So Vergara has now been successfully appealed and overturned by a unanimous decision of judges who actually have some of those critical thinking we're all fond of, recognizing the argument, "There is a bear attacking, so we should shoot the cook" is not a particularly compelling argument.
But what comes next? I don't mean what comes with the next with the case, which I'm sure will be appealed ad infinitum until some judge bonks it on the head with a sledgehammer.
I mean with teacher job protections.
There is no question that Vergara (and the New York case and the new Minnesota case) were breathed to life for one reason and one reason only-- to try to stick it to those damn unions. We know the people-- we've read their articles, talked with them on twitter, seen them in the comments section of a thousand different online conversations. They hate the union. Hate it. They think the roadblock to everything decent and good is the teachers' union, that the teachers' union is a giant scam to make teachers and union reps rich while thwarting the plans of brilliant visionaries who just want to be free to implement their grand design without having to answer to anybody, least of all the hired help. They think that public schools are a scam that the union came up with to suck the taxpayers dry while teachers sit and eat bon-bons and ignore the cries of downtrodden children. They hate the union, and like many people on many sides of many issues these days, they are looking for any argument, no matter how disingenuous and cynically constructed, that can be used to make the union shut up and go away.
These lawsuits are also backed by people who would like to slap teachers down in general, who would like to see the profession reduced to a group of hired hands who do what they're told, speak when spoken to, and are rarely kept around long enough to make trouble. Vergara is about empowering teachers like the attacks on voting rights laws are about empowering voters and attempts to shut down abortion clinics are about protecting women. It is about making sure that those little people, those women who don't do anything but work in classrooms with children all day, know their place and understand that they are Less Than and not as important as people with power and money.
And they are about plowing the field. The farmland that is public education is rich and inviting and there is a line of people who want to plant it with rich cash crops for their own purposes. Teachers are the rocks and trees in that field, making it pleasant and welcoming for a small farm, but presenting annoying obstacles for people who want to factory farm on gthe large scale, thousands upon thousands of acres at a time.
And they are people who simply don't believe that you should have to pay a teacher all that much, ever. If they get too expensive in a tight economy, you should be able to fire the expensive ones to get your costs down.
Vergara is all that.
But it would be a mistake to dismiss every single person who cropped up on the anti-tenure, anti-FILO, anti-job protection side of things.
There are people who see problems (and some of them are teachers) in places where job protections have run amok, either because some board negotiated a bad contract or some administrators don't do their jobs. Under the attack of Vergara, there have been places where conversations have popped up about how, perhaps, the system could be improved and strengthened for teachers and school districts, and there are some places where that conversation really needs to happen.
I believe that the benefits of a seniority-based system are huge. Huge. It incentivizes people to look at teaching as a career, a job to which they can devote their entire life, which in turn encourages them to be the very best they can be and to invest themselves in training and self-improvement. It gives stability and institutional memory to a school, creating ties that bind a community together and making a school a community institution that connects people to a history that matters. It helps draw good people to the work because you may not ever be paid real well, but at least you don't have to spend half your time worrying about losing your job over something stupid. And it protects teachers so that they can do their job like professionals with an educational mission instead of political appointees who are busy trying to suck up to whoever has the power to fire them this week.
At this point we could just say neener-neener to the Vergara fans and walk away. I don't think we should. Well, in some cases we should. Some of them are not interested in serious conversation because they are not interested in better schools, and they never have been.
But I'm a big believer that there's nothing that can be hurt by simply talking about it and considering it and wondering, "If we had a blank slate for this issue, what would we write on it/"
I'm not saying I have a better idea, a proposal I want to sell. Basing job security on student results on crappy tests is an exceptionally crappy idea. We can always play with the probationary period at the beginning of a career, but I haven't seen much to indicate that would really make any difference. We probably should spend more time strengthening what happens in the grey area between a solid teacher and one that needs to be fired. But no, I don't have any particular proposals. I suspect that a FILO system coupled with job protections that mean good teachers can't be fired for bad reasons-- I think that's about as good as it gets.
But by refusing to even talk about it, we fueled things like the Vergara baloney lawsuit. Yes, the people who instigate these things are not operating in good faith, and so no good faith responses will affect them. But I think they attracted many people to their side who are operating in good (if somewhat confused) faith, and there's no reason not to talk to them.
Every classroom should have a great teacher in it. Nobody believes that more than teachers. Nobody understands how complicated and challenging achieving that goal is than teachers, and it's in everyone's interest for us to keep tying to explain just how complicated and challenging that is.
It has been difficult. It is difficult to put forth any argument that feels even a little vulnerable when some folks are charging at you with torches and pitchforks. But for the moment, the courts have told the Vergara wackjobs to put their pitchforks down, and it might be a good time for us to try talking to the people they conned into joining their merry assault. I'm not saying to roll over, play dead, and give up the farm. I'm just saying let's not brush off our hands, say "Glad that's over" and go home. Because first of all, it's not over, and it will never be over as long as there are rich and powerful union-loathing teacher-dissing folks out there (and that will be forever), and because there will always be a need to talk about how to keep the teacher pipeline and school classrooms filled with good people, and that's a conversation we should not walk away from.
Friday, April 15, 2016
Thursday, April 14, 2016
John King Still Doesn't Get It
News comes that today in Vegas, John King will try to use his bully speaker's podium to lay down some words about education. Here's the short version of his message, from Emma Brown at the Washington Post:
The nation’s schools have focused so intently on improving students’ math and reading skills that, in many cases, they have squeezed out other important subjects, such as social studies, science and the arts.
Close. Actually, the nation's schools have focused so intently on improving students' math and reading scores that the squeezage has occurred.
But throughout his comments, King shows that, like his predecessor, he just doesn't get what has happened.
For instance, Brown reports that King plans to say that No Child Left Behind had the unintended consequences of narrowing the curriculum. I can believe that, at least for some people, the consequences may have been unintended. But they were completely predictable, and in fact people on both side of the ed reform divide predicted it.
Brown reports the criticism, including the observation that what NCLB made bad, the Obama administration made worse, "especially by pushing for teacher evaluations tied to those test scores." But King objects to that criticism, "saying that the administration’s efforts always emphasized a more holistic approach to teacher evaluations than the political rhetoric suggested."
No, sir, they did not. At best you can say that the administration paid lip service to a more rounded view of education. But their efforts were always toward emphasizing results of the narrow Big Standardized Test. The administration spent a ton of money to develop what were supposed to be the two national tests (SBA and PARCC). And at every turn, the administration demanded that teacher evaluation be tied to "student achievement," which always and only meant "test scores."
In fact, this administration made an example of Washington State by yanking their NCLB waiver because they refused to link teacher evaluation to student test scores.
The administration has always emphasized test scores, and the BS Tests have always emphasized reading and math. The administration could not have more fully and directly narrowed the curriculum of American schools if they had deliberately tried to do so.
King's speech opens with a personal story from his teaching days (he does not mention that those teaching days were in a charter and few days indeed) and then moves to an impassioned call for wider education. Then he starts slinging baloney.
I’ve been clear, as have the president and my predecessor Arne Duncan, that in many places in this country, testing became excessive, redundant, and overemphasized, and our Department is serious about helping states and districts to change that.
No. The USED is not serious about helping, and they never have been. If they had been, they could have done away with the federal mandate for testing every child every year. If they had been, they would have done away with the federal requirement that teacher evaluations be significantly linked to test results. What they have been serious about is maintaining that federal level of testing, making it really count, and when called on the over-testing of US students, shifting focus by claiming that it's all those other tests that are the problem.
King makes an attempt to somehow link NCLB to social justice and civil rights. And he admits that maybe emphasis has shifted from classes that are important. He gives a single-sentence paragraph emphasis to the statement, "And the research is clear that a well-rounded education matters."
You understand a reading or a lesson better when it touches on knowledge or experiences you’ve encountered before – which is why students with wider knowledge read and learn more easily.
King is correct-- and yet what he's saying runs contrary to the whole reading philosophy of Common Core, which treats reading as a group of discrete skills that exist in a vacuum, independent of any content. It is also contrary to the BS Tests, which are designed to use reading excerpts specifically chosen to level the playing field by being obscure (so no prior student knowledge) and boring (so no student interest).
Then he goes on to talk about how science and STEMmy things can stimulate math ability. So King is telling us that math and reading aren't the only important areas of study. Other areas are also important-- insofar as they help with math and reading!
King is excited because he believes that ESSA will let states redefine what "education" means so that it includes non math-and-reading things.
And then. Then King talks about how he sees all this through his daughters' eyes. You know-- the daughters that attend a Montessori school where none of the reforms of NCLB and Common Core and BS Testing are followed. Yeah-- their school does really awesome stuff? Shouldn't all schools be that awesome, wonders John King as if he is not sitting in the head office of the government agency that has worked for over a decade to insure that all schools are not like that.
King shares one other characteristic with his predecessor-- he can occasionally say the right thing (even if it has nothing to do with the department's actual policies). Here's his finish, spinning off from his daughters' education:
Their education will shape the people they will become, not just what they will achieve academically. Both of them have studied music, dance, and theater. I don’t know if either of them will become a concert pianist or a famous guitarist or a professional ballerina. But I do know that they are developing a kind of aesthetic appreciation that will bring them joy and widen their world for the rest of their lives.
And really, that’s what this is about: that inextricable intersection between what our kids learn and who they become. I am who I am because a teacher and a school believed it was worth the time and effort to widen my horizons.
That’s what every student in this country deserves. Let’s work together to make it possible.
One of the things that has always puzzled me about King is that his story is powerful and moving and real-- yet King himself does not seem to understand any of the lessons that story teaches. It appears that this policy-level blindness has followed him directly into the secretary's office. How the cognitive dissonance between his messages and the policies his office supports and approves-- I don't know how that doesn't make his head blow up.
The nation’s schools have focused so intently on improving students’ math and reading skills that, in many cases, they have squeezed out other important subjects, such as social studies, science and the arts.
Close. Actually, the nation's schools have focused so intently on improving students' math and reading scores that the squeezage has occurred.
But throughout his comments, King shows that, like his predecessor, he just doesn't get what has happened.
For instance, Brown reports that King plans to say that No Child Left Behind had the unintended consequences of narrowing the curriculum. I can believe that, at least for some people, the consequences may have been unintended. But they were completely predictable, and in fact people on both side of the ed reform divide predicted it.
Brown reports the criticism, including the observation that what NCLB made bad, the Obama administration made worse, "especially by pushing for teacher evaluations tied to those test scores." But King objects to that criticism, "saying that the administration’s efforts always emphasized a more holistic approach to teacher evaluations than the political rhetoric suggested."
No, sir, they did not. At best you can say that the administration paid lip service to a more rounded view of education. But their efforts were always toward emphasizing results of the narrow Big Standardized Test. The administration spent a ton of money to develop what were supposed to be the two national tests (SBA and PARCC). And at every turn, the administration demanded that teacher evaluation be tied to "student achievement," which always and only meant "test scores."
In fact, this administration made an example of Washington State by yanking their NCLB waiver because they refused to link teacher evaluation to student test scores.
The administration has always emphasized test scores, and the BS Tests have always emphasized reading and math. The administration could not have more fully and directly narrowed the curriculum of American schools if they had deliberately tried to do so.
King's speech opens with a personal story from his teaching days (he does not mention that those teaching days were in a charter and few days indeed) and then moves to an impassioned call for wider education. Then he starts slinging baloney.
I’ve been clear, as have the president and my predecessor Arne Duncan, that in many places in this country, testing became excessive, redundant, and overemphasized, and our Department is serious about helping states and districts to change that.
No. The USED is not serious about helping, and they never have been. If they had been, they could have done away with the federal mandate for testing every child every year. If they had been, they would have done away with the federal requirement that teacher evaluations be significantly linked to test results. What they have been serious about is maintaining that federal level of testing, making it really count, and when called on the over-testing of US students, shifting focus by claiming that it's all those other tests that are the problem.
King makes an attempt to somehow link NCLB to social justice and civil rights. And he admits that maybe emphasis has shifted from classes that are important. He gives a single-sentence paragraph emphasis to the statement, "And the research is clear that a well-rounded education matters."
You understand a reading or a lesson better when it touches on knowledge or experiences you’ve encountered before – which is why students with wider knowledge read and learn more easily.
King is correct-- and yet what he's saying runs contrary to the whole reading philosophy of Common Core, which treats reading as a group of discrete skills that exist in a vacuum, independent of any content. It is also contrary to the BS Tests, which are designed to use reading excerpts specifically chosen to level the playing field by being obscure (so no prior student knowledge) and boring (so no student interest).
Then he goes on to talk about how science and STEMmy things can stimulate math ability. So King is telling us that math and reading aren't the only important areas of study. Other areas are also important-- insofar as they help with math and reading!
King is excited because he believes that ESSA will let states redefine what "education" means so that it includes non math-and-reading things.
And then. Then King talks about how he sees all this through his daughters' eyes. You know-- the daughters that attend a Montessori school where none of the reforms of NCLB and Common Core and BS Testing are followed. Yeah-- their school does really awesome stuff? Shouldn't all schools be that awesome, wonders John King as if he is not sitting in the head office of the government agency that has worked for over a decade to insure that all schools are not like that.
King shares one other characteristic with his predecessor-- he can occasionally say the right thing (even if it has nothing to do with the department's actual policies). Here's his finish, spinning off from his daughters' education:
Their education will shape the people they will become, not just what they will achieve academically. Both of them have studied music, dance, and theater. I don’t know if either of them will become a concert pianist or a famous guitarist or a professional ballerina. But I do know that they are developing a kind of aesthetic appreciation that will bring them joy and widen their world for the rest of their lives.
And really, that’s what this is about: that inextricable intersection between what our kids learn and who they become. I am who I am because a teacher and a school believed it was worth the time and effort to widen my horizons.
That’s what every student in this country deserves. Let’s work together to make it possible.
One of the things that has always puzzled me about King is that his story is powerful and moving and real-- yet King himself does not seem to understand any of the lessons that story teaches. It appears that this policy-level blindness has followed him directly into the secretary's office. How the cognitive dissonance between his messages and the policies his office supports and approves-- I don't know how that doesn't make his head blow up.
Wednesday, April 13, 2016
MN: Another Baloney Attack on Tenure
From today's New York Times:
Opening a new front in the assault on teacher tenure, a group of parents backed by wealthy philanthropists served notice to defendants on Wednesday in a lawsuit challenging Minnesota’s job protections for teachers, as well as the state’s rules governing which teachers are laid off as a result of budget cuts.
Close, but not quite.
Opening a new front in the assault on teacher tenure, a group of wealthy philanthropists using parents as a front, served notice etc...
There. Fixed that for you.
The anti-tenure lawsuit is funded by the usual suspects-- the Partnership for Education Justice (funded by the Walton family and Eli Broad), and Students for Education Reform (an astroturf group used as a front by Education Reform Now, the lobbying brother of Democrats for Education Reform, an astroturf group of hedge funders which is also heavily funded by Broad and Walton).
It is a bullshit lawsuit. Here is how we know.
Exhibit A:
“These laws have the effect of poorly performing, ineffective teachers staying in the classroom for years on end,” said Jesse Stewart, a lawyer who will be arguing the case on behalf of the plaintiffs. “You have teachers who are demonstrably ineffective teaching students who need the best that’s out there,” Mr. Stewart added.
This is a lie. If a teacher were "demonstrably ineffective," they would be demonstrably fire-able. For the umpty-gazzillionth time-- tenure does not protect demonstrably incompetent teachers from getting fired. I have seen it done, even in my little small town corner of the world. say it with me. Tenure does not keep incompetent teachers from being fired. What does? Bad administrators. Lazy administrators. Sloppy administrators. Let me quote myself-- behind every teacher who shouldn't have a job is an administrator who isn't doing his. And all the tenure "reforms" (and this is tenure reform in the same sense that a building demolition is construction reform) in the world will not turn a crappy administrator into a good one. Give a lazy, sloppy, bad administrator the power to fire bad teachers, and it still won't happen.
An apartment building is reformed
But the plaintiffs don't actually mean "demonstrably ineffective." What they mean is "standing in the classroom with a bunch of poor kids."
In one example cited in the legal complaint, teachers at a school in Minneapolis where nearly all the students identify as minorities and are eligible to receive free or reduced price lunches had the lowest average performance ratings in the district.
Well, yes. Of course they did. We already know that poverty levels are excellent predictors of test scores. Take a classroom with no roof. When it rains, all the students in the room get wet, and so the teacher gets wet too. If you fire that teacher and go get a dry one, the students will still get wet when it rains-- and so will every replacement teacher you ever put in there. Claiming that a really good teacher would keep everyone dry is baloney.
If you are going to fire every teacher who teaches poor kids who get bad Big Standardized Test scores, you will never make headway. Can a teacher help poor students do better. Abso-fricking-lutely. But you have to build a roof, because you cannot fire your way to better test scores (we will forgo, for the moment, whether test scores even mean jackity-poo to begin with).
Exhibit B:
Tiffini Flynn Forslund, one of the named plaintiffs and the mother of a 17-year-old high school junior in the Anoka-Hennepin School District, said her older daughter’s beloved fifth-grade teacher was laid off during budget cuts because he had less seniority than other teachers in the school.
Here's is how I know that nobody filing this suit actually gives a rat's ass about teacher quality-- if they did, they would also be aggressively addressing the issue of budget cuts.
Tiffini should not have had to lose her beloved fifth grade teacher (six years ago-- one wonders why the family waited till now to act). But neither should some other student in Tiffinni's school. The assumption here is that somewhere in Tiffini's school was some Terrible Teacher, so odious and incompetent that they clearly should have been marked for removal (but somehow was not, despite the administration's power to do so).
But what if that's not the case. What if every single teacher in the building was beloved by some deserving child? Why should Tiffini's teacher be spared while someone else's beloved teacher is axed.
Well, you know which beloved teacher should be furloughed due to budget slashing in a poor school? None! Nobody!! Instead, the plaintiffs should be (as some are in other states) taking the state/city/district to court to demand that school be funded properly. Plaintiffs should be arguing that Tiffini's school should not be forced to cut staff at all!
The fact that these "advocates" and their twitter cheer squad are troubled by the cutting of Tiffini's teacher, but not at all troubled by the slashing of Tiffini's budget or the reduction Tiffini's teaching staff or the loss of Tiffini's resources tells me that they are far more interested in attacking teacher tenure and job protections than they are concerned about Tiffini.
Look-- there are plenty of legitimate conversations to be had about teacher job protections, hiring and firing practices, etc. But this lawsuit, like Vergara in California and Campbell Brown's lawsuit in NY, is not an attempt to have that conversation. It's simply an attempt to break the teachers' union and destroy teacher job protections so that teaching staff costs can be kept low and teachers themselves can be cowed and bullied into silence and compliance.
Put another way, this is not remotely pro-student, and is strictly anti-teacher. It's thick-sliced unvarnished baloney, and the fact that it is an attack on teachers is bad enough, but in attacking teachers, it also leaves unquestioned the attacks on student facilities, schools and resources, while trying to make conditions inside schools that much worse. It's cynical, it's destructive, and it's just plain mean. Let's hope this doesn't drag over another few years to another lousy conclusion.
Opening a new front in the assault on teacher tenure, a group of parents backed by wealthy philanthropists served notice to defendants on Wednesday in a lawsuit challenging Minnesota’s job protections for teachers, as well as the state’s rules governing which teachers are laid off as a result of budget cuts.
Close, but not quite.
Opening a new front in the assault on teacher tenure, a group of wealthy philanthropists using parents as a front, served notice etc...
There. Fixed that for you.
The anti-tenure lawsuit is funded by the usual suspects-- the Partnership for Education Justice (funded by the Walton family and Eli Broad), and Students for Education Reform (an astroturf group used as a front by Education Reform Now, the lobbying brother of Democrats for Education Reform, an astroturf group of hedge funders which is also heavily funded by Broad and Walton).
It is a bullshit lawsuit. Here is how we know.
Exhibit A:
“These laws have the effect of poorly performing, ineffective teachers staying in the classroom for years on end,” said Jesse Stewart, a lawyer who will be arguing the case on behalf of the plaintiffs. “You have teachers who are demonstrably ineffective teaching students who need the best that’s out there,” Mr. Stewart added.
This is a lie. If a teacher were "demonstrably ineffective," they would be demonstrably fire-able. For the umpty-gazzillionth time-- tenure does not protect demonstrably incompetent teachers from getting fired. I have seen it done, even in my little small town corner of the world. say it with me. Tenure does not keep incompetent teachers from being fired. What does? Bad administrators. Lazy administrators. Sloppy administrators. Let me quote myself-- behind every teacher who shouldn't have a job is an administrator who isn't doing his. And all the tenure "reforms" (and this is tenure reform in the same sense that a building demolition is construction reform) in the world will not turn a crappy administrator into a good one. Give a lazy, sloppy, bad administrator the power to fire bad teachers, and it still won't happen.
An apartment building is reformed
But the plaintiffs don't actually mean "demonstrably ineffective." What they mean is "standing in the classroom with a bunch of poor kids."
In one example cited in the legal complaint, teachers at a school in Minneapolis where nearly all the students identify as minorities and are eligible to receive free or reduced price lunches had the lowest average performance ratings in the district.
Well, yes. Of course they did. We already know that poverty levels are excellent predictors of test scores. Take a classroom with no roof. When it rains, all the students in the room get wet, and so the teacher gets wet too. If you fire that teacher and go get a dry one, the students will still get wet when it rains-- and so will every replacement teacher you ever put in there. Claiming that a really good teacher would keep everyone dry is baloney.
If you are going to fire every teacher who teaches poor kids who get bad Big Standardized Test scores, you will never make headway. Can a teacher help poor students do better. Abso-fricking-lutely. But you have to build a roof, because you cannot fire your way to better test scores (we will forgo, for the moment, whether test scores even mean jackity-poo to begin with).
Exhibit B:
Tiffini Flynn Forslund, one of the named plaintiffs and the mother of a 17-year-old high school junior in the Anoka-Hennepin School District, said her older daughter’s beloved fifth-grade teacher was laid off during budget cuts because he had less seniority than other teachers in the school.
Here's is how I know that nobody filing this suit actually gives a rat's ass about teacher quality-- if they did, they would also be aggressively addressing the issue of budget cuts.
Tiffini should not have had to lose her beloved fifth grade teacher (six years ago-- one wonders why the family waited till now to act). But neither should some other student in Tiffinni's school. The assumption here is that somewhere in Tiffini's school was some Terrible Teacher, so odious and incompetent that they clearly should have been marked for removal (but somehow was not, despite the administration's power to do so).
But what if that's not the case. What if every single teacher in the building was beloved by some deserving child? Why should Tiffini's teacher be spared while someone else's beloved teacher is axed.
Well, you know which beloved teacher should be furloughed due to budget slashing in a poor school? None! Nobody!! Instead, the plaintiffs should be (as some are in other states) taking the state/city/district to court to demand that school be funded properly. Plaintiffs should be arguing that Tiffini's school should not be forced to cut staff at all!
The fact that these "advocates" and their twitter cheer squad are troubled by the cutting of Tiffini's teacher, but not at all troubled by the slashing of Tiffini's budget or the reduction Tiffini's teaching staff or the loss of Tiffini's resources tells me that they are far more interested in attacking teacher tenure and job protections than they are concerned about Tiffini.
Look-- there are plenty of legitimate conversations to be had about teacher job protections, hiring and firing practices, etc. But this lawsuit, like Vergara in California and Campbell Brown's lawsuit in NY, is not an attempt to have that conversation. It's simply an attempt to break the teachers' union and destroy teacher job protections so that teaching staff costs can be kept low and teachers themselves can be cowed and bullied into silence and compliance.
Put another way, this is not remotely pro-student, and is strictly anti-teacher. It's thick-sliced unvarnished baloney, and the fact that it is an attack on teachers is bad enough, but in attacking teachers, it also leaves unquestioned the attacks on student facilities, schools and resources, while trying to make conditions inside schools that much worse. It's cynical, it's destructive, and it's just plain mean. Let's hope this doesn't drag over another few years to another lousy conclusion.
Are Educators Rising?
Another day, another group setting out to get education All Fixed Up. Today, let's meet Educators Rising.
Fine. What's this one up to?
What's their mission? And what are their standards for future teachers?
Educators Rising cultivates highly skilled educators by guiding young people on a path to becoming accomplished teachers, beginning in high school and extending through college and into the profession.
ER is "powered by" Phi Delta Kappa, and their mission is to pump up the ever-more-empty teacher pipeline, starting by recruiting and supporting high school students who might pursue a teaching career. It is not the only program of its kind (South Carolina's Center for Recruitment, Retention and Advancement had a teacher cadet program that was not too shabby), but the PDK nameplate gives it some clout and national reach, and that also means it's not just one more Gatesian style astroturf group.
They've come up with standards for high school students planning on entering teaching-- standards that are currently open for commenting. We'll get to those in a bit.
Who runs this group?
Co-director Dan Brown earned a degree in Film and Television and became a New York Teaching Fellow (the NYC district's in-house version of TFA), then wrote a memoir about his first year in the classroom. Moved from elementary to high school, got a Masters in teaching, and served a year as a USED Teaching Fellow in the Arne Duncan years. He has a TED talk. He's written and worked as a talking head. All of this in the last ten years or so. I give him a point for this line in his official government bio: "Dan Brown did not write The Da Vinci Code, and he is okay with that."
Co-director Ashley Kincaid has been in the education biz for even less time (seven whole years) after a career in management consultancy as well as communications boss for the Girl Scouts.
PDK CEO Josh Starr has been a superintendent with a stint in Stamford, followed by a somewhat contentious stint in Maryland. Read both the piece linked to and the comments with it-- Starr's legacy is complicated.
So not exactly mainstream education folks, but not the usual gang of reformsters, either.
What problem are they trying to solve?
Add this group to the list of people who have noticed that the teacher pipeline is drying up. They have also noticed that turnover is particularly bad in poor, urban schools where the need is great. Their breakdown of the problem hits all the familiar notes. Some are not entirely accurate (only 62% of teachers felt prepared when they started) and some are worth noting (10% of "special ed" teachers aren't licensed) and some signal a real problem (80+% of teacher pool is white, over 50% of students are not).
Amidst those data points, Brown adds an interesting note-- 60% of teachers teach within 20 miles of their old high school.
Which means that most of the future teachers in any given school are already sitting there in student desks. Which means that if we can find them and support them, we could make sure more of them make it through the pipeline and become successful teachers who stay in the profession for more than two or three years.
The Standards
To that end, Educators Rising has a rough draft of some standards for high school students who are prospective future educators. Those standards are currently open to review through a simple surveymonkey form, though you'll need to set aside some moments to really look at them. I will warn you that when you get to the list where you declare your organizational affiliation, you will see some choices that are disheartening.
The actual standards can be found here, complete with notice that they are draft standards that are not to be cited or quoted, and I'm going to try to respect that, mostly. Here are some things I think you will notice about the standards.
First of all, there are eight of them. Here's the list.
Standard I: Understanding the Profession
Standard II: Learning About Students
Standard III: Gaining Content Knowledge
Standard IV: Engaging in Responsive Planning
Standard V: Implementing Instruction
Standard VI: Using Assessments and Data
Standard VII:Engaging in Reflective Practice
Second of all, you may notice some things that do not appear among the standards. I didn't find any language to the effect that teachers must build their lessons by aligning to college and career ready standards. I did not find anything suggesting that teachers should learn to measure their own success based on student achievement aka test scores. And I didn't find anything suggesting that students interested in a teaching career should get a college degree in whatever and then hit five weeks of summer school to be classroom-ready.
Third of all-- jargon. There's lots of stuff like this (sorry--I'm going to quote):
They strive to build mutual respect and a positive rapport with colleagues and students. Accomplished teachers work productively and intentionally with other educators to promote vertical alignment, strengthen interdisciplinary connections, and create a culture of innovative practice.
The document makes teaching sound generally as inspiring and as exciting as accounting and as opaque as studying French deconstructionism. I read the document and wondered exactly what the audience was supposed to be, because if it's supposed to be the actual high school students we're trying to recruit, this thing needs a massive rewrite.
.Well, this guy is excited
There are points on which to quibble, like the idea of embracing many points of view, which sounds swell, except that content knowledge really ought to include the ability to recognize that some points of view are not actually legitimate (e.g. Holocaust denial or eating fried liver).
But this is actually the first time in a while that I've read a document from someone who wanted to fix any part of education and not felt like I needed a long shower afterwards (note to PDK-- feel free to use that line as promotional endorsement). Not saying I agree with every bit of it, but at least it's a serious opening to a serious discussion. I recommend that you actually go over, take a look, and leave some comments, because my biggest fear is that someone is going to stop by and explain to them that it's not reformy enough.
Fine. What's this one up to?
What's their mission? And what are their standards for future teachers?
Educators Rising cultivates highly skilled educators by guiding young people on a path to becoming accomplished teachers, beginning in high school and extending through college and into the profession.
ER is "powered by" Phi Delta Kappa, and their mission is to pump up the ever-more-empty teacher pipeline, starting by recruiting and supporting high school students who might pursue a teaching career. It is not the only program of its kind (South Carolina's Center for Recruitment, Retention and Advancement had a teacher cadet program that was not too shabby), but the PDK nameplate gives it some clout and national reach, and that also means it's not just one more Gatesian style astroturf group.
They've come up with standards for high school students planning on entering teaching-- standards that are currently open for commenting. We'll get to those in a bit.
Who runs this group?
Co-director Dan Brown earned a degree in Film and Television and became a New York Teaching Fellow (the NYC district's in-house version of TFA), then wrote a memoir about his first year in the classroom. Moved from elementary to high school, got a Masters in teaching, and served a year as a USED Teaching Fellow in the Arne Duncan years. He has a TED talk. He's written and worked as a talking head. All of this in the last ten years or so. I give him a point for this line in his official government bio: "Dan Brown did not write The Da Vinci Code, and he is okay with that."
Co-director Ashley Kincaid has been in the education biz for even less time (seven whole years) after a career in management consultancy as well as communications boss for the Girl Scouts.
PDK CEO Josh Starr has been a superintendent with a stint in Stamford, followed by a somewhat contentious stint in Maryland. Read both the piece linked to and the comments with it-- Starr's legacy is complicated.
So not exactly mainstream education folks, but not the usual gang of reformsters, either.
What problem are they trying to solve?
Add this group to the list of people who have noticed that the teacher pipeline is drying up. They have also noticed that turnover is particularly bad in poor, urban schools where the need is great. Their breakdown of the problem hits all the familiar notes. Some are not entirely accurate (only 62% of teachers felt prepared when they started) and some are worth noting (10% of "special ed" teachers aren't licensed) and some signal a real problem (80+% of teacher pool is white, over 50% of students are not).
Amidst those data points, Brown adds an interesting note-- 60% of teachers teach within 20 miles of their old high school.
Which means that most of the future teachers in any given school are already sitting there in student desks. Which means that if we can find them and support them, we could make sure more of them make it through the pipeline and become successful teachers who stay in the profession for more than two or three years.
The Standards
To that end, Educators Rising has a rough draft of some standards for high school students who are prospective future educators. Those standards are currently open to review through a simple surveymonkey form, though you'll need to set aside some moments to really look at them. I will warn you that when you get to the list where you declare your organizational affiliation, you will see some choices that are disheartening.
The actual standards can be found here, complete with notice that they are draft standards that are not to be cited or quoted, and I'm going to try to respect that, mostly. Here are some things I think you will notice about the standards.
First of all, there are eight of them. Here's the list.
Standard I: Understanding the Profession
Standard II: Learning About Students
Standard III: Gaining Content Knowledge
Standard IV: Engaging in Responsive Planning
Standard V: Implementing Instruction
Standard VI: Using Assessments and Data
Standard VII:Engaging in Reflective Practice
Second of all, you may notice some things that do not appear among the standards. I didn't find any language to the effect that teachers must build their lessons by aligning to college and career ready standards. I did not find anything suggesting that teachers should learn to measure their own success based on student achievement aka test scores. And I didn't find anything suggesting that students interested in a teaching career should get a college degree in whatever and then hit five weeks of summer school to be classroom-ready.
Third of all-- jargon. There's lots of stuff like this (sorry--I'm going to quote):
They strive to build mutual respect and a positive rapport with colleagues and students. Accomplished teachers work productively and intentionally with other educators to promote vertical alignment, strengthen interdisciplinary connections, and create a culture of innovative practice.
The document makes teaching sound generally as inspiring and as exciting as accounting and as opaque as studying French deconstructionism. I read the document and wondered exactly what the audience was supposed to be, because if it's supposed to be the actual high school students we're trying to recruit, this thing needs a massive rewrite.
.Well, this guy is excited
There are points on which to quibble, like the idea of embracing many points of view, which sounds swell, except that content knowledge really ought to include the ability to recognize that some points of view are not actually legitimate (e.g. Holocaust denial or eating fried liver).
But this is actually the first time in a while that I've read a document from someone who wanted to fix any part of education and not felt like I needed a long shower afterwards (note to PDK-- feel free to use that line as promotional endorsement). Not saying I agree with every bit of it, but at least it's a serious opening to a serious discussion. I recommend that you actually go over, take a look, and leave some comments, because my biggest fear is that someone is going to stop by and explain to them that it's not reformy enough.
Tuesday, April 12, 2016
Lamar Alexander Takes John King To Woodshed
Well, that didn't take long.
John King was in front of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, and while King may be the new Secretary of Education, it was Sen. Lamar Alexander who took him to school.
Alexander starts with a history lesson. He reminds King that Alexander supported the Secretary's appointment so that ESSA could be properly implemented. And he provides a reminder of why ESSA passage was a big deal, and why it was possible to bring together one of the most wide-ranging coalitions ever to pass it.
The reason we were able to achieve such unusual unanimity and consensus is that people had gotten tired of the Department of Education telling them so much of what they ought to be doing.
It wasn’t just Republicans or governors who were fed up, it was school superintendents, teachers, principals, parents, state legislatures, school boards, and chief state school officers.
Point-- the USED was acting like the nation's school board, ignoring all outside voices, and pissing off everyone. Everyone.
Which brings him to his actual point:
Today, we’re holding our second hearing of at least six to oversee the implementation of this law and already we are seeing disturbing evidence of an Education Department that is ignoring the law that each of this committee’s 22 members worked so hard to craft.
Alexander then zeros in on the idea of compatibility and the slightly arcane art of computing per pupil expenditures and whether or not the process should include teacher salaries.
You can go look up the details; they're already being well covered. I'm interested in the bigger picture, which is that King got caught trying to rewrite the law, and Alexander called him on it in very clear language.
But here’s what your department did on April 1 – you tried to do what Congress wouldn’t do in Comparability by regulating another separate provision in the law.
In a negotiated rulemaking session, your department proposed a rule that would do exactly what the law says it shall not do
He lists off the specific problems of what the department proposed (including a complex and costly massive mess) and then returns to the heart of the matter:
But I’m not interested in debating today whether what you’ve proposed is a good idea or a bad one – the plain fact of the matter is that the law specifically says you cannot do it.
Not only is what you’re doing against the law, the way you’re trying to do it is against another provision in the law.
And the Senator is not having it. He notes that a December Politico story quoted Duncan saying that USED lawyers are smarter than the lawmakers. But "we in Congress are smart enough to anticipate your lawyers' attempts to rewrite the law."
And then Alexander moves directly to the threat stage.
He promises to use every power of Congress "to make sure the law is implemented the way we wrote it." If the USED tries to force states to follow the lawbreaking regulations, he will encourage the state ask for a hearing-- and if they lose, he will suggest they take the department to court.
Bottom line-- Alexander is making it clear right up front that the law will be implemented the way it was written, or else.
Sooo..
John King was going to repair the USED terrible, terrible relationship with Congress. That does not seem to be going well. Who could have predicted that John King would try to do whatever he damn well pleased regardless of what other stakeholders said or did? Oh, that's right-- pretty much everyone in New York State would have predicted it.
King looks to be cut from the same cloth as Arne Duncan, but Lamar Alexander seems determined not to go down that same road again. These are definitely going to be interesting days ahead.
(PS- Just in case there was any doubt that this was meant to be a public spanking, all of the above comes directly from the Senate committee's press release.)
John King was in front of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, and while King may be the new Secretary of Education, it was Sen. Lamar Alexander who took him to school.
Alexander starts with a history lesson. He reminds King that Alexander supported the Secretary's appointment so that ESSA could be properly implemented. And he provides a reminder of why ESSA passage was a big deal, and why it was possible to bring together one of the most wide-ranging coalitions ever to pass it.
The reason we were able to achieve such unusual unanimity and consensus is that people had gotten tired of the Department of Education telling them so much of what they ought to be doing.
It wasn’t just Republicans or governors who were fed up, it was school superintendents, teachers, principals, parents, state legislatures, school boards, and chief state school officers.
Point-- the USED was acting like the nation's school board, ignoring all outside voices, and pissing off everyone. Everyone.
Which brings him to his actual point:
Today, we’re holding our second hearing of at least six to oversee the implementation of this law and already we are seeing disturbing evidence of an Education Department that is ignoring the law that each of this committee’s 22 members worked so hard to craft.
Alexander then zeros in on the idea of compatibility and the slightly arcane art of computing per pupil expenditures and whether or not the process should include teacher salaries.
You can go look up the details; they're already being well covered. I'm interested in the bigger picture, which is that King got caught trying to rewrite the law, and Alexander called him on it in very clear language.
But here’s what your department did on April 1 – you tried to do what Congress wouldn’t do in Comparability by regulating another separate provision in the law.
In a negotiated rulemaking session, your department proposed a rule that would do exactly what the law says it shall not do
He lists off the specific problems of what the department proposed (including a complex and costly massive mess) and then returns to the heart of the matter:
But I’m not interested in debating today whether what you’ve proposed is a good idea or a bad one – the plain fact of the matter is that the law specifically says you cannot do it.
Not only is what you’re doing against the law, the way you’re trying to do it is against another provision in the law.
And the Senator is not having it. He notes that a December Politico story quoted Duncan saying that USED lawyers are smarter than the lawmakers. But "we in Congress are smart enough to anticipate your lawyers' attempts to rewrite the law."
And then Alexander moves directly to the threat stage.
He promises to use every power of Congress "to make sure the law is implemented the way we wrote it." If the USED tries to force states to follow the lawbreaking regulations, he will encourage the state ask for a hearing-- and if they lose, he will suggest they take the department to court.
Bottom line-- Alexander is making it clear right up front that the law will be implemented the way it was written, or else.
Sooo..
John King was going to repair the USED terrible, terrible relationship with Congress. That does not seem to be going well. Who could have predicted that John King would try to do whatever he damn well pleased regardless of what other stakeholders said or did? Oh, that's right-- pretty much everyone in New York State would have predicted it.
King looks to be cut from the same cloth as Arne Duncan, but Lamar Alexander seems determined not to go down that same road again. These are definitely going to be interesting days ahead.
(PS- Just in case there was any doubt that this was meant to be a public spanking, all of the above comes directly from the Senate committee's press release.)
The Benefits of Career and Tech Education
The Thomas B. Fordham Institute has released a study on the benefits of Career and Technical Education, and it is both terribly wrong and beautifully right.
"Career and Technical Education in High School: Does It Improve Student Outcomes?" was produced by Shaun Dougherty at the University of Connecticut, and it asks exactly that question-- which is kind of the wrong question unless we take a generously broad view of what "student outcomes" means.
The study is based on data from Arkansas, a state that has both pushed CTE and collected a bunch of data on its students over the years-- which in and of itself might give us pause, but let's move on for the moment.
The study opens with a look at what has become of CTE studies over the years, noting that the emphasis on college-for-all and the narrowing of focus to math and English (because Big Standardized Tests with high stakes attached) have put the crunch on CTE studies. But Arkansas has come up with what, on paper at least, is an organized approach, starting with broad industry clusters that narrow all the way down through career pathways to specific courses of study. The three most popular areas of concentration in Arkansas are business, family & consumer sciences, and agriculture.
Daugherty found that students who took more CTE coursework were more likely to graduate, more likely to attend a two-year college, and more likely to be employed after high school. He also found they made more money, but more money here seems to mean either $28 to $45 per quarter which is not peanuts but not enough to write home about.
The report is confused about causation versus correlation. This comes through in headlines like "The more CTE courses students take, the better their education and labor market outcomes" which is meticulously correct while being simultaneously misleading. The most obvious explanation (particularly to those of us who teach career and tech students) is that students who are motivated to follow a CTE path in high school will continue to be motivated to follow that path after high school. Success is self-selecting. There's no reason to believe that slapping the aimless, unmotivated challenge children of a high school into CTE courses would suddenly produce success. Nevertheless, the recommendations of the report are A) that Arkansas stay the course and B) other states pursue CTE education more aggressively and widely.
However, here's the thing-- the study is asking the absolutely wrong question, but arriving at what I believe is the correct answer.
The question is not, "Do career and tech course improve student outcomes?" The question is, "Do career and tech courses meet student needs."
The relationship between a student's course of study and their goals, dreams and eventual place in the world is complicated and subtle. Slamming every student into an Honors English course will not make every one of those students suddenly dream of going to college as an English major, though it may inspire and nudge a few in that direction. But my goal as an English teacher has never been to create an army of English majors, but to help foster students who are headed at a wide variety of destinations and who are all a little better at reading, writing, speaking and listening than when they arrived in my classroom.
Likewise, making every single student sign up for welding will not automatically result in an army of welders.
Any educational plan that does not factor in the hopes, dreams, goals, talents and abilities of the students involved is a stupid, worthless, and probably unethical plan.
It is the privilege and right of every individual human being to choose a destination on the other side of the education forest. It is the privilege and duty of the education system to provide an assortment of paths that will aid the student in getting to their chosen destination (or, in many cases, help the student figure out what destination they would prefer and allow them to change paths without having to backtrack). The metaphorical problem with the college-for-all emphasis is that we then make some students try to get to the Meadow of Welding by way of College Prep Lane, which is way out of their way.
My school district is a part of a county-wide co-op of districts that together have run a career and tech school for over forty years. It started as a standard vocational-technical school and has evolved with the times, and many of my students attend. I am always surprised when I discover a school district doesn't have such a program-- why would you not?
I know part of the answer. Vocational, technical, and career education suffer from a deficit model-- studying welding is for students who aren't smart enough, focused enough, good enough to take honors courses. That's dead wrong. CTE education may serve students with different interests and skill sets, but "different from" is NOT the same as "less than." Imagine a world where a guidance counselor shakes her head sadly and says, "Well, Chris just can't handle working with power tools, so we'll stick Chris in AP Calculus and hope for the best."For my students, the career path is not their Plan B because they can't hack academically focused classes, but their Plan A because it takes them where they want to go.
And I suspect that some defenders of public ed will be put off by this report, thinking that it sounds like a method of grooming more drones for the corporate mill. It certainly has the potential to be abused that way, but I believe providing this sort of path for the students who set these sort of vocational and career goals is absolutely the right thing to do.
The Fordham is correct-- every student in America should have access to these programs, because not every student in America wants, needs or is inclined toward a bachelor's degree. The built in pro-college bias in public ed is certainly not new, but the college ready (with "and career" added as a quick afterthought) push of reform has not helped. We need a clear and deliberate path available for all those students who would prefer to pursue, as Mike Rowe put it, the work that makes civilized life possible for the rest of us.
The Fordham is confused, in that the Common Core, test-driven policies that they so love work directly against CTE. The Core was absolutely designed as a let's-get-everyone-ready-for-college, and the last minute attempt to tack on "career ready" to plug the gaping PR hole didn't change the fact that the Core-flavored Big Standardized Tests are absolutely useless in determining whether a student is successful on a CTE track. Worse, as widely and repeatedly noted, the BS Tests have created pressure to squeeze out everything that's not test prep math and English-- and that includes CTE. When it comes to CTE, Fordham is literally one of its own worst enemies.
The Fordham is incorrect in asserting that the value of CTE can be measured by looking for improved student outcomes. This suggests that CTE (or any other program) needs to be justified and sold based on its utility in improving some sort of metric for some sort of report for some sort of overseers of public ed. That approach simply repeats the common reformsters mistake of turning education on its head and requiring students to serve the institution.
No-- career and tech education is valuable because it serves the needs of a large sector of the student population, and does so in the setting of public schools where students can easily exercise choices when it comes to switching or blending the many kinds of tracks available to them. There's more to say for extending that thought, but let's not go there now, because the most important part is the first part-- career and tech education is valuable because it serves the needs of many students. Period.
"Career and Technical Education in High School: Does It Improve Student Outcomes?" was produced by Shaun Dougherty at the University of Connecticut, and it asks exactly that question-- which is kind of the wrong question unless we take a generously broad view of what "student outcomes" means.
The study is based on data from Arkansas, a state that has both pushed CTE and collected a bunch of data on its students over the years-- which in and of itself might give us pause, but let's move on for the moment.
The study opens with a look at what has become of CTE studies over the years, noting that the emphasis on college-for-all and the narrowing of focus to math and English (because Big Standardized Tests with high stakes attached) have put the crunch on CTE studies. But Arkansas has come up with what, on paper at least, is an organized approach, starting with broad industry clusters that narrow all the way down through career pathways to specific courses of study. The three most popular areas of concentration in Arkansas are business, family & consumer sciences, and agriculture.
Daugherty found that students who took more CTE coursework were more likely to graduate, more likely to attend a two-year college, and more likely to be employed after high school. He also found they made more money, but more money here seems to mean either $28 to $45 per quarter which is not peanuts but not enough to write home about.
The report is confused about causation versus correlation. This comes through in headlines like "The more CTE courses students take, the better their education and labor market outcomes" which is meticulously correct while being simultaneously misleading. The most obvious explanation (particularly to those of us who teach career and tech students) is that students who are motivated to follow a CTE path in high school will continue to be motivated to follow that path after high school. Success is self-selecting. There's no reason to believe that slapping the aimless, unmotivated challenge children of a high school into CTE courses would suddenly produce success. Nevertheless, the recommendations of the report are A) that Arkansas stay the course and B) other states pursue CTE education more aggressively and widely.
However, here's the thing-- the study is asking the absolutely wrong question, but arriving at what I believe is the correct answer.
The question is not, "Do career and tech course improve student outcomes?" The question is, "Do career and tech courses meet student needs."
The relationship between a student's course of study and their goals, dreams and eventual place in the world is complicated and subtle. Slamming every student into an Honors English course will not make every one of those students suddenly dream of going to college as an English major, though it may inspire and nudge a few in that direction. But my goal as an English teacher has never been to create an army of English majors, but to help foster students who are headed at a wide variety of destinations and who are all a little better at reading, writing, speaking and listening than when they arrived in my classroom.
Likewise, making every single student sign up for welding will not automatically result in an army of welders.
Any educational plan that does not factor in the hopes, dreams, goals, talents and abilities of the students involved is a stupid, worthless, and probably unethical plan.
It is the privilege and right of every individual human being to choose a destination on the other side of the education forest. It is the privilege and duty of the education system to provide an assortment of paths that will aid the student in getting to their chosen destination (or, in many cases, help the student figure out what destination they would prefer and allow them to change paths without having to backtrack). The metaphorical problem with the college-for-all emphasis is that we then make some students try to get to the Meadow of Welding by way of College Prep Lane, which is way out of their way.
My school district is a part of a county-wide co-op of districts that together have run a career and tech school for over forty years. It started as a standard vocational-technical school and has evolved with the times, and many of my students attend. I am always surprised when I discover a school district doesn't have such a program-- why would you not?
I know part of the answer. Vocational, technical, and career education suffer from a deficit model-- studying welding is for students who aren't smart enough, focused enough, good enough to take honors courses. That's dead wrong. CTE education may serve students with different interests and skill sets, but "different from" is NOT the same as "less than." Imagine a world where a guidance counselor shakes her head sadly and says, "Well, Chris just can't handle working with power tools, so we'll stick Chris in AP Calculus and hope for the best."For my students, the career path is not their Plan B because they can't hack academically focused classes, but their Plan A because it takes them where they want to go.
And I suspect that some defenders of public ed will be put off by this report, thinking that it sounds like a method of grooming more drones for the corporate mill. It certainly has the potential to be abused that way, but I believe providing this sort of path for the students who set these sort of vocational and career goals is absolutely the right thing to do.
The Fordham is correct-- every student in America should have access to these programs, because not every student in America wants, needs or is inclined toward a bachelor's degree. The built in pro-college bias in public ed is certainly not new, but the college ready (with "and career" added as a quick afterthought) push of reform has not helped. We need a clear and deliberate path available for all those students who would prefer to pursue, as Mike Rowe put it, the work that makes civilized life possible for the rest of us.
The Fordham is confused, in that the Common Core, test-driven policies that they so love work directly against CTE. The Core was absolutely designed as a let's-get-everyone-ready-for-college, and the last minute attempt to tack on "career ready" to plug the gaping PR hole didn't change the fact that the Core-flavored Big Standardized Tests are absolutely useless in determining whether a student is successful on a CTE track. Worse, as widely and repeatedly noted, the BS Tests have created pressure to squeeze out everything that's not test prep math and English-- and that includes CTE. When it comes to CTE, Fordham is literally one of its own worst enemies.
The Fordham is incorrect in asserting that the value of CTE can be measured by looking for improved student outcomes. This suggests that CTE (or any other program) needs to be justified and sold based on its utility in improving some sort of metric for some sort of report for some sort of overseers of public ed. That approach simply repeats the common reformsters mistake of turning education on its head and requiring students to serve the institution.
No-- career and tech education is valuable because it serves the needs of a large sector of the student population, and does so in the setting of public schools where students can easily exercise choices when it comes to switching or blending the many kinds of tracks available to them. There's more to say for extending that thought, but let's not go there now, because the most important part is the first part-- career and tech education is valuable because it serves the needs of many students. Period.
Monday, April 11, 2016
PA: Budget Pain Continues
You may recall that in the previous episode of Keystone Budgetary Follies, the Pennsylvania GOP-controlled legislature passed an not-too-delightful budget which Governor Tom Wolf neither signed nor vetoed, resulting in a budget adopted by default. Not very pretty, and lots of losers, but at least the long nightmare is over, right?
Well, no.
Governor Wolf did veto the fiscal code, which is basically the instructions for how to divvy up the giant pile of money dedicated to particular sectors. So there is an increase in spending on Pennsylvania education-- there just isn't any agreement on exactly who is going to be on the receiving end.
The GOP has staked out their rhetorical point, which is that by throwing out their spiffy formula, Wolf is creating winners and losers in the budget game.
This is both true and not true.
Pennsylvania's funding inequality is the worst. The. Worst. Google "Pennsylvania school funding worst" to see the many people who have said so. Or if you're a chart fan, there's this:
We have the mess that is Philadelphia. We have Chester Uplands, a district that has been bled so dry by charter schools that teachers worked without pay for a while. And we have almost a decade's history of cutting school funding. That funding slash is often laid at GOP Governor Tom Corbett's, but it's not that simple-- Corbett's predecessor Dem Ed Rendell used stimulus money to replace pubic ed tax dollars, creating a funding bomb that went off as soon as the stimulus money ended, and that bomb went off under Corbett's, whose response was to try Funny Accounting Tricks (let's count teacher pension payments as education funding) to cover up the fact that he was trying to fix a hole by shoveling deeper. On top of all that, the state government has a teacher pension balloon payment coming due, and our charter funding system only makes sense if you are a charter operator trying to get rich.
So, yes. We have issues.
Wolf's proposal is to attempt restorative funding. Here's how Newsworks reported it:
Wolf argues that districts disproportionately hurt by cuts that occurred under former Gov. Tom Corbett should be made whole before adopting the new formula.
"Right now, only 4 percent of districts across the state have seen their funding restored to 2010-11 levels, and we're over $370 million short of fully restoring the cuts," said Wolf spokesman Jeff Sheridan.
So we'd like to get everybody caught up before we start moving everybody forward. Except that everybody is behind, and some are more behinder than others, and we don't have enough money budgeted to catch everyone up.
The new budget gives the governor about $200 million to work with. A little over a third of that ($76.8 million) is going to Philadelphia. Pittsburgh, Wilkinsburg and Chester-Uplands also get a big boost. On the one hand, this makes sense because those are the big marquee Districts In Trouble in PA. On the other hand, there are a whole lot of other districts (including Wolf's hometown of York) that are also in a mess, and would have done better under the GOP plan.
So let the fighting over the pie begin. Or rather, continue.
School funding in PA runs across one of our touchiest nerves. The commonwealth is split between rural and urban, and that split is reflected in just about every aspect of Pennsylvania life, specifically in the way that rural and small town Pennsylvanians feel rolled over, used, and ignored by the big cities. On most days, it can seem as if every organization that has a state level presence, from athletic conferences to churches to the various state departments to the state teachers union-- everyone of them can seem heavily tilted toward the urban centers. Just take a look at our (heavily gerrymandred) Congressional districts
So yes-- rural Pennsylvanians are lumped in with people who are a three-hour drive away, while Philly gets a Congressman on every block. Yes. Population numbers. We know. We know. Like residents of rural western states we've heard it a hundred times-- because we don't live tightly packed together, we are entitled to less.
Rural Pennsylvania is highly attuned to the sound of someone saying, "Hey, we're going to need some of your money to go provide [fill in the blank] for Philadelphia or Pittsburgh or Harrisburg." And our sensitivity to that runs beyond financial issues. In my neighborhood, we are used to having companies market to us as if we're a suburb of Pittsburgh, even though it is 80ish miles and 90+ driving minutes away. It is further annoying that so many people act not as if we are in Pittsburgh, but as if we want to be, and should. Of course everyone wants to live in the big beautiful city. But no-- if we had wanted to pay the price in cost and trouble and expense of living in the Big City, we would have moved there.
You see where this is headed. "We want to raise your taxes so we can fix the schools in Philadelphia," is not going to be an easy sell anywhere in the state. Yes, under the new budget-ish spending kind-of-a-plan, every district gets some sort of increase. With any luck, it might be enough to offset the costs of riding out the 9-month budget impasse.
But by lowballing the costs of fixing education funding in PA, the legislature has guaranteed and ugly fight and a solution-- no matter whose it is-- that will be unfair to someone. Meanwhile, as always, because the state funds schools so inadequately, the slack will be picked up (or not) by the local taxpayers. The one thing Harrisburg has always done well is pushing the hard work of tax collecting and weathering the public discontent that goes with it out to the local school officials.
The legislature could have found some more money by addressing its charter problems. Specifically, they could have cut the cyber charter industry without a dime, which would be an appropriate response for a business that has failed at providing academic achievement or fiduciary responsibility. Instead, it's Christmas time in charter land.
And if this isn't all messy enough, remember that alllllllll of this mess is about the budget year that we are months away from completing. We still have to fix next year's budget, and since nobody anywhere in Harrisburg appears to have learned anything from last/this year's budget fiasco, I am not hopeful.
So how will the $200 million pie be cut, and who will be left with just a bit of crust? What sorts of maneuvers will be attempted at the state capital to spin all of this into more political gold (or at least gold-painted road apples). I don't claim to know the best path through all of this morass, which would not bother me quite so much (there are plenty of things I don't know) if I thought someone in Harrisburg was trying to find the answer. But I'm not sure anyone there even understands the question yet, which is, "How do you fix one of the most broken school funding systems in the USA?"
Well, no.
Governor Wolf did veto the fiscal code, which is basically the instructions for how to divvy up the giant pile of money dedicated to particular sectors. So there is an increase in spending on Pennsylvania education-- there just isn't any agreement on exactly who is going to be on the receiving end.
The GOP has staked out their rhetorical point, which is that by throwing out their spiffy formula, Wolf is creating winners and losers in the budget game.
This is both true and not true.
Pennsylvania's funding inequality is the worst. The. Worst. Google "Pennsylvania school funding worst" to see the many people who have said so. Or if you're a chart fan, there's this:
We have the mess that is Philadelphia. We have Chester Uplands, a district that has been bled so dry by charter schools that teachers worked without pay for a while. And we have almost a decade's history of cutting school funding. That funding slash is often laid at GOP Governor Tom Corbett's, but it's not that simple-- Corbett's predecessor Dem Ed Rendell used stimulus money to replace pubic ed tax dollars, creating a funding bomb that went off as soon as the stimulus money ended, and that bomb went off under Corbett's, whose response was to try Funny Accounting Tricks (let's count teacher pension payments as education funding) to cover up the fact that he was trying to fix a hole by shoveling deeper. On top of all that, the state government has a teacher pension balloon payment coming due, and our charter funding system only makes sense if you are a charter operator trying to get rich.
So, yes. We have issues.
Wolf's proposal is to attempt restorative funding. Here's how Newsworks reported it:
Wolf argues that districts disproportionately hurt by cuts that occurred under former Gov. Tom Corbett should be made whole before adopting the new formula.
"Right now, only 4 percent of districts across the state have seen their funding restored to 2010-11 levels, and we're over $370 million short of fully restoring the cuts," said Wolf spokesman Jeff Sheridan.
So we'd like to get everybody caught up before we start moving everybody forward. Except that everybody is behind, and some are more behinder than others, and we don't have enough money budgeted to catch everyone up.
The new budget gives the governor about $200 million to work with. A little over a third of that ($76.8 million) is going to Philadelphia. Pittsburgh, Wilkinsburg and Chester-Uplands also get a big boost. On the one hand, this makes sense because those are the big marquee Districts In Trouble in PA. On the other hand, there are a whole lot of other districts (including Wolf's hometown of York) that are also in a mess, and would have done better under the GOP plan.
So let the fighting over the pie begin. Or rather, continue.
School funding in PA runs across one of our touchiest nerves. The commonwealth is split between rural and urban, and that split is reflected in just about every aspect of Pennsylvania life, specifically in the way that rural and small town Pennsylvanians feel rolled over, used, and ignored by the big cities. On most days, it can seem as if every organization that has a state level presence, from athletic conferences to churches to the various state departments to the state teachers union-- everyone of them can seem heavily tilted toward the urban centers. Just take a look at our (heavily gerrymandred) Congressional districts
So yes-- rural Pennsylvanians are lumped in with people who are a three-hour drive away, while Philly gets a Congressman on every block. Yes. Population numbers. We know. We know. Like residents of rural western states we've heard it a hundred times-- because we don't live tightly packed together, we are entitled to less.
Rural Pennsylvania is highly attuned to the sound of someone saying, "Hey, we're going to need some of your money to go provide [fill in the blank] for Philadelphia or Pittsburgh or Harrisburg." And our sensitivity to that runs beyond financial issues. In my neighborhood, we are used to having companies market to us as if we're a suburb of Pittsburgh, even though it is 80ish miles and 90+ driving minutes away. It is further annoying that so many people act not as if we are in Pittsburgh, but as if we want to be, and should. Of course everyone wants to live in the big beautiful city. But no-- if we had wanted to pay the price in cost and trouble and expense of living in the Big City, we would have moved there.
You see where this is headed. "We want to raise your taxes so we can fix the schools in Philadelphia," is not going to be an easy sell anywhere in the state. Yes, under the new budget-ish spending kind-of-a-plan, every district gets some sort of increase. With any luck, it might be enough to offset the costs of riding out the 9-month budget impasse.
But by lowballing the costs of fixing education funding in PA, the legislature has guaranteed and ugly fight and a solution-- no matter whose it is-- that will be unfair to someone. Meanwhile, as always, because the state funds schools so inadequately, the slack will be picked up (or not) by the local taxpayers. The one thing Harrisburg has always done well is pushing the hard work of tax collecting and weathering the public discontent that goes with it out to the local school officials.
The legislature could have found some more money by addressing its charter problems. Specifically, they could have cut the cyber charter industry without a dime, which would be an appropriate response for a business that has failed at providing academic achievement or fiduciary responsibility. Instead, it's Christmas time in charter land.
And if this isn't all messy enough, remember that alllllllll of this mess is about the budget year that we are months away from completing. We still have to fix next year's budget, and since nobody anywhere in Harrisburg appears to have learned anything from last/this year's budget fiasco, I am not hopeful.
So how will the $200 million pie be cut, and who will be left with just a bit of crust? What sorts of maneuvers will be attempted at the state capital to spin all of this into more political gold (or at least gold-painted road apples). I don't claim to know the best path through all of this morass, which would not bother me quite so much (there are plenty of things I don't know) if I thought someone in Harrisburg was trying to find the answer. But I'm not sure anyone there even understands the question yet, which is, "How do you fix one of the most broken school funding systems in the USA?"
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