Here's some reading for your lazy Sunday. Remember to pass on what you find useful!
Did Betsy DeVos Just Ask States To Ignore Part of Federal Law?
Nobody did a better job this week of explaining the problem with DeVos's comments on just who gets included in ESSA work than Valerie Strauss
Damning a Student's Future with Old Data
Nancy Bailey looks at one of the big problems with the work of our Data Overlords
Joel Klein Reflects in His Legacy as NYC Schools Chancellor
Well, that's something that could use some reflecting. As you might imagine, Klein has a bit more insight about some reflections than about others.
NJ Charter School Fools Gold Rush
Jersey Jazzman has been taking a look at charters cashing in in New Jersey
Dumping ESSA Regs Is Not a Big Deal But...
Leonie Haimson takes a look at what the dumping of Obama's ESSA regs really means-- and what it doesn't.
Charter School with 38% High School Completion Rate Brags About 88% College Completion Rate
Many of us were passing around a USA Today article seemingly critical of charters. Gary Rubinstein took the time to drill down a little further down to get the evene worse parts that USA Today skipped.
To The Parents of Children Who Stare at My Disabled Daughter
You might not always read Daniel Willingham because he's not often on our side of issues, but this piece-- personal and heartfelt-- deserves your attention.
The Reclusive Hedge-Fund Tycoon Behind the Trump Presidency
Not strictly about education, but if you want to get a better sense of the ideology moving some of the people who helped push Trump on us, this profile of Robert Mercer by Jane Mayer in the New Yorker is an important read.
Albert Camus's Letter
From the indispensable blog Brain Pickings, a piece about Camus's letter of gratitude to his teacher
Rest in Peace, EVAAS Developer William Sanders
At VAMboozled, an obituary for and recap of the developer of EVAAS, one of the widely used VAM models. If you want the incredible story of where this thing came from, here it is (with links, for advanced students).
Sunday, March 19, 2017
Saturday, March 18, 2017
The Lost Years
After years of hearing how kindergarten has been turned into the new first grade, you'd think at the other end of the K-12 pipeline we would find highly advanced students. And yet-- not so much.
I am not going to report a ton of research on this, because the available research is bogus and part of the actual test-centric problem. What I can tell you is what I, as an actual real live classroom teacher who knows actual real live classroom teachers, see and hear.
This is the result of accelerated early instruction done primarily in the service of test-centric schooling ("We have to get them started early-- otherwise how will they be ready for the Big Standardized Test??")
It is lost years.
By the time these same start-em-early push-em-hard students arrive at high school classrooms, they are behind compared to the students that we saw twenty-five or fifteen or even ten years ago. They know fewer things, have fewer skills, and express lower academic aspirations.
Why? I can offer a couple of theories.
They have learned to hate reading.
They have learned that reading is this thing you do with short, disconnected, context-free selections, and when you read, you are not looking for something that sparks interest or enjoyment or curiosity or wonder or the pleasure of feeling your brain expanded and grown. You read so that, in a moment, you'll be able to answer the questions that someone else wrote-- and by "answer" we mean from the potions given the one answer that someone else has decided is "correct." There will be no expression of your own personal insights, and never the possibility that there's more than one way to understand the text. It is a stilted, cramped way to approach reading, and it means that students grow up with a stilted, cramped notion of what reading even is, or why human beings actually do it.
With some luck, some students will still discover the joy and, yes, utility of reading-- but they will discover outside of school, and they will not expect that the kind of reading that they love has anything to do with the test-centered "reading": they are required to do in school. That higher level course has additional "reading"? Then I surely don't want to sign up for that. And since the real task here, the real point of the whole exercise is not the reading, but the answering of questions about the reading-- well, I bet I can find a time-saving way to cut that corner. Because after enough years of this, many students conclude that "reading" is something to actively avoid.
There's no pleasure there, no discovery, no ideas to mull and discuss, no characters who help us pick apart the thorny questions of how to be human in the world. Just clues for answering the BS Test questions.
Their years are shorter.
The school year is now shorter. It is shorter by the number of days involved in the BS Test. It is shorter by the number of days spent on pre-testing and practice testing. It is shorter by the number of days spent on instruction that is only being implemented because it will help get them ready for the test.
By the time we've subtracted all those days, the school year is a few weeks, a month, maybe even more than a month shorter. It was only 180 days to begin with. The test-centric school has amped up a feature of education that has always frustrated teachers-- the 180 day year is a zero sum game, a bathtub full to the absolute rim with water. You cannot add something without removing something else. A really feisty or frustrated teacher might turn to an administrator who just said "Add this to your class" and say, "Fine-- what exactly do you want me to stop teaching?" But mostly we're expected to just make do, to perform some sort of miracle by which we stuff ten more rabbits into the hat.
It doesn't work. Every year students get less actual instruction than they used to, which means their teacher next year finds them a little bit behind, so the school year that used to start on Day One now starts on Day Thirty after the students are caught up-- and then it ends on Day 160 because, you know, testing. So the following year those students are that much more behind. And so on, and so on, and so on.
In the end, kindergarten may be the new first grade, but for many students, twelfth grade is the new eleventh grade.
There are certainly students who escape this effect, and there are certainly clever teachers who mitigate it. But mostly the injection of toxic testing into the bloodstream of US education has had the predictable effect-- it has weakened and damaged the entire body.
Mind you, that wasn't what we were promised. The injection of test-based accountability was going to transform the Steve Rogers of US schooling into a mighty Captain America of education. Those tests, linked to The Standards That Dare Not Speak Their Name (but which have never quite gone away, either), were going to lead to a surge in new and successful college students. Test scores would rocket upward, and we would get to be the Belle of the Ball at the next PISA Prom. We were going to have success out the wazoo.
And yet, none of that is happened. Mind you, I don't think the BS Test scores mean jack, and they have never been and will never be my measure of success. But reformsters chose the game, set the rules, picked the measurement they wanted (BS Test scores) and they STILL lost the game. We have wasted over fifteen years of education; some students have seen their entire schooling consumed by test-centric baloney.
Yet we keep plowing on, keep committing to Testing Uber Alles. We are losing students, losing education opportunities, losing the chance to awaken some young humans to what they could be and could become-- instead, we are still trying to mash their spirits flat under the heavy testing hand. We are losing years that we cannot get back, cannot give back, and this is not okay.
I am not going to report a ton of research on this, because the available research is bogus and part of the actual test-centric problem. What I can tell you is what I, as an actual real live classroom teacher who knows actual real live classroom teachers, see and hear.
This is the result of accelerated early instruction done primarily in the service of test-centric schooling ("We have to get them started early-- otherwise how will they be ready for the Big Standardized Test??")
It is lost years.
By the time these same start-em-early push-em-hard students arrive at high school classrooms, they are behind compared to the students that we saw twenty-five or fifteen or even ten years ago. They know fewer things, have fewer skills, and express lower academic aspirations.
Why? I can offer a couple of theories.
They have learned to hate reading.
They have learned that reading is this thing you do with short, disconnected, context-free selections, and when you read, you are not looking for something that sparks interest or enjoyment or curiosity or wonder or the pleasure of feeling your brain expanded and grown. You read so that, in a moment, you'll be able to answer the questions that someone else wrote-- and by "answer" we mean from the potions given the one answer that someone else has decided is "correct." There will be no expression of your own personal insights, and never the possibility that there's more than one way to understand the text. It is a stilted, cramped way to approach reading, and it means that students grow up with a stilted, cramped notion of what reading even is, or why human beings actually do it.
With some luck, some students will still discover the joy and, yes, utility of reading-- but they will discover outside of school, and they will not expect that the kind of reading that they love has anything to do with the test-centered "reading": they are required to do in school. That higher level course has additional "reading"? Then I surely don't want to sign up for that. And since the real task here, the real point of the whole exercise is not the reading, but the answering of questions about the reading-- well, I bet I can find a time-saving way to cut that corner. Because after enough years of this, many students conclude that "reading" is something to actively avoid.
There's no pleasure there, no discovery, no ideas to mull and discuss, no characters who help us pick apart the thorny questions of how to be human in the world. Just clues for answering the BS Test questions.
Their years are shorter.
The school year is now shorter. It is shorter by the number of days involved in the BS Test. It is shorter by the number of days spent on pre-testing and practice testing. It is shorter by the number of days spent on instruction that is only being implemented because it will help get them ready for the test.
By the time we've subtracted all those days, the school year is a few weeks, a month, maybe even more than a month shorter. It was only 180 days to begin with. The test-centric school has amped up a feature of education that has always frustrated teachers-- the 180 day year is a zero sum game, a bathtub full to the absolute rim with water. You cannot add something without removing something else. A really feisty or frustrated teacher might turn to an administrator who just said "Add this to your class" and say, "Fine-- what exactly do you want me to stop teaching?" But mostly we're expected to just make do, to perform some sort of miracle by which we stuff ten more rabbits into the hat.
It doesn't work. Every year students get less actual instruction than they used to, which means their teacher next year finds them a little bit behind, so the school year that used to start on Day One now starts on Day Thirty after the students are caught up-- and then it ends on Day 160 because, you know, testing. So the following year those students are that much more behind. And so on, and so on, and so on.
In the end, kindergarten may be the new first grade, but for many students, twelfth grade is the new eleventh grade.
There are certainly students who escape this effect, and there are certainly clever teachers who mitigate it. But mostly the injection of toxic testing into the bloodstream of US education has had the predictable effect-- it has weakened and damaged the entire body.
Mind you, that wasn't what we were promised. The injection of test-based accountability was going to transform the Steve Rogers of US schooling into a mighty Captain America of education. Those tests, linked to The Standards That Dare Not Speak Their Name (but which have never quite gone away, either), were going to lead to a surge in new and successful college students. Test scores would rocket upward, and we would get to be the Belle of the Ball at the next PISA Prom. We were going to have success out the wazoo.
And yet, none of that is happened. Mind you, I don't think the BS Test scores mean jack, and they have never been and will never be my measure of success. But reformsters chose the game, set the rules, picked the measurement they wanted (BS Test scores) and they STILL lost the game. We have wasted over fifteen years of education; some students have seen their entire schooling consumed by test-centric baloney.
Yet we keep plowing on, keep committing to Testing Uber Alles. We are losing students, losing education opportunities, losing the chance to awaken some young humans to what they could be and could become-- instead, we are still trying to mash their spirits flat under the heavy testing hand. We are losing years that we cannot get back, cannot give back, and this is not okay.
Friday, March 17, 2017
Food Is Overrated
Well, we've all seen it by now:
There is no evidence that food helps raise test scores.
Mind you, this is from the administration that wants us to believe that three million votes were cast illegally, that Obama wiretappppped Trump Towers, that microwaves can be used to spy on us-- all this and more, without a shred of evidence. But children doing better in school because they have gotten food to eat-- that is some wildass crazypants conspiracy nutbaggery. You think being able to eat food helps children do better in school?? Woah-- just let me check you for your tin foil hat.
Reformsters, this is at least partly on you. This is the logical extension of the idea that only hard "evidence" matters, and only if it is evidence that test scores go up. We've dumped play, understanding of child development, and a whole bunch of not-reading-and-math classes because nobody can prove they help raise test scores to the satisfaction of various reformsters. It was only a matter of time until some literal-minded shallow-thinking functionary decided that there was no clear linkage between food and test scores.
Or anything else, actually, since another program that Mulvaney singled out for its unproven worth was Meals on Wheels. This is another impressive piece of brain-twistery since there is, in fact, plenty of proof about the effectiveness for Meals on Wheels.
But biggest crowd ever for inauguration. Illegal voters. Wiretappping. Oh yeah-- and school vouchers. The need for evidence is, I guess, a selective thing.
Meanwhile, I suppose we could conduct a study that establishes that students who have actually starved to death get lower results on standardized tests. And then we could work out the increments for exactly how much food is useful for getting test results. It may be that just some bread and water are all that's necessary (crusts only). Maybe just one bowl of gruel a day.
Lord knows we don't want to waste money feeding hungry children if we're not going to get decent test scores in return. You are never too young to start understanding that if you choose to be poor, you'll have to earn whatever scraps your betters decide you deserve.
Mulvaney on after-school programs: They're supposed to help kids get fed so they do better in school, but no evidence they're helping. pic.twitter.com/3h81NOhA9S— BuzzFeed News (@BuzzFeedNews) March 16, 2017
There is no evidence that food helps raise test scores.
 |
| One more snowflake wants to eat. |
Mind you, this is from the administration that wants us to believe that three million votes were cast illegally, that Obama wiretappppped Trump Towers, that microwaves can be used to spy on us-- all this and more, without a shred of evidence. But children doing better in school because they have gotten food to eat-- that is some wildass crazypants conspiracy nutbaggery. You think being able to eat food helps children do better in school?? Woah-- just let me check you for your tin foil hat.
Reformsters, this is at least partly on you. This is the logical extension of the idea that only hard "evidence" matters, and only if it is evidence that test scores go up. We've dumped play, understanding of child development, and a whole bunch of not-reading-and-math classes because nobody can prove they help raise test scores to the satisfaction of various reformsters. It was only a matter of time until some literal-minded shallow-thinking functionary decided that there was no clear linkage between food and test scores.
Or anything else, actually, since another program that Mulvaney singled out for its unproven worth was Meals on Wheels. This is another impressive piece of brain-twistery since there is, in fact, plenty of proof about the effectiveness for Meals on Wheels.
But biggest crowd ever for inauguration. Illegal voters. Wiretappping. Oh yeah-- and school vouchers. The need for evidence is, I guess, a selective thing.
Meanwhile, I suppose we could conduct a study that establishes that students who have actually starved to death get lower results on standardized tests. And then we could work out the increments for exactly how much food is useful for getting test results. It may be that just some bread and water are all that's necessary (crusts only). Maybe just one bowl of gruel a day.
Lord knows we don't want to waste money feeding hungry children if we're not going to get decent test scores in return. You are never too young to start understanding that if you choose to be poor, you'll have to earn whatever scraps your betters decide you deserve.
Thursday, March 16, 2017
The Basic Unit of Writing
If you are of a Certain Age, this how you were taught writing--
1) Learn the parts of speech, sentence parts, and the rest of grammar.
2) Learn how to construct a sentence.
3) Learn how to write several sentences to make a paragraph.
4) Learn how to write several paragraphs to make an essay.
That's how we were taught to write. Mind you, it is not how anybody actually learned to write-- okay, I can't say nobody learned that way because the first rule of actual writing is that everybody uses their own methods and one person's Functional Approach To Writing is another person's Unspeakably Awful Idea. But the number of people who actually learned to write by the above traditional method is tiny, like the number of people who learned how to play jazz trombone by watching Led Zeppelin videos.
The persistence of traditional grammar instruction in the English teaching world is an ongoing mystery, like the number of people who think vouchers would improve education. Some teachers do it because well, of course, that's what English teachers do. Some teachers do it because it's easier than taking calls from parents that include the phrase, "Well, back in my day..."
Grammar instruction has its place. It's a lot easier to fix things, and a lot a lot easier to talk about fixing things, if you can call those things something other than "things." It's hard to talk about the nuts and bolts of improving a piece of writing if we don't have the words "nuts" or "bolts."
But we know-- have known for years-- that simple instruction of grammar with grammar exercises and grammar drills and all the traditional things does not improve writing. You can read a good recap of the research here, and while I'm highly dubious about any research that claims it has measured the quality of student writing, the fancy big-time research matches what I've learned in my own class-sized laboratory over the past may decades. Drilling students all day on nouns and verbs and participials and dependent adverb clauses will not make them better writer, and bombarding their writing with the Red Pen of Doom deployed over every grammatical misstep (not to mention all the usage "mistakes" which are not grammatical issues at all no matter how many people insist on conflating the two
) will probably make them worse writers. Not that I'm an advocate for the loose anything-goes technique of just letting any kind of mess hit the page-- but if your basic foundation for writing is a bunch of grammar rules, your students are probably not getting any better at writing.
This truth is sometimes masked by volume. The best way to get better at writing is to write, and if you have your students writing regularly, that will help-- maybe even if you give them lousy feedback. God save us all from the "We only do writing for three weeks in April" approach.
But the basic unit of any piece of writing is not a word or a sentence or a paragraph or a rhetorical technique. The basic unit of writing is an idea.
The vast majority of writing problems are actually thinking problems. If you don't know what you want to say, you will have a hard time saying it. And in the modern test-centered education era, we have compounded the problem by teaching students that their central question should be "What am I supposed to write for this?"
Not "what do I want to say" or even "what idea could I construct a good essay out of" but "what am I supposed to write."
That question shifts the foundation of writing to a new skill set-- psychic powers. Can you discern what the teacher or the test manufacturer wants you to say? Try to say that. In this model of writing, what should be central to the writing process-- the ideas in the student's head-- actually becomes an obstacle-- in your search for the essay you're supposed to write, don't be distracted by your own individual ideas.
Messing up that first question of writing automatically interfered with the second question-- after you know what you want to say, you must next figure out how to say it. But test-centered standardized writing has a required set of "how" before you even get to what. In real writing, however, the "how" flows directly out of the "what." For emerging writers, we may provide a pre-fab "how," (looking at you, five paragraph essay) so that they can focus on their "what" and not freak out about how to express it. But once the "how" is coming before the "what," we're in trouble, because now we're not asking "what do I want to say," but "what could I say to fill in these five paragraphs."
There is another level to this problem with assigned student writing-- finding an answer for the student whose answer to "what do I want to say" is "I want to say that I don't care about this topic and have nothing to say about it." That is where a teacher's heavy lifting comes in, with discussion and conversation and maybe research and sometimes a song and dance. It can be a hard bridge to build, but that doesn't change the writing fundamentals-
The center of every piece of writing should be the what, the idea, the thing that the writer wants to say. Any other foundation results in a building that is shaky and unstable, a house in which nothing useful can live.
1) Learn the parts of speech, sentence parts, and the rest of grammar.
2) Learn how to construct a sentence.
3) Learn how to write several sentences to make a paragraph.
4) Learn how to write several paragraphs to make an essay.
That's how we were taught to write. Mind you, it is not how anybody actually learned to write-- okay, I can't say nobody learned that way because the first rule of actual writing is that everybody uses their own methods and one person's Functional Approach To Writing is another person's Unspeakably Awful Idea. But the number of people who actually learned to write by the above traditional method is tiny, like the number of people who learned how to play jazz trombone by watching Led Zeppelin videos.
The persistence of traditional grammar instruction in the English teaching world is an ongoing mystery, like the number of people who think vouchers would improve education. Some teachers do it because well, of course, that's what English teachers do. Some teachers do it because it's easier than taking calls from parents that include the phrase, "Well, back in my day..."
Grammar instruction has its place. It's a lot easier to fix things, and a lot a lot easier to talk about fixing things, if you can call those things something other than "things." It's hard to talk about the nuts and bolts of improving a piece of writing if we don't have the words "nuts" or "bolts."
But we know-- have known for years-- that simple instruction of grammar with grammar exercises and grammar drills and all the traditional things does not improve writing. You can read a good recap of the research here, and while I'm highly dubious about any research that claims it has measured the quality of student writing, the fancy big-time research matches what I've learned in my own class-sized laboratory over the past may decades. Drilling students all day on nouns and verbs and participials and dependent adverb clauses will not make them better writer, and bombarding their writing with the Red Pen of Doom deployed over every grammatical misstep (not to mention all the usage "mistakes" which are not grammatical issues at all no matter how many people insist on conflating the two
) will probably make them worse writers. Not that I'm an advocate for the loose anything-goes technique of just letting any kind of mess hit the page-- but if your basic foundation for writing is a bunch of grammar rules, your students are probably not getting any better at writing.
This truth is sometimes masked by volume. The best way to get better at writing is to write, and if you have your students writing regularly, that will help-- maybe even if you give them lousy feedback. God save us all from the "We only do writing for three weeks in April" approach.
But the basic unit of any piece of writing is not a word or a sentence or a paragraph or a rhetorical technique. The basic unit of writing is an idea.
The vast majority of writing problems are actually thinking problems. If you don't know what you want to say, you will have a hard time saying it. And in the modern test-centered education era, we have compounded the problem by teaching students that their central question should be "What am I supposed to write for this?"
Not "what do I want to say" or even "what idea could I construct a good essay out of" but "what am I supposed to write."
That question shifts the foundation of writing to a new skill set-- psychic powers. Can you discern what the teacher or the test manufacturer wants you to say? Try to say that. In this model of writing, what should be central to the writing process-- the ideas in the student's head-- actually becomes an obstacle-- in your search for the essay you're supposed to write, don't be distracted by your own individual ideas.
Messing up that first question of writing automatically interfered with the second question-- after you know what you want to say, you must next figure out how to say it. But test-centered standardized writing has a required set of "how" before you even get to what. In real writing, however, the "how" flows directly out of the "what." For emerging writers, we may provide a pre-fab "how," (looking at you, five paragraph essay) so that they can focus on their "what" and not freak out about how to express it. But once the "how" is coming before the "what," we're in trouble, because now we're not asking "what do I want to say," but "what could I say to fill in these five paragraphs."
There is another level to this problem with assigned student writing-- finding an answer for the student whose answer to "what do I want to say" is "I want to say that I don't care about this topic and have nothing to say about it." That is where a teacher's heavy lifting comes in, with discussion and conversation and maybe research and sometimes a song and dance. It can be a hard bridge to build, but that doesn't change the writing fundamentals-
The center of every piece of writing should be the what, the idea, the thing that the writer wants to say. Any other foundation results in a building that is shaky and unstable, a house in which nothing useful can live.
Wednesday, March 15, 2017
Littles-- More Than a Score (A Film You Should See)
Of all the issues swirling around education, this is the one that keeps me up nights.
What about the littles?
There are plenty of terrible things happening in the world of education, but nothing is more heartbreaking than the transformation of kindergarten into first grade, the sudden "need" for four year olds to start learning letters and numbers and colors because now these children "need" to get ready for kindergarten. The sitting. The studying. The homework. The standardized testing for small children who should be playing and socializing and learning about the wonder and joy of being in the world. It all seems designed to crush the most vulnerable spirits we are entrusted with.
Marie Amoruso has been a teacher, an author and adjunct professor at Teachers College Columbia University, and Manhattanville College. She runs a consulting agency, and she has created a short film about this very subject. Yes, "More Than a Test Score" is not exactly a groundbreaking title, and yes, her delivery is at times a little over-fraught and yes, she kind of muddies Common Core in with other issues. But when she turns her camera on the classrooms of young children, she cuts right to the heart of what is so deeply wrong with the test-centered school movement. In seventeen minutes, with the help of several interview subjects, she addresses what children need and what they aren't getting, and she takes us right into the classrooms to see the effects.
Teachers know what to do-- the issue, as she lays it out, is getting the freedom to let them do it. In the absence of that, students learn to hate school.
I'm not sure how we can save the public school system if this is the way it starts. And my concerns are not just professional, but also personal-- I have twin sons on the way in just a few months, which means that my wife and I have about four or five years to figure out whether or not the local pubic school can be trusted to treat our children well.
What about the littles?
There are plenty of terrible things happening in the world of education, but nothing is more heartbreaking than the transformation of kindergarten into first grade, the sudden "need" for four year olds to start learning letters and numbers and colors because now these children "need" to get ready for kindergarten. The sitting. The studying. The homework. The standardized testing for small children who should be playing and socializing and learning about the wonder and joy of being in the world. It all seems designed to crush the most vulnerable spirits we are entrusted with.
Marie Amoruso has been a teacher, an author and adjunct professor at Teachers College Columbia University, and Manhattanville College. She runs a consulting agency, and she has created a short film about this very subject. Yes, "More Than a Test Score" is not exactly a groundbreaking title, and yes, her delivery is at times a little over-fraught and yes, she kind of muddies Common Core in with other issues. But when she turns her camera on the classrooms of young children, she cuts right to the heart of what is so deeply wrong with the test-centered school movement. In seventeen minutes, with the help of several interview subjects, she addresses what children need and what they aren't getting, and she takes us right into the classrooms to see the effects.
Teachers know what to do-- the issue, as she lays it out, is getting the freedom to let them do it. In the absence of that, students learn to hate school.
I'm not sure how we can save the public school system if this is the way it starts. And my concerns are not just professional, but also personal-- I have twin sons on the way in just a few months, which means that my wife and I have about four or five years to figure out whether or not the local pubic school can be trusted to treat our children well.
Tuesday, March 14, 2017
Alternative Pathways
You will not find me among the staunch defenders of traditional teacher education programs.
I'm not the product of one myself (you can read more about that here), but I have sent many students into such programs, as well as hosting a bevy of student teachers from such places. There can be no doubt-- some teacher preparation programs should be completely overhauled. Slavish attention to unimportant details, theory too divorced from actual practice, lack of support for fledgling teachers and, nowadays, far too much emphasis on standards-tilted and test-centered education.
And yet, the only alternatives tossed out there in recent years are worse. Teach for America's theory that an ivy league degree and five weeks of "training" are all you need to stand in a classroom? Nope. Shortage-suffering states that lower the bar to "You must have a pulse to ride this teacher desk"? Double nope. And where do we turn for help on the subject-- to the ridiculous National Council on Teacher Quality and their bogus "research"? Nopity nope nope.
I can think of better ways (just waiting for the phone to ring so I can start my lucrative consulting biz), though I think the most basic problem is that unlike doctors, nurses or physical therapists, teachers are not allowed to be in charge of our own profession. If college programs needed the certification of a board of actual working teachers in order to run their programs, we'd see a new world within just a couple of years.
But of all the things about teacher training that need to be fixed, the biggest gap may be the matter of alternative pathways for late bloomers.
Read this story from a guest poster at Dad Gone Wild. This is the tale of Mary Jo Cramb, a teacher who entered the profession later in life, entering through the back door of TNTP (formerly The New Teacher Project). TNTP is a quieter sibling of TFA, built on the idea of giving somewhat riper individuals an alternative pathway to the teaching profession. While I have some bones to pick with some of TNTP's emphasis on data and testing and other reformy nonsense, I agree with their basic concept. There should be a pathway for grown-ass men and women who decide they want to leave their old profession and enter teaching.
There are such programs here and there. In PA, we allow "guest teachers" to become substitute teachers, and by "allow" I mean we grab them happily, give them about five minutes of training, and drop them into a classroom. This goes about as well as you might expect. Some are surprised that a whole day of teaching is a lot like work. There are the ex-executives or ex-military who are shocked to discover that they actually can't automatically command a room full of teenagers as easily as a room full of underlings. And there are some who show a real knack for it. But most guest teachers evaporate quickly (sometimes by the end of their first day).
What are adults who want to go into teaching supposed to do?
Going back to college for years of undergraduate work is insanely not doable. And some grown ups who have worked in the Real World are extremely likely to look at the content of college education classes and think (or say) "This is a bunch of baloney."Nor do I think it's useful to look at somebody in her thirties or forties or beyond who really wants to get into teaching and say, "Well, you'll have to just hop in your time machine and go back to change your college major."
Grown up late-entry proto-teachers need different education than the young'uns. A grown adult who has held down a job for years probably won't need the parts of the training that are basically there to help the new proto-teacher look and act like a professional. And while student teaching is just one more semester of school for a college student, for an adult it's fifteen weeks of work without pay, and what person with adult responsibilities can easily manage that? On the other hand, a fresh proto-teacher who only left a classroom behind a few years ago may be less prone to shock and surprise and disorientation than someone who hasn't set foot in school in a decade. But with the exception of some city-based programs, nobody is really looking at how to create an alternative pathway that will actually serve both the aspiring teacher and the school system. And while TNTP may be wrong about what such a program should look like, they are not wrong about the need for that alternative path.
Can such a thing be designed to be both accessible and thorough? It wouldn't be easy-- after all, it's not easy to become a real nurse or real lawyer in your forties. But it is possible (I have friends who have done it-- the lawyer and nurse part). There's no reason it couldn't become possible for teachers as well-- provided it's set up as a way to provide the new teacher with all the professional background and training they need, and not set up as a way for someone to slap a fresh, warm body into a classroom ASAP. As Cramb writes:
TFA is a poor answer to these problems, but progressive education advocates have not yet proposed their own solution either. I wish I’d been able to join the teaching profession without associating with a group steeped in an ideology I now oppose, but I’ll always be grateful they gave me an opportunity that only they were able to provide.
There's a need not being met. We can do better.
I'm not the product of one myself (you can read more about that here), but I have sent many students into such programs, as well as hosting a bevy of student teachers from such places. There can be no doubt-- some teacher preparation programs should be completely overhauled. Slavish attention to unimportant details, theory too divorced from actual practice, lack of support for fledgling teachers and, nowadays, far too much emphasis on standards-tilted and test-centered education.
And yet, the only alternatives tossed out there in recent years are worse. Teach for America's theory that an ivy league degree and five weeks of "training" are all you need to stand in a classroom? Nope. Shortage-suffering states that lower the bar to "You must have a pulse to ride this teacher desk"? Double nope. And where do we turn for help on the subject-- to the ridiculous National Council on Teacher Quality and their bogus "research"? Nopity nope nope.
I can think of better ways (just waiting for the phone to ring so I can start my lucrative consulting biz), though I think the most basic problem is that unlike doctors, nurses or physical therapists, teachers are not allowed to be in charge of our own profession. If college programs needed the certification of a board of actual working teachers in order to run their programs, we'd see a new world within just a couple of years.
But of all the things about teacher training that need to be fixed, the biggest gap may be the matter of alternative pathways for late bloomers.
Read this story from a guest poster at Dad Gone Wild. This is the tale of Mary Jo Cramb, a teacher who entered the profession later in life, entering through the back door of TNTP (formerly The New Teacher Project). TNTP is a quieter sibling of TFA, built on the idea of giving somewhat riper individuals an alternative pathway to the teaching profession. While I have some bones to pick with some of TNTP's emphasis on data and testing and other reformy nonsense, I agree with their basic concept. There should be a pathway for grown-ass men and women who decide they want to leave their old profession and enter teaching.
There are such programs here and there. In PA, we allow "guest teachers" to become substitute teachers, and by "allow" I mean we grab them happily, give them about five minutes of training, and drop them into a classroom. This goes about as well as you might expect. Some are surprised that a whole day of teaching is a lot like work. There are the ex-executives or ex-military who are shocked to discover that they actually can't automatically command a room full of teenagers as easily as a room full of underlings. And there are some who show a real knack for it. But most guest teachers evaporate quickly (sometimes by the end of their first day).
What are adults who want to go into teaching supposed to do?
Going back to college for years of undergraduate work is insanely not doable. And some grown ups who have worked in the Real World are extremely likely to look at the content of college education classes and think (or say) "This is a bunch of baloney."Nor do I think it's useful to look at somebody in her thirties or forties or beyond who really wants to get into teaching and say, "Well, you'll have to just hop in your time machine and go back to change your college major."
Grown up late-entry proto-teachers need different education than the young'uns. A grown adult who has held down a job for years probably won't need the parts of the training that are basically there to help the new proto-teacher look and act like a professional. And while student teaching is just one more semester of school for a college student, for an adult it's fifteen weeks of work without pay, and what person with adult responsibilities can easily manage that? On the other hand, a fresh proto-teacher who only left a classroom behind a few years ago may be less prone to shock and surprise and disorientation than someone who hasn't set foot in school in a decade. But with the exception of some city-based programs, nobody is really looking at how to create an alternative pathway that will actually serve both the aspiring teacher and the school system. And while TNTP may be wrong about what such a program should look like, they are not wrong about the need for that alternative path.
Can such a thing be designed to be both accessible and thorough? It wouldn't be easy-- after all, it's not easy to become a real nurse or real lawyer in your forties. But it is possible (I have friends who have done it-- the lawyer and nurse part). There's no reason it couldn't become possible for teachers as well-- provided it's set up as a way to provide the new teacher with all the professional background and training they need, and not set up as a way for someone to slap a fresh, warm body into a classroom ASAP. As Cramb writes:
TFA is a poor answer to these problems, but progressive education advocates have not yet proposed their own solution either. I wish I’d been able to join the teaching profession without associating with a group steeped in an ideology I now oppose, but I’ll always be grateful they gave me an opportunity that only they were able to provide.
There's a need not being met. We can do better.
Monday, March 13, 2017
MI: A Blueprint for Education?
First announced in Governor Rick Snyder's January 2016 State of the State address, the 21st Century Commission has been working diligently at an educational blueprint for Michigan. The final report on charting the edu-journey for Betsy Devos's home state is a hefty 146 pages. I've read it so that you don't have to. Buckle up, boys and girls.
Who Created This Thing?
The commission was headed up by Dr. Thomas Haas, President of Grand Valley University. Members included some folks from industry and business, some school superintendents (including the Grand Rapids super), some charter school folks, some state board of education members, representatives from AFT Michigan and the Michigan Education Association, and some assorted bureaucrats. Oh, and one lone classroom teacher (Matt Oney from Escanaba Area Public Schools).
Part of the process was, apparently, a listening tour. The breakdown of that is not encouraging; the thank you section mentions thirteen hosts from Northern Michigan, six hosts from the Upper Peninsula, eleven hosts from West Michigan, and from Southeast Michigan, a single stop on the "tour"-- a virtual visit to Voyageur Academy, a charter school in Detroit. (That visit was virtual, says the notes, "due to weather, so I guess Detroit has been socked in for the last year).
Introduction and Call To Action
The introduction hits several familiar notes. The economy has changed (and now it's hard to get work). Education improves opportunity (education and employment correlate, and we'll lazily accept causation there). Education is a public good (Michigan would probably work better with educated citizens). We need to act now (we have just noticed that Michigan is at the bottom of the national education barrel-- oops!).
So let's rebuild the system. Let's address K-12 performance. Let's get the graduation rate up. Let's transform, not tinker. Let's set some big goals (Michigan will be a top-ten state on NAEP, and beat Ontario on PISA-- really, I'm not making these up).
And let's do all of this without questioning any assumptions about testing, education, or poverty. Let's grossly oversimplify everything and fail to consider anything beyond surface fixes. Okay-- this last paragraph is me, not the commission.
More assumptions about lessons learned
We'll also talk about what we've learned from other states and nations-- well, not so much what we've actually learned about education, but what we've learned about marketing oversimplified amateur-hour education reformy baloney. So let's tick off some superficial, vague, obvious, and in some cases unsubstantiated ideas that we've strung together. Oh, and let's claim all of these ideas come from "high-performing systems" without ever identifying those supposed systems.
Let's build a comprehensive, aligned strategy. Let's have a shared vision of the future and shared strategies, because fixing a system by using central planning has never gone wrong before. Let's develop excellent educators, even though we don't really know what "excellent educator" actually means. Let's set rigorous academic standards for students-- in fact, let's call them "internationally benchmarked" even though no such thing exists. Create multiple pathways, aka let's put back some vocational training. Invest early; start intruding on children's lives at, or even before, birth. Recognize and fight inequity-- well, not actually either, because we'll talk about how poor kids don't get put in high-level classes and they get worse teachers and they get suspended a lot, but we will not consider any systemic issues involved. In other words, we 'll deal with poor kids by treating them as if they aren't poor. Let's set clear goals and measure what matters; let's collect lots of data and take lots of tests.
Essential Cultural Elements
I'm not sure that we didn't just take a right turn into the vaguely racist notion that non-wealthy non-white kids do poorly because they are culturally impaired. But here's what values the commission says we need to install:
Value postsecondary education. So let's get everyone excited about more school. Be honest about current performance; the old reformster standard that schools and teachers are just lying liars who lie about student performance. Do not accept excuses. Seriously-- the commission is putting "No excuses" right here in their plan. "We cannot tolerate excuses for poor performance." Stop whining about your poverty, you little snowflake. And, of course, persevere. I thought maybe they were going to say that students needed more grit, but by persevere they mean that for state leaders, this will be a marathon, not a sprint, and they had better plan on a long haul.
And now that we have all of that out of the way, it's time for the main event.
Nine Principles of World-Class Education
This is the frame work the commission is going to work with, with the nine principles that we have gleaned from, well, somewhere, organized into three main thrusts-- focus on learning, create a strong culture of success and build a coherent, connected education system from prenatal to career. And here we go.
Principle 1: Elevate the profession
Michigan needs to develop, recruit and retain top teaching talent. The commission sees four ways to accomplish this goal. Spoiler alert: none of these involve improving teacher pay or job security. But we are pushing out new teachers and only half of new principals last more than three years. And teacher education programs are down a third over just seven years ago. Whatever could it be? How shall we fix the causes we won't identify?
First, let's make it harder to become a teacher by raising requirements for college programs, including a year-long residency and "evidence of skills in their subject matter, social-emotional intelligence, and pedagogy." Yes, that would seem to mean, essentially a maturity test for proto-teachers. Also, let's "look for strategic opportunities to attract diverse candidates."
Second, let's create new career pathways so that we can reward teachers for achieving new "ranks" of awesomeness (and withhold rewards from less-awesome teachers, and also avoid giving teachers more pay just for seniority, because years dedicated to teaching should not be rewarded with either job security or pay-- do you feel strategically attracted to teaching in Michigan yet?)
Third, professional development should be individualized in reaction to teacher evaluations. And PLCs-- we hear those are cool.
Fourth, "to improve student outcomes, Michigan should implement a performance-based leadership development system that will ensure that building-level leaders are invested in student outcomes." In other words, any advancement up the career ladder should be tied to student test scores. Because the only measure of teaching that matters is student test scores (good luck to those of you who don't teach reading or math).
Principle 2: Build Capacity To Do What Works
The state should decide what good teaching means and disseminate those principles throughout the state.
The commission does allow that the state should provide the funding to match its mandates, but the commission would also like to see the state "amplify evidence-based practices and coordinate efforts to deploy them." Because nothing elevates the profession like having bureaucrats tell you how to teach. As with many of these strategies, one of our measurements for success is "Are student outcomes [aka test scores] improving?" Because one of the unstated recommendations here is that Michigan's entire school system be test-centered.
Principle 3: Invest in an Efficient and Effective System of Public Funding
We need to actually fund the system. That includes recognizing that some students need additional funds.
Okay, actually, this part is nuts, borrowed directly from efficiency experts and time-study work in industry. The commission would like the state first to make sure they've gotten rid of all the wasteful slack in education spending by having the governor and legislature (educational spending experts all) decide what money is being wasted.
Then they should figure out "base funding" built on "a transparent calculation of what it costs to meet performance standards." In other words, the state should be able to say, "It should cost $5,000 to get a fifth grader to score 255 on the Big Standardized Reading test, and if we want an additional 25 points on that score, it should cost us an additional $500." Then figure out how much extra it costs for students with "greater educational needs" (like, you know, figuring out the cost of cup holders and seat warmers in a new car). Add in some "foundational allowances" for other school costs, and figuring out funding is just a simple math problem. Piece of cake.
Principle 4: Increase Access to Postsecondary Education
Everybody needs one, so how do we make one available to everybody?
First, figure out the "proper funding level" for higher education. Then consider some strategies like direct funding and performance-based funding "as well as other methods to incent best practices, tuition restraint, and spending efficiency." Colleges can also earn more money by coining and copyrighting new words like "incent."
Next-- and this is novel-- turn P-12 systems into P-14 systems. Provide universal access to community college. It sure looks like the commission is recommending free community college for all, but it avoids any word remotely resembling "free."
Also, let's award merit scholarships to four-year schools. And let's put good guidance counselors in every high school.
Principle 5: Partner with Parents
"Our system must clearly recognize that parents are children’s first and most important teachers."
Embed human services in schools as well as connecting them to homes. "Nurture" parent-educator collaboration-- "Michigan must be more intentional about nurturing parent engagement."
Annnnd create user-friendly online tools with which to "navigate educational options." Like, alllll the choices, from preschool providers to postsecondary job training. Also, somebody should be overseeing this to make sure it's not passing along marketing baloney instead of facts. This all actually seems kind of noble, but practically speaking it seems like a very high mountain to climb and maintain.
The rest of our principles are related to the cradle-to-career pipeline building.
Principle 6: Enhance Accountability
Michigan's assessment system should be enhanced to better align and measure 21st century learning skills known to prepare our students in becoming both career and college ready and should also disseminate useful data that informs instructional practice in the classroom and measures the performance of our schools for the general public and policymakers.
Emphasis mine, because there are no such skills. Also, college and career ready. But this one gets worse.
Hold the right people accountable-- find out who's to blame for a low score and hunt them down. "All actors in the system, from pre-K providers to teacher preparation institutes, should be held accountable for student achievement outcomes." Notice who's not on that list? How about "legislators who failed to properly fund the school."
"Michigan must collect, analyze, and share quality data to hold all stakeholders accountable for performance outcomes." Everybody is supposed to be making "data-driven decisions," based on crappy BS Test scores. But wait-- could we come up with something worse? Sure we could:
Over the next decade, Michigan should move its P–20 education system toward a competency-based learning model, an approach that focuses on the student’s demonstration of desired learning outcomes as central to the learning process. The focus of learning should be shifted toward a student’s progression through curriculum at their own pace, depth, etc. As competencies are proven, students will advance academically.
Yes, the commission wants to go full CBE, the current Big Mack Daddy of unproven bad ideas. Also, note the P-20-- the commission repeatedly assumes that's the way to go. Cradle to career, baby-- all the way.
Principle 7: Ensure Access To High-Quality Learning Environments
That means, of course, loaded with tech. And as we noted with the CBE love above, a learning environment doesn't really need to be a school. Because with CBE, all you'll need is a comfy spot to curl up with your computer screen.
The commission shares a fun fact-- Michigan is one of 11 states that provides no support to local districts for capital outlay. Hmmm-- I'll bet that makes it really hard for poor districts to get nice buildings. The commission bets that, too. Does that seem generous? Here's the other shoe-- the state should also help pay for Public School Academies (aka charter schools). In other words, let's spend public tax dollars to buy buildings for private education businesses.
Principle 8: Invest Early
The commission would like to see universal preschool for four-year-olds, because the little slackers are just sitting at home and playing and generally acting like children. But if Michigan is going to get top-quality teachers for such a program, then it will have to start paying them better, so the commission would like to see some financial help thrown that direction.
Alas, this support for early childhood development comes with a goal to "enhance early learning outcome measurement and tracking." So we need to tag each child early on and start gathering child-specific data and outcome stuff. Not, the commission assures us, standardized tests. Just, you know, observational tools. That will be attached to your child's data backpack and stay there forever. Your potty habits as a four year old will follow you into your job application when you're twenty. Is that cool, or what?
Principle 9: K-12 Governance
Do you remember when the GOP was the party of small government and local control? Boy, those were some good times, huh. This set of recommendations definitely makes me nostalgic. The commission wants to develop "a coherent P–20 governance structure that ensures the public education and higher education marketplace produces high levels of learner outcomes, equity, efficiency, innovation, and collaboration." Doesn't that sound swell. Just watch.
First, we "reform" the state board of education. Specifically, we "reform" it by giving the governor more control over it. Currently members are elected by voters for eight year terms. The commission suggests that three options be brought to a constitution-amending vote. 1) Let the government appoint all the board members. 2) Let the governor appoint the state superintendent and then abolish the board entirely. 3) Make the board bigger by adding governor-appointed members. Any one of these will help by keeping those damn voters from sending people to the capitol that the governor just doesn't want to work with.
Next, we "enhance" the Michigan Department of Education. We will make them more helpy because we will "situate education functions that are currently performed by a range of state agencies within the department." This is not all foolishness-- some of those agency functions exist because governors created them to get certain functions away from the department. But combined with the previous recommendation, this puts everything back under governor control, which is good because reasons. Or because education works best when controlled by venal politicians.
Then, we "reconceptualize the structure and function" of the intermediate school districts. Yikes. We should also "support" local efforts to consolidate school districts. We might even incent it.
Finally, we must make sure all students have access to high quality options, whether those options are public or charter or voucher-choicey or charter or online charters or, you know, charters. In other words, we should expand choice a whole lot. And yes, this recommendation comes under the same heading as "we need to combine school districts because we have too many empty seats." The rationale is that Michigan has too many empty seats, but not enough quality seat. Also, Michigan's "expansion of school has improved outcomes for some students," which is yet another assertion for which I'd love to see some evidence.
Invest in the Future
We're getting close to the end, so I'll make this simple-- doing all these things would be really, really expensive.
Where to start
This is a thirty year plan. The commission offers a chart putting all these ideas in order. CBE and district consolidation is long term. Everything else is medium or short term.
What do we have here?
This is a plan that enshrines testing. It promotes charters, choice, CBE, and other methods preferred by privatizers and profiteers. It offers a system that keeps teacher pay and job-security low and tries to mask these as great benefits. It consolidates the governor's power over the school system and takes it away from voters. It extends the government's grubby data-sniffing nose from cradle to grave. It even holds onto those Common Core dog-whistle-words "college- and career-ready."
It is, in short, a plan that doubles down on every lousy reformer idea of the past fifteen years. The only good news is that is expensive, and if Michigan's leaders were willing to actually spend money on education, they wouldn't need a commission to spend a year telling them how to dig themselves out of the hole they put themselves in (and offer up the answer "dig harder").
If anyone imagined there would be something in the report that would actually offer support or assistance to beleaguered Michigan public education, they can let go of that faint hope. This is the same old reformsters Bible, writ long and large. Betsy DeVos must be happy to know she left her home state in good hands.
The best we can say about this report is that it's has some honest parts about how bad a hole Michigan has dug for its education system. Unfortunately, it doesn't have a clue about how to get out of that hole.
Who Created This Thing?
The commission was headed up by Dr. Thomas Haas, President of Grand Valley University. Members included some folks from industry and business, some school superintendents (including the Grand Rapids super), some charter school folks, some state board of education members, representatives from AFT Michigan and the Michigan Education Association, and some assorted bureaucrats. Oh, and one lone classroom teacher (Matt Oney from Escanaba Area Public Schools).
Part of the process was, apparently, a listening tour. The breakdown of that is not encouraging; the thank you section mentions thirteen hosts from Northern Michigan, six hosts from the Upper Peninsula, eleven hosts from West Michigan, and from Southeast Michigan, a single stop on the "tour"-- a virtual visit to Voyageur Academy, a charter school in Detroit. (That visit was virtual, says the notes, "due to weather, so I guess Detroit has been socked in for the last year).Introduction and Call To Action
The introduction hits several familiar notes. The economy has changed (and now it's hard to get work). Education improves opportunity (education and employment correlate, and we'll lazily accept causation there). Education is a public good (Michigan would probably work better with educated citizens). We need to act now (we have just noticed that Michigan is at the bottom of the national education barrel-- oops!).
So let's rebuild the system. Let's address K-12 performance. Let's get the graduation rate up. Let's transform, not tinker. Let's set some big goals (Michigan will be a top-ten state on NAEP, and beat Ontario on PISA-- really, I'm not making these up).
And let's do all of this without questioning any assumptions about testing, education, or poverty. Let's grossly oversimplify everything and fail to consider anything beyond surface fixes. Okay-- this last paragraph is me, not the commission.
More assumptions about lessons learned
We'll also talk about what we've learned from other states and nations-- well, not so much what we've actually learned about education, but what we've learned about marketing oversimplified amateur-hour education reformy baloney. So let's tick off some superficial, vague, obvious, and in some cases unsubstantiated ideas that we've strung together. Oh, and let's claim all of these ideas come from "high-performing systems" without ever identifying those supposed systems.
Let's build a comprehensive, aligned strategy. Let's have a shared vision of the future and shared strategies, because fixing a system by using central planning has never gone wrong before. Let's develop excellent educators, even though we don't really know what "excellent educator" actually means. Let's set rigorous academic standards for students-- in fact, let's call them "internationally benchmarked" even though no such thing exists. Create multiple pathways, aka let's put back some vocational training. Invest early; start intruding on children's lives at, or even before, birth. Recognize and fight inequity-- well, not actually either, because we'll talk about how poor kids don't get put in high-level classes and they get worse teachers and they get suspended a lot, but we will not consider any systemic issues involved. In other words, we 'll deal with poor kids by treating them as if they aren't poor. Let's set clear goals and measure what matters; let's collect lots of data and take lots of tests.
Essential Cultural Elements
I'm not sure that we didn't just take a right turn into the vaguely racist notion that non-wealthy non-white kids do poorly because they are culturally impaired. But here's what values the commission says we need to install:
Value postsecondary education. So let's get everyone excited about more school. Be honest about current performance; the old reformster standard that schools and teachers are just lying liars who lie about student performance. Do not accept excuses. Seriously-- the commission is putting "No excuses" right here in their plan. "We cannot tolerate excuses for poor performance." Stop whining about your poverty, you little snowflake. And, of course, persevere. I thought maybe they were going to say that students needed more grit, but by persevere they mean that for state leaders, this will be a marathon, not a sprint, and they had better plan on a long haul.
And now that we have all of that out of the way, it's time for the main event.
Nine Principles of World-Class Education
This is the frame work the commission is going to work with, with the nine principles that we have gleaned from, well, somewhere, organized into three main thrusts-- focus on learning, create a strong culture of success and build a coherent, connected education system from prenatal to career. And here we go.
Principle 1: Elevate the profession
Michigan needs to develop, recruit and retain top teaching talent. The commission sees four ways to accomplish this goal. Spoiler alert: none of these involve improving teacher pay or job security. But we are pushing out new teachers and only half of new principals last more than three years. And teacher education programs are down a third over just seven years ago. Whatever could it be? How shall we fix the causes we won't identify?
First, let's make it harder to become a teacher by raising requirements for college programs, including a year-long residency and "evidence of skills in their subject matter, social-emotional intelligence, and pedagogy." Yes, that would seem to mean, essentially a maturity test for proto-teachers. Also, let's "look for strategic opportunities to attract diverse candidates."
Second, let's create new career pathways so that we can reward teachers for achieving new "ranks" of awesomeness (and withhold rewards from less-awesome teachers, and also avoid giving teachers more pay just for seniority, because years dedicated to teaching should not be rewarded with either job security or pay-- do you feel strategically attracted to teaching in Michigan yet?)
Third, professional development should be individualized in reaction to teacher evaluations. And PLCs-- we hear those are cool.
Fourth, "to improve student outcomes, Michigan should implement a performance-based leadership development system that will ensure that building-level leaders are invested in student outcomes." In other words, any advancement up the career ladder should be tied to student test scores. Because the only measure of teaching that matters is student test scores (good luck to those of you who don't teach reading or math).
Principle 2: Build Capacity To Do What Works
The state should decide what good teaching means and disseminate those principles throughout the state.
The commission does allow that the state should provide the funding to match its mandates, but the commission would also like to see the state "amplify evidence-based practices and coordinate efforts to deploy them." Because nothing elevates the profession like having bureaucrats tell you how to teach. As with many of these strategies, one of our measurements for success is "Are student outcomes [aka test scores] improving?" Because one of the unstated recommendations here is that Michigan's entire school system be test-centered.
Principle 3: Invest in an Efficient and Effective System of Public Funding
We need to actually fund the system. That includes recognizing that some students need additional funds.
Okay, actually, this part is nuts, borrowed directly from efficiency experts and time-study work in industry. The commission would like the state first to make sure they've gotten rid of all the wasteful slack in education spending by having the governor and legislature (educational spending experts all) decide what money is being wasted.
Then they should figure out "base funding" built on "a transparent calculation of what it costs to meet performance standards." In other words, the state should be able to say, "It should cost $5,000 to get a fifth grader to score 255 on the Big Standardized Reading test, and if we want an additional 25 points on that score, it should cost us an additional $500." Then figure out how much extra it costs for students with "greater educational needs" (like, you know, figuring out the cost of cup holders and seat warmers in a new car). Add in some "foundational allowances" for other school costs, and figuring out funding is just a simple math problem. Piece of cake.
Principle 4: Increase Access to Postsecondary Education
Everybody needs one, so how do we make one available to everybody?
First, figure out the "proper funding level" for higher education. Then consider some strategies like direct funding and performance-based funding "as well as other methods to incent best practices, tuition restraint, and spending efficiency." Colleges can also earn more money by coining and copyrighting new words like "incent."
Next-- and this is novel-- turn P-12 systems into P-14 systems. Provide universal access to community college. It sure looks like the commission is recommending free community college for all, but it avoids any word remotely resembling "free."
Also, let's award merit scholarships to four-year schools. And let's put good guidance counselors in every high school.
Principle 5: Partner with Parents
"Our system must clearly recognize that parents are children’s first and most important teachers."
Embed human services in schools as well as connecting them to homes. "Nurture" parent-educator collaboration-- "Michigan must be more intentional about nurturing parent engagement."
Annnnd create user-friendly online tools with which to "navigate educational options." Like, alllll the choices, from preschool providers to postsecondary job training. Also, somebody should be overseeing this to make sure it's not passing along marketing baloney instead of facts. This all actually seems kind of noble, but practically speaking it seems like a very high mountain to climb and maintain.
The rest of our principles are related to the cradle-to-career pipeline building.
Principle 6: Enhance Accountability
Michigan's assessment system should be enhanced to better align and measure 21st century learning skills known to prepare our students in becoming both career and college ready and should also disseminate useful data that informs instructional practice in the classroom and measures the performance of our schools for the general public and policymakers.
Emphasis mine, because there are no such skills. Also, college and career ready. But this one gets worse.
Hold the right people accountable-- find out who's to blame for a low score and hunt them down. "All actors in the system, from pre-K providers to teacher preparation institutes, should be held accountable for student achievement outcomes." Notice who's not on that list? How about "legislators who failed to properly fund the school."
"Michigan must collect, analyze, and share quality data to hold all stakeholders accountable for performance outcomes." Everybody is supposed to be making "data-driven decisions," based on crappy BS Test scores. But wait-- could we come up with something worse? Sure we could:
Over the next decade, Michigan should move its P–20 education system toward a competency-based learning model, an approach that focuses on the student’s demonstration of desired learning outcomes as central to the learning process. The focus of learning should be shifted toward a student’s progression through curriculum at their own pace, depth, etc. As competencies are proven, students will advance academically.
Yes, the commission wants to go full CBE, the current Big Mack Daddy of unproven bad ideas. Also, note the P-20-- the commission repeatedly assumes that's the way to go. Cradle to career, baby-- all the way.
Principle 7: Ensure Access To High-Quality Learning Environments
That means, of course, loaded with tech. And as we noted with the CBE love above, a learning environment doesn't really need to be a school. Because with CBE, all you'll need is a comfy spot to curl up with your computer screen.
The commission shares a fun fact-- Michigan is one of 11 states that provides no support to local districts for capital outlay. Hmmm-- I'll bet that makes it really hard for poor districts to get nice buildings. The commission bets that, too. Does that seem generous? Here's the other shoe-- the state should also help pay for Public School Academies (aka charter schools). In other words, let's spend public tax dollars to buy buildings for private education businesses.
Principle 8: Invest Early
The commission would like to see universal preschool for four-year-olds, because the little slackers are just sitting at home and playing and generally acting like children. But if Michigan is going to get top-quality teachers for such a program, then it will have to start paying them better, so the commission would like to see some financial help thrown that direction.
Alas, this support for early childhood development comes with a goal to "enhance early learning outcome measurement and tracking." So we need to tag each child early on and start gathering child-specific data and outcome stuff. Not, the commission assures us, standardized tests. Just, you know, observational tools. That will be attached to your child's data backpack and stay there forever. Your potty habits as a four year old will follow you into your job application when you're twenty. Is that cool, or what?
Principle 9: K-12 Governance
Do you remember when the GOP was the party of small government and local control? Boy, those were some good times, huh. This set of recommendations definitely makes me nostalgic. The commission wants to develop "a coherent P–20 governance structure that ensures the public education and higher education marketplace produces high levels of learner outcomes, equity, efficiency, innovation, and collaboration." Doesn't that sound swell. Just watch.
First, we "reform" the state board of education. Specifically, we "reform" it by giving the governor more control over it. Currently members are elected by voters for eight year terms. The commission suggests that three options be brought to a constitution-amending vote. 1) Let the government appoint all the board members. 2) Let the governor appoint the state superintendent and then abolish the board entirely. 3) Make the board bigger by adding governor-appointed members. Any one of these will help by keeping those damn voters from sending people to the capitol that the governor just doesn't want to work with.
Next, we "enhance" the Michigan Department of Education. We will make them more helpy because we will "situate education functions that are currently performed by a range of state agencies within the department." This is not all foolishness-- some of those agency functions exist because governors created them to get certain functions away from the department. But combined with the previous recommendation, this puts everything back under governor control, which is good because reasons. Or because education works best when controlled by venal politicians.
Then, we "reconceptualize the structure and function" of the intermediate school districts. Yikes. We should also "support" local efforts to consolidate school districts. We might even incent it.
Finally, we must make sure all students have access to high quality options, whether those options are public or charter or voucher-choicey or charter or online charters or, you know, charters. In other words, we should expand choice a whole lot. And yes, this recommendation comes under the same heading as "we need to combine school districts because we have too many empty seats." The rationale is that Michigan has too many empty seats, but not enough quality seat. Also, Michigan's "expansion of school has improved outcomes for some students," which is yet another assertion for which I'd love to see some evidence.
Invest in the Future
We're getting close to the end, so I'll make this simple-- doing all these things would be really, really expensive.
Where to start
This is a thirty year plan. The commission offers a chart putting all these ideas in order. CBE and district consolidation is long term. Everything else is medium or short term.
What do we have here?
This is a plan that enshrines testing. It promotes charters, choice, CBE, and other methods preferred by privatizers and profiteers. It offers a system that keeps teacher pay and job-security low and tries to mask these as great benefits. It consolidates the governor's power over the school system and takes it away from voters. It extends the government's grubby data-sniffing nose from cradle to grave. It even holds onto those Common Core dog-whistle-words "college- and career-ready."
It is, in short, a plan that doubles down on every lousy reformer idea of the past fifteen years. The only good news is that is expensive, and if Michigan's leaders were willing to actually spend money on education, they wouldn't need a commission to spend a year telling them how to dig themselves out of the hole they put themselves in (and offer up the answer "dig harder").
If anyone imagined there would be something in the report that would actually offer support or assistance to beleaguered Michigan public education, they can let go of that faint hope. This is the same old reformsters Bible, writ long and large. Betsy DeVos must be happy to know she left her home state in good hands.
The best we can say about this report is that it's has some honest parts about how bad a hole Michigan has dug for its education system. Unfortunately, it doesn't have a clue about how to get out of that hole.
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