Holding Accountable

This is turning into one of those conversations that wanders around the internet. You'll be able to read this post as a stand-alone, but if you want some context-- Start with Part I here, Follow that with the Charlotte Danielson post here,  and then read the Peter Cunningham post here.

Apparently it's a zeitgeist thing, because the same day I posted my reflection of teacher evaluation, Charlotte Danielson was also taking a look at the issue.

Danielson misses some points here and there (for instance, referencing "the Widget Effect," a pseudo report from TNTP that enjoys a life far beyond the value of its content), but she gets one point absolutely correct:

There is also little consensus on how the profession should define "good teaching."

And then there's the money quote that launched a thousand tweets:


I'm deeply troubled by the transformation of teaching from a complex profession requiring nuanced judgment to the performance of certain behaviors that can be ticked off on a checklist. In fact, I (and many others in the academic and policy communities) believe it's time for a major rethinking of how we structure teacher evaluation to ensure that teachers, as professionals, can benefit from numerous opportunities to continually refine their craft.

It's a sentiment that has been expressed by tens of thousands of teachers, but when it comes from the woman whose brand is on many an evaluation form, it gets attention. However, I'm a little less excited about her following paragraph.

Simultaneously, it's essential to acknowledge the fundamental policy imperative: Schools must be able to ensure good teaching. Public schools are, after all, public institutions, operating with public funds. The public has a right to expect good teaching. Every superintendent, or state commissioner, must be able to say, with confidence: "Everyone who teaches here is good. Here's how we know: We have a system."

The public has a right expect good teaching? Absolutely. We can prove the quality of the teaching with a system. I'm dubious. I am not a systems guy-- systems have huge value as long as we recognize their limits, but the minute we start imagining that a system can somehow do better than human judgment, I think we're in trouble. All systems are ways to impose the judgment of a few humans on the behavior of a large number of other humans, and therefor systems have the effect of moving judgment and decision-making further away from the place where the actual rubber meets the real road. 

Danielson tosses out a number-- 6% of teachers are in need of remediation. That seems high to me, but it also seems made up, so we'll let that slide, because part of her point is that a personnel system should be built around the vast majority of non-sucky teachers. To her, that means focusing on "professional learning" rather than ratings.

She offers four truths about professional learning that need to be folded in. 1) It requires active intellectual engagement. 2) It can only occur in an atmosphere of trust. 3) Both challenge and support, and a career-long process of support which is never "finished" to which I say yes, yes, yes. I've said it a zillion times-- every good and great teacher I know can give you a list of things they still need to work on. 4) Policy makers must acknowledge that top down, butt in seats, assigned reading traditional PD doesn't do jack.

And she has some preliminary thoughts on what a personnel policy might look like:

* must id underperforming teachers and promote professional learning

* should include a step from probationary to "continuing status"

* differentiated, according to employment status, with different rules for novice teachers and different roles for experienced ones.

* experienced teachers should still be evaluated now and then

Peter Cunningham (top dawg at Education Post) connected some dots between my piece and Danielson's. He reduced my post to a list of possible purposes for evaluation:

1. To find bad teachers.
2. To find good teachers.
3. To guide and support teachers.
4. To compare teachers.
5. To let the taxpayers know whether or not they’re getting their money’s worth.
6. To give teachers a clear set of expectations.
7. To make the complex look simple.

His read is that Danielson is focusing on #1, #3 and #6 with a possible visit at #2. She has also addressed my side point, which is that hiring practices are often the culprit. Danielson puts evaluation squarely between hiring and tenure.

Into the mix, Cunningham throws Chicago writer Mike Dumke, who gets to ask the next logical question which is, if teachers don't want to be accountable for test scores, what do they want to be accountable for?

My first response is to suggest that we reframe the question-- instead of asking for the best ways for teachers to prove they're doing their job well, we would do better looking for the best way to find out if the teacher is doing a good job. It may seem like nit-picking, but to me, it's the difference between a boss who judges you by checking to see what you're doing and a boss who makes you stop doing your job so that you can go attend a meeting on doing your job.

Not all purposes on my list are created equal. #4 is useless and a waste of our time. #7 is destructive and also best avoided.

#3 is more important than #1 and #2, both of which assume that goodness and badness are static qualities in a teacher. They aren't. Some days I teach really well. Some days I teach okay. Some days I don't do well at all. Additionally, I teach some students far better than I teach others--not because of  will or skill or desire, but for the same reason I am a great partner for one woman and a lousy partner for some others. Teaching is a human relationship, and beyond good/bad or right/wrong, we have the combination of two specific humans.

In other words, instead of trying to find good (or bad) teachers, we should be trying to help teachers teach well.

Are there teachers who fall so far on one end or the other that we can go ahead and slap a good or bad label on them? Sure (I have had both as student teachers). But most of us fall in the middle, always striving and working to do our job a little better.

So what should we look for? How would I answer my version of Dumke's question?

I've tried to answer this before, and someday I'll work out all the details and launch my million-dollar consulting business. But here's the basic process that I envision:

1) Bring together, in person or by technomeans, a huge number of various stakeholders from the community-- parents, grandparents, employers, graduates, elected officials, business leaders, students, teachers themselves. Give them a hefty, robust list of teacher qualities, skills and behaviors. Have them determine which ones to include and how much to weight them.

2) Now you have generated both a job description and an evaluation form (and, if you're lucky and your local leadership is good, you have also generated some good, thoughtful discussion about what folks want from their schools and their teachers).

3) Just as you have generated a custom evaluation format for your schools and teachers, you will need a custom method for evaluating the items that you have selected. Some may be, by their nature, easy to hit (eg if your community wants to include "students get good test scores," that one will be easy to cover). Many, by their nature, will be a matter of opinion and observation. If, for instance, something like "maintains a safe and supportive classroom environment" is chosen, you aren't going to be able to administer a testing instrument that generates a Classroom Environment Rating number.

However, one of my premises is that most of the people in the school community already know the things you want to find out. Students know who the nurturing teachers are and who the hard-but-fair teachers are and who the mean-and-scary-for-no-good-reason teachers are. Former students know, and they know what turned out to be useful in the long run. Parents know. Other teachers know. Most of what you want to know is already known-- what is needed is an instrument that taps into that knowledge.

Cunningham suggests that a student rating system would be susceptible to teachers essentially sucking up for a good review-- but I believe that if you are asking the students to rate specifics, you'll get far better results. In other words, "Is your teacher good?" is a question that will yield lousy results. But "Does your teacher help you understand hard things?" will get a better answer from students even if that student hates that teacher.

4) Do not, no matter how great the temptation, hire outside consultants to do the work. Maybe to manage the structure and data involved. And somebody will need to come up with a master list/menu. Perhaps that's how I'll finance my eventual retirement. But do not let non-stakeholders in the local system try to tell locals what they are supposed to want from their schools. The state will need to look over local shoulders to see what's being done and whether it is being done well and without tilting the table and with broad community involvement.

And do not rush. I am guessing it will take at least a year-- at least-- to get the first go-round ready to go. And then you'll have to periodically review it as you find gaps or issues or time goes by and your local stakeholder population changes.

Some folks will not like this system because it absolutely fails in terms of making schools and teachers comparable across lines, and it lends itself more to a descriptive, qualitative rating than a simple one-dimensional stack-and-rank. But it could generate real data of actual use to the teachers and district themselves. As a bonus, it could also elevate and involve the voices of the community, giving them a real feeling of involvement and ownership in their district.

A Conversation about Ed Reform

It's not very often that two voices from differing sides of the education reform debates talk it out, but last weekend at the Network for Public Education conference in Raleigh, NC, Jennifer Berkshire and Peter Cunningham sat down to talk about some of the pressing issues of education reform in this country.

Jennifer Berkshire writes the blog Edushyster and also hosts the podcast Have You Heard. Last year, after I met her in person for the first time, I called her a "manic pixie dream girl," missing the negative associations that the term has for folks, so let me take that back and simply observe that she is one of the most literally disarming people I've ever seen in action, a gifted interviewer who is absolutely comfortable and charming without giving up an inch of her own convictions, and with a willingness to hear any point of view.

Peter Cunningham has been around for a while, but is currently holding down a gig running Education Post, one of the major voices of education reform. He came to Raleigh for the full conference (as he did last year in Chicago-- I don't know about the first year); I give him points for entering what was clearly not going to be a friendly environment.

The conversation opened with some light banter, including a gift from Cunningham of a child's game entitled Race to the Top. Also, we learned that he lives right by Mike Klonsky. So there's that.

My notes are not perfect or complete, but I thought I'd jot down my impressions. Soon enough there should be video available if you want to watch the whole thing.

Berkshire opened the seriouser portion by noting that many of the Big Individuals who shaped the early days of Ed Reform have now stepped away from the field , asking Cunningham what he thought of the current state of reform?

Cunningham allowed as how many have "hard chargers" have moved on, but there are still forty-three states that have "raised" standards, and forty-three states allow for charters, and this is probably as good a a time as any to note that if you're a regular reader here, you're going to find much of what Cunningham said objectionable. Common Core and its various mutant siblings aren't my idea of raised standards, nor am I excited about the current state of charterization, but you at least see where his heart is. Also, a number of states are trying to come up with ways to "support and advance teachers" which is the rhetoric that has replaced "find and get rid of Bad Teachers" as justification for evaluation systems.

Berkshire noted that some of her reformster contacts have confided that tying teacher evaluation to test scores was a disaster. Cunningham characterizes the policy as "very difficult" and that one size fits all solutions are also "very difficult." But he sees Berkshire's reformy contacts and raises her teachers that he hears from who say "We need something." Perhaps it all went too far, too fast, he says, and slides in the observation that back at the beginning all sorts of people were signing off on these policies. Now a few years later it isn't working. It's the plaintive cry of Common Core fueled reform-- all these people used to love me just fine until they got to know me. Of course, I might point out plenty of actual teachers have been calling the future fails from Day One, but nobody (including national union leadership) was paying any attention.

Some more transitional chat, including the introduction of Berkshire's sister, a teacher. Then Cunningham made some of his first disingenuous remarks. As a country, he said, people think we should spend more money on education at the same time we're locked in a "noisy" debate about accountability. He misrepresents two of the pro-public school arguments by saying 1) that some people are saying that we can't really educate students of poverty and 2) that teachers don't really make that much difference. This was the first time the crowd started to really mutter angrily.

Reform fans repeatedly mischaracterize the argument as "Poverty can't be overcome and those children are doomed," and I'd challenge you to find me any responsible public ed advocate who has said that. Certainly not the tens of thousands of teachers who are teaching students of poverty. Everybody agrees that poverty creates some obstacles to learning that are not present in students of wealthy families, but it has been reformsters like Cunningham's old boss Arne Duncan who insist that if we just expect real hard or send in really super-duper folks like TFA, the problems of poverty will vanish. Of course, some reformsters have figured it out- like Chris Barbic who, on his way out the door from Tennessee's Achievement School District observed, "Hey, teaching all these poor kids is really hard."

The influence thing-- that's just a matter of research. Teachers have an effect on student test scores (which is the only measure we're using for "student achievement" these days) somewhere in the teens.

It's at this point in the conversation that the question of, "If not this, then what" first comes up (and I've actually addressed that elsewhere on the blog). Berkshire mentioned the work of Jack Schneider with a community-based evaluation system, and then the conversation pivoted to billionaires.

Berkshire moves to the larger issues (because she's a keen observer of the connection between the detail stuff and the large issue stuff) and brings up the issue of excessive influence from a few people with a lot of money whose voices are amplified by that money, but who just don't care.

Cunningham is ready to defend the billionaires. "You don't think Gates wants to get better teaching?" And the real answer to that is that Gates' idea of "better teaching"-- specifically "better teaching for the class of Lessers who can't afford the kind of private schools that the children of the intensely wealthy attend"-- is not necessarily connected to anybody else's view.

Berkshire makes this point, that actual surveys have been done that indicate that billionaires have different views and priorities, that they are out of touch with the rest of us. Cunningham has a kind of Eddie Haskell smile that comes out at these points. He shakes his head. He doesn't agree with this. In 2010, policy priorities were set by Congress, teachers, parents- not rich guys. Which is true, but skips over the huge amount of money and influence exerted by the rich guys in order to convince Congress, teachers and parents to set those policy priorities the Right Way.

I think some folks in the audience may have found it annoying, but I kind of appreciated the way that Cunningham at some points would simply say "I don't think so" or "I disagree" or "That's not so." He said what he thought and he didn't try to hide it behind a fig bush of obfuscatory verbage (I may have been influenced by the session just before this one, which featured VP's of AFT and NEA using a battleship-load of argle bargle to justify the early-bird no-rank-and-file-input endorsements of HRC).

Berkshire expressed her frustration that the education debate remains small (also "overheated and stale"). And that works around to the question of whether or not Education Post is pretty narrow.

Cunningham says that the EP focus was intended to be, and remains, standards, accountability, and charters.

Berkshire broadens the focus to the question of why so much reform activity seems to result in loss of democratic control, and Cunningham counters that parents choosing charters is a sort of democratic choice, and that's just a kettle of fish that can't be dumped out in even an hour. Berkshire focuses on the point that charters have expanded at expense of public schools, which in most charter settings have become schools of last resort. Cunningham flatly disagrees and cites a couple of Chicago neighborhood schools as counter-evidence. It's a weak argument. I know one black guy who became President; pretty sure that doesn't mean we can declare that racism is no longer an issue in America.

Cunningham also swings to saying "you're imagining a conspiracy." Who had this conversation? That of course reduces the notion of a network of like-minded reformsters with shared values and goals to a cartoon version of shadowy figures in a darkened room-- a nice mix of reductio ad absurdum and a straw man, but beside the point. Berkshire bores in. Charters are expanded at cost to district schools with no thought to the larger consequences. Cunningham disagrees. We'll circle this point for a few more minutes, but Cunningham isn't budging and we're going nowhere.

So, shift. Charter regulation up now. Berkshire sees us as entering an Enron phase, where the corporate pressure is to deregulate the industry even as the public pushes for more regulation. Cunningham allows that we need charter regulation-- just be careful not to ruin it. He's even willing to name names-- Michigan, for example, needs some regulation. Berkshire notes that Cunningham's patron Eli Broad is a huge opponent of regulation, and could Cunningham make a phone call>

"I can't call him," says Cunningham. "He funds me to do certain things" and other people to do other things.

Charter advocates worry about perception that charter fraud is out of control. "Worrisome?" asks Berkshire. Not the biggest problem facing education, says Cunningham. Not even close.

Many states are considering multiple authorizers, which seems like a recipe for more trouble. Just a sign of how great the parent demand is, says Cunningham. Accountability would help-- how money is spent, results to be recognized, etc, though Cunningham doesn't mention how aggressively some charters have resisted attempts to implement any such accountability. Now that such accountability is parked at the state level "we won't have a remotely consistent view" of accountability, which Cunningham considers Not a Good Thing.

In a discussion of unionization, Cunningham slides in the observation that unions are driven by desire for higher salary, more benefits, job protections-- he's reinforcing the narrative that unions are in it for the money, not the children. He also observes that everybody should start charters because bureaucracy is what gets in the way of everything good-- better teaching, better schooling, teacher autonomy. I read this one a lot, and I'm always puzzled-- why is it that starting a whole new school is always seen as a better fix than attacking existing bureaucracy? Also, I'm doubtful of the claim, as charters often come fully loaded with their own internal bureaucracy, particularly the big chains where the Main Office can be thousands of miles away from the school itself.

Berkshire notes that charters are all about scale, and mom and pop start-ups that Cunningham likes can't take on the major chains. Cunningham says if the charter system isn't working for you, co-opt it. Take it over. I think he has momentarily forgotten who has all the money and power here.

Finally, Berkshire asks if EP has in fact improved the conversation. Is it better? How betterer is it, according to what metric? Cunningham notes that everyone should reach out to someone with whom they disagree, and also says that you can't measure everything. He's smiling. He knows that's a cute comment from him.

But the follow-up answer is a repeat of one of the most hilarious narratives associated with EP-- Reformsters were feeling beat up and they wanted to create a safe place for folks to Say Reformy Stuff. Yes, Eli Broad, who owns various media outlets, who has created his own school for superintendents and gotten them hired around the country, who has used his money to make a dent in elections, who regularly hangs out with policy makers, and who can lay out $12 million to set up an organization devoted to pushing his narrative into the world-- this is a guy who feels unheard and beaten up. Berkshire's wry response was that she was remaining composed and professional, but laughing on the inside.

The conversation was followed by the audience question section, though Berkshire has to ask people to make their comments a little more questiony. There were several intriguing moments here, including Michelle Gunderson "reframing" (aka "correcting") Cunningham's information about Chicago and unions.

Anthony Cody asked what one spends $12 million on, since that's about $12 million more than the rest of us are spending on the oppression of poor, downtrodden Eli Broad (I am typing this while finishing up the last of my cafeteria chicken salad wrap). Cunningham notes that EP is more than just a website, but also exists to provide communications support to certain folks and making it possible for people to be heard who otherwise would not be (which opens up some questions about the operation of the free marketplace of ideas, but let's save that for another day).

At one point, Cunningham made the observation that in the battle against poverty and all manner of social ills and issues, "You teachers are all we have." The crowd was not pleased, and Berkshire announced "I am officially agitated." Cunningham's line is not a new one, and it's often meant to be taken as an appreciation of the Good And Noble Work of Teachers-- but as those of us paying attention have long since noted, it's also a way of shifting blame for literally all of society's ills onto the backs of teachers. It's also a handy way of absolving government of responsibility. Try to fix systemic poverty and income inequity? No need. We've already got teachers on the case.

Someone also attempted to bring up the kind of charter mess now prevailing in New Orleans and other places where charters have become engines of resegregation. Did Cunningham support something something charter something? If that's what the parents choose, was his answer. I'd hesitate to say that he said segregation is okay if parents want it, but at a minimum he failed to pick up on the main concern of the question.

The session finished up with a gentleman from Seattle who, among other things, wanted to let Cunningham know that the Obama administration, for which this man campaigned hard, broke his heart. In a sense, that's water under the bridge. But it's also the subtext for much discussion of ed reform and certainly the subtext (if not text) of the election cycle. It was not a particularly cheery way to end the session, but tempus does fuigit.

There was no reason to expect that the session would change minds or win hearts for anybody. But a little dialogue never hurt anybody, particularly if they can behave like grown up professionals.

Another Teacher Incentive Fund Failure

The Teacher Incentive Fund is transitioned from the US Department of Education Office of Elementary and Secondary Education over to the Office of Innovation and Improvement (right next door to the Office of Silly Bureaucratic Nomenclature); the program is supposed to provide "funding for projects that develop and implement performance-based teacher and principal compensation systems in high-need schools."

So, yes-- under the current administration we have an official Merit Pay Department. And another one of its programs just bit the dust.

It has been three years since TIF dropped a $23.7 million grant on the Charleston County School District, where it became the Bridge program. That failure in branding should have been a sign right off the bat ("bridge" is both generic, and already used in educational contexts such as the "bridge year").

After three years, the merit pay program has resulted in-- well, I don't want to say "nothing" because the program has produced results. They're just all negative.

The Charleston schools that were used to pilot the program saw an increase in teacher turnover. Surveys that the merit incentives hurt morale and inspired nobody. And this is absolutely jaw-dropping--- the district has spent about half the grant, aka around $11.8 million, and the amount of that money that actually reached a classroom teacher was $614,000. That's 5%. Five. Per. Cent.

Where the heck did the money go? Consultants and bureaucracy.

Meanwhile, the big fat super-motivating bonuses for teachers? Anywhere from $1,000 to $4,000. Which simply adds insult to insult.

Because merit "rewards" for improved student test scores are insulting. In fact, it's impressive how many different ways such a program can insult teachers. Here are the insults packed into this sort of ridiculous program:

1) Hey, teachers! We know your students are getting low test scores because you just don't care. You went into teaching for the money, not because you give a rat's rear about educating students, and you've just been holding back all these years, refusing to do your job until someone bribed you. Well, here's your bribe.

2) You are probably too stupid to know the difference between actual student achievement and just racking up a few more points on a crappy standardized test.

3) Not only do you need to be bribed to do your job, but you can be bought really cheap.

The Charleston district has read the writing on the wall. This is one of those grants that lasts for only a few years, with the government hoping you'll be so hooked on the grant crack that you will decide to keep funding the program after they stop handing you federal bucks. But the Charleston district has figured out that A) the whole program is pretty much a failure and B) if they keep it going with their own money, they'll have to cut something else to pay for it.

So the district is leaving the rest of their grant money on the federal table. Hats off to them, because of course that grant money represents Our Tax Dollars At Work. I am grateful that Charleston can look at the grant crack and Just Say No. Now the US Department of Education Office of Wasting Tax Dollars could just transition into an Office of Not Funding Stupid Ideas, that would be super.

The Path To Teacher Evaluation

Teacher evaluation, aka accountability, continues to be a topic of wideranging debate. On the one hand, we have lots of folks who call for teacher "accountability." On the other hand, Race to the Top and the state waiver programs gave us systems of teacher evaluation that are spectacularly dysfunctional and conceptually stupid (how well some eighth graders do on a single, bad reading test should determine how good the shop teacher is?). And on the third hand, the new education law (ESSA) gives each state a chance to come up with new ways to make a hash of the whole business.

Critics (and I'm one of them) have said repeatedly that value-added measures and test-based ratings and a few other stupid things that have been tried are, in fact, stupid, destructive and bad for everybody. Supporters of the accountability movement have replied, "Fine then. What do you want to do instead?"

Okay, then. How do we get on the path to a useful method of teacher evaluation? Step one is to figure out what purpose the evaluation will serve. This may seem obvious. It isn't. Here are some of the goals that a teacher evaluation system might try to meet.

To find bad teachers. For a while, this was the focus-- we would find all the Bad Teachers and fire them, and then life would be swell. This remains the focus of attacks on tenure and seniority; we  plan to cut your budget to the point that you have to fire people, and we want to be sure you fire the right ones. The bad ones.

To find good teachers. Let's locate all the super-duper teachers so we can move them to where they're needed, or reward them with generous quality bonuses.

To guide and support teachers. A new favorite. Let's figure out teachers' strengths and weaknesses so that we can help them grow and develop.

To compare teachers. We want an evaluation system that helps us stack rank teachers so that we can do comparisons across a building, district, state, or even nationally. We need measures that let us compare every teacher to every other teachers.

To let the taxpayers know whether or not they're getting their money's worth. Taxpayers spend a lot of money paying teachers; they are entitled to know if they are getting a good deal or if they would be better off hiring a minimum wage worker to push "play" on Khan Academy videos.

To give teachers a clear set of expectations. This is not discussed nearly enough. While some jobs come with clearly delineated descriptions of duties and responsibilities, teacher are more likely to get directives along the lines of, "Go in there and do teachy things, and do them real good." An evaluation system makes job expectations explicit, whether you want it to or not. That's one reason the test-linked systems suck-- they send the message that a teacher's job description is "Get students to score well on the Big Standardized Test."

To make the complex look simple. Trying to understand and make decisions about  complex human behavior is hard. If we could just boil it all down to some simple digits and data points, it would be easy, and then we wouldn't have to do hard thinking about hard things. But if we could just take human judgment out of the whole hard business and simplify it to an algorithm, boy it would just be the berries. Which is both the most popular and the dumbest idea on the list. Fans of this idea are welcome to sign up at match.com and let the dating site pick their spouses for them. If the marriage results in children, they can also go ahead and use data to decide which child is the best one. Human beings are complex. Human relationships and interactions are complex. Lord knows we all have days when we wish it weren't so, but hey-- I have days when I wish I weren't so bald or that Donald Trump weren't a Presidential candidate. You can't build a strong system on a foundation of denial.

And none of this addresses the most important element of all, which is hiring practices. W. Edwards Deming used to refer to an insight from his own mentor-- if you have dead wood in your organization, either you hired dead wood, or you hired live wood and killed it. Either way, you have a management problem that directly impacts the quality of employee work.

Now, you may say, "Well, those all seem like swell ideas." You'd be wrong in some cases, but still--  you have to pick. You cannot have one system that does them all. It's not possible. Evaluating for the top and bottom qualities in teaching-- that's two entirely different searches. In fact, it's two entirely different types of searches, the difference between looking for something to include, and looking for something to exclude. And both of them are different from a system that would help a teacher develop by examining personal strengths and weaknesses from the standpoint of improving their craft. It's the difference between walking into a restaurant and saying "Don't bring me anything green," or "My dinner has to include a steak" and "Let's look at this whole meal and see what we could do to bring its elements more into balance."

Letting taxpayers know they got what they paid for is a laudable goal, but it leads us directly away from any sort of standardized measure that lets us compare teachers across the nation. Instead, being accountable to local taxpayers would start with asking them what they want for their money, and that is likely to vary from community to community. I think, however, it's the foundation of a real evaluation system.

I do think teacher evaluation is possible. I also think almost everything we're currently doing in the name of accountability is dead wrong. It can't be fixed-- what's needed is to start over, and to start by talking about the question of purpose. We can't get anything done until we do that.

The Student Privacy Pledge

In the fifties, under scrutiny (actual Congressional hearings) and attack (Fredric Wertham's Seduction of the Innocent) the comic book industry hatched the comics code, a special seal that would guarantee parents that a comic book contained nothing unsavory. Of course the film industry had done something similar-- creating a rating system that would assert that the public could enter a movie theater safely.

The motivation behind both of these was simple and transparent-- if we offer to police our own industry, maybe the government won't feel the need to step in and hammer us with regulations we can neither stand nor control.

Meet the Software and Information Industry Association. Among other things, the SIIA  "aggressively promotes and protects the interests of its member companies in legal and public policy debates by working with state, federal and international policymakers and participating in landmark legal decisions."

The SIIA is a busy group, and they are also the creators of the Student Privacy Pledge. Signers of the pledge have promised not to do things like maintain files on students, nor collect share or sell student personal information-- at least, not for any reasons other than those authorized by educational institutions. The pledge also involves promises to do things like "Collect, use, share, and retain student personal information only for purposes for which we were authorized by the educational institution/agency, teacher or the parent/student." 257 companies have signed the pledge.

If you find this less than reassuring, well-- consider other activities of the SIIA as reported by Missouri Education Watchdog.

For instance, SIIA reps recently flew out to Colorado to oppose their proposed student privacy bill. They found the protection of personal information too broad, and they don't care for the provision involving publication of the names of companies that misbehave.

Or back when the Electronic Frontier Foundation filed suit against Google (one of the signers of the pledge) for setting chromebooks with a default setting of "spy creepily on students"-- the SIIA was there to defend Google.

Is the pledge even enforceable? The SIIA says that if someone who signs the pledge breaks it, that opens up the company to FTC charges of deceptive practices. So the pledge is kind of enforceable, sort of maybe. If you think a company is violating the pledge, the SIIA suggests you reach out to that company. Or you can file an FTC complaint. Or you can pound sand.

When wolves are worried that the farmer is going to bring in real watchdogs to keep an eye on the henhouse, it makes sense for the wolves to promise to patrol each other as they guard the henhouse. It does not, however, make sense for the hens to relax and be any less vigilant.

The Other Testing Problem

It's testing season, and that means we are hearing the annual recitation of stories of despair and misery among the students, as small children are pressed to and past their breaking point. These stories are heartbreaking and rage-inducing all at the same time, but they aren't the only story. They probably aren't even the most common story, and they may not even be the most important story.

If you give a human, particularly a young human, a task to complete, one that seems difficult and yet pointless, unpleasant and yet with no real stakes for that human, what is the most common response?

A) To try their hardest because even if it seems pointless, it might not be, and I always do my best
B) This is a stupid waste of my time, so I will zip through it quickly so it wastes the least possible time
C) I will avoid frustration by not caring and not trying
D) Look, a butterfly!

Testocrats are so certain that their work is so hugely important that they can't imagine how anyone could fail to see the Importance of the Test. In a weird way, the student meltdown stories actually confirm their judgment.

But all the data, all the analysis of the data, all the conclusions based on the data-- all of that starts with the assumption that the students who took the Big Standardized Test actually tried.

Teachers have only a couple of choices here. We can try to cash in the trust we've built in our classrooms. Every fall I promise my students that I will never purposely waste their time; when BS Test time rolls around, I could just lie to them. But that seems, you know, wrong. Morally and ethically wrong.

Teachers can make the test relevant to students by making it central to the class, the culmination of learning for the year. This is what test prep really means-- not just teaching test-taking tips and material strictly because it will be on the test, but making the test the whole point of education. This seems like, you know, educational malpractice and a huge devaluation of education itself.

Teachers can also try things like flat out bribery. That seems like an admission of defeat and a betrayal of the rest of the students' education.

Or teachers can watch as students complete twenty multiple choice questions in three minutes (of course, we're not allowed to offer help or say "Get serious, Pat!") and write three word essay answers and remember that experience months later when someone is trying to claim that the BS Test tells us something useful about what Pat does or doesn't know.

Pat will whip through the test, take a nap, and leave school for the day happy and unbothered. Pat's blowing off of the test may even make a good story for Pat to tell that makes Pat look pretty cool in the circle of friends. Pat's story is neither touching nor heartbreaking. But I sure wish the people who think that Pat's test tells anybody anything could be there to watch Pat take the test. Because even if the BS Tests weren't a lousy test, Pat's results still wouldn't tell us a damn thing.

Amazing North Carolina

I'm here in North Carolina for the Network for Public Education after a ten hour drive. I've seen many things upon the way. The Mrs and I stopped to gawk at the New River Gorge Bridge, which is an amazing feat of engineering. On the way into Raleigh, we wound our way through amazingly narrow and windy street, as if Raleigh were patterned on a falling-down-drunk version of Pittsburgh streets.

After ten hours in the car, my wife and I walked all around downtown Raleigh, which is amazingly beautiful and modern-yet-classic. We ate a delicious meal, and then the miracle of facebook allowed a former student I haven't seen in almost twenty years to reach out and invite us to walk a few blocks to join her, her husband, and some friends at a restaurant to catch up./ She thanked me for my work with her decades ago, and I also got to meet three former North Carolina teachers who gave up the classroom for other lines of work.

But nothing more amazing than just a few minutes ago, when Governor McCrory appeared on my hotel to explain just ho awesome he has been for teachers in North Carolina. Nothing I have seen today was as amazing as his ability to deliver this line with a straight face. Because, to recap-- under McCrory, North Carolina's elected government has tried to get rid of tenure, both by direct assault and by offering teachers the deal of trading their job protections for a raise-- a deal that is appealing since North Carolina teachers hadn't gotten a raise in years. When they did finally come up with a raise, it was an insulting package limited to only some, while continuing to shaft the rest.

The state is losing teachers at what ought to be an alarming rate, still bolstering charters, installed an anti-education president at their primo state university system, and installed a punishing pass-or-fail testing set-up for eight year olds.

That McCrory can even think about selling himself as an education governor is the most mazing thing I have seen in North Carolina, and for a state that first showed a human could fly, that's no small feat. The good news, I guess, is now that I've seen everything, I can just relax and enjoy tomorrow. But Sunday AM McCrory is going to go on the interview show circuit to explain how his hateful, oppressive, intolerant, probably-illegal new discrimination law (which also represents the opposite of conservative small government philosophy) is just a matter of "common courtesy." That promises to be hugely amazing indeed.