What does the phrase "talking to itself" mean about the water?
A) It is noisy
B) It may be dangerous
C) It is moving swiftly
D) It would be fun for swimming
Yes, there is a reading that goes with this actual sample test question. But if I showed you this question, told you we were going to ask third graders to answer it, and then asked, "What do you think that will tell us?" do you suppose that your answer would be, "Why it will tell me whether this child is on the way to successfully attending college and ultimately starting a well-paying career."
Standardized tests are so tenuously connected to the stated reformster goal of well-educated college-and-career-ready students that it just makes my head hurt to talk to people who really think their bucket of dirt takes them directly to the city of gold.
But really-- we're not crazy. The standardized tests really don't point us in the direction of anything except the tests themselves. It's just a bucket of dirt. Don't let anybody convince you otherwise.
Dear Randi
Dear Randi-
I just got the email from you that I've reprinted below. I thought I would go ahead and reply. I want to like you. I admire the way you put yourself out there on social media-- I've watched you engage in some fairly heated exchanges on twitter, and as someone whose union leadership has a history of rarely engaging with the rank and file, I find your openness refreshing. But I can't help noticing that in your stirring message to the troops telling the story of the many election fights fought across the nation, you left out one major state.
I'm an NEA member, and a teacher in Pennsylvania, so what the AFT does in NY isn't really my problem-- except that I'm a teacher in a country where an awful lot of people in power are trying to dismantle public education and the profession that I've devoted my life to. So everything that happens in the education biz is kind of my business in the same way that a fire on the back porch of the house is my problem even if I'm sitting in the front living room.
So I've been watching New York, and it has not been fun.
I'm not a NY AFT member. I don't know all the ins and outs of the politics of the union, nor do I know all the history of all the players. And I have been a local union president (through a strike, no less), and I understand that sometimes you have to temper idealistic aspirations with political reality.
But I'm tired of union leaders who won't stand up for teachers. I'm tired of union leaders who don't unequivocally say, "That is wrong. What you are saying about teachers is wrong. What you are doing to teachers is wrong, and we will not support a person who says such things."
I've read the attacks on you accusing you of all sorts of Machiavellian political angling, of putting personal ambition over teacher concerns. I have no reason to believe those things. I have no reason not to believe them. I think they might even be beside the point.
But I do know that when someone gets wrapped in shading and angling and nuancing and carefully crafting messages, it's easy to think that your message is coming across with all its complicated shades intact. That is usually not true.
So I'm not writing to accuse you of anything. But I want you to understand what the last year has looked like to someone out here in the cheap seats, to someone who cares about the stakes of the cause, but who has no dog in the specific fights of New York State or the AFT. Regardless of what you intended for people to see, this is what I saw. take that for what it's worth.
I saw AFT push the Working Families Party to make an utterly senseless endorsement of Cuomo, justified by the notion that they were making a deal with a career politician who historically never makes or keeps bargains. And that was support not just for Cuomo, but turning their back on Teachout, a woman whose understanding of what the hell is wrong is clear and profound and yet prcatical.
I saw you mount a last minute campaign to salvage the primary hopes of Cuomo's running mate, a man who was in trouble because your own members didn't want to vote for him.
And as things became uglier and uglier, climaxing in Cuomo making one of the most clear and direct declarations of war on teachers and public schools of any American politician-- I mean, seriously, we know many of those guys were thinking it, but Cuomo just flat out said it as directly as Khrushchev declaring "We will bury you"-- you didn't call him on it. You did not muster one sliver of the outrage and indignation you directed at Time magazine, a fading magazine that may have insulted teachers, but does not have the power to turn insults into policy. Cuomo, who has announced his intention to exert that power to break public education and teachers, got a pass, an excuse made for him (though he never asked to be excused for his words).
I don't know if there was a carefully crafted message that AF brass put together. Out here in the cheap seats, it looks like rank and file teachers do not have leaders who will stand up for them when it matters. Again, I am not trying to make an accusation-- I am telling you what I see.
Maybe from my vantage point I just don't see enough, and I'm missing all sorts of things that would make me feel better about all of this. But when you send out a Rally the Troops letter that pointedly ignores the New York governor's race entirely, it makes me think I was probably right with my first impression.
I confess to being mystified by some aspects of New York politics. I don't know why people try to get along with Cuomo, when that clearly doesn't really do anybody any good.
Out here in the communities of PA, we do indeed unite behind many of these issues. But, honestly, at this point it's not really clear to me what side AFT leadership is on. It makes me nervous. Cuomo is just across the border, getting ready to rip the guts out of public education and the teaching profession, and for some reason, the AFT can't bring itself to say, "Boo." I know there's a bigger fight coming. I just don't know if we count on you when it gets here. If you think there are reasons that I should feel reassured, I'm telling you that you are not currently communicating those reasons to me or my colleagues.
Thanks for listening,
Peter
***********************************************
Peter,
First and foremost, thank you.
Whether you knocked on doors, made calls, talked to your friends and neighbors, or simply cast a ballot for working families, thank you.
Over the last few months, we’ve crisscrossed the country—from Miami to Anchorage—working side by side with you, our members and community allies, to elect leaders who share our values.
Tuesday night was tough. All day Wednesday, people asked us whether all the work was worth it. We’ve said the same thing to all of them.
Whether you win or lose, it’s never a mistake to go all-in for working families.
Tuesday, Randi spent the day in Pennsylvania, knocking on doors and making calls for Tom Wolf. And the evening began with the great news that we had won.
Sadly, it got a lot tougher after that. In Wisconsin, Mary Cathryn came back from a day of canvassing for Mary Burke only to watch as Scott Walker won re-election. After a day of door-knocking in Baltimore, Lorretta looked on in disbelief as Larry Hogan won in Maryland.
There’s no denying that this election will be a setback. Ironically, Wall Street—whose reckless actions helped caused the economic malaise that motivated voters to vote against Democrats—has already expressed its joy over the Republican takeover of the Senate.
Which gets to our point. There’s something important that people aren’t talking about as much: Where the election was clearly about everyday concerns—education, minimum wage, paid sick leave—working families prevailed.
From the governor’s race in Pennsylvania to minimum wage ballot measures in places like Nebraska and Arkansas, we see that communities are with us on the issues. We beat back restrictions on women’s healthcare, and defeated ballot measures that attacked due process, pensions and collective bargaining. When we campaign on real issues and offer big ideas, people agree with us. That’s an important lesson. But where the choices were less clear, voters took out their frustration with our seemingly broken system by voting against Democrats. It’s a reminder that we must make it clear what we stand for, and stand up proudly to tell people what we believe.
And here’s another thing: Everywhere we’ve been, we’ve seen the power that people feel from participating.
Yes, we lost many of the races we fought in. But we fought. We stood up—together—and said, “Our communities deserve better." And every time one of us stands up, it gives another person the courage to do the same.
We will not stop fighting now. In fact, we’ll redouble our efforts. From the statehouse to Capitol Hill, we need you with us now.
Power never yields without a fight, and to change the balance of power, we must stand together. That’s what unions are about—working together to make things better for working families. Today, we promise this union will stand strong with our members, our families and our communities.
From state capitols to Capitol Hill, we need your voice. We are calling on all governors—Democrats and Republicans—to fully fund public education, to lift up workers and protect our basic rights. We’re calling on Capitol Hill to break the endless logjam and move us forward.
To make that happen, we need you—your voice, your courage, your commitment—to help show our leaders that we demand better.
There’s a very simple promise enshrined in America. If you work hard and play by the rules, you should be able to get ahead, and each generation will do better than the one before. We must continue our work to reclaim that promise.
In unity,
Randi Weingarten, AFT President
Lorretta Johnson, AFT Secretary-Treasurer
Mary Cathryn Ricker, AFT Executive Vice-President
First and foremost, thank you.
Whether you knocked on doors, made calls, talked to your friends and neighbors, or simply cast a ballot for working families, thank you.
Over the last few months, we’ve crisscrossed the country—from Miami to Anchorage—working side by side with you, our members and community allies, to elect leaders who share our values.
Tuesday night was tough. All day Wednesday, people asked us whether all the work was worth it. We’ve said the same thing to all of them.
Whether you win or lose, it’s never a mistake to go all-in for working families.
Tuesday, Randi spent the day in Pennsylvania, knocking on doors and making calls for Tom Wolf. And the evening began with the great news that we had won.
Sadly, it got a lot tougher after that. In Wisconsin, Mary Cathryn came back from a day of canvassing for Mary Burke only to watch as Scott Walker won re-election. After a day of door-knocking in Baltimore, Lorretta looked on in disbelief as Larry Hogan won in Maryland.
There’s no denying that this election will be a setback. Ironically, Wall Street—whose reckless actions helped caused the economic malaise that motivated voters to vote against Democrats—has already expressed its joy over the Republican takeover of the Senate.
Which gets to our point. There’s something important that people aren’t talking about as much: Where the election was clearly about everyday concerns—education, minimum wage, paid sick leave—working families prevailed.
From the governor’s race in Pennsylvania to minimum wage ballot measures in places like Nebraska and Arkansas, we see that communities are with us on the issues. We beat back restrictions on women’s healthcare, and defeated ballot measures that attacked due process, pensions and collective bargaining. When we campaign on real issues and offer big ideas, people agree with us. That’s an important lesson. But where the choices were less clear, voters took out their frustration with our seemingly broken system by voting against Democrats. It’s a reminder that we must make it clear what we stand for, and stand up proudly to tell people what we believe.
And here’s another thing: Everywhere we’ve been, we’ve seen the power that people feel from participating.
Yes, we lost many of the races we fought in. But we fought. We stood up—together—and said, “Our communities deserve better." And every time one of us stands up, it gives another person the courage to do the same.
We will not stop fighting now. In fact, we’ll redouble our efforts. From the statehouse to Capitol Hill, we need you with us now.
Power never yields without a fight, and to change the balance of power, we must stand together. That’s what unions are about—working together to make things better for working families. Today, we promise this union will stand strong with our members, our families and our communities.
From state capitols to Capitol Hill, we need your voice. We are calling on all governors—Democrats and Republicans—to fully fund public education, to lift up workers and protect our basic rights. We’re calling on Capitol Hill to break the endless logjam and move us forward.
To make that happen, we need you—your voice, your courage, your commitment—to help show our leaders that we demand better.
There’s a very simple promise enshrined in America. If you work hard and play by the rules, you should be able to get ahead, and each generation will do better than the one before. We must continue our work to reclaim that promise.
In unity,
Randi Weingarten, AFT President
Lorretta Johnson, AFT Secretary-Treasurer
Mary Cathryn Ricker, AFT Executive Vice-President
TN Core Apologist
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.
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.
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.
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