Over at the Inc website, contributing editor Jeff Haden last week contributed "10 Things the Smartest People Never Do." It's business-oriented, but it actually translates well into the teaching world as well. Here's the teacherfied version of the list of things that smart people never do.
1. Thoughlessly waste other people's time.
This doesn't just apply to our colleagues-- it applies to our students as well. I actually make this explicit promise to my students every fall, and if they demand an explanation of why something I've asked them to do is not a waste of their time, I give them one. It is easy to view our students as essentially trapped in school, and so it doesn't matter how we spend their time because they never had any control over their schedule anyway. Wrong. We're talking about minutes of fellow human beings' lives. Don't waste them.
2. Ignore people "beneath" your level.
Every beginning teacher gets that important advice-- make friends with the office secretary and the janitor for your hall. But the word "ignore" is key here. For many of our students, the worst thing about life is that they are invisible to their peers and to much of the world they encounter. Haden advises to see people, and I believe that applies to students as well. It doesn't necessarily take a huge fifteen-minute interaction with them-- just a quick exchange that translates as, "I actually see you." It is one of the most powerful things we can do.
3. Ask for too much (especially too soon).
Do not be the teacher who depends on all other teachers to take care of your business for you. Do not require everyone else on staff to cover your butt. Take care of your business and more people will be more inclined to give you more help.
4. Ignore people in genuine need.
This includes colleagues and students. This can be hard because we are always tight on time and genuine need never arrives at a convenient moment. Haden offers this observation:
Though I don’t necessarily believe in karma, I do believe good things always come back to you, in the form of feeling good about yourself.
For teachers, the stakes are much higher, because we work with people who are often in genuine need.
5. Ask a question just so you can talk.
You know that guy. You hate that guy. Don't be that guy in the classroom. There is enormous power that can be unlocked in a classroom by asking real questions with the real intent to hear what students really say (see #2 and #4). Yes, that's a challenge with six-year-olds, who have a tendency to engage in what we could call free form non-linear verbal behavior. But by the time students get to me at the high school, many of them have learned that there's no point in speaking or writing because nobody gives a shit what they think or feel.
Ask questions so your students can answer them.
6. Pull the "Do you know who I am."
Okay, of Haden's list items, I thought this was the least translatable at first. But then I had unpleasant memories of playing the authority card, where the teacher (let's call him Mr. Cartman) says, "I am the teacher and I have the power to just roll right over you. So shut up and respect my authority." Which is our version of "Do you know who I am." It's rarely very effective, particularly in the long term.
7. Forget to dial it back.
Haden's point is that quirkiness and wacky individuality can be great until they're not. And I love this line
Knowing when the situation requires you to stop justifying your words or
actions with an unspoken “Hey, that’s just me being me” can often be
the difference between being likable and being an ass.
It's great to be that dynamic, energizing, rock star teacher (I imagine), but at some point you have to leave enough air in the room for everyone else to breathe.
8. Mistake self-deprecation for permission.
Oh, man. Learning this goes double for my students. What he means is that just because somebody makes self-deprecating jokes about being overweight, that doesn't mean it's okay for you to start calling him "Tubby." Students really need to know this about each other, but teachers also need to know it about students. Treat them like their best selves, even if they do not.
9. Humblebrag
I had a student teacher once who had one simple problem-- he didn't want to be the teacher nearly as much as he just wanted to be the smartest kid in the room. And honestly-- I think it generally helps when teachers have a little mystery about them. Be confident, but don't waste time trying your students to know how awesome you are. If there's anything awesome about you to be discovered, they'll be much more impressed if they discover it on their own (and they will set the bar low, as hen they are amazed to find you in a grocery store, buying groceries!! amazeballs!!)
10. Push your opinions.
Man, this is hard. Well, it's hard for me, anyway-- maybe you do great with it. I have a hard and fast rule for some of my writing assignments. We do a lot of practice writing argument essays, and I never assign a topic on which I think I know what the Correct Answer is, because I have to assess how well they made their case, not how well they said what I agree with. I'm a big believer that if things really are True, everyone will arrive at that conclusion in their own way at their own time-- if they pursue an open and honest path with integrity, and that means no trying to force a conclusion that hasn't arrived yet.
And this is doubly the rule outside of your content area and classroom. Respect your students' right to have their own views of things.
There you have it.
Do go ahead and check out Haden's original piece. It's a little food for thought as the year begins.
Sunday, August 16, 2015
Backpacks for Clueless Parents
Over at Getting Smart, a website devoted to selling educational product, guest writer Aimee Rogstad Guidera makes her case for more data collection for each student-- because it's what parents want.
Parents are eager for information about their child’s education. As a mom, I want to know if my daughter is struggling in math before she comes home in tears. I need information to support my child’s learning at home, and to support my child and her teacher in making the best decisions for her learning in the classroom.
Maybe I just don't get it, but I'm inclined to think that if you didn't know your child was having trouble in math before the coming-home-in-tears part, you're just not paying attention. I have heard this pitch enough times to make me occasionally wonder if there is, in fact, some place where teachers keep every scrap of information carefully hoarded, students never speak to their parents about school, parents never ask about school, and all parent requests for conferences and information are denied by all school personnel. Maybe there is some place where parents are so deeply clueless and helpless that they have no idea how their students are doing.
Or maybe Guidera is the CEO and President of the Data Quality Campaign, a group interested in student data and funded by the Gates Foundation, the Waltons, the Dells, and the Ford Foundation. They do have some rules about how such data should be kept in a safe lockbox, but they are clearly Big Data fans.
Guidera is advocating for student data backpacks-- little (or not so little) bundles of data that just follow students around, providing parents with all sorts of longitudinal data (because, again, parents don't know much about their own children).
Guidera says the backpack should be available, timely, portable, secure and understandable, and none of that sounds unreasonable until you start thinking about how it's going to work.
First, the data itself. I'm a fan of transparency-- my school makes our electronic gradebook accessible to parents, so my students' families are able to log on and see their student's current grade-by-grade standing in my class. That's a high level of transparency, but my data isn't any more granular than that-- there are no copies of the work on line, nor does the grade break down to anything other than the grade itself. Of course, my students are able to take their work home, and parents who want further clarification can email me or call.
Why is the data not more detailed and specific? Because there are only twenty-four hours in the day. If you want me (as some Big Data folks do) to tag every single item on every single assignment and test with the exact standard number (which may well have been part of the original intent of Common Core), then you have just tripled the time involved in creating and recording every assignment.
If we somehow accomplish that feat (who knows-- maybe I'm finally getting an administrative assistant), that backpack is chock full of data. It exists. It's out there. And as a parent who works in education, I'm not going to be moved by all the assurances on the planet that the data will only be used for purposes I approve of. Major corporations and the US Government can't keep critical information secure; a school district that has to hire IT guys who will settle for far less than the going rate has no chance.
Is there a huge payoff from the data backpack that would justify the risk? In a word-- no.
Look, what are the two questions that the vast majority of parents want answers to?
1) Is my kid doing okay?
2) If not, what does she need help with?
Can anybody think of a reason that the classroom teacher could not handle both of those questions? Anybody?
Yes, I can think of one reason-- the teacher is not competent. And you know what? If the teacher is not competent to answer those two questions, the teacher is certainly not competent to carefully tag and bag and process the detailed data of assignments and tests and etc.
Likewise, a parent who is incapable of communicating with her own child or with that child's teacher is unlikely to be adept and unpacking the data in the backpack.
I don't think student data backpacks serve the interests of parents or teachers. Here are the groups that I think data backpacks might serve.
1) People who are neither the parents, the teachers or the students, but who would still really like to get their hands on that sweet, sweet data.
2) School operators who would like to "teacher-proof" their classrooms by hiring warm bodies and saying, "No, you don't have to know what you're doing. Just unpack the box, deliver the packaged content lessons, administer the pre-written assessments, and enter the data. The software will do the rest."
3) School operators who want to make parents go away and leave them alone. "No, Mrs. Wassamatta, you don't need to schedule a conference. Everything you need is right there in the data backpack. Go look at that and just leave us alone."
4) People who want to market and sell data backpack software.
My advice to Ms. Guidera-- put down the backpack and pick up the phone.
UPDATE: Leonie Haimson reminds me that the student data backpack is straight out of model legislation by ALEC. So you know it's all about educational excellence, and not about ways to leverage fake education reform into great profit-generating possibilities. Nossiree.
Parents are eager for information about their child’s education. As a mom, I want to know if my daughter is struggling in math before she comes home in tears. I need information to support my child’s learning at home, and to support my child and her teacher in making the best decisions for her learning in the classroom.
Maybe I just don't get it, but I'm inclined to think that if you didn't know your child was having trouble in math before the coming-home-in-tears part, you're just not paying attention. I have heard this pitch enough times to make me occasionally wonder if there is, in fact, some place where teachers keep every scrap of information carefully hoarded, students never speak to their parents about school, parents never ask about school, and all parent requests for conferences and information are denied by all school personnel. Maybe there is some place where parents are so deeply clueless and helpless that they have no idea how their students are doing.
Or maybe Guidera is the CEO and President of the Data Quality Campaign, a group interested in student data and funded by the Gates Foundation, the Waltons, the Dells, and the Ford Foundation. They do have some rules about how such data should be kept in a safe lockbox, but they are clearly Big Data fans.
Guidera is advocating for student data backpacks-- little (or not so little) bundles of data that just follow students around, providing parents with all sorts of longitudinal data (because, again, parents don't know much about their own children).
Guidera says the backpack should be available, timely, portable, secure and understandable, and none of that sounds unreasonable until you start thinking about how it's going to work.
First, the data itself. I'm a fan of transparency-- my school makes our electronic gradebook accessible to parents, so my students' families are able to log on and see their student's current grade-by-grade standing in my class. That's a high level of transparency, but my data isn't any more granular than that-- there are no copies of the work on line, nor does the grade break down to anything other than the grade itself. Of course, my students are able to take their work home, and parents who want further clarification can email me or call.
Why is the data not more detailed and specific? Because there are only twenty-four hours in the day. If you want me (as some Big Data folks do) to tag every single item on every single assignment and test with the exact standard number (which may well have been part of the original intent of Common Core), then you have just tripled the time involved in creating and recording every assignment.
If we somehow accomplish that feat (who knows-- maybe I'm finally getting an administrative assistant), that backpack is chock full of data. It exists. It's out there. And as a parent who works in education, I'm not going to be moved by all the assurances on the planet that the data will only be used for purposes I approve of. Major corporations and the US Government can't keep critical information secure; a school district that has to hire IT guys who will settle for far less than the going rate has no chance.
Is there a huge payoff from the data backpack that would justify the risk? In a word-- no.
Look, what are the two questions that the vast majority of parents want answers to?
1) Is my kid doing okay?
2) If not, what does she need help with?
Can anybody think of a reason that the classroom teacher could not handle both of those questions? Anybody?
Yes, I can think of one reason-- the teacher is not competent. And you know what? If the teacher is not competent to answer those two questions, the teacher is certainly not competent to carefully tag and bag and process the detailed data of assignments and tests and etc.
Likewise, a parent who is incapable of communicating with her own child or with that child's teacher is unlikely to be adept and unpacking the data in the backpack.
I don't think student data backpacks serve the interests of parents or teachers. Here are the groups that I think data backpacks might serve.
1) People who are neither the parents, the teachers or the students, but who would still really like to get their hands on that sweet, sweet data.
2) School operators who would like to "teacher-proof" their classrooms by hiring warm bodies and saying, "No, you don't have to know what you're doing. Just unpack the box, deliver the packaged content lessons, administer the pre-written assessments, and enter the data. The software will do the rest."
3) School operators who want to make parents go away and leave them alone. "No, Mrs. Wassamatta, you don't need to schedule a conference. Everything you need is right there in the data backpack. Go look at that and just leave us alone."
4) People who want to market and sell data backpack software.
My advice to Ms. Guidera-- put down the backpack and pick up the phone.
UPDATE: Leonie Haimson reminds me that the student data backpack is straight out of model legislation by ALEC. So you know it's all about educational excellence, and not about ways to leverage fake education reform into great profit-generating possibilities. Nossiree.
ICYMI: This Week's Great Reads
In case you missed it, here are some of the more important reads from the last week. Happy Sunday!
The Costs of Accountability by Jerry Z. Muller
If you are only going to get to one item on this list, this should probably be it. Muller puts the cult of accountability in a historic and cultural context, shows how it slammed into education, and reminds us that schools are not the only ones to suffer from accountability's heavy and not very bright hand.
Schools are more segregated than they were in 1968
Article in particular looks at how the Supreme Court has not exactly been a big help in working on the issue.
Testing in kindergarten
Okay, if you read here, you likely read Diane Ravitch, but just in case you missed this among the gazillion posts, here's a must read account of what kindergarten testing actually looks like on the classroom level.
Pinellas Failure Factories
Okay, maybe this is the one piece you must read. A hard-hitting, thorough look at how racism and school district mismanagement can turn successful schools into a disaster. And all, I am sorry to note, in the name of neighborhood schools.
Education's Merchant of Doubt
Whenever you find the assertion that spending money on schools is just a waste of time and makes no difference, you'll find the work of Eric Hanushek. This is a great and thorough takedown of who he is, what his work says, and why it's all bunk.
Alfie Kohn on growth mindset
Alfie Kohn takes on the idea of growth mindsets and shows why they've turned from a potentially useful tool into one more educational baloneyfest.
Man, these are all must reads this week. I hope you have a few extra minutes to sit and check them out today!
The Costs of Accountability by Jerry Z. Muller
If you are only going to get to one item on this list, this should probably be it. Muller puts the cult of accountability in a historic and cultural context, shows how it slammed into education, and reminds us that schools are not the only ones to suffer from accountability's heavy and not very bright hand.
Schools are more segregated than they were in 1968
Article in particular looks at how the Supreme Court has not exactly been a big help in working on the issue.
Testing in kindergarten
Okay, if you read here, you likely read Diane Ravitch, but just in case you missed this among the gazillion posts, here's a must read account of what kindergarten testing actually looks like on the classroom level.
Pinellas Failure Factories
Okay, maybe this is the one piece you must read. A hard-hitting, thorough look at how racism and school district mismanagement can turn successful schools into a disaster. And all, I am sorry to note, in the name of neighborhood schools.
Education's Merchant of Doubt
Whenever you find the assertion that spending money on schools is just a waste of time and makes no difference, you'll find the work of Eric Hanushek. This is a great and thorough takedown of who he is, what his work says, and why it's all bunk.
Alfie Kohn on growth mindset
Alfie Kohn takes on the idea of growth mindsets and shows why they've turned from a potentially useful tool into one more educational baloneyfest.
Man, these are all must reads this week. I hope you have a few extra minutes to sit and check them out today!
Saturday, August 15, 2015
VAM on Trial in NY
If you don't know Sheri Lederman's name, you should. She's the New York teacher who, with her lawyer husband, dragged VAM into a courtroom this week and gave it the beatdown it so richly deserved.
Lederman's story is, at this point, the story of millions of other teachers. One year, her VAM score indicated that she was awesome. The next year, her VAM score indicated that she sucked. Not only was she pretty much the same teacher, but her students got pretty much the same scores.
Because of the importance of the case, lots of folks were there to watch. Carol Burris has a great account in The Answer Sheet, and this blog by Alexndra Milleta who has known Lederman for decades is also worth a read. Audrey Amrein-Beardsley has been following the case for a while. Diane Ravitch provides links to the pertinent documents and experts affadavits in the case.
There appear to be two issues that strike the judge in the case as dopey.
The Curve.
How do you set up an evaluation system that predetermines that some teachers must be bad? Judge Roger McDonough wants to know how you can have a fair system that starts with the premise that even if all the teachers are effective, some of the teachers are not effective. How can evaluations be evaluations is they are not actually tied to a real standard?
The Avatars
New York, like most VAM systems, bases its evaluations on imaginary students. The magical formula creates an imaginary student, an avatar, who is somehow located in an imaginary universe where a neutral teacher leads her to a particular score. If your real student does better on the test than her imaginary counterpart, congratulations-- you're a swell teacher. If your real student does only as well as, or worse that, the imaginary counterpart-- so sorry, but you suck.
This is math as magic, an attempt to do a thing which cannot be done but to convince yourself you've done it because, hey, numbers!!
It will be a month or two before the judge comes back with a ruling, and if he rules against the evaluation system, get ready for the gates of hell to open. In the meantime, the Ledermans stand as a reminder that sometimes, someone has to stand up and make a fuss, and sometimes, when you look around at the circumstances of the moment, that person turns out to be you.
Lederman's story is, at this point, the story of millions of other teachers. One year, her VAM score indicated that she was awesome. The next year, her VAM score indicated that she sucked. Not only was she pretty much the same teacher, but her students got pretty much the same scores.
Because of the importance of the case, lots of folks were there to watch. Carol Burris has a great account in The Answer Sheet, and this blog by Alexndra Milleta who has known Lederman for decades is also worth a read. Audrey Amrein-Beardsley has been following the case for a while. Diane Ravitch provides links to the pertinent documents and experts affadavits in the case.
There appear to be two issues that strike the judge in the case as dopey.
The Curve.
How do you set up an evaluation system that predetermines that some teachers must be bad? Judge Roger McDonough wants to know how you can have a fair system that starts with the premise that even if all the teachers are effective, some of the teachers are not effective. How can evaluations be evaluations is they are not actually tied to a real standard?
The Avatars
New York, like most VAM systems, bases its evaluations on imaginary students. The magical formula creates an imaginary student, an avatar, who is somehow located in an imaginary universe where a neutral teacher leads her to a particular score. If your real student does better on the test than her imaginary counterpart, congratulations-- you're a swell teacher. If your real student does only as well as, or worse that, the imaginary counterpart-- so sorry, but you suck.
This is math as magic, an attempt to do a thing which cannot be done but to convince yourself you've done it because, hey, numbers!!
It will be a month or two before the judge comes back with a ruling, and if he rules against the evaluation system, get ready for the gates of hell to open. In the meantime, the Ledermans stand as a reminder that sometimes, someone has to stand up and make a fuss, and sometimes, when you look around at the circumstances of the moment, that person turns out to be you.
Jeb's Amnesia
Jeb Bush has developed selective amnesia. It's unfortunate, because the thing that has vanished from his memory used to be near and dear to his heart-- the Common Core.
There was a time when it looked like Bush 3.0 would be the only one to stay true to the cause, but in the end, his Presidential aspirations and his Common Core commitment created such violent cognitive dissonance that his brain just spit the Common Core chunks right out of his head.
I first noticed it in New Hampshire. While vacationing, I ended up watching the August 3 New Hampshire GOP Candidate Beauty Pageant. It was about the most non-hostile venue the candidates could hope for, with balls lobbed so soft that they could have been written by the candidates' staffs. The closest thing to confrontation was when the interviewer gently prodded Carly Fiorina to answer the question she had just ignored (spoiler alert: she didn't). The closest thing to genuinely fun moment was when the interviewer offered Rick Perry a do-over on eliminating three government agencies.
The interviewer asked Jeb Bush, "Would you take a moment to tell us the new talking point you're going to use to try to get the stink of Common Core off of you?" (I'm paraphrasing.) The questionish intro to Bush's talking point ended with, "Should state and local school boards reject any so-called national standards?" (You can watch for yourself here at about the 2:01 mark)
They should. They should. States ought to create standards. They should be high. They should be state-driven and locally implemented. The federal government should have no role in the creation of standards. No role in the creation directly or indirectly, no role in the creation of content or curriculum.
He goes on to say that the feds should hand over money without any strings attached and references how Bobby Jindal wants to do all these cool things but the feds say he has to spend Title I money on poor people.
Bush has been using this mantra on the campaign trail as recently as yesterday, along with a somewhat frustrated complaint that he doesn't even know what Common Core means any more.
The frustration over nomenclature is a sort of evolution. Back in May, while he was still defending the Core in an interview with Megyn Kelly, he conceded, "Common Core means a lot of things to different people, so they could be right based on what's in front of them." He's not wrong-- the term Common Core has become so mushy as to be meaningless.
But as Mercedes Schneider points out, Bush has still managed to do a lot of forgetting, including the forgetting of how he conned ALEC into turning from Core opponents into Core fans.
And in his plea that he just wants higher standards developed on the state level, he's forgotten a few other things. He might want to consult the Foundation for Excellence in Education, the organization he used to scale his educational policies up from Florida level to national level. Poor FEE-- they spent all those years getting ready to help Jeb ride straight to the White House, and now he doesn't even know their name. But there they sit-- an ongoing record of what Bush's ideas about education reform used to be, before the amnesia struck.
To build an American education system that equips every child to achieve his or her God-given potential.
That's their stated goal-- a national education system. And that national education system is needed, in part, to protect our country because national education is important for national security (Joel Klein helped whip up that classic report). But Bush isn't talking about that any more.
Bush is also not talking about comparing schools across state lines or making it easy for students to move from school to school. He is certainly not talking about how much help he provided the feds in selling the Core.
There has been no politician who has worked as hard and tirelessly for the Core as Jeb has, and in an odd way I could at least respect him for having convictions. But being trapped in a clown car with a crowded GOP field has apparently washed those convictions right out of his brain. What remains to be seen is if the voters' memories are as malleable as Bush's own.
There was a time when it looked like Bush 3.0 would be the only one to stay true to the cause, but in the end, his Presidential aspirations and his Common Core commitment created such violent cognitive dissonance that his brain just spit the Common Core chunks right out of his head.
I first noticed it in New Hampshire. While vacationing, I ended up watching the August 3 New Hampshire GOP Candidate Beauty Pageant. It was about the most non-hostile venue the candidates could hope for, with balls lobbed so soft that they could have been written by the candidates' staffs. The closest thing to confrontation was when the interviewer gently prodded Carly Fiorina to answer the question she had just ignored (spoiler alert: she didn't). The closest thing to genuinely fun moment was when the interviewer offered Rick Perry a do-over on eliminating three government agencies.
The interviewer asked Jeb Bush, "Would you take a moment to tell us the new talking point you're going to use to try to get the stink of Common Core off of you?" (I'm paraphrasing.) The questionish intro to Bush's talking point ended with, "Should state and local school boards reject any so-called national standards?" (You can watch for yourself here at about the 2:01 mark)
They should. They should. States ought to create standards. They should be high. They should be state-driven and locally implemented. The federal government should have no role in the creation of standards. No role in the creation directly or indirectly, no role in the creation of content or curriculum.
He goes on to say that the feds should hand over money without any strings attached and references how Bobby Jindal wants to do all these cool things but the feds say he has to spend Title I money on poor people.
Bush has been using this mantra on the campaign trail as recently as yesterday, along with a somewhat frustrated complaint that he doesn't even know what Common Core means any more.
The frustration over nomenclature is a sort of evolution. Back in May, while he was still defending the Core in an interview with Megyn Kelly, he conceded, "Common Core means a lot of things to different people, so they could be right based on what's in front of them." He's not wrong-- the term Common Core has become so mushy as to be meaningless.
But as Mercedes Schneider points out, Bush has still managed to do a lot of forgetting, including the forgetting of how he conned ALEC into turning from Core opponents into Core fans.
And in his plea that he just wants higher standards developed on the state level, he's forgotten a few other things. He might want to consult the Foundation for Excellence in Education, the organization he used to scale his educational policies up from Florida level to national level. Poor FEE-- they spent all those years getting ready to help Jeb ride straight to the White House, and now he doesn't even know their name. But there they sit-- an ongoing record of what Bush's ideas about education reform used to be, before the amnesia struck.
To build an American education system that equips every child to achieve his or her God-given potential.
That's their stated goal-- a national education system. And that national education system is needed, in part, to protect our country because national education is important for national security (Joel Klein helped whip up that classic report). But Bush isn't talking about that any more.
Bush is also not talking about comparing schools across state lines or making it easy for students to move from school to school. He is certainly not talking about how much help he provided the feds in selling the Core.
There has been no politician who has worked as hard and tirelessly for the Core as Jeb has, and in an odd way I could at least respect him for having convictions. But being trapped in a clown car with a crowded GOP field has apparently washed those convictions right out of his brain. What remains to be seen is if the voters' memories are as malleable as Bush's own.
Friday, August 14, 2015
Neighborhood Failure Factories
I am a big believer in the concept of neighborhood schools. I think schools are best as an extension of their communities. I've written pretty about why I see charterizing initiatives such as those in New Orleans as both bad educational practice and an assault on fundamental American values.
At the same time, it's important that I acknowledge the limits of the approach that I value so much, and nothing has highlighted those failings any better than this gut-wrenching story of how Pinellas County in Florida turned five thriving schools into "failure factories." I could hem and haw and hedge, but here's the brutal truth of how they did it.
They turned them into neighborhood schools.
They ended desegregation and starved the five schools of, not only the additional resources they needed to succeed, but also in some cases didn't even provide the basic level of support provided to other schools in the county.
This story, written and reported by
Though the efforts were working — black students were posting steady gains on standardized tests — many parents bridled at the tools of integration. They complained about the inconvenience and the high cost of busing and special programs.
In other words, desegregation, with its magnet schools and special programs and busing, required (White) Pinellas County to spend a bunch of money educating Other People's (Black) Children. And so they stopped.
The plan to resegregate called for neighnborhood schools. Gary Orfield, co-director of the Civil Rights Project at UCLA told the article's authors what that gets you
“It produces schools that teachers don’t want to teach in and that are branded as failures by our state and national governments,” Orfield said. “When you go to neighborhood schools, whites and Asians get schools that function well and blacks and Latinos get schools that are impoverished and fail. This isn't a secret."
I don't want to think it's that simple, and I definitely don't care for how short a step it is from that observation to the observation that non-white students and families are somehow defective. But there's no denying what happened next to the five schools.
They had been successful by both the measures that reformsters like to use and the measures that those of us in the whole child well-rounded education community like to use. But what distinguished the new plan is what the school board chose not to do.
Giving up on racially balanced schools wasn’t the School Board’s only option.
They could have integrated schools by requiring a balance of children based on socio-economic status, as other counties were doing.
They could have carefully constructed magnet schools and special programs to attract more white children to schools in black neighborhoods.
Instead, they were ready to plow ahead, to scrap the most important parts of what they had done to guarantee black children got an equal education.
At the same time, it's important that I acknowledge the limits of the approach that I value so much, and nothing has highlighted those failings any better than this gut-wrenching story of how Pinellas County in Florida turned five thriving schools into "failure factories." I could hem and haw and hedge, but here's the brutal truth of how they did it.
They turned them into neighborhood schools.
They ended desegregation and starved the five schools of, not only the additional resources they needed to succeed, but also in some cases didn't even provide the basic level of support provided to other schools in the county.
This story, written and reported by
Though the efforts were working — black students were posting steady gains on standardized tests — many parents bridled at the tools of integration. They complained about the inconvenience and the high cost of busing and special programs.
In other words, desegregation, with its magnet schools and special programs and busing, required (White) Pinellas County to spend a bunch of money educating Other People's (Black) Children. And so they stopped.
The plan to resegregate called for neighnborhood schools. Gary Orfield, co-director of the Civil Rights Project at UCLA told the article's authors what that gets you
“It produces schools that teachers don’t want to teach in and that are branded as failures by our state and national governments,” Orfield said. “When you go to neighborhood schools, whites and Asians get schools that function well and blacks and Latinos get schools that are impoverished and fail. This isn't a secret."
I don't want to think it's that simple, and I definitely don't care for how short a step it is from that observation to the observation that non-white students and families are somehow defective. But there's no denying what happened next to the five schools.
They had been successful by both the measures that reformsters like to use and the measures that those of us in the whole child well-rounded education community like to use. But what distinguished the new plan is what the school board chose not to do.
Giving up on racially balanced schools wasn’t the School Board’s only option.
They could have integrated schools by requiring a balance of children based on socio-economic status, as other counties were doing.
They could have carefully constructed magnet schools and special programs to attract more white children to schools in black neighborhoods.
Instead, they were ready to plow ahead, to scrap the most important parts of what they had done to guarantee black children got an equal education.
Federal AP Boondoggle
The USED is once again happy to announce that they have delivered a grant of $28 million to the College Board corporate coffers.
They have done this by once again paying to help cover the costs of taking the AP test for many low-income students.
This certainly sounds like a noble and worthwhile thing, and the nice quotes from Washed Up NY Education Commissioner and Now Deputy Secretary Without a Title So He Wouldn't Have To Face Congressional Approval John King certainly sound mighty fine: "Advanced Placement classes and the corresponding exams come with very high expectations for our students, as well as important early exposure to the demands and rigor of college-level courses, all while still in high school."
Well, I was not impressed the last time this program rolled around, and I'm still not impressed. Here's why not:
Tests are not education. Getting students the opportunity to take the test is less impressive than giving students the educational support to prepare for the test. $28 million to get teachers AP class teacher training, or money to get poor schools the materials they need to do the class properly (how many AP and Honors students in this country have to buy their own books and materials). This is like saying, "We are going to pay the fee for you to try out for Olympic time trials, but you'll still have to train without a coach out in your barn."
Bulk buying bargains? I am still waiting to hear the part where the federal government cut a deal with the College Board. "The taxpayers are giving $28 million to somebody," Fake Undersecretary John King should be saying. "Cut us a deal. Show me how much of your gigantic profit margin on these tests you will sacrifice in order to get this giant bale of bucks, or we'll support some other initiative." If the point of this initiative is to get the "opportunity" for the greatest number of poor students, and not to feather David Coleman's corporate nest, then I want to hear about the USED haggled and arm-twisted to get the absolute maximum number of students covered. Because if we're buying these tests at full retail price, then this is the worst deal since a $400 defense hammer.
Backwards programming and opportunity costs. This is not a program you come up with when you ask, "How could we provide a little more boost to poor students in underserved schools." This is the grant program you come up with when you ask, "What's a nice way we could funnel some money to that nice corporation we like so much." It may even be the program you come up with when a representative of that company sits in your office and says, "Hey, I know a way you could help us out and it would be swell For The Children, too."
The College Board has been outstanding at using the government to build their customer base (and consequently their revenue stream). In Pennsylvania, your school rating gets a boost if you offer more of the AP product, and that's certainly great news for them.
But if I said, "Okay, you've got twenty-eight million to spend helping poor students-- go!" I just can't believe that the first item on your list would be, "We'll get them a full-price chance to take an AP test." But the only utility of the AP test, beyond making adults proud of themselves for subjecting students to corporately-produced rigor, is to get students credit for courses at their college-- which only helps if they can afford to be at that college in the first place (and if the college accepts AP test results for credit).
If we're concerned about student college success, we could "grant" far more than $28 million just by getting the federal government out of the Grotesque Profits On Student Loans business.
If we wanted to spend $28 million to help poor students in this country, "buy them an AP test" doesn't even crack the top 20. This is a great deal for the College Board (which I will remind you, as always, is a business), but it is a lousy policy for students and taxpayers.
They have done this by once again paying to help cover the costs of taking the AP test for many low-income students.
This certainly sounds like a noble and worthwhile thing, and the nice quotes from Washed Up NY Education Commissioner and Now Deputy Secretary Without a Title So He Wouldn't Have To Face Congressional Approval John King certainly sound mighty fine: "Advanced Placement classes and the corresponding exams come with very high expectations for our students, as well as important early exposure to the demands and rigor of college-level courses, all while still in high school."
Well, I was not impressed the last time this program rolled around, and I'm still not impressed. Here's why not:
Tests are not education. Getting students the opportunity to take the test is less impressive than giving students the educational support to prepare for the test. $28 million to get teachers AP class teacher training, or money to get poor schools the materials they need to do the class properly (how many AP and Honors students in this country have to buy their own books and materials). This is like saying, "We are going to pay the fee for you to try out for Olympic time trials, but you'll still have to train without a coach out in your barn."
Bulk buying bargains? I am still waiting to hear the part where the federal government cut a deal with the College Board. "The taxpayers are giving $28 million to somebody," Fake Undersecretary John King should be saying. "Cut us a deal. Show me how much of your gigantic profit margin on these tests you will sacrifice in order to get this giant bale of bucks, or we'll support some other initiative." If the point of this initiative is to get the "opportunity" for the greatest number of poor students, and not to feather David Coleman's corporate nest, then I want to hear about the USED haggled and arm-twisted to get the absolute maximum number of students covered. Because if we're buying these tests at full retail price, then this is the worst deal since a $400 defense hammer.
Backwards programming and opportunity costs. This is not a program you come up with when you ask, "How could we provide a little more boost to poor students in underserved schools." This is the grant program you come up with when you ask, "What's a nice way we could funnel some money to that nice corporation we like so much." It may even be the program you come up with when a representative of that company sits in your office and says, "Hey, I know a way you could help us out and it would be swell For The Children, too."
The College Board has been outstanding at using the government to build their customer base (and consequently their revenue stream). In Pennsylvania, your school rating gets a boost if you offer more of the AP product, and that's certainly great news for them.
But if I said, "Okay, you've got twenty-eight million to spend helping poor students-- go!" I just can't believe that the first item on your list would be, "We'll get them a full-price chance to take an AP test." But the only utility of the AP test, beyond making adults proud of themselves for subjecting students to corporately-produced rigor, is to get students credit for courses at their college-- which only helps if they can afford to be at that college in the first place (and if the college accepts AP test results for credit).
If we're concerned about student college success, we could "grant" far more than $28 million just by getting the federal government out of the Grotesque Profits On Student Loans business.
If we wanted to spend $28 million to help poor students in this country, "buy them an AP test" doesn't even crack the top 20. This is a great deal for the College Board (which I will remind you, as always, is a business), but it is a lousy policy for students and taxpayers.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)